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Mastery of shaping - Imagination, shaping and causality.

Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2022 8:07 am
by Oh my god JC a bomb
Factotum Raena wrote:It's been quite a while since I've put my thoughts on our philosophy and techniques to paper, so allow me, dear reader, to talk about our flashiest talent today. Allow me to discuss imagination and shaping, and how causality plays a part into it.

As the canny cutter you are, you are undoubtedly well aware of the fact that belief is important in the Outer Planes, and how our faction has the ability to shape this belief into the results we desire, given enough concentration and technique. This has often been called imagination or shaping alternatively, so, allow me to categorize it as I see it in my Mind's Eye.

Bear in mind, dear reader, that these are my thoughts and methods. These might be useful to you, but they are not to be taken as gospel. Your interpretation is as valid as mine; and if something different works for you, then it works. This is what works for me. Allow me to elaborate on Rough Shaping and Soft Shaping.

Imagination, or Rough Shaping

You've seen this in action, dear cutter. This is the most basic of your talents, what I've been taken to call Rough Shaping. With this method, you pit your will against the Multiverse, you say "I want this end result to happen", and if your will is strong enough to contest the opposing will of the Multiverse, it does. You might create a flower out of thin air, you might spontaneously cast a spell you hadn't prepared, or that you might not even be able to cast at all if you are a strong basher instead of a dazzler, because you used your force of will to do so. Isn't that pretty impressive? Isn't that the strongest, most potent display of skill and power in the Multiverse?

Not really.

Rough shaping is flashy, in the same way that using a battering ram to open a pantry door is. You've most certainly opened the door, but you have done it in quite a savage way. Rough Shaping changes the multiverse without causality, and thus, it's resisted and pitted against the collective subconscious. That is not to say that Rough Shaping doesn't have its advantages, for it certainly does. Sometimes you don't need subtlety. Sometimes it is convenient, or even necessary. If rough shaping can give you an immediate advantage in a critical situation, you should most certainly use it.

However, you should be aware of its limitations and dangers. Sometimes the multiverse doesn't like being tampered with. Pitting your own will against it comes with its share of dangers. The more skilled you are with projecting your will, the most dangerous it becomes. Unless you, dear reader, are Lugh the Longhand, you have undoubtedly tried to do something in the past and failed at it. Miserably, at times. When that happens with rough shaping, the results can be disastrous.

When you project your ego onto the multiverse, and the multiverse says "no", the blow can be difficult to take. It might make you feel hollow and dejected, unvalid and unaccepted by the collective subsconscious. Such feelings go away with time for normal failures, but when you fail in shaping the multiverse in catastrophical ways? The multiverse might decide that you are an irritant, and irritants need to be disposed of. When you use a battering ram to take down a pantry door, you run the risk of hurting yourself. There have been known cases of Signers losing themselves in this process - when the multiverse disbelieves their changes, they start disbelieving in themselves, and fading into obscurity. Sometimes, they disappear completely.

Reverse solipsism is one Hell of an ironic fate for the Centre of the Multiverse, isn't it?

Re: Mastery of shaping - Imagination, shaping and causality.

Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2022 8:39 am
by Oh my god JC a bomb
Factotum Raena wrote: Now, you are already familiar with Rough Shaping, dear reader, but what are the alternatives? You are the Centre of the Multiverse, after all, why wouldn't you enact changes? Why wouldn't you pit your will against the Multiverse and see what comes out of it? Would you waste this power by not using it at all out of fear that you might disappear? You're too good of a shaper to make that mistake, after all!

Well, you think you are, at least, but it is my strong belief that the true mastery of shaping doesn't come form making overt, violent changes on the multiverse. Put down your battering ram, dear reader, and let's focus on the pantry door and the other ways to open it.


Visualization, or Soft Shaping

If you are a resourceful cutter, you know that there are other ways to open the locked pantry door than your handy battering ram. You know that there are steps that can be taken to open it without causing a ruckus. You know you left your key in the back pocket of your brown pants, and you know you left your brown pants in the wardrobe, so, it's as simple as going there, taking the key, and going back to the pantry to unlock the door. Soft Shaping is a lot like that. You have your end goal in mind, be it creating a flower, opening a lock, or casting a spell. While Rough Shaping gives you the end result from the get go, Soft Shaping focuses on creating a series of events that lead to that end result.

If you want a flower, you can plant a seed and water it, giving it the attention it requires to prosper. If you want to open a lock, you can get a key, or even a pair of lockpicks if you're a cutter of those skills. If you want to cast a spell, you might take the steps to acquire a scroll and prepare it ahead of time, or get a dazzler to enchant a wand or ring for you to cast that spell when you need it without worrying about it. The art of Soft Shaping is the art of enacting the changes you want to see in the multiverse through causality. It has its upsides and downsides compared to Rough Shaping.

The upside is that it's much more long lasting. Anything created by Rough shaping is temporary, not-quite-real. It stops being real the moment you stop focusing on it, after all. That food you imagined and ate six hours ago? It's gone. That rock you created out of thin air just to prove that you could? It disappeared the moment it slipped from your mind. That flower you made because you wanted to try a basic Rosebringer exercise? It stuck into your mind for several days, but the less you focused on it, the more it slipped from your mind, the more it withered, the less solid it became, the less beautiful its fragance was, until it was gone. With Soft Shaping, when you take the steps to change the multiverse in subtle, believable ways, these changes are longer lasting. The flowers you plant will continue to grow if you take the steps to ensure that they continue living. The rocks you picked from the road will remain in your pocket, and more. And the multiverse won't resist you as strongly. You won't run the risk of ceasing to exist if you overstep your bounds and try to enact too big a change.

The downsides? It takes time and effort, cutter. It takes an understanding of causality, of how to get from your starting position to your end goal and how to enact those changes, instead of getting to the end result immediately. If you are impatient, if you are short sighted, if you are focused on immediate self-gratification and self-aggrandizing displays of power, Soft Shaping will forever be a stupid thing for you. Why bother preparing food when you can think it into existence? Why bother preparing spells when you can just think them on the spot? Why bring a key, when you can ram down the pantry door?

I propose that you give it a try, dear reader. Understand visualization, understand causality. Focus on the road to your end result and meditate on it. With Rough Shaping, you either accomplish what you want, or you don't. With Soft Shaping, you might find that when a road to your end goal doesn't work, you might get a glimpse of a different road, a different chain of causality towards that result that you can take.

Don't sell yourself short, Cutter. Thinking that Rough Shaping is your most impressive mental skill is an insult to your creativity, and to you.

Re: Mastery of shaping - Imagination, shaping and causality.

Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2022 8:47 am
by Oh my god JC a bomb
Factotum Raena wrote: With these thoughts laid bare, you now know what I think about Rough and Soft Shaping. You might have a preference for one over the other - Powers know I do. After all, you might think that focusing on battering the pantry door is better, or that finding subtler ways to open that pantry door without ramming it down is the canny option here. Ultimately, you shouldn't close yourself to any option, and you should bear in mind that whatever works for you is probably the best choice for you.


But, dearest of all my readers, you surely didn't think that I would forget about the Rule-Of-Threes, did you? I've mentioned but two types of shaping here. And we both know that the Planes rarely content themselves with a simple binary choice. So, this is my proposal to you, my little challenge, if you wish.

Master Rough and Soft Shaping, and then, look for the Third. Figure out what other kind of Shaping there is, and once you know all three, master them all, and discuss it with your fellow Signers. I wonder if you will find that others might have found the same Third as you have, or if others will have found a different Third. But, to help you in your search, I will give you the smallest of hints.

Why did you want to open the pantry door?

- Factotum Raena.