Millinescence wrote:As the new keeper of the tomes, I wasn't sure weather or not to remove you and Leena from the Wiki, for I wasn't sure whether or not you have truly bowed out of the community. And I was quite disappointed when Kerina linked me to a blog you made that basically says that you were going to demystify the Aeternalae and take away the concepts such as the Touch and Anina/Arivida that have made the family aspect of the community shine since it's inception. I for one don't want that aspect gone. It would totally kill what we're about IMO.
I guess I just need to understand things more. Maybe that's not what you meant in that blog, I don't know. I would like it if you could clarify that.
I think a lot of the technical details are fun. This includes Influence and just basically every mechanic involving the Touch. But I feel mystifying details that aren't
directly adding to the Aeternalae storyline need to be either rewritten or omitted, as well as weird or abstract concepts that might revulse or confuse. For example, I would probably remove the Alphariginae as a concept straight out. The concept is never explored in a story, and I'm not sure the race is as interested in their own origins as much as others might be. Likewise I might write the Three Realms concept less as hard facts and more like a shared belief Aeternalae have about the outlook of the universe. I'd probably also remove "real" individuals from a required fiction reading list, making them more like userpages -- otherwise people will think the community has no touch (HAH!) on reality whatsoever. I'd probably also remove all reference to "anime", and more strongly imply they're anime girls rather than make an outright distinction.
This list goes on.
Oh, and their name. That's the biggest mystery or misunderstanding of all. Due to how "Ae" as a letter is pronounced -- basically a hard "eee" sound -- I doubt few people even know that the name is a homophone for "eternally". As in, that's how long you're gonna be like that. I probably should have also called Anina "Anaena" or Arivida "Araevida" if I was going to keep with that theme, though it might be a language fetish by that point. As you might guess, Aeaea is also pronounced "ee-ee-ah". Yeah, in case anyone was curious.
And I totally agree with that! I want what's best for the Aeternalae as a community. That's why I'm so strong-voiced as you say, Sophia. I try to speak out in situations where I think no one else would. I want to get things done, I want to make things better for all of us who consider themselves apart of the Aeternalae. *nods sagely*
A major obstacle for you is that it's like founding a spirituality or outlook based on an alien invader B-movie. Again, the horror angle. It'd be easier to write something
from the top with the spiritual feelings or outlooks in mind than it would be to constantly have people on staff 24/7 to make corrections or interpretations to something that's becoming increasingly top-heavy. To drag out ZUN for a minute -- and get used to me doing that a
lot in the future, he
succeeded with writing a predatory more-than-human all-girl world -- it's part of why Touhou needed a big reboot going into the Windows games, as the characters were too shallow and sinister to actually write a setting (Gensokyo) with them. I'm not saying that's the only reason, I can cite legal stuff too, but I can totally get that from a writing perspective.
Millinescence wrote:I guess I can see where you're coming from with that. It is quite hard to explain the Touch other than the feelings that Sophia had described. It's a very profound experience (at least to me and the other Aeternal Sisters it is).
The "no, it's not just a story, it's for REALZ and it's happening on mah internet!" Touch has quite a few easily explained logical elements for why it's a profound experience. Sorry if that rubs anyone the wrong way by saying it, but I might as well. It's basically a cocktail of a bunch of sentiments that is calibrated to bring comfort to an MtF transgendered person in particular, with the sort of force of "now I'm reinvented" that is common to born again Christians, or basically anyone who needed a personal excuse to start a second lease on life. Also being told you're beautiful and you don't need to feel bad about it by an outside party is just a good way to trigger waves of relief in someone. There is also a "security" element in being told that you'll be beautiful
eternally (see what I did there?) and that you're not alone and so on. The human heart melts if all the right keys are pushed, it's why music works on people as well as it does.
If you want another example of how I think the Aeternalae could be better written, I'd have it so the Touch actually changes a lot
less about a person than it ever did in any story. I'd argue the
less it changes, the more interesting the final product. Let's take an example of how it works right now -- imagine a big bad ogre was Touched. He would probably be reduced into a sweet little girl with none of his characteristic strength or personality. The new sister's abilities are the same as any other. Glowy-hand, mind-walking stuff. Homogenization, things becoming the same, the whole point of the B-movie "The Brainwashers Came from Anime Space!" horror take.
I think it'd be far more interesting if the ogre essentially stayed an ogre, and they'd continue to find just as much camaraderie with their
own kind as their newfound sisters. Likewise, their Touch or equivalent would be done a more ogre-ish way, maybe involving a test of strength beforehand or something. Kind of an extreme example to cite an ogre in the first place, but you get the idea.
Millinescence wrote:I totally agree on this. Not all Aeternalae are the same, there are good Aeternals, and there are bad. They can't be painted with the same brush. Me, I guess in some ways, I'm sort of the laid back, neutral Aeternal. And that's probably one thing that Nikkou and I have in common. *shrugs, doesn't know if that made sense* ^^;
You call yourself laid back and neutral. I call you "sane". I know that's a bit harsh, but I kinda stand by that. And you're right it'd be more interesting to have more good and bad, but the tone and PoV of the codex really emphasize the invader/homogenizing/destroyer side of them (such as actually naming something like "rescenscion" and making it sound desirable). I'm trying to point out there is a huge difference between how you want to present yourselves and the original/core material, and I more recognize your current vision over what's been written (and bloated to hell with terminology). I kind of implied a desire to do as much when I commented on your DA page.
One difference though from where I stand: I say f***-it, let's not stop with good and bad Aeternals on a 2D sliding scale of alignment. Let's have more variety
in general .
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Musashi wrote:There is an excitement to horror stories. I can reasonably tolerate even the male-eradicating aspect of Eternals when it's presented as a piece of horror fiction, or something like it. It may not be my usual cup of tea, but it doesn't bother me quite so much. I've been participating in an Ovalisk RP because it's kind of like cute-horror, which is fun.
I think it's possible to enjoy something that you don't necessarily agree with normally. For example, if I had the ideas and motivation to do it, I'm sure I could come up with some bunch of evil mass-converting beings who obliterate everything in their path and turn all girls into pretty boys. My "bad side" would enjoy that. Everyone has some evil in them. I mean, I was playing Red Dead Redemption and went around randomly shooting passersby and found it very entertaining. Would I ever do that in reality, or condone someone else doing it? Hell no. Fantasy is fantasy.
Everyone has a side like that. Freud called it the "id", the lizard brain part of us that wants do whatever it wants and to anybody. I think if I was better at writing or communicating clearly back then, I would have portrayed the feminazi aspect as being like the Aeternalae's collective id. I think a lot of arguments would have been over before they had even started.
Musashi wrote:I guess that's what originally scared me about the whole Eternal thing. It went from being someone's fictional creation to a seriously believed religion. And a religion focused on female superiority, eradication of all men, and total idealization of women bothered me a lot, and to see friends of mine being drawn into it freaked me out. It felt like it went from people enjoying a fantasy to seriously believing in those ideals.
I think many convinced themselves they believed in it. Myself, I was getting a bit drunk with creative power and I actually seriously wished I could force my idea of change on the world because anything would be an improvement over what we have now. That, and you know how people express more extreme versions of what they believe when they feel pressed or boxed in by ideological opponents? That's why I said as many rash things as I did, or even started seriously believing some crazy stuff.
Musashi wrote:But yeah, there were people like Nikkou who obviously weren't like that, which helped. But when I did try to find out more about what was actually believed, it seemed like I could never get a straight answer, it was different for everyone, so I remained somewhat suspicious.
Well, what I'm hoping is that this can shed some light on how I acted back then, because I know there were times where I seriously flipped sh**. I was scared of my friends being taken from me and turned into a bunch of Feminazis, basically. And, my own gender issues being particularly bad back then, the Eternals felt somehow like an attack on a part of myself and I found the whole concept threatening, thus I tended to get very defensive.
A straight answer... wouldn't that be nice if the original information index was a reliable source of such? I'm pulling for that.
Aeternalae I don't feel were written as having enough of a distinction from human women, and that wasn't anyone's fault but mine. I think if we're talking about physical sex, they're actually generally physically neuter, since traditional sex or intimacy is largely wiped out or replaced with the Aeternalae equivalent. If I wrote them today, they might even have a few token bishies as such because there'd be no good reason for them to be totally absent, since the core race is sex-neutral. I'm sure you make the distinction between human males, even young teenage males, from your bishies right?
If I may level with you Musa, one major reason I insisted on the all-girl theme so hard is because I was just discovering what Rule 34 was, and I wanted to discourage it. Not to mention that I had a crippling fear of it turning into a "harem show" if even just one male character was added into the collective.