Pastelbat @pastelbat@awoo.space

"Now I Wanna Be Your Dog" should have at least 2 verses about getting headpettings and running round in excited circles b/c your partner picked up the door keys

LB: tiny herbivore

I've finished the "huge armada, complex paintjob" set of minis (a PHR fleet for Dropfleet Commander) I've been working on for literally-years, and it's.. A weird feeling.

Still gotta varnish some parts, still got the modular bits that need painting (I magnetize everything because I'm a nerd), but like.. It's finished, tbh. I think the Kickstarter box arrived like, 2-3 years ago, and it's been a steady "on and off, but regular" painting project since, with other painting scattered in-between.

I have a rlly scary assessment tomorrow, and I'm simultaneously trying to be 'prepared enough' and 'not over-prepare (out of anxiety/hyperfocus) & burn myself out'

However it goes, it will not be the end of the world, and I have gathered what resources and info I can reasonably gather.

Really though I've been working on-and-off on a fantasy setting and thinking a lot about how this kind of stuff interacts with object distinctions and cultural systems of categorisation

How bonding with an item implies one party brings a system of categorization that defines the boundaries of the item..

Like, a sword doesn't inherently have sword-essence any more than separate [blade, hilt, bindings, crossguard, pommel] essences. A bag of pebbles or a woven garment could have one essence or many, depending on PoV.

So either you have a sort of Platonic Essence system where Objects innately have Object-ness, or it's in some way imbued by surrounding cultural context, either that of the object or the person who ensouls/awakens it.

If its personality and essence are shaped by that, that then raises further questions. Does the local culture's idea of what stone is like affect a carved stone sculpture, or does the carving change its object-essence and remove that kinda class inheritence? Would the sculpture have a personality like 'sculptures', 'stone', the thing it depicts, or some combination thereof?

This is the kind of thing I was up at 3am thinking about, hi

I might actually read Moorcock's Elric stuff if someone told me he gives his angstbound soulsword pettings and little snacks now and again.

*thinks for hours about the ontological implications of sentient artifacts in magical settings*
Result: "What if you could handfeed your companion weapon treats.."

Aha, I have got two people interested in reading Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota books now~

They are very, very good near-future-ish SF, written as a chronicle of then-recent events by an unreliable narrator. A lot more focus on the social and cultural aspects than a lotta SF.

There is shiny technology, but there's far more well-written radical changes to things like government/state structure, standards of living, taboos and gender, and how the people percieve the past.

(also um, All The CWs)

There's this whole meta/pseudo scientific debate that's got that "can't look away from this awful thing" fascination on a cultural level, of

"Only humans do X! Human Nature is totally a scientific fact now!"
"Not all humans do that..? Also: This animal does."
"..Well only humans do Y! We found Human Nature!"

Like, the past 30 years of:
"Language is what makes Humans special! No other animal can do that. It's Human Nature!"
"Actually, we found a bunch of animals that can use language in the exact way you specified."
"Yeah. Well. Like. They don't.. Uh, ask questions! So it doesn't count."
"The parrot just asked what it looks like."
"..I hate that parrot."

I look forward to this reaching more & more abstract levels. Like, by 2050 having:

"Yeah well.. Humans uh.. Make Acid Trance EDM! No other animal does that!"
"Actually, there's a Bonobo that just released an album.."
"Pff, that's just normal Trance, it doesn't count."