aetherictree

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Update: I realised the psychic knowledge I was envisioning would essentially allow pre implantation diagnosis in natural conception, which would plausibly lead to certain countries ending up with a very skewed sex ratio.

I also realised that psychic powers necessarily mean interfacing with the nervous system, and that that gives a lot of control over the body's system, about the level I was trying to get. So that's the system at the moment.

Trying to design healing magic for a world where magic returns gradually and running into the problem of how OP a very small bit of magic can be.

Like, I say healers can target and destroy cells with a specific genotype. That's the whole of their ability.

So cancer is gone. Infections are gone. Obesity is gone. Even inherited genetic disorders can be gone by removing the gametes that carry those alleles. This isn't gradual! Cool, but in no sense gradual.

I thought maybe they could up/down regulate genes instead. But that's even more precise, *and incorporates the first ability due to triggering apoptasis*. Maybe if it was whole organism... though even if it was just being able to knockout a specific gene that could clear infections and quite possibly also clear cancer if it can be done on an allele basis (e.g. hit mutant genes involved in cell replication and so stop cancer from replicating).

So now I'm taking it back even further to psychic knowledge only. Healers just know where you're sick, how you're sick, and how the sickness will respond to a given drug. Which means their most effective place is biomedical research, screening hundreds of thousands of compounds in a single day to find the one that works.

Which is *still* stupid powerful, but less obviously magical I guess.

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That's not all of it. It's been proposed that the reason the expansion of the universe is speeding up is because the spacetime between galaxies is incredibly flat. It's not that its speeding up -- its that more time has elapsed in the void than in the galaxies themselves. The universe could be significantly older; IIRC the suggestion was about 18 billion years have passed in the intergalactic void?

Every day is a reason to celebrate 🥂🥳

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Trying to design healing magic for a world where magic returns gradually and running into the problem of how OP a very small bit of magic can be.

Like, I say healers can target and destroy cells with a specific genotype. That's the whole of their ability.

So cancer is gone. Infections are gone. Obesity is gone. Even inherited genetic disorders can be gone by removing the gametes that carry those alleles. This isn't gradual! Cool, but in no sense gradual.

I thought maybe they could up/down regulate genes instead. But that's even more precise, *and incorporates the first ability due to triggering apoptasis*. Maybe if it was whole organism... though even if it was just being able to knockout a specific gene that could clear infections and quite possibly also clear cancer if it can be done on an allele basis (e.g. hit mutant genes involved in cell replication and so stop cancer from replicating).

So now I'm taking it back even further to psychic knowledge only. Healers just know where you're sick, how you're sick, and how the sickness will respond to a given drug. Which means their most effective place is biomedical research, screening hundreds of thousands of compounds in a single day to find the one that works.

Which is *still* stupid powerful, but less obviously magical I guess.

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Me last summer, trying to get started on my dissertation and ecological survey.

I love talking with neurotypical people about my executive dysfunction because I'm like "yeah there's this invisible wall in my head that I'm incapable of getting past no matter what I do and it stops me from doing things" and they're like what the actual fuck

Meanwhile other neurodivergents are like

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On Fairy Stories (And Fantasy)

Thinking about the difference between fantasy and fairy stories as I build my world.

The magic in my world is not a "hard magic system", it's subtle, and widespread with 20% of the population having minor psychic talent (e.g. being a perfect shot, knowing if someone is lying, things of that magnitude). A few people possess foresight, though not "true" precognition -- foresight relies on having a supernaturally accurate model of the world that you're subconciously tapping into to make predictions.

There is healing, though limited by what biology is capable of (it can cure cancer, it cannot cure wounds -- it cannot revive the dead, but it can lengthen the time a dying person spends in an only mostly dead state, so you can get them to a trauma centre), and likewise garden magic can enhance the growth of plants to the limit that is possible with plant biology (trees growing two metres in a year yes, trees growng two metres in a few seconds no). There are mage forged metals where the process of crystal formation has been magically influenced to give it properties not feasible with mundane methods -- room temperature superconductors, for example. But there are no spells.

The magic in my world is closest I would say to the Elven "magic" in Tolkien's work. It's an innate ability of the characters, and the world itself, rather than being an outside force acting on the world. And that, I think, is one of the key distinctions between fantasy and fairy stories. Fairy stories don't have magic in them, they *are* magic. The magic is part of the setting in a way that to the characters is unremarkable, it's not a tool you learn to wield, any more than your hand is. By splitting magic out (largely for RPG reasons; modern fantasy is descended from D&D), fantasy stories become disenchanted. You take the wizard out of the party, you take the magic out. Not only has our world been disenchanted, our worldbuilding has too. We need to rediscover Faerie.

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Always jarring when I see a mutuals post screenshotted in a different context.

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Discussing a new DnD campaign last night, since finding a DM, and in thinking about characters we

Uh

Are on track to recreate the Seven from The Witcher: Blood Origin. Well, the women at least. We have

Dwarf woman fighter

Bard who has weapons concealed in her instrument

Elven mage (sorceress or druid don't know yet, need to look at the best class for what I need) focusing on life magic and healing (me; every party needs a healer, especially when half the party is new to TTRPGs)

The fourth member is thinking of being a monk. So... yeah.

This isn't intentional, but I'm leaning into it anyway.

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Watched Witcher: Blood Origin, and...

Isn't the Elder Blood supposed to have something to do with unicorns? Not some random monster. I don't really see how it comes from Fjall and Eile's child.

However, that doesn't mean we haven't seen how it came about, even if its creation wasn't shown. We know of an elven mage now who could merge with a unicorn to gain its power. An elven mage with a similar look to Lara Dorren and every other female carrier of the Elder Blood we've seen...

Hear me out guys.

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Why does Britain always soldier on through the apocalypse?

Apparently even in The Walking Dead we're still soldiering on. Everyone else falls into the abyss, meanwhile we're in the parking lot and picnic area besides the abyss. There's an RPG setting where AIs take over the world and drive humanity to near extinction -- and somehow, the British state still exists. Children Of Men, of course, is perhaps the most famous example. Why? What makes it so popular to keep Britiain alive? Is it because the British, living in Britain, are already in the day to day apocalypse grind so it doesn't phase us? A sense that the world will never be rid of us, as much as it tries?

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The English should go back to our old name.

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Diegetic Worldbuilding

Or, something like that, anyway.

I really like worldbuilding. More than I like writing stories; what interests me is the story of the world as a whole, the broad sweeps, how everything fits together. I can spend hours reading Wikis of fictional worlds, hundreds of hours dreaming up worlds of my own. I've decided to start writing them down, creating fictional guides, textbooks etc.

And... as far as I can tell, there isn't really a name for non-narrative fiction.

Narrative non-fiction, sure, that's a recognised thing. Epistolary fiction is also recognised, and sometimes has this character e.g. World War Z. But fictional encyclopedias, like the SCP Foundation or the Orions Arm project? Guides like The Zombie Survival Guide? History books written in universe? There doesn't seem to be much academic attention paid to this kind of writing. Or non academic either. It's a disappointingly ignored niche.

Maybe there is a term and I just haven't been able to find it yet. Whatever the case, for now I'm calling it diegetic worldbuilding, and will keep writing my Guide To The British Wilds (Enchanted Forest) and Introduction To Thaumaturgy (3rd Ed.). I like it, even if publishers don't.

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Do you think the Pope's warrior cat name was the same as his papal name.

do you think every cardinal has a hypothetical pope name already chosen in their head

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Thinking about the difference between becoming hard and becoming tough. Toughness is not incompatible with retaining softness.

And because I need an example, I'm going to talk about Arcane. Vi is tough, not hard. Vander likewise, that's probably where she got it from. Silco is hard -- he misunderstood softness and weakness and (mostly, not entirely) purged it from himself, and tried to teach Jinx to do the same. Ambessa is hard; she was fortunately unsuccessful at getting Mel to be the same, Mel is tough. However once she got her claws into Caitlyn Caitlyn started down that route (but did not complete it). I suspect Cassandra was tough.

And because I love my 2024 (Little Witch Academia) and 2023 (Willow (2022)) obsessions also...

Croix vs Diana. They parallel each other -- Croix chose to be hard, and failed to help Chariot; Diana kept her softness and chose toughness, and succeeded in helping Akko.

Kit at the end of the series has to make the choice, to be hard or to be tough. When she starts the series she has the two confused in her mind (though I suspect Madmartigan was very much on the tough side, not hard -- if anything its her mother thats harder). With Elora's encouragement, she chooses toughness.

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catreadingpaper.jpg

I should start drafting out Ekko Saves Everyone.

a comic about fix-it fanfics

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This is how I find out they were mooting an Autism Registration Act.

“This turbulent week has shown that the administration has lost the trust of the entire autism community. HHS’ walk-back is a success for our advocacy; it shows that our community has power, and that it is vital to speak up when potential threats emerge."

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Why is Vander in the transgender caves though.