Shards of a world [Journal: CW notes and reflections]

[Sutoratosu]

PLEASE DO NOT POST ANYTHING IN THIS THREAD EVER! DUE TO THE LARGELY CW RELATED NATURE OF THIS, THERE IS A SEPARATE DISCUSSION THREAD FOR QUESTIONS AND SUCH!

http://www.pokemonreborn.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=13666

Introduction and mission statement of this Thread

Title and tags say it all basically. I'm gonna be treating this as my personal space to pretty much put up things for various worlds and stories I'm either working on currently, have worked on in the past but stopped for some reason, or that simply died after getting off the ground for various reasons. thoughts from both before and after, actual legit hand written notes about things, thoughts on how it could've gone better, comparisons to one another, so on and so forth, will all be up here and more.

So that means you will see a great many things on here over time, mot likely. things regarding Surge Story, Exodus, Exodus 2, PSS, things regarding stories i know no one has ever heard because I have either shared them with very few or no people, perhaps even fragments, my thoughts on myself as a writer and my own skills or lack thereof, glimpses of a world or two if your lucky...

I have no idea on the frequencies on which this will be updated- look at the second tag. it'll be whenever the mood to share hits me, I guess. and sorry if it's not the right tag or whatever for the title, I just put up what I felt was the most appropriate descriptor for what this is going to be.

I call it Shards of world... because that's what it is in the end- me taking the shards of broken things I have made and letting others see them, see the worlds that have been born and died in their cribs, that have taken first breaths and choked on the very breath of life itself, that have taken their first joyful steps, tripped, fallen, and shattered. Too dark? All I can respectfully tell you as the reader is honestly to get used to it then, this it what I'm probably gonna end coming across as in this journal whether I intend to or not. I do not write under a mask or a psuedonym or an online handle when I am in this thread. I write only as myself.

In closing- my hope in establishing this thread is to possibly give me a place to vent in order to keep from losing my shit, and to also help drive me to complete more or what I set out to do with my projects, instead of staling and such.

So, with that long ass intro done... let's begin.

So... I guess the first entry, begins with PSS in a way. I went through a period where I simply could not accept the many mistakes I kept making in that tale- marked by the second coming of the soldier you all know and love as the good Lt.Surge- which was honestly, that time around, just me trying to escape my own identity and pretend to be someone else for the sake of not having to face what I had screwed up with. This lasted for a good month or so, and eventually, I just stopped caring, took of the mask, and accepted it for what it is, looked at what went on, and ultimately decided to discontinue everything, taking away the lessons I'd learned from the experience. But when I cast off the mask of Lt.Surge, I was still not the fellow whom had created the world of Project Sky Slayer, now, before the second coming of Surge- I was Stratos valgiri, a man who had slain the gods in his own little fantasy realm. When I emerged, I was Zerron, an individual ready to accept the fact that he had fucked up many times, and was willing and ready to learn from his mistakes and walk away with the lessons in tow. And now I am Faust... but it is different this time- right now, I am Faust only because I was bored and had Rupees laying around.

So...where is all this heading, you may ask? Well, PSS was, in all honesty, my first ever genuine fantasy story. I mean it, all my life up until the day I started working on that sometime in my freshman year of high school, some two and a half years ago or so, I had always written... Science Fiction. I read Fantasy, I watched fantasy, but never Science Fiction, and yet... Sci-Fi had always been my jam, even back in Middle School before my interest in books really started to increase considerably. I just automatically defaulted to it- I don't know why, so don't bother asking.

Now... as I said, Sci-Fi was my JAM when it came to writing myself. But all that time, I had constantly exposed myself to great works of fantasy, and so... when I finally got around to doing a work of fantasy myself- I wanted more than anything else in the world... just to do it well. I wanted to be proud of it, to live up to the expectations I myself had set of so many great fantasy authors whom's beautiful volumes I'd allowed my pre-teen mind to indulge itself in.

That was honestly the issue, I suppose. I was young, Ambitious, and hasty. I had no idea of what writing truly was- I thought it to be a simple talent like anything else, like being able to sing or fight or be creative... I thought that some people were just naturally born with the power to write such engrossing works, that it was a simple niche, predetermined at one's birth. I was completely ignorant to how wrong I was- I had no idea... that Writing is not a talent, is impossible to itself be a talent, but is instead the culmination of many skills into a single field of art. The field of writing was small in my mind, and like some country peasant, I was unable to see beyond the green pastures of blue skies of my birthplace. So when PSS happened, actually breathed and took life... I was freaking elated- I thought I'd done it, that I had the "Gift", that if I could get it up, everything would be fine and easy afterwards.

Yeah, no. That illusion shattered like tissue paper very fast and very, VERY hard. An enraged bull would've been more merciful than the cutting and stinging shards of what my little reality had previously been. Things deteriorated because I was ignorant, because I was arrogant, and because I, in the end, simply did not comprehend the significance of writing, of creating worlds and giving their peoples life. I understood that when you write fiction, you are taking license to play god. What I did not realize, was that you do not learn how to play god in a single day.

Eventually, through my hiding behind the mask of Surge, I came to realize that Writing truly is a craft. that there is no such thing as natural talent in this field, that all writers hate their own work at some points... and that everyone must start from somehwere. What so many around me, friends and fellow roleplayers from the subforums here, finally clicked after a time. And so I cast aside Surge, and I faced my dragon. And my dragon is dead now.

But by no means does this mean I gave up on Fantasy. Oh no, quite the opposite. I've been trying rather vehemently to raise another world from the ashes of the dragon's corpse, one that this time, I shall take more time, more caution, and more wisdom as I create it, mold it, and let it live. This... is what I can see for that world:

I imagine it as a world where the key focus, is none other than magic, which in PSS was honestly a bit spotty in coverage, lacking consistency because the laws and rules of magic were never truly drafted- a long history had been, but no doctrine to govern it's physical laws. But in this world, I have already done some work for laws to govern and regulate how I must write such magic. I have found the right questions to ask and answered them appropiately.

Now, in this world... Magic is everything- the dominant force in the world. The tools of the landed and the wealthy, the power of entire nations. A great and terrible force, which in the past has been used fro great destruction of the continents and the moon, leaving half the world scarred and ugly with weapons of mass magical destruction, and the moon split in twain, a mother torn apart by the birth of her twins. This magic will have it's own love affair with science

My intentions for this world are largely to use Anime Logic to a degree to try to stem the remaining learning curve I still have from being naturally inclined to defualt to Science Fiction. To perhaps soften the landing, help me get used to it all and test the new waters once more- this time equip with lifejacket, unlike my tread with Project Sky Slayer. I of course know that simply using Anime Logic will not be enough, but the issue is, I tried too hard to use realism in PSS, and perhaps by allowing myself to learn to dial back just a little, I will be able to tune to a proper balance in time.

More on the magic of this world though. If anyone has seen the 2010 Film, The sorcerer's Apprentice, then perhaps they will recognize this a bit, as I admit to having been somewhat inspired by the interesting explanation given for how Magic works on an electro-magnetic frequency to cause change in the world. Thus familiar with Philotic theory will also notice a few elements of that present as well

The most basic units of all matter and all energy in this world, are particles known as "pholtes". These particles actually do not exist within the world itself, but rather outside of it all, in the void surrounding the planet, the moon, the stars. It is pholtes that are responsible for all things in the world- they are what created the first atoms, what caused atomic fission, compounds to form, life to start, fire to burn, so on and so forth, in some premeval era of existance in which there was not but the would. It is from Pholtes that all things sprang forth, and within them are the blueprints for all things that have been, will be, and are currently, and may possibly become.

Pholtes are what created humans and all life forms. As such, they are bound to all life forms and all things. Connected like a web. But life... it is just one of the many final outcomes of Pholtes, so far removed from it's origin, that though it is connected, it can not feel the beat of it's own mother's heart anymore- so far removed, that all that most basic life forms now lack the ability to sense the connections between all beings via the Pholtic Force. Humans included.

Enter Death Crystals. Small, Black crsytals and gems that from time to time, will crop up in places where great death or violence has transpired. Battlefields, sacrificial chambers, gallows, just to name a few possible places. These crystals are created by one thing- the raw energy given off when a life form experiences death, and thus it's energy, everything that made up it's physical body returns to the Pholtic Force. This energy, strongest in the creatures central nervous system, this electro magnetic, cerebral mind power, circulating throughout an entire being and giving it's brain the power to control the greater body... this energy burst outward at death, and returns to the void in the vast majority of cases (Will discuss later if I feel like it). But when it returns it great, concentrated quantities all at once, such as during battles, mass sacrifices or executions, or massacres... this energy, sometimes, it does not all return. sometimes there is just too much for it all to find it's path back to the void where it may become pholtes once more.

And when this happens, that excess force that can not find it's way back... transmute into physical matter once more, and Death Crystals form in the area of the incident.

Why are Death Crystals so important? because of the Death aspect. Death allows release and a new beginning, allows for a beings energy to be recycled and reused, so that creation may go on infinitely without end, the universe ever expanding. Under normal circumstances, to protect the integrity of life forms, it is most usually impossible for a complex life form to be able to discharge it's energy, it's life force, you could say, from it's own body. If it tries, most often what occurs if nothing. the energy simply hits the wall of the beings flesh, bounces back, and remains in the system of the life form.

When a Life Form comes into contact with a Death Crystal however... this integrity means nothing. Contacting a Death Jewel, the pure, solidifiied mass of released energy from death that should not exist in the world, this energy which because of it's nature, is not bound by the same laws as it normally would've been, is exempt... it allows for a the life form to go into a "Death State" A state in which they are free to expell their energy at will through the medium of the Death Jewel they hold- a state in which the one scientific law forbidding such a thing now means nothing to them.

And what happens to the energy expelled at will, you ask? Why, it is what ultimately forms magic. When neural force is expended, expelled from the body, is only done so with a purpose- and with no where else to go and nothing else to do, it follows it's programming, and to the void it ventures.

Think of what I am going to describe as a mafia analogy. A mob boss, in this case, the mage, gives his enforcer, IE, the mages energy, orders. The enforcer then leaves to carry out said orders, and to aid him in this quest, the enforcer gathers an appropiate number of grunts (Pholtes) for the job.

That is, in a nutshell, how it works. Because expelled life force is in and of itself no longer bound by the constraints it once was, it is far closer to the Pholtic force, and as such, it can interact and direct it to it's own programming. And because pholtes hold infinite possibilities, this ultimately results in magic being possible- this perfect storm of variables. The Energy, now with Pholtes in tow, returns to the area it is to affect, and the Magic comes into being as the "Grunts" of the analogy go to work with the boss's orders.

That is all for now. I know not when I shall return, but it will likely be soon... I can feel power in this idea, something good that I like.

[Sutoratosu]

This next entry is more or less a continuation of sorts on my thoughts on Death Crystals from yesterday. probably won't be terribly long.

I imagine there could be many different ways for a Death Jewel to be present on a mage's person- Set into silver rings on their fingers, made in pendants, turned into Cane toppers, embedded in a piece of weaponry like a knife, bracelets, bracers, gloves, or even just holding the raw stone in their pocket by itself... why, it could even go so far as to be possible to create Magic textbooks which in and of themselves serve as the medium through which the mage's energy is released- all thanks to the Death Crystals which would be ground down to a fine powder and then mixed in with the ink used to pen the work. Hell, even a single page, torn out and lost from it's brothers, could do the job in such a case... which would probably mean it would be highly restricted who had access to such works at any given time.

I guess the question most prominent though, is the actual size of the stone... does it matter? I don't honestly know, to tell the truth, but I don't think it would, in all honesty. Either way the life form still enters Death State, whether it's a massive boulder of the stuff or a mere sliver- the corruption is always completed regardless, and the law stops affecting them.

I guess the only real variable would be to have it so that the size affects the efficiency of magic- IE, large stones allow for faster and greater discharges of energy for spell casting. But then again, the true cause of Magic, the thing that enables it, is honestly the Death State brought on by the contact with the dead energy- so long as a life form is in the state, they can disperse their power however they so please in how much quantity as they can do while still sustaining themselves. The Jewels themselves do not necessarily have to be the actual mediums through which the magic is cast.

But what I could do is have the jewels act as a focusing point of sorts- like a medium to amplify the energy given off and make the magic stronger because of that amplification. But surely in the course of such a process, the energy latent in the stone itself would be compromised, and some would likely flow outwards with the very power it was channeling...

Or another thing I can do possibly is have it so that Death Crystals decay over time- either via age or usage or a combination of the two. This way I can justify it all as a smaller death stone will decay at a much faster rate when used in comparison with a larger Death Stone. When alone and untouched, gardually, this pent up power sealed in a crystallized form begins to finally leak it's way out of it's solid mass and back into the cosmos where it belongs, to be recycled into the universe. In the wild, I don't know how long this could take- from a few years to perhaps decades or even centuries in large cases, before the crystals have completely diminished. During usage though... I imagine a fair sized stone the size of a ping-pong ball might last a very active mage about say... six months? that's assuming the mage is of a class that is required to engage in a great deal of magic on a daily basis, such as a soldier during times of war, an embuer, a Beast trainer... so on and so forth.

This of course, would reinforce the idea of the stone itself being the actual medium through which a mage's energy is released... and in all honestly, for the sake of keeping true to the inspiration, I believe I shall stick to this being the case.

Yes, I shall do this- The Crystal's themselves shall be the catalysts, for reasons already explained in depth, allowing a mage to project his energy into the world around him and initiate the process of magic. I will leave the prospect of potential decay, either in the wild or through usage for another time however- but even If I decide to do it, I imagine it would be quite possible to enchant the setting of the Stone in order to prevent such decay or "Freeze" it in a way.

Another thing I should probably mention- it is utterly impossible to enchant a Death Crystal by itself- the reason being that because it is the catalyst, whatever effect is laid on it will surely be washed away by the tide of next feat of magic preformed with it. Hence, a wiser choice would be to focus on the material holding it in place- to form perhaps a bubble of sorts, a bubble of preservation...

anyway, that is all for now.

EDIT: and my... at this rate, I should probably create a glossary of sorts or a table of contents... I'll likely have to get around to it...