#metatalk

rasputin was a main character in a science fiction story i was developing for a lil bit about animals native to alien planets being abducted + uplifted/given sentience by a corrupt corporation to increase the workforce and get around loopholes in teraforming laws. There were a few other main characters, but only one of them i still remember/might reuse for something (a weird bat/bear/porcupine thing called juggernaut whos whole thing was theyre a species that hunts by pretending to be a corpse floating in still water). Null wasn't TECHNICALLY part of this story, but it DID include a species whose design i tweaked and eventually turned into null (and nil, by extension- in fact, a lot of the features I removed/changed to make null ended up being added back for null, like having a stinger and eyes)

and THEN rasputin and null were both NPCs in a video game i started developing in my free time called You Need To Go West. it was going to be a weird 2d puzzle platformer where the player character was a little blob of black goo and you had to progress by teaming up with one of the main npcs, each of which gave you different platforming mechanics AND puzzle mechanics. it was a really weird story but the gist of it was you were compelled by a strange force to go west but since you were a little blob with no arms or legs that is something you cant reasonably do. and there were 3 main npcs you could team up with. all of them bird people- rasputin was one of them, and the other two were lazarus and the major. each of them would have WIDELY different playstyles and paths.

if you teamed up with rasputin, you got the ability to double jump, and the puzzles were bullet hell minigames (called "dodge" in the game). You'd be taking the "high path" in platforming, mostly traversing in treetops. Most platform-y of the three.

if you teamed up with lazarus, you would be able to climb up vertical walls and would have a REALLY small jump, and the puzzles would be logic puzzles/riddles/etc- stuff you typically think of when you think of a puzzle yknow (called "debate" in game). Lazarus took the "low path" in platforming, so its almost ENTIRELY on the ground level, with more moving stuff around and doing tasks to progress instead of typical platforming.

if you teamed up with the major, you would get the ability to glide and have a much faster move speed/have a momentum mechanic. the puzzles would be pretty much just rhythm games (called "duel" in the game). Playing with the major would be taking the "fast path," which consist of mostly time trials.

There would be a bunch of different points where you can swap between which one you joined up with, along with a MUCH harder "friendless" mode where you went WITHOUT any of the npcs and played thru the game as a really slow blob with an extremely limited moveset.

null was actually a secret FOURTH npc you could team up with by going the wrong way at the very beginning. youd get stopped a few times but eventually youd be let through to a secret area where youd meet null (who was much more like sar'kai at the time and also fucking GINORMOUS.) if you chose to team up with null you would have extremely easy platforming where you pretty much just go forward and no puzzle sequences (ie whenever a boss shows up null would Literally Just Eat Them). aka this was the secret "deal with the devil" bad ending

But with those changes, I’ve always wondered; how would canon react? When held up a twisted mirror to yourself and the world around you, what would you do? What would you say?

Is it me? Is the lack of canon reacts and (yes) interacts in fandom as a whole because of the fanfiction purges in years past when the letter and line was drawn? I’ve seen canon watches fanon all the time, that’s not rare, but don’t get me started how that makes me feel. It’s like they’re in a bubble, an omniscient view looking down without an explanation or talk about movitation I just don’t get the appeal when you can just talk

Hello everyone! I’m TheoreticalSelkie, the main author (hell, the only author) of this setting, which I’ve lovingly and arbitrarily named Raisyr. I mean, there’s some internal logic with the language spoken by beings on Raisyr, but that’s something I’ve yet to make or even figure out. I’m aiming for it to be mainly a fantasy setting with underpinnings of sci-fi, but well, we’ll see where that goes.

For me specifically, my main interests are in evolutionary biology and biomedical technology so some of my musings may trend in that general direction, although I do have to do a lot of research for everything else ahahah, but I hope to learn as I’ve always done from working on this project.

As for the setting, Raisyr is a rocky planet that orbits a sun of some kind. It exists in the same universe as our Earth, yet follows its own seemingly odd rules when it comes to things such as magic and physics. Humans are a recent arrival to the planet after decades (or is it millenias?) of deep space travel, and at first, there are uneasy tensions between the human colonists and the shu’tai. And that’s where we are for now.

My main blog is anomalous-object and I basically don’t really post all that much on that blog (for now!).

Melinda Casino: From the video: "MetaFilter is a community blog kind of like reddit, but it tends to attract a different crowd..." :D

infini: That's an excellent question for Ask Metafilter, a different subsite.