New Inkweaver Announcement just dropped.

The TL;DR

I'm going to start making my older poems on my patreon visible to the public and offer Portrait Poems to my $3 patreons so I can keep practicng that artform. If you want to see more poetry by a swashbucklering menace, please consider joining up! On top of my poetry, you also get access to my stories as well, and my own odd rambles.

So... you know, help a fox out.

Thanks me, you're so insightful!

So, a lot of my writing is stupidly influenced by ES twitter, @riversidewings and a tasting flight of other queer authors, Non-traditional fantasy like Eberron, Brian McClellan's Powdermage stuff, and furry bullshit.

So, I've always kind of been interested in the thought of the esoteric/occult/magical not only co-existing in the same setting but in several cases being complimentary to each other. This leads to the thought of what if a witch was skilled with computers, robotics and so on.

So the thought came to me of how people would approach "voluntarily" becoming a synthetic being.

Some would say become more synthetic for better work opportunities, to compete better in a field they are applying themselves to, to become tools of things like states, companies, armies. This of course comes with some obvious pitfalls, if you lose the job, you lose your parts, the parts you supplement your body with that aren't part of your company not always being the most compatible, losing yourself etc.

And I want to stop at that last one with losing yourself.

I need to remind the reader that I am a white passing mixed person, I have lost a lot of connection to my heritage because it would be more beneficial for my dad to just pass white than be not. Ergo, he removed parts of himself to compete better in the society I was raised in.

These traditionally are referred to as cyborgs, and that's kind of a fuzzy gray scale of how much of you is left is squishy meat, so I don't generally get to talking them to as synth or doll until they hit like fully synthetic body.

So, leaning on the language of the first metaphor of someone selling parts of themselves fully to be a better tool or compete better in a society, this is where they start being a synth/doll.

There is however the tricky metaphor of becoming synthetic as a means of self-actualization, of overcoming a dysphoria.

Some people would turn to becoming synthetic as a way to cope and deal with dysphoria. Come on, I've hung out in the Korps, and some of my dear friends are still really active in that scene. Become sexy machine to be my truest self? Yes please!

So these people would be more viewing it as upgrading to decrease a dissonance of a perceived self that their physical self isn't and achieve an actual self. These people tend to go much faster and harder into shedding away the fleshy body, so you don't always see too many cyborgs in this category.

These are two points in a spectrum, I'll remind and people will fall along its axis. [There is a third point here but that needs some more time to bake in my head before anything or I'm just going to be gutting myself for the internet. {Or I could be a cheeky fuck and say go ask @riversidewings what that third axis is, because she wrote a whole fucking book on it}]

So, let's get to the actual fucking definitions shall we?

Doll: A Synthetic being that is made that way in part by magic.
Synth: A Synthetic being that is made that way fully by medical and robotic process. Fully Mundane.

Now, these two definitions also then bring in an interesting point: Neither say explicitly that it has to be a sentient being being converted.

So, yes in theory you can have full on dolls and synths that never were human but also because I really like how wild Pinocchio posting can get.

Disability and needing to live a better or even just liveable life may require becoming a synthetic being.

Finally the one I... kind of hinted at, and I am going to steal from a great author who I mentioned in the above:

What if a woman was so gay for her wife she became her [instrument].

If you're wondering what camp I'm in...

Good, stay curious.

Thanks me, you're so insightful!

So, a lot of my writing is stupidly influenced by ES twitter, @riversidewings and a tasting flight of other queer authors, Non-traditional fantasy like Eberron, Brian McClellan's Powdermage stuff, and furry bullshit.

So, I've always kind of been interested in the thought of the esoteric/occult/magical not only co-existing in the same setting but in several cases being complimentary to each other. This leads to the thought of what if a witch was skilled with computers, robotics and so on.

So the thought came to me of how people would approach "voluntarily" becoming a synthetic being.

Some would say become more synthetic for better work opportunities, to compete better in a field they are applying themselves to, to become tools of things like states, companies, armies. This of course comes with some obvious pitfalls, if you lose the job, you lose your parts, the parts you supplement your body with that aren't part of your company not always being the most compatible, losing yourself etc.

And I want to stop at that last one with losing yourself.

I need to remind the reader that I am a white passing mixed person, I have lost a lot of connection to my heritage because it would be more beneficial for my dad to just pass white than be not. Ergo, he removed parts of himself to compete better in the society I was raised in.

These traditionally are referred to as cyborgs, and that's kind of a fuzzy gray scale of how much of you is left is squishy meat, so I don't generally get to talking them to as synth or doll until they hit like fully synthetic body.

So, leaning on the language of the first metaphor of someone selling parts of themselves fully to be a better tool or compete better in a society, this is where they start being a synth/doll.

There is however the tricky metaphor of becoming synthetic as a means of self-actualization, of overcoming a dysphoria.

Some people would turn to becoming synthetic as a way to cope and deal with dysphoria. Come on, I've hung out in the Korps, and some of my dear friends are still really active in that scene. Become sexy machine to be my truest self? Yes please!

So these people would be more viewing it as upgrading to decrease a dissonance of a perceived self that their physical self isn't and achieve an actual self. These people tend to go much faster and harder into shedding away the fleshy body, so you don't always see too many cyborgs in this category.

These are two points in a spectrum, I'll remind and people will fall along its axis. [There is a third point here but that needs some more time to bake in my head before anything or I'm just going to be gutting myself for the internet. {Or I could be a cheeky fuck and say go ask @riversidewings what that third axis is, because she wrote a whole fucking book on it}]

So, let's get to the actual fucking definitions shall we?

Doll: A Synthetic being that is made that way in part by magic.
Synth: A Synthetic being that is made that way fully by medical and robotic process. Fully Mundane.

Now, these two definitions also then bring in an interesting point: Neither say explicitly that it has to be a sentient being being converted.

So, yes in theory you can have full on dolls and synths that never were human but also because I really like how wild Pinocchio posting can get.