#there was other stuff happening this year preventing creation and thought processes on specific levels that i will not blame myself for

[magnolia-sunrise]

i think i once again get too much in my head about like, what i post and how its supposed to look to get anyones attention/validation and such and its a really annoying hurdle to try and get past. this is to say this whole year ive wanted to show more concepting and info around androids and worldbuilding and such but i get such ! idk trepidation around it ! like its all okay when i roll around stuff in my head, note it in my documents or doodle it in my sketchbook but i get stage fright thinking about how to make any of these thoughts presentable ? interesting ? for this blog/online posting . isnt it stupid?

anyway this is me not so secretly asking if people are interested in any sort of messy concept sketches and me dropping some random facts and info about how androids work et cetera uhh like and subscribe to hit my brain with a broom

[duchessofostergotlands]

Breakdown of my views on The Statement: My thoughts in bold

We are pleased to now be able to share with you an update on many of the details agreed at a meeting of The Royal Family in January 2020, which outlines The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s new roles, taking effect Spring 2020. We had hoped to be allowed to share these details with you sooner (to mitigate any confusion and subsequent misreporting), but the facts below should help provide some clarification around this transition and the steps for the future. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t 

AS AGREED AND SET OUT IN JANUARY 2020:

It is agreed that the commencement of the revised role of The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will take effect Spring 2020 and undergo a 12 month review. No problem here, all makes sense

The Royal Family respect and understand the wish of The Duke and Duchess of Sussex to live a more independent life as a family, by removing the supposed ‘public interest’ justification for media intrusion into their lives. They remain a valued part of Her Majesty’s family. THIS IS SO FUCKING DISRESPECTFUL. “The supposed ‘public interest’ justification for media intrusion.” It’s not supposed. The fact they think that shows such lack of understanding of what their role is. We give them millions, they have a completely unearned influence over government and society at large. To prevent corruption they have to understand that public interest is an incredibly powerful argument. I get that there have been things that have happened that are intrusive and unnecessary, I’ve said that myself. But this is not the way to tackle them because the public interest should be central to everything they do and there were things that were in the public interest that they didn’t consider to be (like Harry’s recent lost case about his cropping of the elephant photo). 

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will become privately funded members of The Royal Family with permission to earn their own income and the ability to pursue their own private charitable interests. Privately funded means no Duchy support which hasn’t yet been confirmed. This is ultimately misleading because they always had permission to earn their own income as working royals - as Harry knows, he was a soldier earning a wage - but had restrictions because they had to remain accountable. They don’t want the restrictions 

The preference of The Duke and Duchess of Sussex was to continue to represent and support Her Majesty The Queen albeit in a more limited capacity, while not drawing on the Sovereign Grant. HOW DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND YOU COULD NEVER DO THIS??? Again, the total lack of understanding of public sentiment and the important relationship between the public and the monarchy astounds me. What they’re saying is that they wanted to continue to be working royals and represent the UK officially with all of the power and privilege that comes with it but not have any of the ties that make them accountable. That’s not how it works. 

While there is precedent for other titled members of the Royal Family to seek employment outside of the institution, for The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, a 12-month review period has been put in place. There is no precedent for this situation and the fact that they keep saying that is feeding the stan nonsense about them being treated more harshly. Other royals are allowed to make income outside of the monarchy - as Meghan and Harry were at all times - but have to have approval from the Queen and the Lord Chamberlain. They didn’t want that which is their right - but is also their choice! 

Per the agreement The Duke and Duchess of Sussex understand that they are required to step back from Royal duties and not undertake representative duties on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen. Yep, all good

As agreed and set out in January, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will retain their “HRH” prefix, thereby formally remaining known as His Royal Highness The Duke of Sussex and Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Sussex. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will no longer actively use their HRH titles as they will no longer be working members of the family as of Spring 2020. Yep, all good. I don’t really think it was ever necessary for them to drop the HRH but that’s just my view 

As the grandson of Her Majesty and second son of The Prince of Wales, Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex remains sixth in line to the throne of The British Monarchy and the Order of Precedence is unchanged. Yep, totally cool. Now tell us whether he’ll remain a Counsellor of State which is a major constitutional issue 

It was agreed that The Duke and Duchess will no longer be able to formally carry out ‘official duties’ for The Queen or represent The Commonwealth, but they will, however, be allowed to maintain their patronages (including those that are classified as ‘royal’ patronages). Yep, no problem with this. This is about the individual relationship between the couple and their patronages, not about the BRF

It is agreed that The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will continue to require effective security to protect them and their son.  This is based on The Duke’s public profile by virtue of being born into The Royal Family, his military service, the Duchess’ own independent profile, and the shared threat and risk level documented specifically over the last few years. No further details can be shared as this is classified information for safety reasons. The monarchy has not confirmed this and as their first statement is now almost complete rubbish, I’m waiting to see if this turns out to be true long term. We have a right to know which countries are paying for their security, however. Canada has a right to know, we have a right to know if our taxpayer funds are going towards people who don’t live here or work here 

In relation to the military, The Duke of Sussex will retain the rank of Major, and honorary ranks of Lieutenant Commander, and Squadron Leader. During this 12-month period of review, The Duke’s official military appointments will not be used as they are in the gift of the Sovereign. No new appointments will be made to fill these roles before the 12-month review of the new arrangements is completed. This isn’t what we’d been led to believe so I’m not sure what the truth is here. I expect the BRF will have to clear it up  

While per the agreement, The Duke will not perform any official duties associated with these roles, given his dedication to the military community and ten years of service he will of course continue his unwavering support to the military community in a non-official capacity. As founder of the Invictus Games, The Duke will proudly continue supporting the military community around the world through the Invictus Games Foundation and The Endeavour Fund. It’ll be interesting to see how this works because the Endeavour Fund is a project of the Royal Foundation so will he be privately funding it? Which contradicts with their point below? Or will he be doing work for the Royal Foundation? 

Based on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s desire to have a reduced role as members of The Royal Family, it was decided in January that their Institutional Office would have to be closed, given the primary funding mechanism for this official office at Buckingham Palace is from HRH The Prince of Wales. The Duke and Duchess shared this news with their team personally in January once they knew of the decision, and have worked closely with their staff to ensure a smooth transition for each of them. I get why they might be trying to frame this as out of their control but they decided to step back and they bear all the responsibility for these people losing their jobs. Take ownership of what you do. If they’d just included the below point it would have been fine. 

Over the last month and a half, The Duke and Duchess have remained actively involved in this process, which has understandably been saddening for The Duke and Duchess and their loyal staff, given the closeness of Their Royal Highnesses and their dedicated team.

As The Duke and Duchess will no longer be considered full-time working Members of The Royal Family, it was agreed that use of the word ‘Royal’ would need to be reviewed as it pertains to organisations associated with them in this new regard. More details on this below. No problem. I didn’t necessarily think this needed to happen but it’s probably cleaner. 

ADDITIONAL DETAILS:

As shared in early January on this website, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex do not plan to start a ‘foundation’, but rather intend to develop a new way to effect change and complement the efforts made by so many excellent foundations globally. This point and the sentences below are utter gibberish. Stop with the buzz words (literally every charity is cause driven jfc...) You also did call it a Foundation when you legally registered it so I can’t imagine why people would possibly be confused you’re saying it’s not a Foundation

The creation of this non-profit entity will be in addition to their cause driven work that they remain deeply committed to. While The Duke and Duchess are focused on plans to establish a new non-profit organisation, given the specific UK government rules surrounding use of the word ‘Royal’, it has been therefore agreed that their non-profit organisation will not utilise the name ‘Sussex Royal’ or any other iteration of ‘Royal.’ Fine

For the above reason, the trademark applications that had been filed as protective measures and that reflected the same standard trademarking requests as done for The Royal Foundation of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, have been removed. I do think it was fair enough to point this out because the press have been suggesting the trademark was about selling stuff with their name on it when everyone trademarks stuff as a protective measure

While there is not any jurisdiction by The Monarchy or Cabinet Office over the use of the word ‘Royal’ overseas, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex do not intend to use ‘Sussex Royal’ or any iteration of the word ‘Royal’ in any territory (either within the UK or otherwise) when the transition occurs Spring 2020. This was definitely Harry. Anyway this is something that again seems to ignore public sentiment. The primary view was that they could do what they want but not claim to be Royal. This isn’t just the Queen being a meanie, it’s the Queen and the Government respecting public opinion. But ultimately, they chose to agree to this. They could use Royal if they wanted to, they acknowledge there’s no jurisdiction. So either do what you want or stop whingeing about it 

As The Duke and Duchess of Sussex continue to develop their non-profit organisation and plan for their future, we hope that you use this site as the source for factual information. In Spring 2020, their digital channels will be refreshed as they introduce the next exciting phase to you. “Source for factual information.” Given that your entire first statement was bollocks and you’ve misled people in this one I don’t really trust that you’re the source for factual information. You’re the source for your version of events. Which you’re entitled to be, but don’t paint it as the objective truth. No one should present themselves as infallible and above questioning 

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex eagerly await the opportunity to share more with you and greatly appreciate your support!

[thejudgingtrash]

I wanna hear the Dom/sub discourse!!! Also love ur blog :) (I personally am a proponent of dom percy just bc I like that idea but I’d love to hear yours!!! I didnt even know there was discourse!) love to hear your thoughts and again super cool blog!!!! :’)

* ALSO WOULD LIKE TO CLARIFY IF IT WASNT ALREADY ESTABLISHED BUT ONLLLLLLY IF THEY ARE LIKE IN THEIR OLDER 20S!!!! ppl doing that in the context of teens is *gross* (previous anon who sent in the ask before) :)

Oh! Thank you for the compliments. I’m still not used at being so visible now to people 🥺😥😅

Good that you’ve added your points because that essentially brings down my issues with this whole spiel. I guess I’m going to play the other card. My main issues with this whole thing are:

A) the fandom sexualizing kids

B) people not understanding that looks/behavior in or outside of a (romantic) relationship don’t necessarily have to correlate with sexual behavior, especially when powerplay is involved

Of course Percy is easier to grasp for us. We have five whole books where we hear his every thought, follow his every move and think we get to know him (that automatically makes Percy not a reliable narrator, just saying).

For every book quote that puts Percy into the „Dom“ slot, there’s also a book quote that would be fitting for Annabeth (the dance from TTC comes to my mind). I can see both going either way. Despite them having mostly different personalities (Percy internalizing his thoughts and motives, whereas Annabeth is doing rather the opposite), they are very similar when it comes to leadership and end goals. Annabeth can range from emotional to bossy in a similar way Percy does. They just express themselves on different levels and get seen by outsiders in different ways.

Did you catch that? Did you see the hypocrisy that I just committed? We are using book quotes to justify placing characters that are in that context and in overall canon minors/teens/essentially fucking children in sexualized categories. Tbh, as much flag as you can give Riordan, I can’t blame him for blocking people who do this. Not every author is a fan of fanfiction and fan theory and what not.

People throwing these BSDM terms around without a second thought makes me cringe (tbh, I’m too lazy to explain the psychology of power play and kinks in that regard, just know that the instigator is not automatically the top/dom and there are many, many, many layers in a pp relationship). You cannot base sexual behavior from the canon itself. We know nothing about Percy and Annabeth in that regard to even justify the slightest. Ripping actions out of context to give them a label doesn’t work like that so easily unfortunately.

The only way to settle this question for once and all would be by simply doing this:

The whole debate that happened months/weeks ago (quarantine makes everything blurry in my memory) was just fucking stupid?

Imagine being a 15 year old, anxious, frightened girl. You’ve been deeply traumatized since you’ve been seven years old, you’re scared to death because you have a crush on your best friend and think he might perish (newsflash: of course you as the reader can foreshadow that in that context the series goes on. The characters can’t as they lack that specific insight. Percy didn’t have to wind up dead in the books, but he could have been severely mutilated, gone missing (guess he did later), bruised, etc. apart from his mental struggles. The super power part is essentially the only thing that’s keeping him alive), you give him a kiss because you’re too shy to admit your feelings for him and he’s being an awkward cheeky bastard before looking for a fight and then some adult asshole has the caucasity of calling you a bratty sub. Literally what.

Some anon (or a group of anons, don’t know which) contacted a bunch of people with that Dom!Percy and Sub!Annabeth stuff. Anon, Liebste, homegirl, my love, mija, if you see this please slide into the DMs because whaddefuck? Your thought process hotdamn. Where did you pick this up? Let’s be open about this discussion. You didn’t go from A to B, you went from A to Z and robbed Jeff Bezos on the way out. I mean what???

People using canon to justify their headcanons is simply something I can’t get behind in this matter. The main issues is that they are children/teens/minors in canon. There is no way around it. Trying to justify/back up some of your thoughts in that regard with actual quotes only makes it worse because you aren’t only sexualizing them in your fanon, but you are also automatically transferring these thoughts to the actual books and thus fore sexualizing them in canon. You’re changing the basis and narrative.

I honestly don’t get the obsession that some have with their teenage sex life? This isn’t a personal attack on people but I’ve seen this throughout several group chats and social media platforms like Twitter, Reddit, Pinterest even and of course Tumblr. And popular stuff like Riverdale, Euphoria, 13 Reasons Why and New Adult Twilight rip-offs á la Shades of Grey and that Harry Styles fanfic honestly don’t help with the portrayal of „curious“ teens.

This also isn’t a strict PJO phenomenon, it happens across all fandoms. The odd trend with sexualizing kids/teens or things intended for kids has been going on for ages. I get it, you grow out of the related audience but that doesn’t justify the means? Canon won’t change simply because you do.

Percy and Annabeth are awkward teens that have never dated anyone else and had barely half a year between pjo and hoo before getting caught up in another mess. I’m not saying that teens aren’t curious and don’t experiment, some do drugs and/or have sex (let’s be real the probability of something happening in the stable scene in MOA is very high) but still? Putting dom/sub labels on them is sketchyyy. Also throw your fucking sex god headcanons out of the motherfucking window. They are 17-ish, if you need the mental image of some weird kids flopping on top of each other for two whole minutes for some odd reason, good for you but I’m side eying the fuck outta you.

You can’t really blame Riordan for not being more explicit. A) the series is for middle schoolers (aka kids), so it’s not strictly Young Adult and there’s only so much you can do B) publishers/editors interfering is a thing (especially with society’s views of sex = bad and violence = just fine) and c) the probability of sexualizing the characters of his own creation in that sense might have made him uncomfortable. Better to play safe, than end up with a bigger mess, just saying. I’m all for the sex talk in a non-berating, (slightly) educational approach when it comes to that in non-adult literature. Or even just stating a sex scene in a mere sentence. (Karen M. McManus did an amazing job with portraying struggling teens with a right approach in One of Us is Lying. Stating it or making it very, very, very clear between the lines. Then again, not everyone can pull that off or wants to go in that direction).

In addition to that, seeing stuff like the infamous ”the sea doesn’t like to be restrained“ or ”Percy has handsome features which shifted from humor to anger“ quotes getting constantly shredded is so… Meh. One simple question: what does Percy having a mean resting bitch face to do with his sexuality/sexual behavior? What does him being annoyed and on the moodier side have to do with it? For me absolutely nothing. The correlation isn’t really clear and out there. Pissed Percy doesn’t translate into Percy automatically being the dominant (in Percabeth’s sex life)?

I mean I get it. We all grow up. Erotica is a wonderful genre and art form (if you waddle through the trash). You will never be able to get that out of fiction and fanfiction. That’s also neither my goal nor my place to decide. As cheap and stupid as it is, I’d rather have people intentionally aging the characters up and stating their headcanons in that regard rather than people attempting to abuse canon where the characters are minors in order for sexualizing them. There’s no good way to prevent this from happening unfortunately (unless you really want to abolish all explicit fanon stuff).

Whenever you post a sexy headcanon just hold on for a second. If you have abstract future headcanons sure, go ahead, personally don’t see a problem with that. But if you use source material to fixate your thoughts on minors in canon to give them sexual labels… I urge you to seriously rethink that.

Stop sexualizing minors. Please. Pretty please.

Peace

[anarchistbanjo]

Shiva And Kali

When we consider Tantrism, Buddhism and Hinduism it is immediately apparent that most of the knowledge contained within these paths, especially those that follow the left-hand path, is based upon personal experience and as such able to be duplicated by others. The student is not expected to blindly believe what they are told, but to experience it personally and directly within his or her body.

This is especially true in regards to the Tantric generation and use of sexual orgasm energy in the development of the soul and the various subtle bodies. For the past 4000 years the energies of empowerment have been those of the throat chakra and the third eye, abstract mental energy and so called Christ consciousness, respectively. That is 4000 years of denial of all other organic intelligence and awareness!

In today's world people debate whether there is a soul or extrasensory abilities. Materialism has become so prevalent that the spiritual or nonphysical side of life is not recognized and ignored by large segments of the population. All of that is about to change, and to change radically as the crown chakra energies of unity and the sexual orgasm energies, the garden of Eden energies, dominate our new world! This is the Kali Yuga! This is the age of Tantrism! This is the age of the left-hand path! This is the age of the diamond or thunderbolt body!

This is the age when each person has the opportunity to experience for themselves the reality of the soul and the reality of the nonphysical worlds and beings. There is nothing theoretical about this, only experiential! There is an organic process which is sweeping across our world and opening our psyches to new realities.

In the book "the yoga of power: Tantric, Shakti and the secret Way" by Julius Evola he says:

"The tantras go on to reaffirm the ancient Vedic-brahmanic and Buddhist belief in the siddha's superiority to all other divinities. The siddha has power over three worlds. No God, including Brahma, Vishnu, and Hari – Hara can resist him. The possibility of doing as one pleases and to prevent things from happening is theoretically upheld. The siddha is Lord of death in the specific sense of being able to kill the body through an act of the will – the so-called Samhara – mudra, the act of dissolution – of not experiencing death, and of transferring one's consciousness to any chosen level of existence. A siddha, according to Milarepa, goes at will through existence as an untamed lion freely roams a mountainous region. A power often considered by Tantrism is the so-called phowa. On the one hand, this power consists in projecting oneself outside one's body, into bodies corresponding to other abodes or cosmic planes. On the other hand, it consists in assuming someone else's body, thus becoming the real driving force behind that person's thoughts, resolutions, and passions, which he still believes to be his. In particular, a siddha cannot lie, since his word is a word of power, which commands to reality; thus everything he says would become true. In him the fundamental Tantric motif of the unity of bhoga and mukti is actualized. He enjoys the dignity of chakravarti, of a world ruler, and also of a freedom that cannot be expressed anywhere else. The tantras therefore claim that there is no yoga as powerful as kundalini yoga."

This is powerful stuff! Especially when one is asked to personally experience it for themselves and not just take it as an element of faith. Perhaps the most powerful images of the Tantric path are those of the divine couple Shiva and Kali/Shakti.

Shiva is portrayed in a dance representing the rhythm of both the creation and destruction of the worlds. Notice the use of the plural. These worlds represent the multidimensional astral planes or the spirit jewel worlds which create and support the manifestation of the physical world we experience. He is also depicted as shooting forth unending quantities of sperm energy.

This image contains the entire secret of Tantrism in terms of the male generating sexual orgasm energy. Consider this excerpt by Julius Evola:

"In a highly symbolic Tantric icon Shakti is portrayed at the earth's level (the muladhara chakra) as a snake wrapped around Shiva's phallus and resting its head on the phallus's orifice. We must refer to the metaphysical theory according to which animal or physical generation is an empty surrogate of spiritual generation. The continuation of the species, through the use of sex perceived mainly as a generative power, represents a sort of ephemeral and earthly eternity, or a facsimile of continuity, in the series of separated, mortal individuals that follow one another in time. This spatio-temporal continuity is a mere surrogate for the continuity that would be insured by an ascending or vertical birth, or by a metaphysical integration that is well beyond the finite state of an individual who is conditioned by a specific physical body. Shiva's reproductive organ (phallus), is called svayambhu-linga, or supportless linga, since it has its principal within itself. The term alludes to the power proper to a different begetting, not physical, but transcendent and anagogic; a begetting into a perfect, unblemished, incorruptible, and eternal life. Kundalini's head is blocking the opening of Shiva's phallus, thus preventing the ejaculation of semen, which is the principle of such an endogenesis. This clearly signifies that polarization, in the sense of sexual desire and procreative energy, prevents the force of the Shaivist's vayanrbhu-linga from becoming explicit and from assuming its proper form."

What is described here is the deliberate use of sexual orgasm energy driven in an upward direction for the creation of the immortal physical body or the soul. This is done through the process of sperm retention during orgasm. Personal experience will readily show that the generation of sexual orgasm energy twice a day is required for the destruction/creation of the astral universe and development of the soul. This is to be considered a continuous or ongoing process taking place over several years.

"Kali/Shakti is portrayed in this way:

A further interpretation of Kali's role is found in popular iconography. There Kali appears black and naked, wearing only a necklace of severed heads. Under this aspect the goddess is Shiva's Shakti, namely, his power of active transcendence. The color black represents transcendence over any manifested and visible thing. According to a well-received etymology of the word, her name is Kali since she devours time, becoming, and progress, which constitute the lot of samsara existence. Her nakedness symbolizes her being free of forms. The 50 heads she wears around her neck which in popular mythology belong to slain demons are made to correspond to the 50 letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, which in turn symbolize the various cosmic powers presiding over the manifestation (matrika, which Greek speculation identified as logoispermatikoi) The heads allude to those powers because they are removed from the elementary nature, proper to the descending phase. Therefore, if the role of maya-shakti's power in the tantras is one of negation, then Kali's role, and the aspect so far considered, may be said to be a negation of the negation. Here we begin to witness the self-destructive and self transcending orientation of the power that in Tantrism plays a considerable role, especially in the context of left-hand practices and rituals. To destroy and to transcend should be seen mainly in terms of (1) going beyond manifested and conditioned forms, and (2) getting rid of the habit of identifying oneself with external forms, whether human or cosmic. The destruction considered here concerns the elements of desire and of enslaving fascination with the self. It is considered a matter of secondary importance if, at an individual or social level, this attitude may eventually require severing relationships and personal attachments. When we talk about the process of destruction at work in the multiform world of nature, we should not confuse it with Kali's attributes, since they serve the transcendental purpose of leading upward and beyond ( this incidently, is the Latin etymology of the word transcendence). That is why in a Tantric hymn Kali is presented under that particular Shaktic form in which she picks up what preceded her. In this context, the term employed to describe her action is vikvasamghera. In it, Shiva's power, or Shakti is clearly manifested."

What is being described here is Kali's role in receiving Shiva's sexual orgasm energy, mixing it with her own, and weaving a brand-new reality out of the substance out of the substance of the old reality. In doing this she uses his energy as the pattern for a new creation. This entire process takes place within the astral realms prior to manifesting as physical reality. In the act of creating a new reality out of the substance of the old reality both destruction and creation appear simultaneously.

This time the process involves working with female sexual orgasm energy, receiving male sexual orgasm energy, combining with it, and through the destruction of existing astral realities creating something new. Again, sexual orgasm energy needs to be generated at least twice a day to destroy the existing fabric of the astral worlds. This is symbolized by the continuous and unending intercourse between Shiva and Kali.

All of this happens upon the nonphysical planes of the astral. It is the continuous and unending intercourse between the subtle bodies of the male and female that destroy and create new realities and new universes! It is not a requirement for the female and the male to be physically joined in a sexual embrace, but they must be joined in a nonphysical embrace and in the exchange of non-physical sexual orgasm energy.

This is perhaps the most profound and powerful secret of Tantrism! Stated plainly, the male and female partner must both generate sexual orgasm energy at least twice a day, continuously, over an extended period of time. But this energy can be generated auto erotically and transferred into the astral or spiritual planes where it will automatically find and combine with the opposite sex energy of the correct partner! The two opposite sex partners are not required to have physical contact, only nonphysical contact! It is the soul contact that is important, not the physical or sexual contact!

This aspect of Organic Gnosticism develops the soul and its powers through the use of the subtle body or nonphysical body which in the past has been incorrectly termed an incubus or succubus. These subtle bodies are in actuality aspects of an individual soul and projections of the physical body.

For the first time Organic Gnosticism reveals the stunning truth! You do not require a physical partner and a physical relationship to practice Tantrism and the development of your soul. Until you find the correct physical partner you can work auto erotically and your sexual orgasm energy will seek out and be drawn to an appropriate soul partner! It does not matter whether you are male or female.

This is possible because the energy of the new eon is sexual orgasm energy, vital life energy, or garden of Eden energy, whichever you prefer to call it. It is now available to all life forms and all species! This is the Kali Yuga in which all the secrets of Tantrism will be revealed! I

[symbianosgames]

What does it feel like to receive an award honoring a lifetime of achievement...before you're 50?

"I feel like maybe I'm an old fogey and should be shopping for a cane!" Epic chief Tim Sweeney tells Gamasutra, with a laugh.

This week he's being presented with the Lifetime Achievement award during the Game Developers Choice Awards at GDC, and he says it sounds like the "kind of thing you get when you're about to die."

"But I guess the game business, it's not an old enough industry to have octogenarians yet. So it's a real honor," Sweeney says. "It's cool to see that....you know, the story of Epic is just a bunch of smart, hardworking people starting a company together and learning as we went. And just making some cool things. There weren't investment bankers driving it, or people in suits. It was all completely organic."

Epic is probably best known among game developers these days for its Unreal Engine business, and with good reason: the company is at GDC this week to talk up what's new with Unreal Engine 4, and to showcase a new way the engine is being used to overlay computer graphics on camera footage of the real world in real-time.

But with a constant focus on what's coming next, it can be easy to forget that the Epic devs know now has gone through several significant changes in its 20+ year journey from shareware distributor to game engine heavyweight.

  "I would project that in six years or so, almost all of our designers will spend almost all of their time immersed in the VR editing environment."

"It's been a really interesting process. I started the company, built our first couple of games, then I stepped back for a while," Sweeney recalls. "I thought I'd never be a competitive programmer again, but got back into it to ship Unreal. I had to build the engine for it, which sort of set the stage for everything we're doing now. I've constantly kept in touch with programming, doing at least research and projects and...."

At this point Epic CTO Kim Libreri, who is seated nearby, jumps in. "On one of his windows earlier was some code!"

"Yeah," admits Sweeney. "I feel it's really important to keep up to date with all the latest trends in the industry. It's funny, I was never really a serious gamer -- I just played enough of these different games to understand what they did, reverse-engineer their techniques, and learn from them. It's been a great process, and we've brought in a vast number of people who are better than me in all their individual areas."

This is something Sweeney has talked about in the past -- his efforts to pull back from the game development work at Epic by hiring people who are more effective designers or programmers or producers. Looking back, he says that strategy has mostly been effective, but that there are still some things that he feels only he can do.

Slaying sacred cows

"You find there really are some things that only a founder of a company can do. Sacred cows that need to be addressed," says Sweeney. "You know, what is Epic really about and what is it we do. How do we make the tradeoffs between running a business that works and bringing in the revenue to pay the bills, while still being incredibly respectful of our customers' rights and their privacy and everything else. And being an industry advocate when it's necessary. It's cool."

Pressed for an example, Sweeney points to Epic's (relatively) recent decision to cut UnrealScript out of its engine and make Unreal Engine 4 strictly a C++ affair.

"One of the key moments in Unreal Engine 4's development was, we had a series of debates about UnrealScript -- the scripting language I'd built that we'd carried through three generations. And what we needed to do to make it competitive in the future," says Sweeney. "And we kept going through bigger and bigger feature lists of what we needed to do to upgrade it, and who could possibly do the work, and it was getting really, really unwieldy. And there was this massive meeting to try and sort it out, and try to cut things and decide what to keep, and plan and...there was this point where I looked at that and said 'you know, everything you're proposing to add to UnrealScript is already in C++. Why don't we just kill UnrealScript and move to pure C++? You know, maximum performance and maximum debuggability. It gives us all these advantages.'"

"And everybody's like 'oh, yeah. I guess...that could happen,'" Sweeney continued. "There are some things that people just don't want to think about, because it's too radical a change. Or opening the engine up to open-source! Giving out all our source code. We decided that we wanted to do that in 2004! And it took us literally ten years to strip out all the closed-source components we used, and remove all the legacy components that prevented that from happening. And over the course of that ten years we did all that, and in 2014 we unveiled it and people were like 'oh wow, that's really smart. When did you decide to do that?' And I was like....oh my god, you have no idea."

Now, Epic is restructuring its games division to focus more on nimble, "live" design (think: multiple betas with lots of community feedback) even as it continues to try and push the Unreal Engine into arenas beyond game design. Both are potentially of interest to UE4 devs, because the former describes how Epic's philosophy of game design is evolving (which in turn influences the evolution of UE) while the latter is a force for improving the engine's capabilities.

The next big step for Unreal Engine: Digital creations composited into real-world footage in real time

As an example, Epic this week brought a tech demonstration of UE4's real-time rendering capabilities that it produced in conjunction with creative firm The Mill and car company Chevrolet. It's a short film called "The Human Race" which showcases a car-like AR tracking vehicle (dubbed the "Mill Blackbird") being filmed driving in real time on a mountain road, then overlaid with Unreal Engine 4 renderings of (in turn) a Chevy Camaro and a Chevy concept car in real time to produce a mixed-reality car commercial.

  "As game developers, if we can't render a particular type of object well, we just put something else there instead, right. We can cheat. But these other industries cannot cheat. We have to solve all of the hard problems."

At first blush this short film might not be as immediately enticing to game developers as the VR editor Epic debuted during GDC last year, but if you pick apart how the tech demo works it suggests some intriguing potential for future augmented-reality game design. 

While computer-animated simulacrums of cars, scenes and characters have been common in film for decades, they're usually done in post-production. In Epic's tech demo, however, a machine running UE4 was fed live video feeds and positional data from the Blackbird's Arraiy tracking system; the engine was then used to render the virtual cars and integrate them directly into the shot in real-time, creating what Sweeney calls "final pixels" as the video is being produced.

"It's just become possible, this capability of rendering final-quality pixels in real-time, with a photo-realistic level of quality," says Sweeney. "Offline photo-real rendering has always been possible; its been done for more than 20 years now, in movies. And a lot of people have been using game engines for prototyping and preproduction in films and all these other uses where they rough something out in-engine, then recreate it in professional tools outside the engine. But now we're seeing it finally come together with Unreal producing final-quality photo-realistic pixels in real-time." 

He and Libreri went on to note they only recently learned that Lucasfilm experimented with using Unreal Engine 4 to produce real-time graphics effects in its 2016 Star Wars film Rogue One, and actually kept a few shots in the film -- specifically, in a sequence where the leads are moving through an Imperial base in disguise alongside robot companion K2SO.

"So final pixels rendered in the Star Wars movie, using the Unreal Engine, in real time. And it went into the movie! These are pixels you see in the movie! It's unbelievable," says Sweeney. "These real-world usage cases have pushed us much harder than before. Because as game developers, if we can't render a particular type of object well, we just put something else there instead, right. We can cheat. But these other industries cannot cheat. We have to solve all of the hard problems."

Footage of the Blackbird tracking vehicle, studded with sensors and trackers

Sweeney and Libreri that this work is in turn beneficial to game devs using UE4 because it opens up what they can do with the engine, potentially making it easier to build games that can capture video footage (from say, a smartphone camera) and overlay it with realistic computer-generated graphics in real time. 

"The actual component pieces of this demo, in terms of this technology, we'll be releasing between now and next GDC, so anybody will be able to do stuff like this with the off-the-shelf version of the engine," says Libreri. "Of course we have to clean up after ourselves a little bit; these demos are pretty hectic to put together. Some features will be available sooner, but we'll get it all there by the end of the year."

Rendered Chevy models overlaid on the Blackbird tracking vehicle in real time

And of course if we're talking about using UE4 to create augmented-reality games, we have to talk about the phenomenon that was Pokemon Go. Sweeney acknowledges it was "an awesome first game," but says its developers sidestepped lot of problems by using stylized graphics. It's a canny design choice, but one that Sweeney thinks is ultimately the wrong one.

"The worst problem with AR is making virtual objects fit into real-world scenes with proper lighting, shadows, camera effects, and all these other things," he says. "That's going to be an absolutely essential ingredient in these AR experiences, especially as you get towards the high end. And when you get to the point where there are competing AR games and some have cartoony graphics overlaid on your view of the real world and some have photoreal graphics that look like a complete, unified scene, those games with the beautiful graphics are going to win."

A live on-stage demo of the Blackbird during Epic's GDC 2017 presentation

Okay, but real talk -- how realistic is it for contemporary game devs to expect to be able to do photo-realistic graphics in a mobile AR game, in real time? Libreri hedges, but Sweeney stands firm: it's possible.

"To a limited fashion," says Libreri. You're still limited to what the GPUs can do on the mobile devices."

"Photo-real is possible on mobile devices now, you can do it," responds Sweeney, who has a habit of highlighting Korean mobile games like Blade II as an example of high-quality UE4-powered mobile graphics.

"Yeah, but image-based lighting of that caliber with 20 million polygon cars? You're not going to be doing that for a while," says Libreri. "But! there are hybrid models of these, as well. [...] I think we're going to see all sorts of hybrid graphics happening over the next few years as people sort of explore the potential."

Despite fresh focus on AR, Epic expects high-end VR to continue pulling the market forward for years to come

But while Sweeney is passionate about mobile AR and VR, he's confident that high-end PC VR headsets are going to be driving innovation in the market -- on both the design and technology fronts -- for years to come. 

"Almost all of the user time, and all of the user money, is being spent on PC VR and PSVR," Sweeney says. "So I think that's the area where developers should focus for now. Just because it's an early adopter market, people have high expectations of visual fidelity, and patience for imperfection. And it's better to reach a highly focused audience with these early apps than to reach everybody, and have general lack of pickup. Most people who have used mobile VR devices have used them a few times and never come back, and never spent a penny in them."

Sweeney estimates there are roughly 2 million PSVR or PC VR headsets in the market right now, and he says that's fine -- it's an acceptable market for Epic's current VR game projects, and one he sees as being more comparable to the dawn of personal computing than the arrival of smartphones.

"If you look back to the first year of the personal computer, Apple sold a grand total of 23,000 Apple IIs," says Sweeney, noting that VR is basically creating its own new market rather than usurping an old one the way smartphones did. "And that was the start of it! Look at it now."

As VR tech advances and becomes more commonplace, Sweeney says Epic staffers are becoming more comfortable using it in their day-to-day work. 

"We've been adopting the VR toolset more and more; you find VR headsets all over our offices," he says. Different people are using it in different amounts: Sweeney says Unreal Engine 4's VR editor is getting a bunch of use when it comes time to edit or tweak scenes, but that "it's not yet a tool that people are using from scratch to build their environments."

A live demonstration of the Unreal Engine 4 VR editor at GDC this week

This is due to a handful of limitations, some of which are personal hurdles and some of which are technological ones that Sweeney believes will be eliminated as VR tech improves.

"One thing is that the resolutions of the screen are very low, especially on an angular pixel density metric. So, text tends to be hard to read unless it's really big," admits Sweeney. "So a lot of the professional-level tools like the Unreal Editor are not yet at a level of perfection that you would want for a lot of your large-scale CAD use. One more generation of hardware, and we'll have 4K divided by two eyes and suddenly it will become much more widely adopted and we'll spend even more of our time in it."

"I would project that in six years or so, almost all of our designers will spend almost all of their time immersed in the VR editing environment," Sweeney continues. "That will rely on the evolution of maybe two more generations of headsets, improving the pixel quality and the tracking. Two more generations of controllers getting even more fine and precise motion controls, and even more tweaks to the software. But I feel like over the next decade, every piece of existing CAD software in the market will be completely reenvisioned around VR, and suddenly we'll have a much more approachable 3D content industry where anyone can go in and start building stuff."

  "Everybody who has the opportunity, when we are that fortunate with our lives, should participate in something they really believe in."

Of course, in some ways this vision of the future makes game development work a lot less approachable -- at least until we figure out how to get the attention of someone who's immersed in a VR headset without making them jump. But even as he forecasts a future where game devs work with their heads in a box, Sweeney speaks passionately about the value of being outdoors and exploring the natural world.

He recently picked up a bit of press attention for paying $15 million to earmark 7,000 acres of North Carolina as a "conservation easement", effectively preventing it from being developed or interfered with. But Sweeney has a long history of land conservation, something he is only recently beginning to talk about openly in the press.

"It was just personally important to me," Sweeney says, by way of explanation. "I grew up in this funny town outside of Washington D.C. called Potomac, Maryland. It was just a backwater farm area when I grew up there. And over the course of my lifetime I saw all of my old stomping grounds, you know, these beautiful forests and gold mines I used to explore, they were completely paved over to build mansions for congressmen and their lobbyists as Washington expanded. That sucked."

This is part of the reason Epic moved to North Carolina in 1998 -- to get away from the crowding and rising cost of living in that area. "We thought 'oh, phew, we got away from it,'" recalls Sweeney. "But you know, then you started to see the same thing happening. So I really felt that, when I had the financial ability to do so, that I really wanted to help set some land aside that could be saved from future development. And remain in its natural state. I love being out in the woods and hiking. So, I do that when I have the chance."

"I think that everybody who has the opportunity, when we are that fortunate with our lives, should participate in something they really believe in, and understand, and know about personally," Sweeney continues. "For me, that was land conservation. There are lots of great causes in the world that people can get involved in; that's just one of them. But you know, I think if you have the ability to do something then you should do it."