zaratustra

@zaratustra

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oriananonexistent
@oriananonexistent asked:

overrated or underrated: the great iridescent tetrahedron resting at the base of the lost earth

Strap in kittens, mommy's gonna vent a bit.

Verdict: Underrated. 1000%. I don't know when "harmonizing with the mana stream of dream worlds is good" became such a hot take. Maybe it was when the Twitter MLMs decided it was transphobic for cis people to practice chaos magic, or maybe we've just all been slowly conditioning ourselves to believe corporate lies about the higher quality of "artisanal" mana predictated on sub-minimum wage work and the erosion of third spaces.

"But stabilizing dream worlds had a net negative economic effect on their predicate worlds!" Yeah, investing resources in the future takes resources. I guess this is where we're at now. I want the mages of the future to be able to feel the same connection that I do with 4,000-year-old people who would do the same for me. If that means diverting resources from Lockheed-Martin, that's the price of maintaining an intellectual tradition.

"But you're visiting a globalized third space instead of local ones!" Yeah, if I want to practice sigils, I guess I could spend $3 on gas and $8 on coffee to hang out at my local queer coffee shop that will give me a sideeye for invading their "women and enbies" space with butch magic. Or I could recite the Iridescence Soliloquy for free dollars and initiate astral presence in the lost earth, where there is almost certainly a trans dyke with a pirated spellbook in one hand and her girlfriend on a leash in another.

Also, I'm sorry, but I think it's just cool. I think it is important to say that the iridescent tetrahedron at the base of the lost earth is just cool. I think in an age of DRM-locked hyperwands and OpenAI's "cold hermeneutics" push, it's nice to be able to commune with a good-old-fashioned Platonic solid, instead of pretending that there's an actual problem Silicon Valley is solving by reinventing the wheel but with 64 mana sinks now. The "forbidden snack" meme may be overplayed at this point, but wanting to chew on the tips of the Tetrahedron is a way deeper somatic connection than I could ever have with a plastic sigil stamp.

I'm sorry for rambling, Oriana, I know I might be preaching to the choir, especially on this website.

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in reply to @bigstuffedcat's post:

mossy
@mossy

Dream worlds... erode, as dreams do. But we sleep again to dream anew.

I need to work on pruning my mana sinks. I'd like to at least ground a few in practical comforts and idle progress. I knoooow, that's a typical evaluation of self for many in our cohort.

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Space-G
@Space-G

Long have been since I felt so void of knowledge... If someone could help, I'll try to list all my doubts.
If you don't feel disposed to answering possibly stupid questions, feel free to ignore me, I won't take offense.
Am I having a stroke? I'm feeling great confusion.
What is the Lost Earth?
What is the great iridescent tetrahedron resting at it's based?
What is mana other than a resource in a videogame context?
What is the dream world?
Does MLMs stand for multilevel marketing? If so, when did they start to care about transphobia?
What is transphobic about chaos magic?
What does "predicated" mean?
What are "third spaces"?
What lies are the corporate world spreading about "artisanal" mana and sub-minimun wage workers?
This are my doubts as I re-re-read the first paragraph... I think I should try to understand that first before listing the rest of my doubts because probably those will be answered with some context...

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bigstuffedcat
@bigstuffedcat

Not a problem at all! This rant is spoken in-character, in a world made up on the spot (that's what #unreality in the tags means). My character is venting, and the joke is that their problems in their magical universe are so relatable to mundane ones in our world. We may not have mana sinks, but we're all-too-familiar with immoral tech companies, identity policing, and yelling at one another over the Internet.

Some of the terms you're asking about (The Lost Earth, artisanal mana) are made up, but some are real. For example, in sociology, a "third space" is a place to hang out that's neither domestic (like home) nor civic (like school or work). Similarly, while there's no such thing as a "DRM-locked hyperwand", "DRM" is real-world software that enforces intellectual property.

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