makyo

Author, Beat Sabreuse, Skunks

Recovering techie with an MFA, working on like a kajillion writing projects at once. Check out the Post-Self cycle, Restless Town, A Wildness of the Heart, ally, and a whole lot of others.


Trans/nb, queer, polyam, median, constantly overwhelmed.


Current hyperfixation: SS14


Skunks&:

โณ Slow Hours | ๐Ÿช” Beholden
๐Ÿซด Hold My Name | โœจ Motes
๐ŸŒพ Rye | โ˜… What Right Have I
๐ŸŒฑ Dry Grass | โš–๏ธ True Name
๐ŸŒบ May Then My Name

Icon by Mot, header by @cupsofjade


kda
@kda

As such,

"you" = *

Well, the starting point is just my life story, really. Not something I can exactly fit in a post (though I'm sure there's enough material for a few memoirs already), but if you want to hear about it, oh boy could I go on. (Especially one-on-one or in smaller social settings.)

"you" = Katja, my fursona

So, take the above, and jump back a few

millennia.

Basically, ever since sometime about a few decades after their most recent planet-wide apocalyptic civilisational collapse event, many societies of [catdragons] decided that, while they were still probably decades or centuries away from:

  • even having the kind of heavy industry they had pre-collapse;
  • let alone the capacity they had for such; and
  • being in a position to ensure that their next attempt at large-scale industry ended up both sustainable and classless;

they might as well focus their remaining infrastructure and technology for physics research on exploring seemingly supernatural phenomena which would probably be amenable to low-intensity, small-scale application of the same sorts of techniques that allowed their recent ancestors to develop faster-than-light travel.

The result of this was, at first, a whole lot of nothing, and then some extremely basic instances of extrasensory perception being confirmed as well as some techniques being found to "rig" probabilistic events. Nothing exciting. However, it was enough to suggest that some miraculous events previously attributed to tenuous physical explanations might have truly been miracles, so on. Eventually, this started to develop into a fledgling school of what might as well be magic: [spacework].

This in turn had the result of attracting the [voidbeings]. To explain those, some assumptions about the cosmology of the universe need to be made:

  • The holographic principle applies.1
  • Said holographic universe arrangement is not a "we are in an intentional simulation" arrangement.
  • Our current perception of the laws of physics basically amounts to applying a specific "function" against the universe's informational substrate.2
  • Other "universes" can be considered to exist by applying a different "function" to the substrate, creating a different "projection" in which different natural laws effectively apply to the same informational content.

So, the [voidbeings] usually exist in another "projection", in which the equivalent to energy is what is, for us, negative entropy. The less random and more structured some given space is in our "projection" of the universe, the more energy it has in theirs. As such, in foraging across their worlds, seeking out the brightest lights of "energy" they could find, they would have the indirect, unintentional effect of turning rocks into dust, primitive single-celled organisms into ash,

and, the moment they came across beings with immune systems and reflexes and thoughts, they discovered a source of food which was actually somewhat poisonous to them, in a way. Which caught their interest.

Because, well, [spacework], in managing to reach below the overt laws of physics of the universe, can cause some pretty glaring accumulations of negative-entropy to appear. Hence the [voidbeings] being extremely attracted to this corner of the star cluster their current location happened to correspond to in the first place. But they had never encountered "energy" which could effectively start attacking them and drain their health.

On the other side, this mostly just looked like the [catdragons] of a specific university town (one basically working on the ruins of what used to be one of the greatest universities on the continent) coming down with assorted neurological symptoms. Particularly the ones who were engaging in that [spacework], but also anyone around them, both physically but also socially.

So they thought they had encountered a cognitohazardous pathogen or something. The [voidbeings] thought they had accidentally exposed themselves to poison. And somehow, through the frantic attempts at problem-solving being made on both sides, the group of [voidbeings] in question got torn from their "projection" and into ours, their minds projecting upon and reshaping some local weeds.

The now-corporeal [voidbeings] became the [voidfolk], who, to this day, often take on plant-inspired forms. They can define their shapes however they like, being bound in our reality solely through their own ancient version of [spacework], but many of their cultures hold traditions of honouring the plants they entered our world through by looking like those plants, though with eyes and wings and maybe legs. (Any form of mobility they prefer, really, even when that's "none".)

It was in the resulting discussions between the local [catdragons] and the new [voidfolk] that what were just barely-tested theories about [spacework] were confirmed, which, over many centuries, got ironed out into schools of that not-magic usable for purposes including healing, combat, industry, convenience in everyday life, and circumventing death.

This is where [soulglass] came from.

And somehow, some of that got to Earth at some point far into the past. Sure, true first contact is unlikely to happen before humans reach a point of having an enduring presence beyond our own Sun, but somehow, some ended up on Earth. With a resident soul, or resident souls, who were overwhelmingly curious about humans, but who also lacked the kind of information needed to know that they absolutely should not take any approach of refusing to interfere in human affairs.

So they waited. And waited. And eventually, through some other chain of events,

jump forward to my life so far, as of the time you're reading this, minus a month or so

they ended up with both that knowledge, and a human whose soul ended up stuck in that shimmering, infinitely thin blue sword with them. Me, specifically. All by accident or for reasons entirely irrelevant to determining who might be the most suited to the work the resident soul(s) wanted to do. But upon learning about the current state of the world from me, their thoughts were:

  • this needs to be fixed immediately;
  • we guess this person probably has their heart largely in the right place and they're also open to us doing whatever we need to do to make them someone who we can trust with ridiculous amounts of power???;
    and
  • we cannot trust this person as they are right now with the kind of power that would be needed to fix this.

Cue real-world days, but perceived years, of hard mental and emotional work, all aimed at what was basically an alpha test of their hastily-planned idea for improving the situation on Earth: "What if we gave humans who at least have strong radical leanings both immense power and the strength of character needed to wield it totally responsibly?".

And, at the end of that, well. It was certainly convenient that my ideal physical form was already so close to being familiar for them.

Ever since that incident, Katja has largely been working on getting used to their new form and capabilities, working on planning out how to apply such to the task of rapidly, aggressively improving the world. Being the kind of task that billions of people need to be on board with, they have yet to jump into some kind of world-shaking action; however, they'll sure have the knowledge and plans needed to do what they need to do going forward.

They also moved into accommodations more befitting of a three-tonne dragon, and are taking far more clients for fursona TFs than they are for legal services.

"you" = Evagrius, my "true"sona

With Eva, basically, just take my true life story and change some ultimately irrelevant variables around. They've been to Liechtenstein rather than Monaco.3 They had a fleeting (liberal) Norse pagan phase instead of a similarly weak Christian phase. They got really into Ginga Densetsu Weed rather than Warrior Cats.

However, where the differences become more relevant are the demons. The bargains. Where for me, any "deals with the devil" are metaphors, they are not for Eva. There is genuinely something more grim going on with their soul than anything that can really be explained by the natural and the social. And it has had the effect of giving them an "out" from most death, but also a deep desire to find a similar escape from the contracts which might otherwise bind their fate in the hereafter.

But like with me, for most of these, they were signed up for unwillingly or when they were too young to truly understand the forces they were tangling with.


1 This is a real thing that physicists have at least discussed being a theory.
2 Here's where things start getting into "just for worldbuilding purposes" territory. Science-fantasy more than science-fiction.
3 We drove through there and stopped for a few hours to say we'd visited another country. We didn't really, like, Do Monaco Things.


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