originally posted at https://comicalmomentum.tumblr.com/po...

i continued reading PDH, of course

JDR is downright amazing at sci-fi-style fantasy worldbuilding. And the politics of her stories are made of yikes. I’m continually repelled by the latter and drawn back by the former, but ultimately I guess I’m drawn to trans women passionately doing weird, esoteric shit on the internet? I think I aspire to be one of those trans women passionately doing weird, esoteric shit on the internet on some level, and look around for inspiration, lol.

For example: this living universe that feeds on other universes, all carefully figured out within JDR’s wacky multiverse mechanics and kinda-questionable physics. That’s a fantastic concept. It doesn’t belong in a story where this happens.

And also like… JDR’s characters and dialogue are so stiff, and… odd-sounding? And the emotions and characterisations explored are… really idk, not particularly interesting? Whereas like, look at something like Porpentine’s work.

Basically, yeah, when I get round to making my own stuff, I want to be much more like Porpentine than JDR. But currently I feel like I think a lot more like JDR…


A diagram of complicatedly connected 3D tubes, providing an abstract representation of the events of the three stories.
source

Here is a diagram that JDR made to explain the plot of her three comics. (The worst part is that it all makes sense to me, and it still isn’t as complicated as Homestuck.)

Also check out this adorable self-aggrandisement:

Minkowski's famous diagram suffers from one terrible flaw, in my opinion - it is inadaquate to represent events beyond one universe. Yes, you can stack Minkowski diagrams, or lay them side to side, but really, this is more indicative of one big universe with multiple domains, or alternate universe variants (I call them splays) than actual, truly alien universes beyond it, operating in the realm of a true multiverse.

To cure that problem, I popped the basic notion of the Minkowski diagram into another dimension, the third dimension, and made dimensional sculptures represent discreet universes. The shapes of the surfaces they represent define the history, the worldline, of entire cosmologies. And of course, interuniversal travel and contact, as well as multiversal level constructions and artifices, can be represented as tubes, ribbons, and other forms within my diagram.

...

So there you have it - my little contribution to things. Maybe some string theorist will use it one day (I can dream, dammit!); the Minkowski-Reitz Diagram.

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