Utherworlds

[pyraxis]

I discovered, yesterday, another worldwalker come to Earth from the dreaming. His name is Lucas Sellers and he claims to be just a messenger, and I can see why: the sheer force of vision behind him steamrollers flat any personality he might have had. And that's okay - messenger is a very important role in the multiverse. But his mission (through the link, click "My Message" in the lower right) - and its overwhelming success - raises a hundred questions for me about our own mission.

The Utherworlds business model is very similar to the ideas I have been playing with for the Water Song project, and selling Karn, Ua, and Tapolith on Earth as a new IP. There is a limited edition graphic novel by Ballistic Publishing, soundtrack by Alan Hewitt, a blog, forum, and introductory website. The man Lucas Sellers has hooked up with is exceedingly powerful: Philip Straub, a world-renowned concept artist who has worked with some of the same companies pyraxis has worked with. In fact, she has spent time working down the hall, without knowing it, from one of the people closely involved with the project development.

This leaves many questions for those of us on the committe who are interested in advocacy. Yes, I'm looking at you, leader-of-the-toren. I know that what you want is more than pretty pictures backed up by a marketing machine. Care to explain to us what it is?

That goes for any other worldwalkers, dreamers and multiples out there who have connections to rich undiscovered lands, or who are just awesome people from worlds other than Earth, and are interested in what it would mean to see themselves and their homes well known over here. Or perhaps more than that - who know a little of the fight Lucas is facing on the other side. I see incredible possibility in communities like multipliticy, lacking the organization, connections and business sense - let alone the emotional strength and fighting spirit - to walk openly on Earth as Lucas seems to be doing and let others see all the glory and truth and passion they already live in. There is a big opportunity waiting for us to create a context that singlets can understand, a new mass media image beyond the classic DID stereotypes.

- Lin, Raba Ua

Comments

[yonjuunana.livejournal.com]

There is a big opportunity waiting for us to create a context that singlets can understand, a new mass media image beyond the classic DID stereotypes.

I'll probably respond more later when I have time, but yes- I think I mentioned earlier that there seems to me like there's a huge void out there of information on multiplicity. Not talking about the classic DID stuff, but the creative side of things. It sucks because it would be great to have the info out there so more people could understand, but at the same time having a void creates a big opportunity to fill that void, and whoever successfully gets there first will both be able to do a lot of good in terms of advocacy, as well as possibly getting a fair amount of recognition and get their art/world more out there.

[pyraxis]

Yes, I'm looking at you, leader-of-the-toren. I know that what you want is more than pretty pictures backed up by a marketing machine. Care to explain to us what it is?

Yeh cause this is such a great place to talk about being invisible. Karn they try to kill us, Earth they just Attempt to Disbelieve.

I'll tell you what's real. A country full of scared people who think they're gonna get hijacked on planes when they're really the strongest group in the world. Buncha scared multiples too who think they're gonna be committed for insanity, and there's no better way to get all your rights and freedoms bulldozed than be committed for insanity.

Ya know what, there's already a world full of RPG's and nobody calls that insane. What scares people is how far a multiple takes it: far enough that you have to question your own reality. Your assumptions. That fear's not gonna go away cause people are always scared of the unknown. And multiples don't like RPG people, why, cause RPG characters are created discarded and controlled at whim and us, we like our free will.

We like our free will.

That's what has to be defended outside the pretty pictures. The idea that 'characters' can have a mind of their own, and then a place for them to develop it. Cause it takes a lot of fumbling and awkwardness to learn how to use your free will even when you've got it. It's a call people will answer and orbit in secret, symbol-stalking. Come out of the woodwork at odd times. We gotta give them a woodwork to come out of. Have a presence loud enough to build an environment where they feel safe to speak as themselves.

[jimnightmare.livejournal.com]

We gotta give them a woodwork to come out of. Have a presence loud enough to build an environment where they feel safe to speak as themselves.

Daria... You know if you're trying to do anything like this, I'm in. I want to help any way I can. Maybe you didn't need to save my ass this latest time on my lj, but you guys really totally saved my ass in the first place. I mean maybe if I hadn't met you I'd have had no place to go after the whole pizza party thing and nobody who really thinks I exist and I'd still be stuck in the background. So... yeah I really really really see how having a woodwork is important.

[pyraxis]

Problem is toren, and speritu sane enough to talk to, are pretty rare. Five years on Earth and I've only met four. Counting yonjuunana as honorary toren. Plus one siren who was probably a sperith but I never got close enough to her to see. So our yumeza is empty even though it's waiting and open. We need a momentum.

They've got a good thing going in multiplicity. I'm not going to get in ksol1460's way. Just not gonna do it. What needs to be built is something else.

[jimnightmare.livejournal.com]

Oh oh oh oh oh, you just helped me figure out how to say some of why I'm still feeling kind of weird about multiplicity. I mean, it's been getting really rubbed in my face that we're multiple lately, 47 had a hard time staying at the front the other day and it was completely nuts, but still all the stuff the multiplicity community is doing is cool but seems like more of a side thing to me, like I give less of a damn about people thinking I'm a person on Earth and more about the whole "it's all real" imagination thing. I mean they're kind of stuck together. But even if everybody on Earth thought multiples were real people, what the fuck good would that do me if I say I'm a robot or 47 says she's a spacerobot or whatever? Then they'd get to think I'm a real crazy person! Or a real person who needs to grow up and stop being so imaginary, and my life would suck.

I get what you're saying about not wanting to get in the way. It looks like there's a lot of people out there where "hey, I'm imaginary!" wouldn't be so good for them. But still it's like there has to be more options out there, and I really do wish there was more of a community for the creativity side of this stuff. Maybe we need some big loud art thing to find more people.

...Part of what's bugging me is I do know another toren on deviantart. At least I did a while back but I haven't seen her in a long time. And I keep thinking I really really want to tell her everything I've been doing and what we've learned, but there's like no community yet or anywhere to go, and she's only like the same age as me, so I don't know. There's nowhere I can point her to. So maybe she'd think I'm nuts or maybe she'd get into it but it would just make her life harder. :(

What are you saying by speritu on Earth? Was 47 a speritu when she was trying hard to not be into this stuff?

[pyraxis]

What are you saying by speritu on Earth? Was 47 a speritu when she was trying hard to not be into this stuff?

...Only kind of. If she was, she was a pretty harmless one.

The woman I said was probably a sperith... it was because she recognized Shash for what he was and tried to murder him. And the other man, it was because walking with him was like hanging over the edge of a cliff clinging to the wrist of somebody being sucked into a vortex. And in the end we couldn't hold on.

Calling someone sperith isn't like tossing around internet diagnoses... I'm wary of doing it even now, 'cause of what it implies. It's so so so risky and easily misunderstood. It's like saying a person is so trapped that no matter what they do, it'll only end up causing harm and death. And that's a horrible way to condemn a life. Especially when I'm just guessing from a distance based on how they smell and what I recognize from home.

But sometimes it happens, that a person gets killed on Earth and their soul gets trapped in the between.

[pyraxis]

...Part of what's bugging me is I do know another toren on deviantart. (...) but there's like no community yet or anywhere to go, and she's only like the same age as me, so I don't know. There's nowhere I can point her to.

More to say later. But first words: if even the guy who helped start yumeza says "there's like no community" then something's wrong.

[jimnightmare.livejournal.com]

Oh! :D Well I did point her at that, and she said it looked cool but she doesn't do lj so... yeah. Maybe we need some more official-y website thing with writing and stuff for not lj people. I dunno. Sometime. Some kind of info resource that's not the normal multiplicity or soulbonding whatever. I'd write shit for it and I KNOW 47 would be into that. Maybe let's talk more later when it's not Nano?

[pyraxis]

A post to consider when NaNo is finished and we have more time.

[yonjuunana.livejournal.com]

Hahahahaha, uhh, I had a dream last night that you and Shashigai were living in Washington and looking to buy a new house, and I was all excited about that and following you guys around to help you check out houses. Daria (who had her own physical body IRL) was there, too. And we looked at this one house you really liked, but Daria disapproved because it turns out she's very obsessive and knowledgeable about house architecture styles and the house had trim that was a style she didn't like.

WTF, brain?! XD

[pyraxis]

XD Um.

Dar's not, but Dar's the kid's main guardian/intermediary, and the kid very much is obsessed with architectural styles. In fact, she wants to know what kind of trim it was and what color it was painted.

[yonjuunana.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, well, the house in the dream was sort of a big box-y thing, two stories, not very modern-looking, painted white. The trim was wooden, cut kind of wavy, and painted dark green. I can try to do a little sketch of what the house looked like sometime, I remember it pretty clearly.

[yonjuunana.livejournal.com]

Here, have a terrible MS Paint + mouse drawing of your dream house.

The curvy bits of trim were a lot more even and less squiggly, there's just no way I could draw that with a mouse.



So what do you think, j-t and Daria? Do you disapprove? XD

[pyraxis]

It's boring! Who cares about the trim, it's an ugly shape and white is the worst color for siding. It's like cheap colonial, they couldn't even afford roof trim. And if it was built recently, it'll probably blow over in a strong wind.

[yonjuunana.livejournal.com]

Hahahaha, so can I claim to have had a completely pointless but vaguely prophetic dream?

[pyraxis]

That does seem to be what it looks like. :P

[pyraxis]

@Dar: Oh, is that why I got mobbed by speritu last night? 'Cause you were off playing hooky with j-t in Washington? XD

[pyraxis]

Aw c'mon, you know you loved it.

[pyraxis]

Yeah well I could have used a working gun. Why the hell couldn't I create one? It was a dream, right, I knew that at the time and I was imagining as hard as I could and I still couldn't make one. What's the secret to the Neo paradigm-shift?

[yonjuunana.livejournal.com]

Hahahahaha, what did you need the gun for?

Ah, the joys of lucid dreaming. Just because you know it's a dream doesn't necessarily mean you'll be able to do anything with/about it. *remembering one lucid dream where I realized I was dreaming, and instead of doing anything cool I spent the rest of the dream sulking in a corner. hey, it seemed perfectly reasonable at the time!* XD

[pyraxis]

LOL, because I was locked in an apartment with a guy that was trying to kill me. Except whenever I tried to fight him, one or the other of us would be incorporeal and we'd go straight through each other. It was like being trapped in someone else's horror movie though, because stuff still happened, just at the point of greatest emotional impact instead of the point where it would actually make sense. So I'd try to shoot at him with a gun that wasn't there, and nothing would happen, and then I'd suddenly turn around and he'd be dead, with his arm twisted right through his body and his hand sticking out of his face. So I'd jump awake, and then fall asleep again and be right back in there with a different guy after me. It didn't occur to me till the next morning that incorporeal = toren and that the guys were fighting just like speritu fight, where it's all about how much fear they can evoke in you before they take you out. And that the way they were dying is what would happen to a toren who screwed up the change.

It was weird though, I don't usually have lucid dreams at all, sulking or not. :P