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pyraxisApparently an "open mike" is when people take turns going to the front of a room and talking about themselves.
I found that out in a space called Hatrack. That's the other place that inspired this corner of the dreaming. It's for storytellers to come and talk about their stories. Just a few months ago, Earth time, they made a new space there, a place for the people in the stories to come and meet people from other stories. They're calling it an open mike. It's for everyone to get to know everyone else better.
I went there, 'cause I knew nobody from Karn or Ua would be able to find me there, and stood up and told them about me and the Grehti, and about Sha and UaLin.
And now I've made this little portal, they might figure out how to come here and find me, and go there, and hear all the heretic things I said. But you know what? I don't care anymore. Let them come here. This is the dreaming. I'll just jump up into the air and fly away, or go run up a tree and then make the trunk disappear so they can't climb up after me, or just open a door to nowhere and walk through it. Once you've made it to the dreaming once, you're free. Nobody from your world can ever get you again.
And meanwhile, I've got Sha to play with. I met another little boy at Hatrack, five and a half years old. His name was Caleb. Where are you, Sha? He says hi. But he can't come here, or maybe he doesn't want to, I'm not sure. Anyway, I thought the whole place was pretty awesome. We're not the only ones out there who go world-hopping.
I found that out in a space called Hatrack. That's the other place that inspired this corner of the dreaming. It's for storytellers to come and talk about their stories. Just a few months ago, Earth time, they made a new space there, a place for the people in the stories to come and meet people from other stories. They're calling it an open mike. It's for everyone to get to know everyone else better.
I went there, 'cause I knew nobody from Karn or Ua would be able to find me there, and stood up and told them about me and the Grehti, and about Sha and UaLin.
And now I've made this little portal, they might figure out how to come here and find me, and go there, and hear all the heretic things I said. But you know what? I don't care anymore. Let them come here. This is the dreaming. I'll just jump up into the air and fly away, or go run up a tree and then make the trunk disappear so they can't climb up after me, or just open a door to nowhere and walk through it. Once you've made it to the dreaming once, you're free. Nobody from your world can ever get you again.
And meanwhile, I've got Sha to play with. I met another little boy at Hatrack, five and a half years old. His name was Caleb. Where are you, Sha? He says hi. But he can't come here, or maybe he doesn't want to, I'm not sure. Anyway, I thought the whole place was pretty awesome. We're not the only ones out there who go world-hopping.
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Date: 2008-12-23 02:02 am (UTC)YES
Date: 2008-12-24 04:08 am (UTC)Short answer: YES. This is what Shashigai and I meant to do in Dekan. But it may be that fully-realized Dekan is too intimidating or offputting to a stranger. You'd know better than I would.
What I want to build is more than just a writers' haven. That was just how I was phrasing it to fit in with the Hatrack folks. My intent here is to be totally multiplicity friendly. I want to challenge the basic distinction between reality and fantasy. Daria wasn't kidding about the soulbonds and jiko and alternate means of communication. I want a place for people who "aren't real" to be able to meet and talk to people who are. I want to laugh in the face of the biggest conflict facing a multiple - "Is it real?" - and say, "Does it matter? Come with us and be." And I'm prepared to deal with the drama that tends to haunt multiples wherever they go.
That, and the market research I've done points to the idea that it's best to start promoting a book at least a year in advance of manuscript completion and sale, to build up a potential fan base. I'm sure something similar is true of comics. Fiona and Sha's story needs promoting.
Shashigai's done some name checking, and thedreaming, the_dreaming, and dreaming are already taken. So we'd need a new name.
These are the directions my mind spirals. I hope I'm not scaring you off. :P
Re: YES
Date: 2008-12-24 06:46 am (UTC)I'll admit I'm fairly ignorant about multiplicity. I've wondered about it a bit- where the line is between fictional characters and multiple personalities. I'm not thinking they're the same thing, but wondering if there's sort of a spectrum or some grey areas in the middle there. Personally, I think of my characters as fictional- I can edit what they do, their main purpose is for entertainment and to create a story, but at the same time there is something going on there- They've done things that I don't expect, the stronger ones tend to really write themselves, and they cross the fourth wall like crazy and do stuff like watch movies with me. My characters have always been a huge part of my life and it feels great to be able to let them out to interact with people in places like this.
At the same time, I'm definitely interested in getting critiques, having people be able to say whether or not my characters have individual voices that come across or not, and a potential problem that immediately came to mind is that if we get somebody who is a multiple, or not in whatever the heck the fictional/multiple middle ground is, I doubt they would like to be critiqued. To solve this, we could have the critique post be voluntary- basically have a post for critiques where people can start comment threads asking for critiques on their own characters, instead of letting people just go ahead and critique whoever they want. Although I'm sure that could lead to some pretty interesting debates if a character/person/jiko/whatever didn't want to be critiqued and had to stand up to defend themselves. Or we could let the fictional people critique the real people as well and let it get REALLY weird! :D
I'm also not so sure if non-fictional multiple people would be so comfortable putting themselves in the same category as fictional people. I imagine that could be a sore point for some of them. But if we're setting up the place as "It doesn't matter if you're real, fictional, multiple, whatever- you can come out and chat here", then if they're not okay with that, they shouldn't be there anyway. Same with any not-multiple-or-fictional people who want to stop by.
About Dekan- I think it's a good idea. My biggest problem with that is since it's from your story, instead of a blank canvas place, it makes me feel a little limited in what I can do there. Like I'm still trying to figure out the rules. And I don't think many of my characters could do well there, since I'm definitely more in the non-magical science fiction thing. I'm looking forward to getting to explore the place a bit, but I don't think even Jim is going to want to stay long.
But I do like the idea of being able to get fictional places involved in this as well. And not just in the way the pizza party happened, with the whole blank space ending up full of psychedelic trees, although that was awesome. Maybe we could let people start posts describing their place, and then let them sort of be the game master in the comment threads for whoever wants to show up and explore or hang out there.
I guess my ideas aren't so good for if you're wanting to do this in a way that's more focused on promoting your book. Your Dekan community would be fine for that as is, and I'll definitely be reading it and interacting there any way I can. I just think a blank-space-in-the-dreaming could bring in a more varied group of people, and while it might be less focused, being a creator/moderator/participant would probably get some attention, and you could promote Dekan there and do both.
Anyway, wow I'm rambling. Just sort of throwing out ideas. Let me know what you think.
I suck at coming up with names, so I probably won't be much help there.
Re: YES
Date: 2008-12-25 04:32 am (UTC)Anyway, that is to say I totally agree about making it a blank space in the dreaming. Wide variety of people is good. We should totally do it.
Shashigai promised me a name by tonight - he's very good at them. So I think we can get a place started ASAP.
Re: YES
Date: 2008-12-25 04:06 am (UTC)Re: YES
Date: 2008-12-25 05:32 am (UTC)I've gotten to know a couple of multiples pretty well, and my brain is spilling over with ideas that I haven't been able to discuss because there were so few people who wouldn't write it all off as insane.
I'm totally with you that multiplicity is a spectrum, same as autism. It seems to be correlated with hypnotic suggestibility - also a spectrum trait.
One thing that struck me: you said the one thing that bugged you was the people who freak out with "Waaaah, you're disrespecting me because you don't believe I'm channeling the spirit of a dragon!" One of the things that I've seen separate the multiples from people with active imaginations is the degree of emotion bound up in it. I could hypothesize all kinds of reasons for that - mostly related to the way the reality of multiplicity becomes tied to the reality of the abuse most multiples have survived. So to say any variant of "you're not really a multiple" - "your dragon's not real" or whatever - is interpreted as "your abuse never happened". With all its emotional repercussions.
Re: YES
Date: 2008-12-25 06:17 am (UTC)Hypnotic suggestibility: I've never been hypnotized, but apparently my dad is ridiculously easy to hypnotize and was frequently experimented on at college with this, if I remember correctly what he said (plus he has characters! He's writing a novel!). I've never let anyone try to hypnotize me, even though I had a few opportunities to try it in the past, because it was always close to my imagining-self-as-robot phase and I was too worried I'd let that out, or let any of my fictional stuff out, and end up with people thinking I'm totally crazy.
Huh, your last paragraph is interesting, I hadn't thought about the abuse bit. That's definitely understandable. I was thinking of it as more of a spectrum between multiple consciousnesses and one consciousness with multiple characters. But... yeah, non-linear spectrum, lots of factors involved. Interesting. I'm just hoping if we get people like that showing up, we can find some way to interact without freaking each other out. Because heck, if a dragon shows up, I'm not going to believe it's non-fictional, but I'm going to believe it's fictional AND real and want to talk with it anyway. :)
Re: YES
Date: 2008-12-25 08:42 pm (UTC)Now we need you, Jim, and your energy, and your friends.
Pyraxis, get out of this academic analysis before you lose yourself in it, and just go.
- Daria
Re: YES
Date: 2008-12-25 05:51 am (UTC)Re: YES
Date: 2008-12-25 06:22 am (UTC)