Years and years ago I made fanart for Chiasmata, and I realized recently i never picked it back up after getting caught up. Gonna do that now 💚

regards,

an Ash enjoyer

Oh nice! Cool to hear, and I hope you enjoy it.

Ash is a fun character who's going to be having lots of fun, [checks notes] soon. Glad you like her!

Question?

Answer!

Oh, I was rereading Chiasmata and I noticed something! There's one point where Jacqueline can't quite remember what her nickname is; since I believe she's from the UK, I assume the implication is that she's called "Jazza" for short?

She's not actually from the UK, but that does fit as her possible nickname.

Did the Chiasmata pages get shuffled around inside the website? The ARG refers the reader to page 16, but there is nothing there...

Uh-oh.

Investigation suggests I broke something.

(psst, just a heads-up, Bonnie's surname is written differently in the cast page and the comic. love Chiasmata!)

Oh, huh, so it is. I'll go fix that.

Glad you like the comic!

I've touched on something similar before, but I was rereading some of the old geneverse power request flash-fics and I think the whole concept of powers not being sentient per se but "urging" their usage and also affecting the very way coldlit people perceive the world is kind of fascinating as a fantastical, cosmic horror-flavored reflection of the ways power, access, influence, etc and also technology shape and contour the way people behave (cont.)

(cont.) in ways that are insidiously subtle and all the more dangerous for it, the way these various things kind of *itch* to be employed like a restless new limb, for better or worse. You can see that idea in all sorts of discussions, about capital and politics and war and fame and prestige and empire and hierarchies and so forth... I don't know whether the intent was there but I think that's a really neat detail in the Geneverse setup!

What a good piece of analysis! [Nods sagely] Sometimes, tools make things better, but sometimes they make things worse.

Less glibly, I rarely go into a piece of writing saying "this is a metaphor for [X]" (I find doing so uninteresting, at least for my own writing process), but metaphors and analogies do often emerge, don't they?

I spoke back here about Tool Use and Powers and Tools With Personalities. Do powers in the Geneverse want to be used? Can they 'want', in a way that means anything to the way human minds work? Do they think?

These are the sorts of in-universe questions that keep researchers on superhumans up at night.

I was browsing some old stuff and. how did I never realize that Forest *Viewer*'s initials are "I.C.". God dammit.

Want to know a secret?

I didn't realise that either.

Are there any superhumans for which knowing the symbol of would constitute a major-ish spoiler?

The cute and annoying answer for me to give here is "yes".

The funny answer is yeah, it's this:

Now you know a massive and context-less spoiler. Use it wisely.

When it comes to your creative process, what usually comes first, like a "seed": characters, setting or story/plot?

Usually setting. I'm a big sucker for worldbuilding.

For Chiasmata specifically, I actually built out from characters − I designed each of the four groups in general terms, thought my way through their basic powers, side effects and the symbols before I ever really thought about a 'wider world' − it was designed as an ontological mystery first before being folded out into Big Geneverse.

I have a specific recollection of standing in the car park of a Sainsbury's in a town near where I live, with sketches of the protagonists on paper? I don't actually know why I had them there of all places. I think the Triumvirate were first designed on similar sheets of paper, although I think that might have been later.

Such is the creative process of the K2.

OK here's some symbolism: not long ago I watched an interesting video that talked about tools and technology (and ideas) as an extension of the human body that also changes and reframes the way you interact with the world and somehow what my mind wandered to was this thing you once said about how people touched by the cold lights in the Geneverse seldom manage to live normal lives cuz it's as if the powers have a mind of their own. Always thought that was a fascinating bit.

I think that's an entirely reasonable... I don't know if I can say much about the themes of Electrophoresis, since I haven't written it yet, but maybe a wider Geneverse theme, of these abilities being tools, and these tools maybe having... personalities?

Or do they? Is that an excuse, for when people have a hammer and treat the world as if it's made of nails.

I have a couple of books − 1001 Ideas That Changed the Way We Think, and 1001 Inventions That Changed the World, which seem to be operating on those themes. An idea is a kind of ephemeral tool, perhaps.

Ibby honestly has become one of my favorite characters of yours over the years partly cuz he represents all the stuff I enjoy about your work, that exquisite blend of disturbingness and mirth and sheer charm :)

Really glad you like him! He's spooky and fun, and honestly I'm glad people like that.

What are some of your writing/thematic inspirations for Q&A? Love it btw!

Glad you like it! I promise I'm trying to write more of it.

As for inspirations, I drew from things like UNSONG, Fine Structure, Ra, There is No Antimemetics Division, A Practical Guide To Evil, Invisible Cities, Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, The Library of Babel, Floornight and maybe others.

As for less literary media consider Kill Six Billion Demons, Fallen London (plus Sunless Sea and Sunless Skies), Path of Exile, Awful Hospital, Cultist Simulator, the work of M.C. Escher, Leviathan, and probably a bunch of others that don't come to mind right now.

This is most of the stuff that goes into Q&A? I guess? Maybe? It also contributes to other stuff I make, like Chiasmata.

is quiet and antagonism on hiatus?

Yeah, I think it is. I didn't really make an announcement about it, but my creative focus has drifted from it (boo), and it's difficult to get the story to go in the way I want.

Thank you for your patience.

This is maybe silly but your good night/ good morning posts have always been such a consistently uplifting part of my dash for so long, they make me really happy so goodnight and good morning and thank you for being wonderful <3

Well, I'm very glad you like them. I'm not particularly consistent with them, but it's nice to hear they go down well.

(The current series of 'ominous and possibly prophetic ramblings' are quite fun, too.)

I see (having seen you in the comments) that you also read Clown Corps. An unexpected confluence of interests.

I'm here to say absolutely bizarre things in the comments sections of all sorts of comics.

Every now and then I find you on the Disqus comment section of a bunch of different webcomics and it amuses me a lot. Like a big game of Where in the Web Is Kaytwo Sandiego

At one point, my real-life acquaintances expressed humourous scepticism that I existed outside of the room we habitually met in, because I didn't seem like the kind of person you could just kinda bump into. I'm reminded of that.