Indi Latrani @indi@awoo.space

Purple, blue, and cyan curlicues glow across the dusty-colored pelt of the sitting figure. Between that glow and the seams on the soft fluffy fur, it’s clear they’re synthetic, in a soft, cuddly, plush-toy way, despite being a full-sized anthro critter. The first impression is of a coyote, with hints of other species there too. There’s space to sit nearby, and a variety of knick-knacks strewn about. A hand-lettered sign near the entrance simply reads “The spiritworker is in”.

This gathering may look like a marketplace, but it doesn’t work like one: goods, arts, crafts, performances and services are all shared freely, everyone operating on some sort of relaxed gift economy.

One of the stalls is a small, comfy-looking thing, draped with thick purple-and-blue cloth, with cushions laid out liberally on the ground. Colorful LEDs from salvaged electronics glitter in the waning dusk, though their light is almost drowned out by the glow of the booth’s occupant.

It’s evening, and you're wandering through the ruins of a city that are nonetheless full of life. The crumbling skyscrapers are covered in greenery and makeshift habitation; food-gardens and open-air fairs line what's left of the streets.

You’re wandering through one of those fairs, an array of small colorful booths. You may not have been here before, to this street, or this city, but you’re not lost or out of place; you’re exploring, or looking for something, or just sightseeing.

That was not rhetorical, I'm actually curious what comes to other folks' minds here! :)

Perhaps the subjunctive is useful here:

What would it be like, being a creature of artifice, dedicated to working with spirits and their world?

(Your Electric Monk jokes are acknowledged and accepted, please leave them here in this bin outside the door. ;))

Hey it's a pagan article of the day, two days in a row!

http://paganbloggers.com/critter/blog/2017/05/09/on-pagan-writing-styles/

This one is actually really relevant to the conversations with @literorrery et all last night!

We grew up with fewer positive interactions with humans, and more time to focus on everything else in the world.

We have to either make our peace with the rejection of family and tradition, or learn to radically reinterpret them.

We have to fight against consensus reality just to express our identities and live our lives.

Queer people are magic.

It's not that we're born with some secret chosen-one destiny.

It's just that we get plenty of practice at it.

Paganism for plushies
Spiritwork for the synthetic
Animism for AIs

@literorrery I mean, for serious:

"Program to an 'interface', not an 'implementation'."

That sounds like pretty much exactly what you were getting at earlier. ;)

@literorrery Help I'm reading summaries of Design Patterns (the book) and it's giving me praxis ideas.

Hey it's time again for one of those intermittent "Indi posts a paganism/spiritwork thing!"

http://sarahannelawless.com/2017/04/23/everthing-you-need-to-know-about-animism/

"Everything You Need to Know About Animism", and the title is surprisingly apt; it's 8000 words long, very in-depth, and raises a ton of points I agree with, and only a few I take minor issue with.

If you want to know where I'm coming from with all this 'animist' stuff, that's a good place to start!

(I wish I had a better handle on what I mean by 'not a person' to make it clear I don't mean it in a self-deprecating way, heh. Language is hard)

One of the hardest things is how I want to TALK about stuff , but I sort of don't know where to start; I feel like I'm... imposing, or being annoying, whenever I ponder discussing specifics.

That's why I ask for questions from folks sometimes. Helps me form my thoughts, when they're in relation to others.

Just one of the ways that goes to show how I'm... not exactly quite a person, I suppose. ;)

Blugh. Sorry for being scarce and possibly worrisome lately. It continues to be a rough few weeks for me, feeling hung up on a lot of things (gender stuff, job stuff, relationship stuff, y'know, basically everything)

It's all frustratingly hard to talk about, but I can reassure folks that I feel like things are... getting better?

I seem to have this pattern where things start feeling dramatically worse just when they seem like they're about to start getting better. It's.. frustrating.

From Star Wars RPG tonight:

"I wanna go out like a Jedi!"

"...Getting cut in half by a Sith in the first movie?"

Anyway, that probably sounds more maudlin than I actually feel right now. Mostly I'm just feeling like a rather silly object right now, for letting something like that slip.

Also I guess have another piece of furry erotica to add to my "this book fundamentally improved my identity/worldview" list.

(https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TKWEZNM/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=1J9ACPSJU3GY3&coliid=IBL5GP9W8GLT4)