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Who What Now posted:I read that entire OP and still have no idea what the hell CHIM is. Experience CHIM!
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Dec 22, 2011 00:07
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Hamiltonian Bicycle posted:I don't know if you're serious, but no, that's not it at all. It's an Elder Scrolls thing.  Dude is channeling timecube or something
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Dec 22, 2011 00:32
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For those who can't bother with reading the article, this is the important part: "Ok now we gotta talk about The Godhead. The Godhead is the supreme power in the Elder Scrolls universe, though no one there knows of his existence. All of Aurbis, Anu, and Padomay are merely his dream. He is dreaming up the entire world of The Elder Scrolls, and everything in it is a part of him. To achieve CHIM is to realize this, to recognize the Godhead, to see that everything is him, that you are him, and still maintaining your individuality. You are still able to say I, and thus you have achieved CHIM. In knowing that everything is merely an extension of the same thing, an extension of you, you have power over it in the same way you can move your arm. It is like a little part of the Godhead having a lucid dream, where he is still dreaming though he knows he is dreaming and thus has control over the dream. The only reason those that achieve CHIM haven't enslaved the whole world (Vivec) is because they know it is pointless, as they already are the world. Everyone and everything is them: past, present, and future. In theory they have limitless power, though they no longer have any desire to use it."
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Dec 22, 2011 00:54
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 I'm having flashbacks to the DnD threads with BrandorKP's insanity after reading that. So it's like nirvana but also with magic powers? Why is it called CHIM?
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Dec 22, 2011 01:12
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Okay, good to know I'm not the only one who didn't understand what CHIM was, even after reading that OP. So if I have it right, CHIM is what an npc achieves when they realize that they're in a video game. It drives most npcs with this knowledge mad, but if they are able to retain their individuality they basically become like Player Characters, and are able to control anything and everything but don't want to take over the world because they know they're just in a video game and it won't really matter anyway. Do I have this right? What the gently caress?
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Dec 22, 2011 01:18
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Who What Now posted:I read that entire OP and still have no idea what the hell CHIM is. It's the greatest power imaginable within the game-the power and knowledge of the Player Character. The power to treat death or dismemberment as a nuisance (Save games), the power to interact with the world in strange, counter-intuitive ways (Container inventories, running around like a lunatic in a straight line from point A to B) and if necessary, the power to modify the world at will. (Game Mods.) It's actually one of the most fascinating concepts within the Elder Scrolls series, since it recognizes that games with different player characters exists, and incorporates it into the Lore. (Notably Vivec, an NPC from Morrowind, and Tiber Septim, a historical character who ascended to Godhood.)
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Dec 22, 2011 01:33
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Valtis posted:For those who can't bother with reading the article, this is the important part: See when I googled CHIM all I got was results for a Canadian Christian music station...turns out I wasn't too far off!
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Dec 22, 2011 03:10
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That's.. okay, once it was explained as a video game character realizing they're in a video game and getting all the powers that come with being a Player it made more sense but the way it's described in that link is seriously a level of crazy/unreadable. For the record I had never ever heard of CHIM anywhere else before now, and did not have any idea it was Elder Scrolls related, so I assumed it was Internet lingo and proceeded with my response from there.
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Dec 22, 2011 03:28
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QueerPope posted:I'm just getting an error saying "Missing Plugin." Does anybody know what plugin that would be? By the way, if anyone had this problem it was related to using Chrome and has been fixed.  Now it's time for some more of my favorite thing in the world--corn.
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Dec 22, 2011 06:12
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Yeah for some reason people are really bad at explaining it. It's just some lore stuff from some Elder Scrolls games that explains the powers of the player character. It's a 4th-wall-breaking meta-element that explains players as being those characters who can realize that they are in a video game but not cease to exist. By its own definition, Katia is basically a CHIM character - even though she appears unaware of us, the 'reality' is that the character of Katia is really a cypher used by the actual character (Kazerad) to interact with the world of the story. Kind of silly and pointless, but it's sometimes actually used for stuff in the setting. Some characters are actually masters of CHIM.
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Dec 22, 2011 06:27
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I still don't get why it's called CHIM.
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Dec 22, 2011 06:56
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Basically, the bethesda writer that wrote Vivec's 36 sermons for morrowind put in a bunch of new-agey metaphysical stuff and broke/referenced the 4th wall pretty frequently, by explaining mechanics like pausing the game to drink potions or restructuring the world with the construction set as powers granted by Vivec's version of enlightenment, which is called CHIM for some reason. I'd call CHIM an easter-egg or sly reference at most since Vivec doesn't really act like he's videogame omnipotent, and actually obtained his divine powers alongside two other unenlightened dickheads by loving around with a dead god's heart. All of the 4th wall breaking stuff is hidden in row after row of crazy nonsense Vivec poetry about things like marrying the King of Rape, so I don't think you're really supposed to take it as the driving canon behind the Elder Scrolls franchise.
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Dec 22, 2011 07:45
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CHIM is console and construction set access via being aware that you are a character in a narrative.
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Dec 22, 2011 09:52
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Fucknag posted:I still don't get why it's called CHIM. It's meant to be more or less ancient proto-elfspeak for "being super rad". People like to type it in all capital letters because it's so holy.
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Dec 22, 2011 09:55
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Ah. I always assumed it was an acronym for something. Yeah, it's a cool bit of lore fluff that allows the game to explain away the unrealistic aspects of the game mechanics without breaking "immersion", so to speak. Lore nerds just tend to get a little carried away with it, and I've never understood why someone needs to write a lengthy thesis on the philosophy of The Elder Scrolls every time the subject crops up.
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Dec 22, 2011 10:23
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It's a dude in the game breaking the fourth wall and realizing he's a goofy looking fucker in a video game. Why is that so hard to understand
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Dec 22, 2011 11:47
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Mywhatacleanturtle posted:Ah. I always assumed it was an acronym for something. That's why. I don't remember Kvatch being big on Necromancy or the like, but I suppose it's as good as any reason to bring the Archmage's ban on Necromancy up.
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Dec 22, 2011 13:14
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Mywhatacleanturtle posted:Ah. I always assumed it was an acronym for something. I think it adds quite a bit to the elder scrolls lore honestly. Especially considering the events of the Dragon Breaks. But it wasn't just fans who got carried away with it all. Michael Kirkbride was one of the major writers for Morrowind and this is pretty much all his creation. He continues to write this stuff even though he is no longer employed by Bethesda. (There might be a connection there.)
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Dec 22, 2011 16:47
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Kazerad posted:As for the sex-negative thing, I know I've said it before but Katia's views do not necessarily reflect my own. But even then, I think "sex-negative" is a somewhat misleading label for her views. A lot of her statements border on outright slut-shaming, but at the same time she has only been shown applying them to herself. In a lot of ways you could compare it to a depressed, middle-aged accountant who looks back on his life and says "I could've been a musician". He clearly doesn't value accounting very much... but would it be right to tell him this belief was wrong, or construe this as an attack on accounting in general? That said, I think the ghost in the cave was the low point as far as that stuff is concerned and from Dmitri onward it's softened on that stuff. I dunno if that was intentional or not but I think it's an improvement!
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Dec 23, 2011 00:56
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Haledjian posted:How readers interpret it is gonna matter a lot more in this department than how you explain it on Something Awful, though. And honestly when I first started reading it, the "it's just Katia" interpretation is what I wanted to go with, but when you yourself characterize your work as "slutty cat adventures" (1, 2) it's pretty hard to give it the benefit of the doubt there (even when I really really want to). Oh, yeah, I recognize that the things I write on SA aren't going to affect how the writing is perceived by-and-large. I just wanted to throw in my two cents on the topic. I wouldn't even go so far as to claim my interpretations are "right", since I prefer it when people come up with their own opinions on the writing. It's part of the reason I misrepresent the comic in my descriptions: I want people to come up with their own description, not use mine. Nobody who has read it would seriously describe it as "slutty cat adventures", I think. Though this is totally the first time I've seen anyone describe the ghost scene as a height of sexual negativity.
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Dec 23, 2011 05:08
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The ghost calls Katia a "Khajiit whore" which is obviously sexually negative and not an ancient ghost of an elf being racist about Khajiits at all.
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Dec 23, 2011 05:57
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The ghost scene was more a low point of Katia being treated like poo poo (and very nearly killed, actually). Also I suppose it's worth noting again that sex-negativity doesn't come directly from there being characters who are bigoted and judgemental, more the overall climate created by the story where sex is just a source of suffering for the main character and she only runs into people that make her feel like crap for it. Even if it isn't the authour's intent, the story itself gives off the impression that the message is "Sex is bad, and sexuality is for those who lose control and will only hurt them". I know it's safer played off as a joke rather than seriously contemplated (nothing would make the readers sidle away more uncomfortably than their video game humour protagonist seeking therapy for a lifetime of sexual exploitation and date rape over their substance abuse), but since so much of the story's emotional content is wrapped up in how terrible Katia's life is and how much she wants to improve it, her sex life has sort of become part of it. If her improving her life means not having sex, the message is sex is a negative thing. Dolash fucked around with this message at 06:42 on Dec 23, 2011 |
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Dec 23, 2011 06:39
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Kazerad posted:It's part of the reason I misrepresent the comic in my descriptions: I want people to come up with their own description, not use mine. Nobody who has read it would seriously describe it as "slutty cat adventures", I think. The thing is that you're presenting the sex stuff in exactly the same context as the alcoholism, and the lack of useful skills, and the poor impulse control, and all these things that reasonable people would agree are character flaws. So "stop loving people so much" is subsumed into the character arc of "become a better person." Now, you can say that only represents Katia's view, and not yours, but unless you take steps within the narrative, not in forum posts, to communicate that Katia is wrong about this, then the comic is absolutely broadcasting a sex-negative and kinda sexist message that, statistically speaking, a majority of your readers will probably agree with. You say you don't want to get into these issues in the comic because you haven't researched them, but by making slut-shaming into one of the main recurring gags (no pun intended) of the comic, you really already have. Robo Pope posted:The ghost calls Katia a "Khajiit whore" which is obviously sexually negative and not an ancient ghost of an elf being racist about Khajiits at all. In line with what I mentioned above it's the third vector by which the same idea, Katia Needs To Stop Being A Slut, is transmitted, the first two being Katia's narration and Kazerad's descriptions of the comic on its webpages. Two of them come from flawed, unreliable characters and one is tongue-in-cheek, but they're still all reaffirming each other, and the only thing on the other side is Kazerad saying on SA "I don't really think that," which isn't going to do a whole lot to alleviate it. I'm a dude who hasn't even had to face these types of attitudes directed at me and those parts of the comic still make me uncomfortable, even AFTER reading Kazerad's take on it on SA. What with all the hits it's been getting, I'm sure there's at least hundreds if not thousands of female readers who don't have the privilege of having read this particular forum thread. How many of them are going to feel alienated by it? I can't really make a guess beyond "probably too many." And that number's gonna scale accordingly with increasing (and deserved) popularity of this comic. e - Yeah, what Dolash said, also. Haledjian fucked around with this message at 07:06 on Dec 23, 2011 |
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Dec 23, 2011 07:01
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Coach Sport posted:Basically, the bethesda writer that wrote Vivec's 36 sermons for morrowind put in a bunch of new-agey metaphysical stuff and broke/referenced the 4th wall pretty frequently, by explaining mechanics like pausing the game to drink potions or restructuring the world with the construction set as powers granted by Vivec's version of enlightenment, which is called CHIM for some reason. I'd call CHIM an easter-egg or sly reference at most since Vivec doesn't really act like he's videogame omnipotent, and actually obtained his divine powers alongside two other unenlightened dickheads by loving around with a dead god's heart. All of the 4th wall breaking stuff is hidden in row after row of crazy nonsense Vivec poetry about things like marrying the King of Rape, so I don't think you're really supposed to take it as the driving canon behind the Elder Scrolls franchise. Isn't the King of Rape supposed to be Molag Bal? And yeah, I never really connected Vivec with "knows he's in a video game" while I was actually playing Morrowind. The whole CHIM thing is basically a really obscure inside joke that nobody would ever get unless they actually read a crazy amount of in-game books or have it pointed out to them by somebody who did. A self-aware NPC might make for an interesting video game character (especially if they actually did have construction set powers), but I don't think it'd work nearly as well in practice as a similar character in prose.
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Dec 23, 2011 07:09
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Kazerad, your comments make me feel like you are unaware of the amount of porney fan-art Prequel has spawned, and if so I am so sorry for bringing it to your attention, but I'm pretty sure there is at least a few people who are reading the comic because they like the idea of a slutty catgirl loving everything. That's probably a consequence of having anthropomorphic characters though. (or being connected to the MSPA fanbase.  )
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Dec 23, 2011 07:16
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prahanormal posted:Kazerad, your comments make me feel like you are unaware of the amount of porney fan-art Prequel has spawned, and if so I am so sorry for bringing it to your attention, but I'm pretty sure there is at least a few people who are reading the comic because they like the idea of a slutty catgirl loving everything. Just from the posts in the MSPA forums thread I'd say he probably has some idea. I actually remember him saying in this thread that he does exploit that audience to some extent, so 
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Dec 23, 2011 07:19
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So, maybe I'm mis-remembering, but has there actually been a character that Katia has met where both Katia and that character wanted some sort of relationship? Because I'm pretty sure that there isn't, but you're all making arguments that sex is presented negatively because Katia feels negatively about loving everything that moves when she's sober (blackout drunk is a different story). It seems an awful lot like you're setting the character up to fail. Glare at the suggestion that Katia gently caress <character she just met> or stick a Pinapple up her vagina? CLEARLY A PRUDE.
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Dec 23, 2011 13:57
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See at least the CHIM discussion was better than the "pineapple up her vagina" discussion.
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Dec 23, 2011 14:14
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Volmarias posted:you're all making arguments that sex is presented negatively because Katia feels negatively about loving everything that moves when she's sober (blackout drunk is a different story). If her rationale was explicitly (or even implicitly) "I'm not gonna have sex with people because I don't want to, and I have much more important things to focus on right now" that would be fine, and I don't think the story would suffer. But instead her rationale is "I need to stop being such a whore." The former would actually serve the narrative BETTER, I think, because it's in keeping with the theme of self-actualization and getting what one wants out of life. The latter is something she's doing for other people, to try and keep them from using bigoted slurs on her. It's hella different! P.S. I think the CHIM discussion is really boring, but you guys are welcome to have it! Haledjian fucked around with this message at 19:46 on Dec 23, 2011 |
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Dec 23, 2011 19:36
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Haledjian posted:I'm a dude who hasn't even had to face these types of attitudes directed at me and those parts of the comic still make me uncomfortable, even AFTER reading Kazerad's take on it on SA. What with all the hits it's been getting, I'm sure there's at least hundreds if not thousands of female readers who don't have the privilege of having read this particular forum thread. How many of them are going to feel alienated by it? I can't really make a guess beyond "probably too many." And that number's gonna scale accordingly with increasing (and deserved) popularity of this comic. I can understand where you're coming from, but I haven't found any evidence that I'm alienating any large portion of my female readership. In fact, of all the Prequel discussions I watch around the internet, this is the only place where the issue of sex positivity/negativity has even come up - which is somewhat disappointing because I think it is a rather interesting topic, especially in the context of the story. Even Tumblr, which is usually first to jump on issues like this, has been remarkably quiet. When it comes down to it, I think readers are pretty smart. I don't need to give them hints about what's ethically right and wrong. This isn't a Saturday Morning Cartoon where the bullies always get punished, the thieves always get caught, and any bad behavior is followed by an immediate explanation of "but that is wrong!". I certainly could attempt to balance things out like that - for instance, making sure the comic portrays healthy sexual relationships among the other characters - but it seems silly. At least to me, it feels belittling to the reader, like I am taking on an unwarranted position as their moral adviser. So it's something I choose not to do. I recognize the approach probably alienates a certain amount of readers - like I said before, sex is a pretty sensitive topic and Katia bumbles through it uncouthly at best. In the end, though, I think it's worth it: men and women alike have lauded Katia as a believable character, and I'm not sure I could've achieved that with a tamer vocabulary ("I'm going to stop having sex with people because I don't want to and have more important things to do right now") or more acceptable subject matter. The ambiguity behind whether she's doing this for herself or others is likewise intentional; the story is not trying to portray her actions as the "right" thing to do. Whether you cheer her on should be up to you. So yeah, tl;dr version is that I'm not too worried about it. I know I'm kind of playing with fire, but that just makes it all the more interesting when I don't get burned. prahanormal posted:Kazerad, your comments make me feel like you are unaware of the amount of porney fan-art Prequel has spawned, and if so I am so sorry for bringing it to your attention, but I'm pretty sure there is at least a few people who are reading the comic because they like the idea of a slutty catgirl loving everything. Hah, don't worry, I know about it. Given the type of character Katia is, it's actually kind of neat seeing what the porn artists write about the drawings. One that sticks in my mind is a nude drawing someone did; the artist wrote that he "would've done full porn, but... that wasn't what Katia would've wanted". I thought that was kind of touching. And not the kind of touching usually associated with porn. (That was a tasteless masturbation joke, to balance out all this heavy discussion about sex positivism)
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Dec 24, 2011 03:13
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Haledjian posted:I feel like you haven't really reading the posts. Nobody has called Katia a "prude." This has nothing to do with prudishness. Nobody is demanding that the character have sex (I mean honestly I wish that stuff wasn't featured so prominently because it makes me feel weird about recommending it to friends). They are saying that the comic's treatment of her when she DOES is problematic. The main character almost completely lacks self confidence and considers herself a punching bag, and part of the plot progressing is her making herself overcome that. I mean, yes, I understand where you're coming from, but it seems (at least to me) that the main character is basically doing this to herself because she has issues with her own sexuality, which aren't helped by the fact that every time she drinks she ends up blacking out and doing things that she regrets. If you yoyo-d a pinapple with a part of your body when you got blackout drunk and you just happened to be an alcoholic who gets blackout drunk with just a sip, you might get a complex too. And then the people who are supposed to be advising and helping her tell her to blow some dude? Volmarias fucked around with this message at 05:41 on Dec 24, 2011 |
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Dec 24, 2011 05:21
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Not to mention at this point it would be difficult to make a positive sexual experience funny.
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Dec 24, 2011 17:12
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Haha I have faith Kazerad can make anything funny. I laughed and was sad at the same time when Dmitri died, real talk. Point taken though, I like how the comic's been going and I don't want to hijack the thread or anything.
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Dec 25, 2011 07:09
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Man, looks like Kvatch was a regular magnet for death. (new update, fyi)
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Dec 29, 2011 03:12
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oh yes oh god yes form the head FORM THE HEAD unghhhh...
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Ouch detox does not look fun 
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Dec 29, 2011 03:14
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I hope Katia doesn't feel tempted by any rings she might find at the bottom of that well.
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Dec 29, 2011 03:25
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Tollymain posted:Ouch detox does not look fun As far as DTs go, just barfing once is getting off pretty light, then again she only had like one sip of ancient broken wine a couple days ago, so it's not like she had a lot to detox from. Hahaha, I just noticed that that douchebag merchant added a price tag to the drawing Katia tried to buy the book with.
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Dec 29, 2011 05:25
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IronSaber posted:Man, looks like Kvatch was a regular magnet for death. Man, people really don't have good solutions to slaughterfish infestations do they.
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Dec 29, 2011 06:02
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Good job on staving off the weirdos saying all the "don't worry about what people say" stuff. That's usually codeword for "I don't care what you think, gimme fap material".
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Dec 29, 2011 15:01
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Pollyanna posted:Good job on staving off the weirdos saying all the "don't worry about what people say" stuff. That's usually codeword for "I don't care what you think, gimme fap material". Yes, exactly this.
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Dec 29, 2011 17:01
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