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artnerd1123 · 5 years ago

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DTRH!AU Masterpost

Moving into a new post since I’ve got stuff actually organized!!! It’ll likely get an update from time to time. Apologies to those whom the read more breaks for ‘^^

Everything to do with this au will be tagged #dtrh!au or #down the rabbit hole au Individual characters are tagged with #dtrh![name]

Here’s an AU PMV for starters!

Let’s get this show on the road, shall we?

Putting this up here so it doesn’t get super buried- Here’s the fic(s) set in this AU! All Moving Pictures End

The AU crash course: The premise behind the au is that everything takes place in a pocket dimension controlled by a black magic script. Joey Drew is the one who’s writing/editing this script, and his rewrites affect the world and the characters within it. His constant reshaping eventually twists the world from a sitcom genre to a horror film- hence the horror esque setting, creatures, and plot. The characters didn’t escape the rewrites’ effects either. They’re warped into corrupted versions of themselves. However, these characters end up becoming sentient after awhile. The first one of these to become entirely sentient is Henry. He’s currently the only one who’s all the way out of alignment. A toon gone rogue, if you will. He still goes along with Joey’s “plot,” but it’s more so he can try to reach the other characters than to keep Joey happy or unaware of his actions. His goal is to basically “wake up” the other characters, so they can all stop living in a hellish nightmare studio and actually try and make something nice out of their home. He’s extremely dedicated to his goal.

Character time!!! toon trio refs / corrupted refs butcher gang refs / corrupted refs toon henry ref toon sammy ref / corrupted sammy ref toon susie ref / corrupted susie ref toon allison and tom refs / corrupted allison and tom refs joey ref / toon joey ref toon norman ref / corrupted ref toon bertrum ref / corrupted ref toon and corrupted grant refs toon jack ref / corrupted jack ref toon wally ref / corrupted wally ref toon and corrupted lacie refs toon and corrupted shawn refs

Character relationships/orientations

Concept art, anyone? toon trio concept work (w/ bonus corrupted bendy n alice) corrupted boris/alice concept work (ft bonus hen) butcher gang concept work (w/ corrupted forms) henry concept work sammy concept work (and more henry) susie concept work joey concept work corrupted norman concept work toon norman concept work throwing around lost ones ideas

Misc stuff Henry, but Goop�� Susie and Studio Tea™ Hey Henry, how do u feel about Joey? Yo hold up, hen and polk are a thing??? Henry’s glasses saga Regular studio shenanigans

FAQ:

How many of the employees are gonna show up? Hopefully all the named ones in the game! Once they’ve got a design, they’re guaranteed to show up somewhere.

Are they really carbon copies of the employees? Is there nothing different about them and their irl counterparts? They started as carbon copies! Latching onto their old traits and their old selves does help them come to their senses. However, different character development happens in script than IRL, so they end up different. Henry, for example, takes up the last name “Ross” when he wakes up (instead of his IRL counterpart’s “Stien”) to differentiate himself :0

So is everyone corrupted on purpose? Yes and no. Yes, because Joey chose to rewrite the script so much that it mangled characters, but no, because he didn’t intend to mangle them in the first place. It just kinda happened.

What makes them corrupted? Corruption is what happens when you can’t hold onto the core of what your character is, and get dragged into what the new script is telling you. It’s when you lose sight of who you are among all the chaos. People who are drawn farther away from their actual selves end up more monstrous. Susie (aka “alice” angel) is a great example of this. Bendy is too! Far be it from his real nature to be a murderous monster.

So can the toons be uncorrupted? Yup! Henry’s our model citizen this time. He looks more like a toon than a normal person, sure, but there’s nothing monstrous about him. That’s because he’s latched onto what makes him Henry. He’s not letting the instability of the world around him shake him up. Otherwise he’d be a goopy mess of ink.

Why’d Joey write everyone so differently that they corrupted? He’s actually very out of touch with people once he starts rewriting the script. Since his memories are getting foggy, he fixates on details that he can remember, and exaggerates them as needed. In fact, he’s hidden tape recorders around the script studio as built in reminders of these character traits.

How’d Henry wake up? And how does he plan on waking everyone else up? Ok… this is a longer answer. It all comes together, i promise. Jus hang with me. Whenever henry dies, he gets sent back to a sort of “first draft” stage. In order to get back to the world he’s supposed to exist in, he has to get through all the layers of ink Joey put down to get to his current script. As one can imagine… there’s a lot. So much so that Henry has to essentially swim to the surface. As he passes through all this ink, he can hear whispers of previous scripts. The deeper he is, the closer these whispers are to what the world used to be like. Seeing as Henry is the protagonist, he ended up dying… a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Joey had a lot of snags in the script to work out. All these times sent into the draft-y ink soup made made Henry slowly realize what was going on. He wasn’t mindless anymore. He knew what was up. After realizing that the world wasn’t right, it didn’t take him long to push for the rest of his consciousness. He plans on using what whispers and memories he can gather to bring everyone else back. He’s not dying on purpose, mind you, but he gathers as much information as he can to help everyone else realize that they’re not who they’re supposed to be.

Wait, memories? Does Henry remember the past scripts now? Not quite? He’s got a good enough memory stockpile to keep himself centered, but he doesn’t always know what’s up ahead as he heads through another studio loop. If Joey happens to rewrite or change around the script, those patches of Henry’s memory blip out of existence. Or at least get hazy. Hen can often tell if Joey’s changed something by how many holes he has in his memories.

Can anyone in the pocket dimension get out? Henry’s the only one who can get out! Joey literally wrote him a back door to the script. It used to be so he could talk to Henry whenever the “story” was over, but nowadays it’s just to judge how fast plot goes via how quickly Hen gets back. All Henry can manage to do is walk around and stare silently. And he can’t even stay out very long. Ink’s unstable in the real world. Gotta go back in n start the horror show over if u wanna live :/

Can Joey go in? Nope! Since he’s not made of ink, he can’t go in. He can watch tho!!! He does so via writing POV shifts into the script, and watches through whatever character it shifted to. Who needs cameras when u got the eyes of black magic toons n inky monsters ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

Does Joey know Henry is sentient now? Nnnnot quite? He thinks the magic is being screwy with him. He can’t switch POV to Henry anymore, since the toon’s taken control of himself, and that’s real confusing since the writer doesn’t know what’s up. Plus, like mentioned above, Hen can’t exactly give Joey a sign once he gets out of the studio. Bummer :/

Is Joey gonna majorly rewrite the script any time soon? Nope. He’s to attached to his current plot to change the genre or anythin, so it’s gonna stay as is. With some changes here and there. One musn’t underestimate how many times u can change the order of scenes, or improve dialogue...

AU Background:

((this is long as shiz, so get some popcorn slfkjs))

Y’all probably wanna know how this whole horror show started. I’ve got two words for ya: Joey Drew. Unsurprising! But he’s our starting point nonetheless. Joey Drew is the retired owner of Joey Drew Studios, a cartoon studio that ran itself into the ground after a decade or two of fantastical cartoons. Money problems aren’t kind to the entertainment industries. However, the studio was still his pride and joy! As are the friends who stuck by him or met him during the time it was open. He kept up with all of them through the years. They were like a little family. Unfortunately, time has a way of changing things. With his friends drifting away, living their own lives, getting up in years, or a combination of the three, Joey wasn’t doing too well. He was lonely. Feeling washed up. Missing the glory days, where he helped work on cartoon scripts instead of submitting horror and mystery shorts to local magazines. Not all that surprising that he turned to something else to cope. This thing being none other than occult magic. Because… of course it is. It’s a habit he’s had for years. Nothing like some demonic rituals to spice up the life of the creative mind behind kids’ cartoons! Especially fun when you’re a man with poor impulse control and a wild imagination. In any case, Joey summons the three main characters of his beloved cartoon series. Bendy, Alice, and Boris! (I refer to these three as the “toon trio.”) He was just as happy that he’d managed to bring them to life as he was to have them around the house. It was like having slightly unruly grandkids with toony superpowers. In other words, they were absolutely delightful!!! He took care of them and admired their antics. It was a great time. … until. Well. It wasn’t. Turns out things that don’t belong in this world get rejected eventually. After a few months, things started go go wayward. The toon trio had difficulties maintaining their forms, moving, engaging in tropes, and a ton of other things. They were miserable. Joey was understandably heartbroken to see this happen to his poor toons. So, like any good person, he tried to do the right thing: put them back on the paper they came from. It didn’t end up working exactly how he’d expected. Everything comes with a price when you mess with demonic ink. The magic not only created a stack of paper instead of a series of drawings, but latched onto an old fountain pen and Joey’s closet. If the closet thing seems odd, it is. But it’s a convenient place to hide ritual pentagrams! So, closet it is. Upon frantic examination of the papers, Joey discovered it was a script. A black magic infused script. Three names up top told him the toon trio were the only characters. A bit of experimentation led him to discover that the magic-infused pen was the only thing that could interact with the script properly. Further experimentation showed him that the script had made his closet into a pocket dimension. The contents? Whatever was in his new script. This is where the real fun begins. The new magic script practically floored Joey with awe. He had a world he could shape however he wished! He could run all those scripts he’d never gotten to put in production! He could watch his toons frolick! He could even use it to play with ideas he’d never gotten to explore. The possibilities were endless!

((Of course, you might be wondering if Joey… y’know. Knew the toons were still alive. Because they were, they were just living in a pocket dimension now. In short? No. He didn’t. He carefully tested a few things with the script, just to make sure. All the toons did was what he wrote down. They moved like they were alive, but didn’t act that way. Plus, the dimension made them blank slates. They didn’t have any characterization in there to make them truly alive. So! For all intents and purposes? He saw them as you would any other character you write. A visual extension of his imagination. Ok mini rant over, back to the story--))

Playing with the toons was amazing. Joey hadn’t had fun like that in years! It was his little secret world, populated by his cherished toons. He could make believe whatever he wished. Eventually, though, loneliness started to catch back up to the old man. His friends… his family… life… it all went on. He just felt left behind. And what does Joey do when he doesn’t feel good? Not cope healthily, that’s for sure. Onwards to more occult magic! Only this time, he tries something… different. The toons were lonely. They deserved company. They deserved someone to take care of them. A familiar face. Maybe someone who helped Joey create them in the first place. Someone who’d just sent Mr. Drew an old letter and a card, since he hadn’t seen him in awhile… … someone like Henry. Using the magic pen, Joey traced over Henry’s note. Far from ruining the precious letter, it transferred “Henry” into the script. It’s not the real one! Basically a carbon copy, fresh from the time period that Hen first wrote the note in. Seeing as Henry’s letter came from around the time the cartoon studio was going strong, it’s an old version of him. But it was still Joey’s old friend. Just… toony. Toon Henry reacted just as his living friend would. If he wrote dialogue? He spoke it like Henry would. If he wrote some action? The toon put a classic Henry twist on it. Delighted, Joey returned to his script with renewed vigor. Toon Henry got to spend plenty of quality with the toon trio as the days went on. Thus began a trend of toonification. Missing one of his old friends? All Joey had to do was grab something with their old handwriting on it, and trace them into the script! There’s a carbon copy that acts just like the real deal! A fine compromise, right? … Right? Not exactly. It was fine at first. Joey made what could probably qualify as a sitcom-style story for the toony world to run on. His friends, at this point, all populated the studio. The premise was that the toons (now including the butcher gang!) had been summoned while he was still running the studio, and got up to hijinks with the rest of the employees. A hefty dose of actual studio drama- turned comedic, of course- kept the whole thing almost real. Joey even featured himself once or twice, but only in allusions, or a disembodied voice. He wasn’t about to let a carbon copy of himself have all the fun. It made him feel less lonely. More included. A fantasy world of never ending fun and heartwarming moments. How unfortunate it is that life doesn’t follow this pattern. Morality is a hard thing to come to terms with. So is sickness. Especially that of a friend. … it was just one rewrite at first. One alteration on a bad day. After all, using writing to cope is perfectly acceptable. One bad episode in the midst of sunshine doesn’t discount it all. One uncanny occurrence, though, doesn’t usually stay singular. It didn’t take long for the solitary rewrite to become two rewrites. Then three. Four. Six. Ten. Twenty. Fifty. More and more and more. Until the happy honey colored studio slipped into sinister sepia. This wasn’t the old script anymore. Not by a long shot.

The setting? A studio of shattered dreams. Your protagonist? Henry. His goal? Survive long enough to escape.

~It’s quite th͝e̵͞͏ ͠M̕a͘sţe̛̕r͘p̕i̵͝e̡ḉe̡̨͜~̡̛

#dtrh!au #down the rabbit hole au #dtrh!masterpost #/#//#batim au #woop woop!!!#this took me like... 3 hours #to get it all together #slkjdfkldsfj--#the hyperfixation is strong in this one :VVV #but!!! all that aside; updates to come; as usual. and if there's a question u have that's not in the faq; feel free to hmu!!!#arty writes

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fandomoverflow · 5 years ago

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My Thoughts On Dark Age (SPOILERS)

My pre-ordered copy of Dark Age arrived in the mail on Friday afternoon, four days before the official release day. The only thing stopping me from reading it right then and there was the fact that I was about to leave for a four-hour shift bagging groceries. But as soon as I got home I got pumped up on sugar, took a shower, got in my pajamas, and sat down to read. One all-nighter, a two-hour power nap, another shift at work, and then finally a good night sleep later, I am empty inside from all the screaming and crying I did over the course of this monstrosity of a book.

Pierce Brown has done it. He actually did it. We were all expecting that the ending of Dark Age would put the heart-rending ending of Golden Son to shame. And not only did he manage to top that level of shock, betrayal, and beloved character death, he did it all before the book was even half-way over. Pierce said that Dark Age is the most complex, violent, and intimate book he’s ever written, and all I have to say to that is “understatement of the bloodydamn century.”

There are so many things to talk about but for the sake of avoiding spoilers for people who don’t have early pre-ordered copies, I’ll put my spoiler thoughts under the cut. The one non-spoiler thing I’ll say is this: After Iron Gold was only divided into three sections, Dark Age takes us back to the saga standard four.

Part I was pretty much one long battle, and I have to say that this is one of the most visceral, in the trenches action sequence in the entire saga to date. Part I was told exclusively from the POVs of Darrow and Lysander as they prepare for war. And the chaos and reality of war is a very big shock to Lysander’s system. For everyone hoping he’d his ass handed to him, it is immensely cathartic to have Lysander’s battle group get demolished by Darrow’s Howlers like they’re an afterthought. And to add insult to injury, Lysander ends up pinned under a discarded starShell while a second one lands with its burning thrusters right next to his face.

The battle aside, the tension between the Core and the Rim Golds when Lysander arrived was a delight. And the contrast between Atalantia and Ajax’s initial reactions to learning that Lysander is alive and how they behave later really adds both a lot of dimension to the politics of Gold as well as to Lysander’s own backstory, while at the same time fleshing out the new characters and really selling the history they have with Lysander.

The moment that impacted me the most was the realization that a prediction I’d made after the excerpt had come true. In the prologue, Darrow told his team that if they couldn’t rescue Orion their orders were to kill her instead to protect the Republic. In the chapter after that, he mentions that he suspected that Colloawy helped Orion cheat her psych evaluation. And while she and Darrow had similarly low opinions of the bureaucracy of the senate, Orion was noticeably more cynical. And when Darrow started preparing the Storm Gods (the weather machines used to terraform Mercury for those who are reading this not caring about spoilers) he asked Rhonna about his insurance policy.

So, even before Orion went beyond Darrow’s orders and took the Storm Gods to full strength, I knew that Darrow was going to have to order the death of someone close to him in order to protect others. It just never occurred to me that it would still be Orion. I really wish we had gotten to hear more about her backstory or get a mention of her love life in Iron Gold, because I remember Pierce saying somewhere that Orion would be married in the sequel trilogy. Her interactions with Darrow in the beginning of Dark Age were really sweet, but knowing in hindsight that her days were numbered, I wish we’d gotten more time with her in the past.

Mustang’s prologue is not only the second time since Red Rising that we’ve had an intro that immediately jumps back in time to show us how we got to that point, but it also is the first time where Pierce has written the prologue in such a way that it omits the details that the audience will be aware of when we get to this scene again. (And the two months detail is an intentional lie because adding up the time and Virginia’s comments puts this at just over a week past Darrow’s section of the prologue). The first time around, this scene looks like the middle of a catastrophe, that Darrow and his armies have been pinned down and Mustang is desperately sending whatever aid she can to help. But after reading through the heart pounding action of the Ash Rain in Part I, we realize that this speech is declaring victory.

Mustang’s POV is a godsend not only for how beautifully Pierce writes her, but also that we get to see how she interacts with all of the other characters when Darrow’s not there. She and Daxo are adorable in the way they joke and tease each other like siblings. (And I had to laugh at the running joke about the design his office being a metaphor for his virility) Her political maneuvering against Dancer were full of cathartic backhanded burns. Seeing her pull a Katniss to sway the Silver senators was glorious, and the way she knows Sevro’s in the room before he even announces his presence and immediately tells him to stop wanking in the shadows and come talk to her.

It was a delight to watch her be ten steps ahead of everyone else – how she allowed Victra and Sefi’s scheming to happen because their objectives were pieces of her own master plan to unite the Republic and get everyone back on track towards defeating Atalantia. Seeing her turn the tables and play mind games with the Duke of Hands was a sight to behold.

But one of my favorite parts of her early chapters was where Dancer finally took his head out of his ass, came down off his high horse, and stopped treating her and Darrow like shit. In the process, we learned a great deal about Dancer’s backstory and how he joined the Sons of Ares that just adds so many layers to his character.

I did think it was a bit tragic that we only learned that Dancer was Gay and Daxo was Bi right before they got killed off, but that doesn’t take away from the joy of knowing that two characters I’ve loved throughout the series are canonically queer. I’m glad that if Dancer had to die, he at got to redeem himself in the eyes of the fans before he bit the dust.

And to the aforementioned killing off, we get to Golden Son levels of shock, betrayal, and heartbreak less than halfway through the book. Mustang was always ten steps ahead of everyone else and just when it finally seemed like she would get everything she wanted, when she and Dancer and Sevro put their heads together and figured out that Senator Publius cu Caraval was the Syndicate’s spy, it all fell apart. Publis poisoned Dancer and pointed the already riled up Vox Populi mobs at Mustang accusing her of murdering the voice of the Vox, and the coup began. Daxo was killed when the Syndicate Queen showed up personally to lead the mob. And when we finally see her, she’s wearing fleshmasks and contacts to look like a Red, but Mustang immediately recognizes the face of the long-thought-dead Lilath au Faran.

But while Lilath may have been working with Atalantia, she isn’t the top of the Syndicate food chain. Mustang is smarter than just about every character in the Red Rising setting, but from what we’ve seen Atalantia isn’t that smart. There is only one person smart enough to so thoroughly derail Mustang’s plans. One person smart enough to know how she thinks and what she’s doing. And that is the only person in the setting who can rival her intelligence: her brother.

There were multiple moments in the first half of Dark Age that hit me in the stomach and left my reeling emotionally. But a ten-year-old clone of the Jackal walking into the Vox Populi’s show trial for Mustang alongside Lilath and the surviving Boneriders was the first moment in Dark Age that made me put the book down and start loudly screaming curses at the air.

Though his introduction was chilling, his scenes afterwards actually had me much more contemplative. When Mustang is forced to have dinner with the Boneriders, Adrius II starts making puzzles like Adrius I used to do with Mustang when they were kids, and he gives them to Lilath to solve. Lilath can’t solve them but of course Mustang can, and without Nero’s constant presence in their lives it actually felt like both Mustang and Adrius were having actual, genuine fun during this exchange.

And Mustang following this up by revealing that she still has all the old ones that original Adrius made as kids was both really sweet and also the first crack between the Jackal and his boneriders. Because Lilath and the Boneriders put the Jackal on such a pedestal that they only ever told Adrius II about the parts of his original self they admired and ignored little details they didn’t consider important, Adrius II is going through some Clone Angst. He feels secure in who he is, but he doesn’t know if he wants to be what the original Adrius was. And Mustang reveals that she kept all the puzzles demonstrated that Lilath and the Boneriders would never love any version of Adrius the way he wanted to be loved.

I trust that Pierce didn’t introduce Adrius II just for the sake of having The Jackal back. It would be too cliché, and extremely predictable to go that route. What would make a compelling story, and one that fits in with Pierce’s worldview and the themes of the Red Rising series, is if Adrius II spends the next book wrestling with whether he wants to follow in the footsteps of the original in a classic nature vs. nurture conflict would be so fascinating and I really can’t wait to see how that gets pulled off (it helps me cope with the fact that Brainwashed Evil Sevro is something that the Boneriders have threatened).

But I really love how Mustang could clearly see that potential in Adrius II, and the only reason she didn’t talk it out more and help him through that internal conflict is because it would take more time than she had, and she had bigger fish to fry. I really hope her means of escape didn’t sour Adrius II towards the path of redemption. And I really hope that Adrius doesn’t get the chance to follow through on his threat to wipe Sevro’s mind.

As far as the other characters go, Ephriam had some of the best character development in the entirety of Dark Age. Watching him gradually become invested in the future of Sefi’s AllTribe was very beautiful and heartwarming. He’d spent all of the last decade stuck in the anger stage of grief over Trigg’s death but over the course of Dark Age and helping Sefi it really felt like he was starting to reach the acceptance stage and get closure. His interactions with Ozgard even felt a little shippy, even if I knew he wasn’t ready for another relationship. But watching Ephriam find a new purpose in life and a place in the post-Rising world was a sight to behold. And then the machination of Atlas au Raa had to bring it all crashing down.

The Ascomani King showing up and claiming to be Ragnar’s father was a cruel twist of Society planning – they know the Obsidians worship Ragnar, and they know that Sefi has the power to unite all the tribes. So, they let her create her AllTribe and then had her replaced as leader with their own puppet.

It was a cruel twist that out of all the POV characters, Ephriam would be the one to die. If he had gone with backup he would have been able to stop the coup, but I understand why he went alone. Going alone meant that he didn’t drag Volga into the mess he was trying to protect her from, and he didn’t want to force her into the role of Queen. It was really sweet when she called him her father, and I really like how she chose to go with the Obsidians at the end not out of duty, but to finish what her father helped start. I look forward to seeing how she deals with infiltrating the Obsidians and taking her rightful place on Aunt Sefi’s throne.

Okay, I pretty much think at this point it’s a given that by the time this series is over Lyria and her nephew and Volga will have been adopted into the August/Reaper-Telemanus-Barca clan. I mean, Volga is Ragnar’s daughter why wouldn’t they make her part of the family. But honestly, following Victra and Lyria and Volga as they fight to survive in the Martian wilderness with the Pandora destroyed and the Red Hand on their heels was one of my favorite parts of the book. Their bickering was funny, but things quickly took a turn for the heartwarming when Victra ended up going into labor and Lyria was the one who helped her through it.

The conversation between Victra and Lyria while Victra is giving birth about their different experiences and their different perspectives was one of the most emotional conversations in the book, and it really warmed my heart when a few chapters later Lyria referred to Victra and Volga as her friends.

But then the Red Hand just had to attack. If you are triggered or easily upset by scenes where harm is done to an infant, or where you see the aftermath of harm done to an infant, you are going to be upset for almost all of Lyria’s chapters for the remainder of Dark Age following the birth. The crimes of Harmony and her Red Hand goons are numerous. They have killed and mutilated countless Reds for the sole crime of being Gamma. But somehow it took the sight of the newborn Barca baby nailed to a tree for me to viscerally demand their demise. I was screaming and raw when I read that scene, desperately praying that it was a different baby and that little Ulysses was okay. But no. She may not have done the deed, but she condoned and encouraged that kind of thing by her men, and we can now add infanticide to the list of Harmony’s crimes.

Which is why I am so, so glad that not only did Lyria manage to single-handedly orchestrate the final destruction of the Red Hand, but that she and Victra were the ones who did Harmony in. Harmony being thrown into a nest of adult Pitvipers was one of the most cathartic moments in the series since the fight against Aja in Morning Star, and I could not be happier that she’s finally gone.

I haven’t really talked about Darrow and Lysander since the beginning because while their story is important to what’s happening overall everything is happening in such a condensed time frame, and with Darrow and Lsyander’s chapters being focused on Atalantia’s siege of Mercury, we only really drop in for the important parts:

It was frustrating to see Lysander’s commitment to the hierarchy hardened by his experiences on Mercury, and it was heartbreaking to see Lysander lead the charge that overwhelmed Darrow’s defenses and allowed Atalantia’s armies into the Free Legions’ last stronghold. Watching the lowColors of Mercury reject the Republic was devastating both to me and Darrow, and it was heartdreaking to watch what was left of the Republic forces slowly dwindling as Lysander’s offensive went on.

But it was all the more cathartic when Casssius showed up to evacuate the survivors before they could be completely wiped out. I knew that Cassius’ death was faked, but there are still a few questions about how he got away from the Rim. That being said, I’m thrilled that after a decade in exile, Cassius has officially joined the Republic to help his friends.

Dark Age is truly the darkest hour for our heroes in a way that tops even Golden Son. Mercury has been retaken by Atalantia. Earth has fallen to the Rim-Core alliance. Luna has gone the way of the Death Eater-run Ministry of Magic in Harrpy Potter – with the Jackal Clone and his Bone Riders pulling the strings of a Vox Populi puppet government. Only Mars remains free. Despite causing chaos on Venus off-page Apollonius has seemingly joined forces with Lysander against Darrow. Sefi is dead and her dream of a united Obsidian nation has been coopted by a Society puppet masquerading as her and Ragnar’s father. Sevro is still in the clutches of Adrius II, who has threatened to use the same technology that Octavia used to modify Lysander’s memories to completely erase Sevro’s mind.

I trust Pierce Brown to pull of a finale that resolves all of this and gives us a satisfying ending. There are still unknown variables that we can’t predict. We don’t see the Rim at all during the events of the novel and the negotiations between them and the Core happen off page. We only see Apollonius in two short scenes. And to top it off we know that Pierce Brown has a history of writing unreliable narrators who hide their plans from the audience. While we’ve seen it with Darrow and Mustang, he hasn’t done it with Lyria or Ephriam, and we haven’t seen any such deceptive narration from Lysander yet.

So, time will tell not only how Pierce resolves all of this. But in the meantime, #PrayForSevro. It’s going to be a long two years while we wait for the final book.

#red rising saga #iron gold trilogy #dark age spoilers #dark age review #my thoughts

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teratoscope · 6 years ago

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Unbounded Lands postmortem

this takes a kind of circuitous path and gets heavy fast.

The fall before I started Teratoscope, my brother and I were in a car accident.

The morning of, I made a stupid turn that put a headlight out of commission and mangled the fender pretty badly. It was the first time I’d ever really fucked up a vehicle. Every forty-five seconds or so the car would make this brief scraping noise. I had a good three-hour drive ahead of me that would take me through St. Louis and, I would quickly discover, a torrential rainstorm. Stupidly, I pressed on anyway. I had to pay rent that day. I was full of miserable thoughts about how much it was going to cost me to get the headlight replaced and the body work done, about what might happen if I crossed paths with a cop, you get the idea. I had this recurring imp-of-the-perverse notion that if the car got utterly trashed at least I wouldn’t have to worry about getting the damn thing fixed.

Because I was eager to put a long convoy of semis behind me, I spent a lot of time in the left lane and above the speed limit—way too far above for the amount of water on the asphalt and the crap visibility. Eventually, I got to thinking I was clear on the right; anxious to get back to a reasonable speed, I started to change lanes.

There was somebody coming out of my blind spot; I caught them coming and started to course-correct. We were on a pretty dramatic curve in the highway, or coming up on it, on approach to an overpass. I started hydroplaning. I panicked, not remembering how to stabilize, and the car spun out.

I don’t have a great sensory recollection of what happened next, but this is what the bystanders saw. The car threaded the needle between two semis, tore through a good ten feet of highway railing and a lamppost (just barely clearing the concrete nub it was bolted to), and ground to a halt after slamming into the hill the overpass was built into. It was sitting mostly on its side, with bits of hill stuck in it.

My brother and I were completely unharmed, aside from some unpleasant bruises.

What I remember from the accident is the sudden, overwhelming loss of control, the terrible lurch I felt as everything outside the car blurred together into an unintelligible slurry, and then the smell of gunsmoke and my hands clawing in horror at this vast volume of gray, thinking this is what death is like, then.

It was the airbag.

These are things that snuck up on me in bed and in the shower for many months afterward. I don’t get the flashbacks anymore, but when I’m not distracting myself with work or stories I’m susceptible to this visceral awareness of my presence as a body in time. I can feel myself hurtling through the fourth dimension, and it feels a lot like being in that car.

It forces me to reckon with big questions about death and consciousness and embodiment. Which is what got me thinking very seriously about sizes of infinity and negative spaces—not just in space but in time and possibility.

I don’t think I started Teratoscope as a way of coping with my trauma and the existential challenges it forced me to acknowledge, but looking back on Unbounded Lands it’s hard to ignore that they’re in there. The Unbounded Lands are, to an extent, a vision of the world as riddled through with existential anxieties as I am. It’s a place with negative possibility space bleeding into it, with multiple ambiguous pasts and futures looping back around into the now and forcing it to confront the moral exhaustion of perpetual being.

I don’t think I’ve fully reckoned with this stuff. That DNA’s carried over to Freestar One; if anything it’s only going to get more so in the next series.

On a lighter note, design!

I did a lot of wavering back and forth about damage and lethality; it’s something I’ve struggled with designing monsters before, partly because I’m lethally allergic to “strategic balance.” Challenge Rating as a concept can eat my whole ass. Generally speaking I think of D&D as in large part a horror game, and so I tend to lean towards lethal critters, but as wary as I am of turning into a 4e-style fight clockmaker, I’m equally concerned about the “Killer DM” rep that so much OSR design carries with it. This is definitely still a problem I’m wrestling with—I think the root of it is that, much as I love the mode of tabletop these critters are for, I don’t get to play it much with the regular group I’ve got. We’re more of a storygames crowd in practice.

Something I mostly tried to avoid while writing Unbounded Lands was giving critters “spell-like abilities.” Something I fucking loathe about later editions of D&D is the way it sucks the mystique out of its own design by making the bulk of its game effects modular. Now, there have always been monsters with spell lists in D&D, but I think it’s gotten progressively more egregious with each subsequent edition. A lot of the problem has to do with feature bloat and the need to turn away from the monster stat block to look something up; in my opinion a tabletop game should be designed such that one needs to do as little cross-referencing as humanly possible. On a related note, whoever came up with giving monster writeups long lists of feats should be caned.

That being said, I should note I’ve broken my own rule a couple of times in Unbounded Lands—the Catalyst Sprite and Slinn are both pretty clear examples of this kind of design. I’ll admit they were ideas I liked, but didn’t have elegant mechanics in mind for them at the time. I’ll likely revisit them in one form or another one day, once I’ve built up a sufficient stock of critters that no longer appeal to me as they did when I first conceived of them. Like a “Misfit Monsters Revisited,” but, you know, for a system I find bearable.

Finally, I figure it pays to rattle off a bit of an “appendix N” for Teratoscope—readings and extracurriculars that played an inspirational role in developing the setting:

any of China Mieville’s Bas-Lag novels. Mieville’s a fucking legend when it comes to whipping up critters; Iron Council is the overall best of the three. Also, his essays and lectures on variations upon the uncanny are absolute must-reads for any teratologist.

A Storm of Wings by M. John Harrison. The Unbounded Lands are a bottomless time abyss, not dying by degrees like Harrison’s future-Earth, but the ontological crisis/alien invasion that forms the central plot of the second Viriconium novella is a very appropriate sort of horrible thing to happen there. As a side note, I would kill for a game with Soulsborne-inspired gameplay and Viriconium’s genre sensibilities.

Fire on the Velvet Horizon. My most direct inspiration for writing a monster manual, period. My resolution at the start of Teratoscope was that if I could create critters half as fucking baller as Patrick Stuart’s and then bolt some pretty serviceable mechanics to them, I’d have succeeded.

the artwork of Alexander Kostetsky. There’s a lot of art references I could drop in for Unbounded Lands, but Kostetsky marries the ludicrous scale, kaleidoscopic palette, and feverish organic form that I think is integral to the setting to this sense of bleakness, patience, silence, openness. Which is a fucking challenge, and also suits Unbounded Lands quite well. The barren stretches of Manmonumeq and sunken spires of Old Hyrkonia are his.

YT//ST - Yamantaka Sonic Titan. My brother once summarized this album’s sound as “being sung at by a sea witch and her army of clothes dryers with bricks thrown in them.” He’s not wrong. It slaps. Put on Crystal Fortress over the Sea of Trees and go fight the Hecatoncheiropolis.

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scifiwithswords · 7 years ago

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34 things i adore about the novel i wrote for nanowrimo when i was 16

for context, i’m currently 23.

i learned that national novel writing month existed when i was in 8th grade, decided to try it for the first time in 9th. i needed a novel premise that was so self-indulgent that i knew i’d be able to keep my attention on it for 30 days and 50,000 words. the premise i picked can best be described as “jumanji, but with fanfiction.” basically, it’s about teens waking up in their favorite fictional universes and using them as the best playgrounds ever.

...for a year. the first book, written when i was 14, was about my self-insert Hazel and her best friend Drew getting ripped away from their tragically boring ordinary lives, being dropped in the Doctor Who universe, joining Torchwood, falling in love, and then being catastrophically separated and having to cope with figuring out new universes without each other’s aid. They go on solo adventures, grow as people, and then find their way back to each other.

Fast forward about eleven months. I’d enjoyed the nanowrimo experience and didn’t feel like i was done with Hazel and Drew. but a story with just them, i felt, would get boring fast. so i added in two new ‘travelers’, auby and daniel, who were originally going to be a beta couple because i was 15 and hadn’t figured out that i was gay and could write gay characters yet. the second book has more self-indulgent fandom shenanigans, but there’s an increasing tension throughout it related to why this whole being-flung-between-universes is happening to them, and whether or not some higher power is responsible. this all culminates in hazel and drew having a climactic argument, daniel leaving the apartment they share on the naruto universe to give them some space and getting stabbed and dying, and then the three remaining travelers being taken to a blank white dimension where they are offered a choice: the lives they’re living now, or almost-perfect ones in the normal world. all three of them choose to continue on as travelers. (this is the book where the relationships get really deliciously complicated--Drew and Hazel are constantly disagreeing over whether there’s a deity responsible for what’s happening to them, Auby is paired with Hazel on her first universe ever and her reaction is massively different than Hazel’s was--her only goal, at the beginning, is to go home. she hurts people on purpose in service of this goal, which Hazel is angry about for a long, long time after.)

That still wasn’t enough. there were still loose ends that i hadn’t sealed, the possibility of a story in the snippets of everyone’s old life that Evelyn (the ‘deity’) in book 2, had appeared in. so there was one more book, written my junior year of high school, to resolve it all. Evelyn turned out to be a traveler who had died. Her partner, Tobias, created his own world to work on getting her back. he brought back Daniel instead, by mistake, and then eventually succeeds. We learn, in the middle of the book, that Evelyn wasn’t the real reason all of this was happening: the true puppet master was her sister Rennie, who had been writing a story where terrible things happened to the people who had wronged her over the years. auby, when she got a little older, had abandoned Rennie as a friend. Daniel had never become her friend. Drew and Hazel had said some stupid shit to her online. But when Rennie feels the story getting really out of control (when Tobias takes things into his own hands to rescue Evelyn), she decides to try writing herself into it. And into the story she goes. At the end Evelyn is able to leverage her in-universe powers to give the travelers (who call themselves wanderers now, thanks to Tobias) another, less cruel choice: be wanderers with control over their own destinies and destinations, or stay on a nearly-utopian world she’s created for them. Drew and Hazel go, everyone else stays, Evelyn fades away.

I hadn’t reread these books in many many years. I reread the 8th grade one last summer, looking for clues about what i was like in 9th grade (i’d thrown out all my journals from when i was younger years before, a decision that i bitterly regret.). i decided to reread wanderers (aka book 3) on a whim, and found that it depended so heavily on book 2 that i had to reread the latter half of that as well.

my major reaction is that the premise, the plot, the relationships, everything--it’s all so quintissentially teenage, in a way that i genuinely didn’t understand it was at the time. the prospect of being pulled from one universe to another, with no control over where you’ll go and no knowledge of when it will happen, was always an allegory for the lack of control you have as a teenager, living under rules and expectations that you had no say in choosing. the fact that being thrown around between fictional universes goes from something the characters love, to something they question, to something they resent. the ways that they grow and change within and between the books, and the way those changes reflect changes that most people go through between fourteen and sixteen.

so, without firther ado, the list, compiled during my 2018 Wanderers reread:

1. Hazel being like “I was braver back then”

2. Drew being like “we used to like testing our limits, now we were afraid of what we might be capable of”

3. The complicated relationship between Auby and Hazel and why they dislike each other. Hazel being like “Drew and I worked well with Daniel because he was independent and unique, but Auby was clingy and needed to lean on people. I didn’t like being anyone’s people.”

4. The general sense of them having no control over the course their lives are taking, and coping with it by leaning hard into their relationships. It’s so teenage and at 16 when I was writing this I didn’t even realize that.

5. The pacing in Wanderers! The Rennie stuff at the beginning! The stories of everyone hanging out independently or in little groups before they’re all brought to the same location by Tobias’s success! The way we leave off Tobias and Daniel’s story, after their relationship and quest have been explored a little, and immediately when we come back to it, the rest of the kiddos are involved.

6. The characters unique preferences and thought patterns that resolve themselves so well in first person, why tf did I stop writing this way?

7. The sweetness and gentleness between Hazel and Drew; how much they love each other. Hazel letting Drew hug her for longer because she’s concerned about how wiped out he looks, the two of them laughing together the first morning in the Forest, Hazel’s (kinda irrational kinda founded) jealousy of Auby

8. Auby’s very confusing feelings about Daniel, who doesn’t remember the life they could have had together and isn’t the same person as he was when they would have started it.

9. “It wasn’t fair, and I know life isn’t fair, but this thing was the reason my life wasn’t fair”

10. The downsides of the AU. Drew felt like the alternate him was a bad person. Hazel didn’t love Drew as strongly. Auby getting almost everything she wants but still pining for the only thing she has now. And being unable to mourn this Daniel, g-d.

11. “On the nights when I was just getting to bed after not sleeping for a few days, before Daniel, was the only time that I ever allowed myself to think about Evelyn actually being back.”

12. I haven’t done character work this intense since uh. Since this.

13. Rennie feeling like a bystander to her own (magical) story. The whole concept of there being a place where her characters are that she can’t describe because she can’t make herself see it. Her seizing back control in the end.

14. Rennie didn’t realize she was being cruel, she thought she was coping

15. Fuck did I pour myself into Auby and Rennie’s relationship. As both of them at the same time somehow.

16. TOO BAD THE LOCKDOWN HAD A PURPOSE also really good pacing. When did I get so bad at pacing

17. The fucking metaphors. Tobias turning his mind into a ‘drill’ instead of a ‘net’ when he’s mentally linked with Evelyn

18. “Her voice was like bells, like wind chimes, like laughter. It was larger than life, and there was no problem with that.”

19. G-d Tobias’s last conversation with the ‘real’ Evelyn

20. “I hate you, you know,” Rennie said mildly, as though she was informing me that my shoe was untied.

21. I grasped at threads, responded to what I could understand with the words that I could find. “Rennie, you know that I would never-“ -- “Yeah, Auby, I do,” she said. “Because I wrote you that way. You’re not actually Auby Harris. You’re my Auby Harris.”

22. The concept of Tobias and Evelyn flying too close to the sun together, and Evelyn paying for it materially, and Tobias paying for it in heartbreak. The sense that they really love each other.

23. Auby blaming herself for the things Rennie did because Rennie was betrayed by (a different) Auby

24. Rennie makes room for Auby on the couch and Auby goes to sit on a different couch

25. That good good serial narrative shit! Hazel’s main internal struggle in the second book being reconciling what had happened in the first book! The ending of the second book hanging like a specter over all of them for the entirety of the third book!

26. This was the end of the line. This was our happily ever after. But the stories had never left off with the character in his happily ever after jumpy and frustrated, almost craving the intensity of the harsh journey behind him? […] we had always thought of our lives as us against the world, and now there was just…us.

27. Tobias’s profound sense of loss after Evelyn dies, then him finding a piece of nature that he believes carries her essence, about which he thinks “Calm, and yet bold, breathtakingly beautiful. Yes, Evelyn was here.”

28. EVERYONE BUT RENNIE HAS BEEN LIVING THIS LIFE SINCE THEY WERE 14 SO ONLY RENNIE KNOWS HOW TO DRIVE

29. PAGES LONG argument between Hazel and Rennie about whether Marvel or DC makes better comics, interrupted by other happenings on the universe, involving all the major relationships between the characters, they eventually put it to a group vote because everyone else is getting annoyed, it turns out to be a tie because there are only six of them left and everybody loses because Evelyn is dead. Just the way the realization of the results of the vote cuts all of the tension.

30. Everyone gradually transitioning from calling themselves Travelers to calling themselves Wanderers, and Auby not finding out that’s what they call themselves now until page 120/123

31. Hazel letting Drew choose whether to stay or keep wandering at the end. Drew’s justification: I need her. She needs it. The fact that that’s softened by his restlessness in utopia like fifteen pages before.

32. Hazel forgiving Auby, in their last ever conversation, for something that she had done ninety fucking thousand words ago.

33. Daniel being sure that even though he’ll be okay, Rennie and Tobias will never be over Evelyn’s death. The fact that he starts talking and starts a little memorial service for her—Daniel, who tried his best not to need people, who usually barely speaks.

34. The fact that the last line is (Hazel asking Drew) “Where do you want to start?”

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photographicmemorypro-blog · 7 years ago

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Psyc 104 Week 4 – Amazing Memory

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(Male voice, host) Daniel Tammet, an Englishman, a 27-year-old math and memory wizard. I was born November 8, 1931. That’s a prime number, 1931. You were born on a Sunday. In this year, your birthday will be on a Wednesday. (laughs) And you’ll be 75. Precisely. (Host) It’s estimated there are only 50 true savants living in the world today, and yet none are like Daniel. He is articulate, self-sufficient, blessed with all of this spectacular ability of a savant, but will very little of the disability. Take his math skills. Okay. So… 31 by 31 by 31 by 31… Yeah. Is 923,521. I dare say you’re right. Or 17 times 17 times 17 times 17… 83,521 And it’s not just calculating. His gift of memory is stunning. Briefly show him a long numerical sequence and he’ll recite it right back to you. 9 1 4 1 9 3 4 2 1 7 1 8 4 4 3 2 2 3 8 1 Of course. (laughing) And he can do it backwards, to boot. 1 8 3 2 2 3 4 4 8 1 7 1 … that feat is just the warm-up for Daniel Tammet.

He first made headlines at Oxford when he publicly recited the endless sequence of numbers embodied by the Greek letter Pi. Pi: the numbers we use to calculate the dimensions of a circle. It’s usually rounded off to 3.14, but its numbers actually go on to infinity. Daniel studied the sequence, a thousand numbers to a page. I would sit and I would gorge on them… and I would just absorb hundreds and hundreds at a time… (Host) It took him several weeks to prepare and then Daniel headed to Oxford where, with number crunchers checking every digit, (1 4 1 5…) He opened the floodgates of his extraordinary memory. (8 3 0… 4 1 4 6… 8 9 6 5 0 2 2… 7 0 7 9 5 4…4 5 6 8 1 5…) You were able to recite, in the proper order, how many? 22,514 (Host) It took him over five hours. He did it without a single mistake.

3 9 9 5 2 0 6 1 4 1 9 6… 3 5 8 7… finished. (applause) (Host) Scientists say a memory feat like this is truly extraordinary. Dr V S Ramachandran and his team at the California Center for Brain Studies tested Daniel extensively after his Pi achievement. Once you met him, what did you make of him? Well, I was surprised at how articulate and intelligent he was and was able to interact sociably and introspect on his own abilities. (Host) And while that introspection is extremely rare among savants, Daniel’s ability to describe how his mind works could be invaluable to scientists studying the brain, our least understood organ. Even how you and I do 17 minus 9 is a big mystery. You know, how these little wisps of jelly in your brain… doing that computation. We don’t know that. (Host) It may seem to defy logic, but Ramachandran believes that a savant’s genius could actually result from brain injury. One possibility is that many other parts of the brain are functioning abnormally, or sub normally, and this allows the patient to allocate all his attentional resources to the one remaining part and there’s a lot of clinical evidence for this.

Some patients have a stroke and suddenly their artistic skills improve. (Host) That theory fits well with Daniel. At the age of 4, he suffered a massive epileptic seizure. He believes that seizure contributed to his condition. Numbers were no longer simply numbers. He developed a rare crossing of the senses known as synesthesia. I started seeing numbers in my head… the colors, the shapes, the textures… so, when I see a long sequence, the sequence forms landscapes in my mind. Every number up to 10,000 I can visualize in this way…

It has its own color, has its own shape, has its own texture. (Host) For example: this is how Daniels says he sees Pi. And when he does those instant computations, he’s not calculating, but says the answer simply appears to him as a landscape of colorful shapes. The shapes aren’t static. They’re full of color, they’re full of texture; in a sense, they’re full of life. Are they beautiful? Not all of them. Some of them are ugly. 289 is an ugly number. I don’t like it very much. Whereas 333, for example, is beautiful to me. It’s round… (laughs) it’s chubby. (Female voice) He was constantly counting things… I think what first attracted him to books was the actual numbers on each page. And he just loved counting. Do you think there’s a connection between his epilepsy and his talent? He was always different from…

When he was really a few weeks old, I noticed he was different. So I’m not sure that it’s entirely that… but I think it might have escalated it? That it opened up that part of the brain… Yes. That’s what I believe, yes. (Host) Daniel was also diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, a mild form of autism. It made for a painful childhood. I would flap my hand sometimes when I was excited, or pull at my fingers or at my lips… and of course the children saw these things and would repeat them back to me and tease me about them and I would put my fingers in my ears and count very quickly in powers of two: 2 – 4 – 8 – 16 – 32 – 64… Numbers were a defense from the real world, yes? Yes. Numbers were my friends and they never changed.

So they were reliable. I could trust them. (Host) And yet, Daniel did not retreat fully into that mysterious prison of autism, as many savants do. He believes his large family may have actually forced him to adapt. Because my parents, having nine children, had so much to do… so much to cope with, I realized I had to do for myself. (Host) He now runs his own online educational business. He and his partner, Neil, try to keep a low profile, despite his growing fame. And the limits of his autism are always there. I find it difficult to walk in the street sometimes if there’s lots of people around me. If there’s lots of noise, I put my fingers in my ears to block it out. (Host) That anxiety keeps him close to home. He can’t drive and he rarely goes shopping and finds the beach a difficult place because of his compulsion to count the grains of sand. And it manifests itself in other ways, like making a very precise measurement of his cereal each morning. It MUST be exactly 45 grams of porridge, no more, no less. Perfect. (Host) Do you think that Daniel, in a certain way, represents a real pathway to further understanding the brain? I think one could say that time and again in science, something that looks like a curiosity initially, often leads to a completely new direction of research.

Sometimes they provide the golden key. Doesn’t always happen… sometimes it’s just mumbo-jumbo… but that might well be true with savants. (Host) Daniel continues to volunteer for scientists who want to understand his amazing brain. But he’s reluctant to become what he calls “a performing seal” and has refused most offers to cash in on his remarkable skills. People all the time asking me to choose numbers for the lottery… or to invent a time machine… or to come up with some great discovery… but my abilities are not those that mean I can do EVERYthing… (Host) But he has written a book about his experiences entitled, “Born on a Blue Day.” That was totally inspiring. (Host) He also does motivational speeches for parents of autistic children. Yet one more gift of his remarkable brain. -Thanks -Thank you. (Host) But at the end of the day, genius or not, that brain does work a little differently. One hour after we leave today and I will not remember what you look like and I will find it difficult to recognize you if I see you again I will remember your handkerchief and I will remember that you have four buttons on your sleeve…

And I’ll remember the type of tie you’re wearing… it’s the details I’ll remember. (Host) And it’s the details that make us all so different. One man may see numbers as a tedious necessity of modern life another sees them as the essence of life. (Tammet) Pi is one of the most beautiful things in all of the world and if I can share that joy in numbers, if I can share that in some small measure with the world…

through my writing and my speaking… then I feel that I will have done something useful..

For More Info : photographic memory

#Speed read test #Read faster #Read fast #Speed read #Training Photographic Memory

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kadobeclothing · 5 years ago

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How to Turn Customers Into Fans

How do some brands attract word-of-mouth buzz and radical devotion around products as every day as car insurance, surfboards, and underwear?

Ultimately, they embody the most powerful marketing force in the world — die-hard fans. As a massive fan of live music (I’ve seen over 790 live shows including 75 Grateful Dead concerts), the idea of “fandom” has fascinated me for decades. Five years ago, I set out to study fandom. I began by asking myself — Why do I love live music so much? Why do other people love watching the Boston Red Sox or running a 5K or NASCAR? Based on discussions with hundreds of people about their passions, I’ve come to realize the key is genuine human connection. We love to be near like-minded people. When we are part of a tribe, when we speak the same language and know the rituals, we feel powerful connections with others who share that same interest. That’s why I love live music — because I go to shows with my friends.

Because of the changing nature of the world, I knew it was essential to understand how to reach all kinds of people, including millennials and Generation Z. It is for this reason that I teamed up with my 26-year-old daughter Reiko to research and write our book called Fanocracy: Turning Fans into Customers and Customers into Fans. This post, on how to build a fandom for your business using the power of proximity, is based in part on the ideas in our book. Fandom isn’t just for celebrities anymore. It can be rocket fuel for any business or nonprofit that chooses to focus on inspiring and nurturing true fans. Fandom is everywhere. It’s the key for any organization, artist, or entrepreneur to be successful in bringing people together. Fandom spans generations to bind individuals together in excitement, purpose, and buying power. No matter who you’re dealing with, understanding fandom is the cornerstone to your success. We call this act of consciously bringing people together through a shared endeavor a fanocracy: an organization or person that honors fans and consciously fosters meaningful connections among them. The suffix “-ocracy”, from the Greek “kratos” for rule, is used in popular culture as well as by academics, to mean government by a particular sort of people or according to a particular principle. A fanocracy is a culture where fans rule, and that’s what we see emerging in today’s world. We are moving into an era that prizes people over products. For instance, let’s say you visit a city for a music festival. While waiting for a show to start, we spontaneously form a community, striking up conversations with those around us, secure in the knowledge that we have instant rapport because we share the same interest and the conversation is smooth and natural, as if you’ve been friends for a long time. In a digital world where our lives are increasingly cluttered and superficial, we’re missing something tremendously powerful: genuine human connection. The relationship we build with our customers is more important than the products and services we sell them. Here, let’s explore how you can turn your own customers into true fans of your business. Take a look at the full HubSpot Academy Fanocracy: Turn Your Customers Into Fans and Your Fans Into Customers course here. Degrees of Proximity Make the Difference in How You Connect We spoke with neuroscientists to understand what’s going on in our brains when we connect with other people. We wanted to know — what’s really going on when, for example, I’m with my friends at a live music show? We’ve discovered a prescription for developing fans of any business using simple but frequently overlooked dynamic in our digital age: physical proximity. Building connections to like-minded people leads to success in our business, as well as stronger brand advocates for the long-run. What is it about being around other people that drives connection? Why does physical proximity make such a difference? Cultural anthropologist Edward T. Hall has answers to those questions. Dr. Hall defined humans’ use of space in a simple way. As director of the State Department’s Point Four Training Program in the 1950s, Dr. Hall’s mission was to teach foreign country-bound technicians and administrators how to communicate effectively across cultural boundaries. His 1966 book The Hidden Dimension describes how people like to keep certain distances between themselves and other people — how our use of space can affect personal and business relations, cross-cultural interactions, architecture, city planning, and urban renewal. If we want to be effective in our communication, we need to learn how to consciously manage the physical space between ourselves and others. It’s not just a matter of being close or far, or that the closer we get the better it is. Rather, the significance of each level of proximity can be precisely predicted and managed so as to create the most optimal outcomes. For instance, Hall described “public distance” as more than 12 feet away from others, a distance that lacks any sense of precise interaction among those involved. He identified “social distance” for interactions among acquaintances as being from four feet to 12 feet, “personal distance” for interactions among good friends or family from about a foot and a half to four feet, and anything closer as “intimate distance” for embracing, touching, or whispering.

The degree of human proximity ties to shared emotion and has an enormous effect on how well we do in business. Because these basic instincts are so powerful, when we are close to people we don’t know, like on a subway platform, we’re wary. We can’t help that response. It’s built into all of us. We’re preparing to flee or to fight if presented with any sign of danger. However, when we are in close proximity to people we trust, a personal connection develops. People who are able to cultivate physical closeness with customers by engaging with them face-to-face can create stronger emotional bonds. We think this explains the tremendous success of Starbucks. Sure, the patrons at my local Starbucks are enjoying their drinks and they’re making use of the free WiFi. It’s certainly a convenient spot to meet somebody. Yes, the seats are comfortable and there’s ample parking. Yet, a typical Starbucks scene includes perhaps a dozen people, each alone, but together with others nearby. Starbucks sales have grown by tremendously — from $19.1 billion to $26.5 billion — in just two years. Why is that? We think it’s because Starbucks sells physical proximity to like minded people. The most rewarding interactions in our lives occur in our social space and personal space. Those people sitting near one another at a game or at Starbucks or standing near each other in a line at a movie theater or a live music show? They’re well within each other’s social space and as such each person can feel the human connection in a positive and safe, unconscious way. Here are a few questions to ask yourself to encourage physical proximity with customers: How can you bring your customers face-to-face with other customers and with your employees? Can you host meetings, conferences, or meet-and-greets? Can you offer a tour of your factory, research center, or laboratory? Would it make sense for your executives to embark on a tour to meet customers where they live and work? Building Fans of your Business With Virtual Proximity If you’re a fan of something, I’m willing to bet you didn’t make a logical decision to become a fan. More likely than not, you became a fan because of passion and enjoyment, two sensations that have little to do with logic. To successfully build a fanbase out of whatever it is you’re doing for a living, or if you want to sell or market a product or service, begin to think of creative ways to develop and cultivate human connections. So far we’ve looked at the importance of proximate human connection in growing a fanbase. People go to live music for more than the show — they go to enjoy close proximity with other like-minded people. Let’s face it, we humans are hardwired to react to those who are nearby. Our evolution has taught us to unconsciously track those who come near us in order to quickly determine if they are good or harmful. However, how can businesses and artists who can’t possibly have a direct personal connection with every fan achieve similar success? It turns out that if your product is used by millions of consumers or you run a virtual business, you can still use the power of connection. Our unconscious brain can respond to what we see as if it is our own experience, even if it is on social media, film, a screen, or a faraway stage through something called “mirror neurons”. Mirror neurons are a group of cells in the premotor cortex and inferior parietal cortex of our brain. These neurons are fascinating because they not only activate when we perform an action — biting into an apple, smiling — but they also fire when we observe somebody else performing the same action. For instance, when those around us are happy and smiling, our unconscious brain tells us we’re happy, and we often smile, too. A critical aspect of understanding mirror neurons is to remember that it’s how we’re hardwired. It’s our ancient brain at work helping us to cope with the world around us. It’s not something we can choose to turn on or choose to ignore. It’s innate. We can’t help ourselves to react in the way that we do.

People unconsciously bond with actors and artists and speakers they see on screens and on-stage because of mirror neurons. Mirror neurons also help to explain why we feel that we “know” movie stars and television personalities. Our brain tells us that we’ve been in their personal space because of the feeling of proximity to them as we are seeing them up on the screen. A deeper understanding of mirror neurons can help you build fans within your organization, or market any products and services you want to sell. Businesses can use the concept of mirror neurons to build fans in many ways. For instance, you might try focusing on creating photos and video with images of people — your employees, customers, and partners — to help your customers feel closer to your brand. Virtual proximity through mirror neurons can be used to build fans in many ways: Use real people, instead of stock photos, on your website. When you shoot videos, look directly into the camera and adopt a friendly and open approach. When you conduct Webinars, use the video feature and look directly into the camera, preferably up-close to the camera lens. Try to have a photo of employees or customers, and/or a video of employees or customers, on every page of your website. You can develop your fandom today by being in close proximity to others and sharing that proximity with other people you can’t be near. Applying the strategies in Fanocracy will make your company more likely to dominate your category and win business. And beyond the financial benefits, a fanocracy spreads more joy and inspiration to the world at large. Take a look at the full HubSpot Academy Fanocracy: Turn Your Customers Into Fans and Your Fans Into Customers course.

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anneedmonds · 6 years ago

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Life Update: Linen Changes and Losing My Sh*t

This could be interesting; I’ve given myself forty-five minutes to write my monthly life update and I’m writing it, perhaps unwisely, from bed. Because it’s bloody freezing isn’t it? And we have now entered the month of May, which means that it is now illegal to turn the heating on. In this house, anyway. So I am wearing two cardigans and have scurried upstairs to put my legs under the duvet, which is why I have broken my self-imposed rule of never writing from bed.

It just feels wrong, writing from bed. Like I’m doing fake work. Mind you, I can’t eat or drink in bed either – unless it’s a hotel bed. I think it’s because the thought of having to change the bedding if I spill something is so utterly horrifying to me; it’s bad enough having to wrestle with the mattress cover and the fitted sheet and the duvet cover on the designated linen-change day, I’m not going to risk putting myself in the position where an additional change is necessary. No hot drink is worth that. Changing the duvet alone takes about eight days and that’s once you’ve worked out which way around it goes. Snapping the fitted sheet back on requires the strength and dexterity of twelve world class athletes and don’t even get me started on the complexities of the mattress protector. The only part of linen changing that I find remotely compatible with my skillset is the pillow cases, so I take my time with those and hope that Mr AMR will do the rest.

Anyway, life update: I have forty-five minutes because I am determined to be reading my Kindle and ready for sleep by 11pm and I want to fit a quick bath in before then too. I’ve been taking nightly baths with loads of epsom salts and they’ve been completely knocking me out! It’s brilliant! The deep sleeps coupled with my new exercise regime (I try to do two exercise classes a week, one pilates and one barre class) mean that I’m feeling significantly better than I did at the start of the year. Slightly less stressed (I’m developing something of a c’est la vie sort of attitude towards petty things that are out of my control) and definitely physically fitter, although I must admit that I type this with my belly lying across my lap like a weird, smooth, boneless pet.

It’s actually quite amazing that I think I’m less stressed because when I analyse my actions over the last week, I’ve blown my top at least five times. All with the kids. Can someone please advise on how it’s possible to deal with two simultaneous toddler/small child breakdowns and not completely lose their sh*t? Honestly, when one of them is screaming about an apple not being the right sort of apple and the other is using a chair to climb up into the sink that is filled with dirty pans and sharp knives, and then the doorbell goes and the dog barks and also a work email pops up asking if you’ve remembered the 4pm deadline for the post that needs to be with a client for approval and then the first child starts crying because they are hungry and they really, really need the correct type of apple, peeled and chopped into seven chunks, HOW IS IT POSSIBLE NOT TO COMPLETELY LOSE THE PLOT?

Other battles we’ve had this week; the requests for what amounts to a continuous supply of snacks. Even if they eat loads at mealtimes, they want crackers with peanut butter. Fruit. Not any fruit, just the sort of fruit that’s pricier than gold leaf – blueberries, raspberries, mango. They want slices of ham, small pieces of cheese – “just a tiny piece Mummy!” – and I stand at the cupboard like a big bird feeding morsels to my baby birds, their heads tilted upwards and mouths open, squawking loudly between drops.

Bless them.

How, also, is it possible to feel such gigantic swings of emotion? Elation one moment, when you get a spontaneous cuddle, or there’s a genuine heartfelt laugh at something, and deep despair the next, when you realise that the shadow on the carpet is, in fact, an entire beaker of spilt milk and that both children have been dancing in it whilst you’ve been on the phone to the electricity company.

Angelica (three years and nine months old) has a new hobby: rhyming. She can sing a made-up song for well over half an hour with lyrics made from utter nonsense, but each line ends with perfect rhymes. She’s like a tiny modern Shakespeare – she even adopts a strange, thespian sort of voice to deliver her poetic musings. I don’t know where she’s witnessed this, because she hasn’t yet been to a theatre, but it’s uncanny – she sounds like she’s been on tour with the RSC. Though I have to say that I listen with my heart in my mouth when she gets to certain sounds – “the wizard he likes ducks, in forests he does mucks, and I like doing lucks, and I don’t give two -“

So she likes rhyming, and she also likes throwing herself around in really dramatic power-move sorts of dances. Sometimes at the same time. I’ve had to hide the microphone. Although that’s mainly because Ted (two years and three months old) gets it in his little chubby grip and screams into it with his entire mouth wrapped around the top. It’s excruciating – like nails down a blackboard.

“LOOK MAMA!” he says, now. “LOOK, DADA!” At everything – cars, trees, birds. Objects that have been in the house since the day we moved, that suddenly become a great source of interest, as though they’ve just appeared from a different dimension. “SAUR, MAMA!” he says, pointing at the dinosaur head on his bedroom wall. “BOOKS, MAMA!” “DRAWER, MAMA!”

We’re still safety-pinning Ted into his sleeping bag – forget the pin at your own peril, because you will go up an hour later to find him still awake, naked bottom in the air, mattress soaked in wee and his clothes, nappy and sleeping bag completely dry and neatly cast aside on the floor at the foot of the cot.

Ted’s favourite object of the month: books. Any and all. Angelica’s favourite thing: the kitchen timer. Actually they both love the kitchen timer and they’re always going off with it and twisting the dial to set the alarm. It puts my nerves on edge, I tell you – always dinging at some random moment so that I’m half-expecting a pan of pasta to boil over or a cake to burn in the AGA. (Don’t make me laugh: I’ve never baked a cake in the AGA. I can’t remember the last time I baked a cake full stop!)

It has been an excellent month for non-bribed cuddles – Angelica has thrown herself around me a number of times and not just when I’ve been playing (under duress) the Prince from Cinderella. My most hated role. I even prefer being the evil stepmother. My favourite role of all is being the patient in the doctor’s surgery, because I get to lie down – although you have to be careful when Ted is the doctor because he hits you with the wooden hammer really hard. Clonk! on the knee. Clonk! on the ribcage. Clonk! on the top of your head.

It’s actually quite terrifying when Ted plays the GP – waddling over with his little red bag of tricks. “Teeth!” he says, so that he can check your teeth with the plastic mirror. It’s amazing I have any teeth still in place, the force with which he rips the mirror back out. And he’s a menace with the injection – good God! The look on his face when he administers the shot. Pure sadism.

Ted is the master of cuddles, despite also being a very convincing psychopathic doctor. The way he drapes himself around my shoulders and asks to be carried down the stairs utterly melts me. I still think of him as a baby, but it’s a coping strategy if I’m entirely honest; it’s hard to accept that your babies are no longer babies and then that’s it. When you have babies, you think that they will be like that forever and – although it’s a bloody good job they’re not babies forever – it’s a shock when you realise that you’ll never be needed in the same sort of way again.

Ho hum, moving on – my bath awaits and I have the latest Shardlake book (book seven!) waiting for me on my Kindle. A salt soak, a ten minute snoozy read and I’m off to the land of nod. I wish you all a wonderful bank holiday weekend if you’re in the UK – and a very happy birthday to Rach, my right hand woman and wonderful friend. I’m pretty sure Angelica’s rhyming obsession is your fault, Rach…

The post Life Update: Linen Changes and Losing My Sh*t appeared first on A Model Recommends.

Life Update: Linen Changes and Losing My Sh*t was first posted on May 3, 2019 at 11:16 pm. ©2018 "A Model Recommends". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at [email protected] Life Update: Linen Changes and Losing My Sh*t published first on https://medium.com/@SkinAlley

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tammyhybrid21 · 6 years ago

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Alright, so before it gets too far into NaNoWriMo this year, I feel like there is something rather huge I need to talk about, and that’s in regards to Identity. My own identity specifically. And I’m not talking identity in the context of gender or orientation, I’m talking identity as in names. What am I known as and who knows me as such. How do I view myself. What kind of issues do I have in regards to the world and my life... I’m talking identity in health.

Mental health...

So it’s going to be pretty heavy... and Yeah, this is getting posted for a reason. Because to preface it all, this NaNoWriMo has been set aside as a month of vent writing which is all well and good... but it does mean I’m kind of filling myself up with poison as I get all these negative emotions and feelings out of my system. All of this is going to be heavy, which means emotionally I am a mess.

Not that I wasn’t a mess before but now... it’s more... More prominent because I’m venting. Writing all sorts of nasty emotional stuff. And a lot of it is nasty... mostly to the “protagonist” of this whole thing. Which will be talked more about later, but straight up, I need to clarify some things before anyone gets worried.

Yes, I’ve been to a psychologist, that’s all getting dealt with, I’ve made steps. No, I’m not suicidal(mostly, that’s kind of in the air, depending on how much I do/don’t disassociate any given day). No, I’m not depressed(I don’t think), maybe anxiety, but awaiting confirmation and waiting for the confirmation on Autism but they are finally going to get it all tested and checked properly. Oh, and I’m not out on my own somewhere, so don’t worry, no risk of doing something stupid, I have people around me...

So... lets get to my point. The point of this preface, this heads up... and it’s to do with Identity. How I view myself and what I view myself as...

Firstly... does... does anyone remember my really, really brief time as Kin? No? Ehhh, well, I should start this by saying despite not advertising it, or really talking about it all that much... I still kind of am... kin I mean. But... it’s rather odd to explain, because this is a form of disassociation/detachment from reality and a coping mechanism... which yeah...

So, who/what am I kin with?

That’s... really personal, and I am not comfortable explaining it. So I’m not going to talk about it. Just know that I do have a kin type and I have my reasons for it. Although, I think that people could probably get a hint if they browsed my blog enough and found some particular posts, or you know, if they somehow stumbled upon my old abandoned kin blog... but yeah. That’s not the point, since I barely... barely call myself those names, the names of my kin type.

Still, it’s worth mentioning that I have them, and that they still help me when I’m deep, deep down into the negativity...

Next... I think I should talk about Pennames...

Yep, you’ve heard that right. My Pennames, my identity on the internet. The name that people see on the screen when you go to my fanfiction profile, or my AO3 account... and elsewhere... I need to talk about these before I move on, because they’re... a bit complicated. With some history there that’s... not exactly simple...

So let’s give the rundown then!

Tamara the Hybridian

TammyHybrid21

THybrid21

HybridTrash13

TA-Hybrid

HybridWrites

Straight up... people can all see that one common thread right? Hybrid. Yeah... And... that’s not something I’m going to pretend that I don’t identify with. Hybrid. Call me that, please. It makes me feel comfortable and like myself. Been attached to every penname I’ve ever had really(discounting that super, super brief stint as FamilyGirl, but we don’t talk about that time). But... that said... it’s not the only thing I use to refer to myself...

Not really.

And I need to talk about these other names... Because it’s not as simple as just saying well that’s that. Not really. Because despite being Hybrid, it’s not the only name I have. And it’s not everything that is my identity... And sometimes it feels off... not like it’s not me, but sometimes, I get so used to being referred to as such... I forget it’s not who I am.

So... all the names I am perfectly happy being referred to as, are a bit hard to explain though... because it’s disconnected. But here you go:

Tam, Tammy, Tamara(my actual name), Aramat, Mara, Milk, Hybrid, Tomorra, Neon

So... yeah... that’s a small thing. But it’s important to mention. Because sometimes, I’m so attached to the name Hybrid... I feel like I’m cutting myself off from the rest of who I am... and detaching myself from reality.

Slowly losing myself to a different identity.

So... moving straight on, let’s talk Self-Inserts. Specifically the ones I’ve got up above. Starting with the ones you’ll see the most often, and who’re the ones that I’m most attached to, to those who’re a little bit... less common a sight. So let’s get down to business why don’t we?

Let’s start with the obvious and most common one, Avatar. Who still doesn’t really have a name to speak of. They’re also still thirteen. THIRTEEN. There is a reason for this, beyond the simple fact that I originally made them when I was thirteen... And it’s kind of hard to explain without feeling all squirmy but... I have to explain it. I have to talk about this...

Avatar is my childhood.

They are a full representation of my childhood. Everything in their design is to do with something from my childhood. From the brighter colours to their generally more cheerfully aligned personality. Avatar has always been there. Has always kind of represented myself. Maybe they didn’t always exist as is... but, they have always been myself.

And for a very short while, they did age with me...

A very short while.

Before I set them back to thirteen because it felt wrong. Avatar, in that state... they reflect the innocence that I want to cling to. Childhood, and nostalgia. They’re... they’re the me I want to go back to being. They’re my optimism, hopes and dreams, and you can see exactly what I was into when I first made them. They wear my youth on their sleeve and in their face. Also... a lot of colour. Bright and vibrant. They’re an artifact of that time when I felt free to create and design with as many colours and combinations as I felt necessary.

Pure unbridled creativity.

And even now, I keep them. They are my biggest self-representation. A time of innocence and joy. Pure and uncorrupt. That’s what they are.

Which is... which is why they don’t have a name. Because they are me, my avatar. That’s why they are Avatar. Eternally.

Now... I know what you’re thinking... “Hey, isn’t that Hybrid? From the Roleplay blog?” and yes... it is... but...

But... they’re also a representation of me... Kind of.

It’s... a lot more complicated for them. But it starts with where they originate from. What their story originally was and not what it developed into. Because while now, there is this huge disconnect. They’re still... they’re still from a concept I had all the way back in Prep or so. A very, very short story...

And while they have grown far, far beyond that.

Become fully developed in their own right...

Which... is why I feel like sooner or later I’ll be changing their name more fully. Maybe... but at the same time. I don’t really want to fully disconnect myself from them. Because in many ways, Savior Complex, their story... it’s a coming of age thing for me. For myself. I want to change their name, disconnect them from me. Taking them away from myself that small bit further so they can fully fly...

I even know the one that they would be taking.

That would be theirs...

Tamika “Hooky” Hope Flynn

But... there is still attachment to them. Their original story and the way that they represent me at that transitional time. That rocking the boat time, the very edge, the precipice of growing up. They’re... much like Avatar, my childhood. But... they’re also much further away, and sometimes it feels like I am a stranger looking at a slightly twisted reflection when I view them.

So... when I announce the new and revamped blog for them...

There might be a small change in that regard... And it’s not like it’s a new name for them... there have been several, several revamps to their story before... and their identity... not just the shift from Self-Insert to OC either... Because... here’s the thing.

Their two other version. CorruptSavior and SpookySavior, those were iterations of their story at one point or another. So... take that as you will.

But yeah...

Hybrid/Hooky... might be getting a retool when I reboot that blog fully. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Alright!

Aramat time!

With the release of Deltarune I have a lot of new things to say, but that’s not the point here. No... Because those things aren’t important. Except in the context that now I might know a little bit more about this particular representation of myself. So... does anyone even remember them? No... Ahh well. This is Aramat...

And yes...

The trick to their name is incredibly simple.

Aramat = Tamara

Just backwards.

Ahaha, alright, now to actually talk about them. And on that note, I should actually mention something. Aramat has become a little bit more prominent recently. At least just a little bit... not by much, but they have come back. To run my multimuse roleplay blog... the hub.

aramat-mayhem-hub to be more specific. That’s where you’ll see them, or at least you’ll see their presence and feel it. And you want to know why... it has to do with dimensions and the observer rule. As a creator I am wont to observe my creations. Observe them like a watcher. I know what goes on in my own works and all of that. And Aramat is my representation of that. Outside looking in. So yeah.

Again, they exist for the most part in the void, the sixth dimension... which for those who don’t follow...

Literally just a line, from point a, to point b.

Shapes, basic shapes in a flat world on a piece of paper. Connecting in a few more directions now.

Depth. Finally we’re able to move around a bit, forwards, backwards and sideways.

Time, or rather duration. Time alteration generally falls into this category, because if you go backwards, you perceive it as having changed. And that’s your truth. (Note: Divinations still lands here, because they can only see one possibility and not all of them...)

Understanding, seeing and knowing the outcome of your timeline, and it’s many probabilities.

Parallel realities, understanding and seeing all the potential realities of not just your direct timeline, but of the infinite realities that it is in alignment with.

Understanding the entirety of one universe. So all the contained possibilities and the nitty gritty rules of the one universe that you find yourself within.

Bring on the multiverse. Understanding and perceiving that things don’t always work the exact same way, or even that the history will be remotely similar. Mechanics may also work differently and cause some trip ups where it needs to be smoothed over via technological coverup.

The entirety of the multiverse, imagine being able to understand all, what is and what could be, even what’s not yet existing.

Understanding beyond all the rest. Over even the omniverse.

Although, really, I’ve scratched off their original limitation of being a level six. They’re an eighth dimension being all the way! Because they are myself as an observer. And since they run the Hub. They have to know and interact with, perceive the multiverse. Or at least they can travel that. Knowing it inside out... not necessarily.

They’re not omniscient after all. Not a Deity of any description... But it’s a start I suppose.

So yeah... I don’t actually have that much to say about them in regards to my identity. Much like Avatar they just kind of exist as a vessel. A way for me to insert myself into a property that I love and represent myself. Nothing more and nothing less... and also just like Avatar... they are thirteen physically. Thirteen. So they’re young and childish. Innocence.

But there is something to be said in the way that I made them such an outsider I suppose.

Something...

Something that moves me right along to my next Self Insert...

Milk...

Yep, Milk.

“Hola! Soy Milk!”

...Follow the Marigold Path’s Milk...

Yes... I know, it’s no longer tagged as a Self-Insert, but I’m going to be perfectly open about the simple fact that it definitely still is one. And this is Milk... As a full Skeleton. Dead inside and out as opposed to just dead inside... Milk is me. Milk is...

Milk is the accumulation of all my issues. All of my issues, and a wonderful movie that I fell in absolute love with. The message, the animation, everything about Coco is amazing. Which brings me to Milk... And how they’re the first step in a downwards spiral regarding my representation of myself.

Milk, is my esteem issues given form in a whole story, and with the ability to actually unload those issues and talk about them, although in a distant way, separating myself from them... But it’s... pretty obvious that they’re my way of venting just slightly...

Which is why, when I posted a chapter of the story, where they mused on death and how it wouldn’t be so bad and got a review telling me to go kill myself for writing the fic....

...

Had...

Had I seen it not even ten minutes earlier than when I did...

I wouldn’t be here...

Milk and Follow the Marigold Path are very, very personal. Which to be fair, all self-inserts are, but this one is more. More personal, because there’s a lot more than just the typical romp through a fantastical world going on. Milk is a mirror to myself. A reflection and their views on things, it’s more than just watching someone make a mess of things by opening their mouth and saying the wrong thing. It’s got this thread and undertone.

It’s a love letter to Coco sure, it’s an exploration of a different plot to the movie, branching out and changing the plot even when it is taking place in the movie’s timeline... but more than that.

It’s coping.

Milk is coping.

Holding on... and holding my view of the world. How I feel about my place in it. Quite literally as well.

“People can be forgotten while still alive”

I feel forgotten. A lot, detached and distant. Like I’m wearing a mask and pretending to be myself. And that’s what Milk is a representation of. Quite literally in fact, with the risk of being forgotten and disappearing forever looming over their head as the sunrise approaches. And yet...

There is hope, a bright glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. And that’s what it is...

That’s what they are. A mix of both.

Incredibly personal and incredibly symbolic. As is the whole of Follow the Marigold Path. Maybe it’s fun, and I do so adore using reality ensues to absolutely turn the plot of the movie on its head with Milk’s involvement. But still. At its heart it’s still a Self-Insert story and I am using it to deal with my life. Deal with my reality...

Speaking of which...

That’s what this final character is...

Alma...

Alma means soul.

Or at least, that’s one of the meanings of Alma.

And it’s definitely the meaning that made me choose this name for the protagonist of my NaNoWriMo this year. The protagonist of my vent. Alma. Alma Bone. Soul Bone... for a literal meaning of her name...

And she is... My soul and my bones.

She is a character created entirely for vent...

A whole lot of self punishment if I’m being honest. Bleeding my pain onto the page. All the guilt and shame I feel, the issues I’m facing in my life, the decisions that I’m not sure I’m ready to make. My tears and fears, and the nightmares that I’ve been having. Small moments of peace do exist... but for the majority of NaNoWriMo... Alma’s life has been suffering. She’s the parts of me that I don’t want to acknowledge.

The pieces that I look into the mirror, see and hate. The pain and fear, the hatred and anger. Those deep and dark pieces that hurt.

The pieces of myself I want to tear out...

She’s a protagonist, but more in name only. In many ways, she exists to suffer. But... but... that’s not the only thing that is happening in this vent. Sure the majority of it will be suffering... but... Vent isn’t just suffering of the protagonist... and there’s a reason Alma is my darkness.

Some of that suffering...

Some of it...

It’s not just for Alma...

And that scares me sometimes. Look into a mirror and a monster stares back and all. So yeah... Because of this representation...

My mood is going to be dark. Negative, and don’t be surprised tumblr, if I start flooding you with positive stuff. Pep talks and the like, because I need to break from the dark that is my vent. Whether it’s punishing myself/Alma, or dishing it out... It’s all heavy, and I’m not an idiot, I know that sometimes you need to take breaks.

So tumblr is to be flooded with fluff and happiness.

To balance.

And if all else. I have people around me. So don’t worry. This is just sorting my emotions out... and when November is over and all is said and done... I don’t know what I’ll do with this vent that reads a lot like Creepypasta... I might delete it. I might post it somewhere... who knows.

I’m just...

Going to warn people. I’m in a dark place right now. And this month is dedicated to sorting that out... so... yeah.

Don’t worry too much, I’ll be hunting for positivity when taking breaks, and hey, all this counts as words today as well...

Because ultimately, this little identity talk...

That’s vent as well...

#NaNoWriMo #THybrid Personal #Vent #PSA #THybrid Speaks #THybrid Art

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omgwtfbbqhax-blog · 8 years ago

Text

Disclaimer: written for members of the Psychology 532 class at UW-Madison to understand. All other readers may be somewhat confused.

Communication has been and will be a key to human civilization, with its permanence being quintessential to the things we hold to be most human. Our ability to use our intellectual capability has been improved by being to record what we were feeling in exact moments, only limited by vocabulary. Or, as most early writing was, more economic measures in who owed who money. While the human brain is mesmerizing in its potential, it cannot remember everything which is why communication systems such as writing are integral to our societies. Writings complexity is unmatched in its variations among different cultures, but among all cultures one thing remains constant: its intransient nature. Although writing, and thus writing anonymously, has been known for tens of thousands of years, the internet has provided a new, and more efficient ways to communicate asynchronously than ever before. Additionally the internet has brought about the start of “keyboard warriors” with those saying over textual communications and keyboards things they would never say face to face or over the phone. This veil of anonymity that the internet provides is investigated in this deeper dive into how the internet is changing how we communicate.

Starting as a base with what was learned from class in Unit 4, Professor Gernsbacher showed us that the internet is providing more asynchronous (can be viewed at any time) and intransient (more permanent) than other forms of communication in her lecture. This is not making our communication briefer or less formal. After learning how to email a professor, and responding to other groups problems, we learned about differences in survey methods. We learned that surveys are more accurate when individuals respond via text message because they have a sense of anonymity as opposed to the traditional phone-based survey method. With no voice on the other end, the process is dehumanized, so individuals give more honest responses. Lastly, we chatted in our groups about the unnecessary concern around if texting is affecting children’s literacy. Following up on this, I would like to further discuss the role of anonymity and the internet. Though it is not a perfect fit in expanding upon this unit, I feel that this unit most closely represents what I further wanted to explore in this class.

Now let’s begin, first look at this image of the famous “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog” cartoon by Peter Steiner, published in 1993 (also found on the review sheet).

And look at a more recent response by Kaamran Hafeez in 2015, titled “Remember when, on the Internet, nobody knew who you were a dog?”.

Next watch the video “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a…” (audio not needed)

youtube

Next read the synopsis The positive and negative implications of anonymity in Internet social interactions: "On the Internet, Nobody Knows You're a Dog.” by Kimberly M. Christopherson below:

This article was a meta-analysis investigating the effects of anonymity on the internet, as well as providing some framework through which to understand it in the future. The author made a point that with the increased importance of anonymity plays in computer mediated communication (CMC), some framework needed to be provided, and social psychology frameworks can be used to explain anonymity in CMC. The authors defined anonymity as: inability of others to identify an individual or for others to identify one’s self. This was broken down into technical anonymity: removal of all meaningful identifying information about others in the exchange of material, such as internet communications, as well as social social anonymity: perception of others and/or one’s self as unidentifiable because of a lack of cues to use to attribute an identity to that individual. With these definitions in mind the authors began investigating privacy, anonymity, and CMC.

Personal privacy differed from anonymity in that anonymity could be being around others but not under surveillance by them, whereas privacy would be out of surveillance. Having anonymity in privacy provided recover, catharsis (purging through anonymous internet blog), and autonomy (explore identity by young people), with recovery being the most important (Pedersen, 1997).

The analysis also wrote about anonymity in groups, with polarization being higher in anonymous chats. An example of the bystander effect on the internet was used when a man confessed to burning his divorced wife and 5-year old daughter to a chat of 200 people and only 3 reported it. The postulation was that the anonymity of the chat room allowed people to not care as much as they would in face to face environments. The only theory of anonymity in face to face environments discussed was Zimbardo’s infamous deindividuation theory, defined as a state in which individuals are not “seen or paid attention to as individuals”. This theory would be later used in Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) theories on anonymity.

The paper then moved on to discuss theories involving CMC environments. The first was the simplistic equalization hypothesis which stated that completely hiding one’s physical appearance from others reduces social cues such as attractiveness, race, age, gender, or ethnicity, thus creating an equal playing field. Those who have less power in society (handicapped, women etc.) have more power on the Internet. The second theory was talked about in much more detail and that was the Social Identity model of Deindividuation Effects (SIDE) theory. This built on Zimbardo’s original theory, but placed more importance on the situation specific variables in a social situation. This was further divided into cognitive and strategic. Cognitive being that social norms are more likely to be followed when the individual has a high sense of social identity and personal identity is lower. Strategic was defined as the use of the anonymous qualities of the internet in a strategic way, i.e. a minority being able to stand up against a more powerful group. This also included that in non-anonymous conditions, social norms were more conservative i.e. you’re not going to show how you really feel. This theory included positive and negative effects of anonymity, with negative being that anonymity could be used for groups such as the KKK to talk more freely. However positive anonymity factors were also found in examples such as LGBT youth being able to talk without judgement about how they truly feel. Negative effects are viewed as anti-social and positive effects are viewed as pro-social.

The last part of the meta-analysis discussed the social use of technology. The author introduced the concept of Adaption Structuration Theory (AST) from the business world. Basically AST says that technology has two parts, the original idea which the creator intended it to be used for its “spirit”, and the other ways people use it. They would recommend using this to further investigate anonymous CMC. Additionally, AST could be used to investigate SIDE theory, as people will change how they use a technology depending on the situation. Also discussed was strategy and privacy and how strategic use of anonymity on the internet not only manipulates group social dynamics but is also a vital form of self-protection from potential perpetrators (no one knows you’re a dog on the Internet).

In conclusion the author stated that CMC affords many more possibilities to keep oneself anonymous, with some being negative and others positive. SIDE and AST provide a framework to explain and study anonymity.

Now read the Wikipedia page on the online disinhibition effect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_disinhibition_effect

Then read the synopsis of original The Online Disinhibition Effect by John Suler below:

Suler outlines six factors that contribute to the online disinhibition effect: dissociative anonymity, invisibility, asynchronicity, solipsistic introjection, dissociative imagination, and minimization of authority. However he is quick to point out that disinhibition is not terrible there is benign disinhibition such as being more generous and there is toxic disinhibition, which is the general nastiness online.

Dissociative anonymity is where people are allowed to hide behind usernames. This allows them to feel less vulnerable about self-disclosing and acting out since they’re not associated with it. The online self becomes a compartmentalized part of the person’s personality since they don’t have to own up to their decisions and can avert responsibility for their behaviors.

Invisibility differs from dissociative anonymity in that it’s the loss of not physically seeing or hearing someone. This gives people the courage to do things they ordinarily wouldn’t since there are no social cues and they can’t see how the other person is reacting.

Asynchronicity is the idea that text is long lasting online. You don’t have to react in real time or cope with someone’s immediate reaction, you can prepare yourself for a response. You can also avert social norms and “run away” after posting a message.

Solipsistic introjection is reading a person’s message in a voice that is experienced only within your head. You assimilate that person’s psyche and introject it into your own psyche. The mind will assign a face and voice to anything you meet online, basing the character on how they present themselves textually and one’s internal representation. People also subvocalize as they read, projecting the sound of their voice into the other person’s text.

Dissociative imagination is creating an imaginary character in cyberspace, having an online persona along with others that live in a make-believe dimension made possible by the net. This world is separate from the demands of the real world. This can be amplified by anonymity, expression by “split off” self may evolve greatly in complexity online.

Minimization of status and authority is the absence of cues from authority figures and the idea that elevated status has less effect online. Everyone is on a level playing field and this allows people to be more willing to speak out and misbehave. Suler also points out the net is designed with no centralized control.

Suler notes that online behavior does not bring out our “true or core” behavior but instead indicated personality shifts among intrapsychic constellations. What he means by this is some parts of personalities are close together and some are far apart,like constellations, it all depends on the specific person. The person online is the same as the online person in every regard just different dimensions of that person are being shown. There is no online “disinhibited self” but rather a collection of slightly different constellations that affect memory and thought and surface and interact with different types of online environments.

Now skim the synopsis Effects of anonymity, invisibility, and lack of eye-contact on toxic online disinhibition by Lapidot-Lefler and Barak below.

The authors in this article look at the three factors that may contribute to online disinhibition that causes toxic interactions. They are: anonymity, invisibility, and lack of eye contact. Online disinhibition effect was defined as a lowering of behavioral inhibitions in the online environment, while toxic behaviors involve flaming out and acting-out behaviors that damage other’s or one’s self image without any beneficial personal growth. Invisibility differed from anonymity as it was viewed as more of the hiding of stereotypes and lack of social pressure.

Using a 2x2x2 experiment the authors created anonymity by random aliases, and gave one respondent a life saving drug for the other, while the other respondent had to convince it to give it to them. They measured flaming out by monitoring, expert evaluation on a 3-point scale, and self reports. The only significant main effect was that for eye contact, with an interaction effect for anonymity x eye contact. Self reported flaming was higher in lack of eye contact and number of threats doubled, lack eye contact combined with invisibility had threats tripled. However the highest flaming mean appeared for anonymous and lack of eye contact combined. Conversely, the lowest amount of flaming occurred in anonymous and invisible partners who had eye contact.

The authors then have a more refined definition of anonymity as an assemblage of different levels of online unidentifiability in which non-disclosure of personal details, invisibility, and absence of eye-contact compose the most significant assemblage. In this you can have a variety of different “anonymities”. The authors postulated that lack of eye contact leads participants to feel less exposed and more anonymous and thus more inclined to engage in flaming related behavior. Eye-contact is meaningful for non-verbal communication, and this lack of eye-contact online plays a triggering role in negative online disinhibition. This new concept the authors named the Online Sense of Unidentifiability

First read the first three sentences from Wikipedia’s article on attribution theory:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_(psychology)

Now think about how many times you’ve used the internet for medical advice, and how many times you’ve checked the sources, then read the synopsis of The anonymity effect: The influence of anonymity on perceptions of sources and information on health websites by Stephen Rains below.

This research article investigated the anonymity of health websites and their impacts on those who read the, with 70,000 to 100,000 health websites this study is pertinent. The study also used the anonymity effect from the attribution theory, with vocal and visual heuristics missing from an online setting, people feel relatively anonymous. The authors use the example of an institution (the government) or an individual (political leader) as being an anonymous credible source by readers when cited in a newspaper article. This same effect was thought to correlate to the internet where people can tell their stories anonymously and appear to be credible and influential but actually give incorrect symptoms.

To test this they used a 2x2 design with 225 individuals tested. Anonymous sources were predicted to be credible and influential as those sources that were identified, this was true in the study. However the prediction that an interaction between source anonymity and the source’s reason for being anonymous was found to be incorrect. Anonymous and identified conditions were found to be viewed as equivalent on credibility on all but one dependent variable. This shows that lapses in critical information thinking can occur, and with more individuals using the internet to try and self diagnose this may become a more pressing issue.

Then read Anonymity and roles associated with aggressive posts in an online forum by Moore et al. synopsis below:

In this study the authors hoped to lay the groundwork for an automated tool that would help reduce the amount of cyberbullying online. Cyberbullying is different from normal bullying in that it doesn’t have to be in person, can occur at any time, be coordinated, happen in a variety of mediums, and bullies can be relatively anonymous. The authors used the forum website Formspring, in which people can ask other individuals anything they want, or say whatever they want, and hoped to create a “classifier” for finding when people were being cyber bullied.

Possible identifying factors of a bully post were profanity, the target, and whether they were anonymous. Researchers gave roles to individuals in the bullying process: the victim, bully, defender, outsider and bully encourager. There were 5230 forum posts downloaded from 26 forum pages.

Looking at aggressive messaging, the authors did both manual labeling and automated labeling. The website also has the option to post material anonymously which the authors postulated would free the bully from societal norms and allow them to be much more brutal. Along with this, when bullies were anonymous, victims could not apply ordinary techniques to prevent aggressive behavior. The victim’s defenders would often look like bullies in terms of profanity and aggressive language but would be much more likely to not post anonymously. There were two measures of anonymity: simply labeling a post as anonymous and measuring the number and strength of relationship between the individuals. Large amount of relationships and the individuals were more likely to know each other and vice versa. Automated labeling identified a reasonable ratio of attack forum posts (.35) and defends (.25) and the authors suggested using it as a time saving measure. Attack posts were anonymous significantly more than neutral posts, and half of defends were anonymous, this could be used to identify attacker or defender for the automated tool. Defenders had fewer but stronger relationships relative to attackers and neutral individuals. The ratio of attack and defend forum posts per forum page varied greatly, with the authors noting forum pages with low ratio of defends may be more at risk for cyberbullying.

In conclusion, the automated technique to label aggressiveness and anonymity correlated to manual labeling. This suggests that automated tools had some success labeling and identifying and labeling anonymous individuals. The automated tool could be used a time saving measure to help administrators.

Then listen to this podcast of “If you think you’re anonymous online think again” on NPR or read the synopsis below

The main idea of this podcast was that you are constantly monitored online by governments and private companies and there is very little you can do about it. Julia Angwin, author of the book Dragnet Nation takes you through her struggle to actually try to be anonymous online. Main takeaways from this is that your privacy is largely for sale whenever you visit a website and websites are able to track your spending patterns to offer you the best possible product. Even places that are giving you “free WiFi” are really selling your data and privacy.

Companies that collect data are called “data brokers” and are very secretive about what they collect, with 12/200 companies allowing the author to see what they had collected on her. Also Google knows everything about your life, and you can see every google search you’ve ever done if you want. However google is using this information to make searching faster based on what you previously searched. The government wants this information badly, because they have been tasked with creating algorithms to stop terrorist attacks before they happen and thus are just trying to collect as much data on everyone that they can. An alternative search engine that doesn’t track everything you do is Duck Duck Go.

In sum, though many of us feel like we’re anonymous when we use the internet we are far from private. Information is money and corporations are willing to shell out to all the information that they can. If you become more private through torr or Duck Duck Go then you’ll find that your internet speeds are slower than previous. On the internet, nothing is private.

As seen in these articles, nothing is truly anonymous on the internet unless you are very careful and willing to invest significant amounts of time and money into making yourself so. Whether or not this is a bad thing is up for debate. While all would agree that toxic online behaviors such as cyberbullying are utterly terrible, the other side of anonymity and invisibility on the internet is worthy of merit. The same mechanisms that allow for cyberbullying also allow for people to express their true feelings regardless of gender, orientation, race, or social standing. This is worthy of merit and may just be lifesaving by itself.

People are going to use the internet in today's society, that’s a given. Everyone in a survey I conducted through Survey Monkey indicated they use the internet either “almost constantly” or “several times a day”. However when surveyed more people indicated that they felt more anonymous than private on the internet. I had always thought of these two as intertwined but from these studies and this survey there is obviously a difference. People generally know that they’re being watched in everything they do online, and if they don’t, it would be nice to live in that blissful ignorance. The question remains, how much monitoring is too much monitoring for the greater good, and is there a market for companies to sell “privacy” on the internet, where you are less tracked by ads then you normally are.

Though this originally started off as something just investigating why people are mean under their veil of anonymity it has evolved into a more philosophical debate. The basic tenets of government oversight, government monitoring, the right or not right to privacy, and many other issues are at hand when considering how much the government can see into your not-so-private online life. When does the greater good of monitoring outweigh the complete loss of privacy?

Recently, the government decided to give away your ISP’s. If you’re interested in the subject, read this article below, in which the author has much more knowledge on the subject than I.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/29/everything-you-need-to-know-about-congress-decision-to-expose-your-data-to-internet-providers/

If you’re ever interested in what you look like to ads, check out your IP address at this website:

http://rmybrowserinfo.com/

There have been some websites put out to warn people about how much information they share on social media sites, most notably Take This Lollipop. If you haven’t seen it I would highly recommend using it to display just how much information is readily available if you know what to ask for (warning, content can be disturbing to some, do not watch if very easily scared)

http://www.takethislollipop.com/

If you’re interested in making your accounts more private after watching that video, check out this helpful article, and make any changes you feel necessary.

http://www.popsci.com/make-all-your-social-media-posts-private#page-4

Finally read one of many opinions on how to fix the internet by Walter Isaacson, and then give your personal thoughts.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/12/how-to-fix-the-internet/510797/

To me, the only way we can solve some of the most pressing issues regarding cyber bullying and rampant spying is by talking about them and discussing what should be the most progressive measures. Obviously there are going to be different opinions, but internet privacy and the internet in general has been ignored by lawmakers for far too long and legislation is needed.

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