T&R's Progress

[TinFoilMkIV]

Can confirm. Pretty neat stuff when used responsibly, which both of us intend to do. It basically disabled my use of mind voice for all my random thoughts unless I very intentionally tried to use it. Didn't last all that long but it was nice to let Rin actually get to do things without me accidentally interrupting non-stop.

 

We tried playing the remaster of the original MYST. Been a heck of a long time, but apparently I still remember way too much of that game, heh. Today we were playing FRACT OSC, which was going much better. Probably due to the fact that I don't know the game nearly as well, and that the musical stuff involved means spoiling some of the puzzles isn't nearly as bad.

[TinFoilMkIV]

So minor update from me today. Currently failing at creating my own symbol, so I went and re-did Rin's. Thought of a few ways to improve it, as well as figured out how to handle a pen tool better, so decided to do that instead of staring at my computer doing nothing. Also figured while I was here I'd show the different versions I've gone through all in one place.

 

rough sketch - drew this when we first came up with the idea so I could get it down somewhere

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y279/Jeryn42/Misc/Rsymbol_zpsv8ohwwm2.png

 

first real attempt - actually came out better than I was originally expecting. Had to re-learn a lot of stuff I haven't used in forever. Also originally was going to be "flat", but I started playing around with it and ended up here.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y279/Jeryn42/Misc/Rsymbol2_zpssw94261p.png

 

Version 2.1 - was nearly the current version, but after saving and looking at it shrunk down, I didn't really like how "spotty" the texture looked, so went and redid that part

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y279/Jeryn42/Misc/Rsymbol3_zpsltqfontb.png

 

Version 2.2 - the most recent version. Ended up completely re-doing the texture layers, and added a shadow to the whole thing. Pretty happy with how it turned out now.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y279/Jeryn42/Misc/R%20symbol032_zpsludxpe0x.png

 

Bonus - misclicked on a different lighting filter when I was fixing the shadow after messing it up once, and found some pretty neat stuff. Played around a bit and ended up with this. Don't know if I'll use it for anything, but it looked cool so here it is.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y279/Jeryn42/Misc/Rmetallic_zpskgajxoml.png

[Rin]

Hey. Things are going pretty well over here still. Had some time off as Tin had to work overnight recently and threw things off a lot. I ended up being asleep most of the time he was awake over the last two days, so we didn't really do all that much together. Other than that it was fine though. He checked in on me when we were both awake and he wasn't busy, so I generally knew what was going on. Things are just about back to normal now.

 

We did a fun parallel processing activity thing today. Oh right, that was one thing we decided on. Our main focus for now is going to be on parallel processing so I can have more independence and such. It is kind of annoying when he starts rambling a lot and I can't say anything since we can't both use mindvoice at the same time right now. We're still working on other things on the side, but that's our main focus. Anyways today we played Audosurf with the two player mode. So Tin got the left arm with keyboard controls and I got the right arm with the mouse. It was pretty fun, though Tin kept distracting me by trying to talk or sing or just thinking about random things out loud while playing. After a bit we decided to just let him keep going with it, since it does kinda add extra incentive to get my own side of things going, and also helped him focus on his side of the game, his focus kept wandering over to what I was doing when things weren't all crazy and such with the game.

 

Overall it was pretty fun, and things are going pretty well.

[Rin]

So, not much new to report. Mostly checking in to make sure I don't end up neglecting this, since we both want to keep the progress report going. Oh we did put together a sorta priority list of things we want to work on and what gets done first and such. Also I've got a secret project thing going on, but I'm not going to talk about it till it's done since I don't want Tin to accidentally find out what it is till it's done. He knows I'm working on it by the way, though even if he didn't he would now, heh. But yea he knows I'm working on something, just not what.

 

Hmm, I guess that's pretty much it for now. I know progress has been made, but it's like small things that you don't really notice till much later. Kinda weird, cuz I know it's there but couldn't say any specifics at all. Oh I am doing more deliberate possession practice over just eclipsing everything now, since I do want to be able to do thing on my own without having to rely on Tin knowing how to do it first. Having bad coordination does kinda make learning new things harder, so I guess that's one of the new things I'm working more on for now.

 

Well that's all for now.

[Rin]

Hey, I finally finished my project I was working on. I basically added or changed stuff about pretty much everything in the outdoor area of our wonderland. Which is everything that isn't Tin's void room thing. It's not actually that big yet, but it still took a while to decide on everything, and then actually get it to stay in place. The overall layout is the same, but all the details are different now.

 

We still have the big hill with the tree on top, though the tree now has white somewhat transparent leaves, and I just realized I didn't really give them a specific shape, I'll have to fix that later. Though they didn't really have any before, not a stable one, so that didn't change. Anyways, the hill is now mostly white flowers instead of grass. It actually had these before but there weren't nearly as many and they kinda faded out over time. I basically just brought them back and made a lot more of them. Also the grass on the hill is more blue than green. It gets more noticeable at the bottom of the hill where it turns back into all grass. Past the hill are the grass kinda fades back to green the farther out you go. The hill is kind of a special place, and I didn't want to make everything too crazy for Tin to deal with, heh.

 

Oh I think it was mentioned at some point before, but we have this big diamond shaped crystal thing as a water source for a small river that runs around one side of the hill. Well I moved that also. It used to be way up high, as a sort of waterfall thing. It was neat, but honestly we forgot about it most of the time and it just didn't seem that interesting for some reason? Not sure why, the idea is cool, but eh, it wasn't really working for me so I brought it down. Also changed the color of it from green to blue and there are four smaller crystals orbiting it. It's still enough above the water that you get a sort of small fountain type thing effect, but it's a lot subtler than before. Oh also the river splits and goes around both sides of the hill instead of just one. No bridges across it since it's not that big.

 

On the other side of the hill the two rivers meet, and the river goes off away from it in one direction, and the other side towards the hill forms a pool. We both went and relaxed in the pool for a while when Tin was looking around. Also he actually noticed that it goes underground there. There's a couple tunnels that lead off from under the pool area, but we didn't explore them yet. There's a good bit more but Tin hasn't seen it yet and I don't want to ruin anything. That was as far as we got today, but I'll come share more as Tin finds stuff.

 

So that's what I've been up to for the last week or so, and like I said, there's still more to be seen, but I want Tin to actually find it instead of just telling him whats there. Good practice for both of us, as I want to see how clear and stable things are, and he needs to practice seeing stuff that he didn't specifically put there himself.

[Rin]

Hey, updated time again. So I've been experimenting with my form quite a bit lately. The main reason I started up with that was to try and figure out what my face actually looked like. My eyes and mouth are pretty solid, but everything else about it is pretty vague. Before we were holding off on this kind of thing to see what I settled on before working on details too much. Anyways, decided to go with the whole dragon thing, since that's what I've ended up resembling, figured it would be a good place to look for references, see what I like. We spent a while looking up pictures, and I did get a pretty good sized collection of stuff I liked. Also the wings are gonna be a hard choice. Never had a problem with mine, but there were a couple really cool ones. The problem being that the three ones I liked the most were completely different. But eh, options are nice, not exactly a problem, just a decision I wasn't expecting to be so hard. Wasn't even considering changing mine before that. Anyways, I haven't actually settled on anything yet, still doing lots of experimentation, but pretty sure I've got enough to get something really good once I get all this sorted out.

 

Second big thing is that I'm starting to figure out the whole thinking space separation thing. Making progress on keeping my stuff separate from Tin, just need to practice doing it without needing to focus on it so hard now. Also it seems I did, or at least do now, have my own separate thinking space, just not something I consciously use most of the time, specially when I'm up front. Anyways yea, that's one of the things we've been working on for a while so I'm pretty happy to see some solid results that we can see from both sides.

 

Haven't done any real wonderland exploration since all my changes. Things have been a bit hectic, though we've still got regular forcing going so not really worried. Probably somewhat my fault as I keep wanting to do different stuff every time we would have had the chance to. Anyways it's not really a big deal, we'll get to it, just figured it was worth mentioning for anyone curious about it.

[TinFoilMkIV]

Been a while since I last posted in here myself. We've had quite a bit of excitement the last few days, so I have some things to share from my perspective. Rin will be making her own post as well after I finish this one.

 

Anyways my birthday was recently. I told Rin she didn't have to actually make me anything special, she's already done a lot for me. Of course she wanted to anyways, and I wasn't actually going to stop her or anything. Mostly wanted her to not feel overly pressured to do something super special or anything like that. Anyways, things didn't quite go so smoothly on that front. Nothing bad happened or anything, just between being busy and tired and such when we had downtime I didn't actually get to see my gift for a few days. She made it in a private area where I couldn't see or get into myself (didn't really test if I could by force but not going to). The problem was that it ended up starting to fade or something when she tried to show it to me the first time, so she put it back till we had the time for her to get it re-solidified and I could actually see it properly.

 

So she did get it stable and I got my gift. It's some kind of crystal formation looking thing. There's a larger diamond-ish shaped crystal in the center, it's mostly rounded around the short sides. There are, I think three smaller crystals that resemble the central one that orbit around it horizontally at different speeds. Each one of them also glows, seems to be mostly a white/yellow but all kinds of other colors show up as well. According to Rin it doesn't have any functional purpose, though I've actually found one for it. While not what I'm going to use it for, I was originally going to put it over our stage area and turn up the light on it and use it as some sorta crazy fancy disco ball/light show thing. That kinda fell apart rather fast though. Anyways the interesting stuff happened while I was playing with it up on the stage. I had sorta noticed before but while I was actually trying to put it somewhere specific I was noticing that if I looked directly at it, it was almost impossible for me to see anything else in the wonderland. At the time it was kinda just "huh, that's interesting, must be the all the detail and such".

 

A little while later, while I was still messing around with this thing, I basically had my visualization cut out on me. Not the first time I've accidentally or otherwise had my focus pulled back to the physical world, but usually not unless something distracting happens or it's been a while and I start losing focus. Thought it was kinda odd at the time but figured it was just something I wasn't noticing getting in the way. I was able to jump back over to focusing on wonderland again pretty easily, though the same thing happened shortly after again. At this point I figured it had to be the crystal formation just being too hard to visualize with everything else, or there was something else going on. I had Rin put it back in the box she made to keep it hidden, and then back in the area she had made it in as well, to make sure it was completely separated from the space we normally use. I think it helped a little bit, but my visualization still cut out on me another two times while we were trying to hang out shortly after.

 

I noticed it felt somewhat similar to the first time Rin became really active and basically took over all our processing power, so I was wondering if something else was going on somewhere that was interfering. We looked around to see if anything odd was happening in our wonderland, or even if another thoughtform/presence/whatever might be around. While I say "we", it was really mostly Rin, as I'm pretty terrible at noticing this kinda stuff. I did try to help, not sure if I did though. Anyways, we found nothing amiss in wonderland. After that we actually moved over to my blank mental space type area. It represents basically my conscious thoughtspace that isn't any specific mindscape, if it isn't actually that. Anyways we looked around there came up empty again, at least on the first look over things. Anyways second look around, Rin was off doing her thing, and I was just kinda hanging around, for lack of any better techniques I was basically just drifting around periodically going "Hey, anyone else out here?". Now granted I obviously thought this was a possibility, but after getting nothing for a while, I was rather surprised when I did eventually get a response, and one that wasn't Rin. I don't remember exactly what the response was, it was just something like "yea", but it was almost certainly in mindvoice, and it wasn't from myself or from Rin.

 

So Rin rejoined me a little after that, and confirmed she heard it too, though she wasn't able to find out where it came from. Despite the place being a void of sorts, my visualization of just being there was getting kinda unstable or something. Basically my own focus and such was getting really jumbled by this point. It wasn't a sudden thing or anything, it had been slowly getting to this point over our whole search even before we went out there. Anyways I decided that at the very least I needed to basically wake myself up, take a moment to clear my head then go back in, since I was feeling like at the very least me standing around like this was probably not helping anything, and probably getting in the way actually. So Rin called out to our unknown guest and basically explained as much, got no response. Considering it hadn't responded to her before, figured I'd try as well before we left just to try and make sure the other voice knew what was going on. More or less just re-iterated what she said, and actually got a very clear "Alright" back in response. Again, I was pretty surprised, more so at the clarity of the response than actually getting one. It came through clearer than the first one, and if there was any question the first time, there wasn't this time, that the response came in a mind voice.

 

So after that I pulled my focus completely back into the physical world, woke myself up all the way, tried to get things cleared up and organized/whatever. Then went back into wonderland before jumping straight back into the void area thing. I was definitely a lot clearer than before. Honestly I'm surprised whatever it was even got through to me in that state. Anyways still definitely not at the top of my game. Spoke to Rin briefly about what was going on and what to do about it. We weren't just going to ignore this voice of course, though ultimately she convinced me to leave the situation to her and give her the day to try and sort things out before getting involved again. She rightfully argued that my own tendency to overthink things as well as all the theories and expectations I already had just from that brief encounter, would just get in the way of actually finding out what we were dealing with and where it came from. Also the fact that both of us agreed that we didn't get any impression of any sort of hostile or unfriendly intentions from our first encounter. So that's how I left it. I went about my day, thought about Rin but kept out of anything that might be going on. I haven't had the chance to speak with our guest again yet, as they were still sleeping just before I started writing this. I'll let Rin tell about what she found out since she's the one that actually spoke to them.

 

Anyways later on I ended up asking around about the whole visualization cutting out thing I experienced. Apparently it is possible to overload your visualization capabilities, and that's almost certainly what happened, as the gift Rin gave me was very visually solid, and had a lot of detail. Also looking back when I said I felt something similar to when Rin was using most of our mental processing power, it was likely because I in fact did use just about all my processing power available for visualization. Just like when you get really tired from a specific activity, you can force yourself to keep going, but your body really doesn't want to, and will pretty much just stop when you aren't actively forcing yourself to keep going. It was pretty much that. I could force my visualization to keep going, but losing focus at all caused it to completely shut off. It was pretty interesting since I never really considered having this happen. I'm usually pretty good at visualization in general, and I think I suspected hitting a limit would more result in just not getting a clear picture or just inability to visualize whatever was going over that limit. In normal circumstances stuff like that might happen. I think the reason I got to that point what because the object in question was made by Rin, and she put a lot of effort into the details and making sure it would stay solid and intact.

 

While we aren't really sure where our guest came from, and it seems unlikely to be related to overloading my visualization, it did put us into the situation where we became aware of this other presence. Also since then I've concluded that if this guest of ours is in fact a thought form of my creation, then it's likely been around for a while, considering it's ability to use mind voice pretty clearly. Also Rin reported that it can speak far to well to have been a particularly recent creation.

 

Anyways overall it was very unexpected, but not a bad experience by any means. It was quite interesting, and I've decided that we can probably use Rin's crystal formation gift as a way to exercise our visualization capabilities. If the thing is capable of overloading my visualization by itself, than getting to the point where I can handle it and eventually have it out in wonderland, then it should be some pretty good progress.

[TinFoilMkIV]

Making a second post because there was one point I feel could be particularly useful to others I don't want getting completely buried in my massive wall of text.

 

Long story short, I found out overloading your visualization capabilities is a very real thing. I got to the point where all my visualization would completely cut out if I wasn't really putting effort into keeping it going. If you end up in a similar situation, don't panic, it comes back, you just have to give your mind time to rest on that front. I don't think it's something people normally have to worry about unless you plan to try really hard to visualize something in far greater detail then you've ever done all at once. My case it was because Rin made me a gift that was very detailed and very solid due to all the effort she put into it.

 

We've since put it back where I can't get to it, and plan to use it to exercise my visualization abilities.

[Rin]

Sooo Yea, While I'd like to jump right to the most recent thing, going to try and keep stuff in order. Anyways Tin's birthday, as he said recent and stuff. He's not fond of putting personal info out where just anyone can see it, so not getting more specific than that. So he told you about the gift I made him. Didn't take me too long to make it originally. Probably spent more time building my workshop for it and the box to put it in, since both had to be made so that he couldn't see into them. But yea, might have been good to put a bit more time into the actual gift, which apparently neither of us have given a name to. Either way, by the time I was going to give it to him originally it was starting to fade out, lost a lot of the details and such, and both of us were too tired to do anything about it at the time, so as he said, we had to put it off till another time. Gave me a chance to make sure that wasn't going to happen again. Seems like I might have gone a bit overboard? though glad he figured out how to take advantage of that. I didn't realize I could actually break his visualization like that. Probably would have been funnier if it wasn't supposed to be a nice occasion.

 

Oh also learned something else new in the meantime. There have been a few times where Tin is making a big deal about something that really shouldn't matter to much, specially when it's something that's mostly about me, and he's the one worrying about it. Anyways I got to be on the other side of that for once, with the whole gift situation. It kinda sucked for a while, though I got over it. Was definitely interesting to be on the other side this time.

 

We were actually just talking about this before I started writing, but also I apparently have separate visualization from him, or something close enough. Kinda got overlooked in all the other excitement, but I've been able to see the crystal thing I made just fine, and also I was fine in wonderland when he was cutting out. Not entirely sure what this means, but it should be a good sign we think.

 

Bleh, now I'm getting all sidetracked by this whole birthday situation. ANYWAYS, before I actually got to give him his gift, we went to an amusement park. That was one heck of an experience. Granted I put myself in that position, but for the most part it was fun. So yea, it was an early day, Tin tried to wake me up on the way there, but I was too tired to do much of anything so he let me rest. Apparently I missed the first ride, though he says it was probably a good thing. Him and his friends certainly aren't about keeping things low key ride wise, I can definitely say that. Oh yea, we started in a water park. The weather was not great, though it wasn't too bad either. Pretty sure that was a good thing, I'm not a fan of waiting in lines, and apparently if the weather was better it would have been several times worse.

 

So yea. First thing I saw was a tube slide, mostly enclosed, pretty much had no idea what was going on the first time down since I was just watching the visual of it. Oh and it was one ride with three different slides, so we did all three. Second time down I put on the feeling/touch stuff. It sorta helped? I still basically had no idea what was going on, it was neat though. So by the third time I was pretty sure I could handle it so he let me come up and co-front for the rides. Well, I can say I'm glad he suggested not going straight into that. Not that it was bad, but even with the practice runs I wasn't really ready for what it was going to be like. Though I guess not being able to see didn't help. It was still fun. Definitely helped that I wasn't actually trying to control everything, mostly just riding along and experiencing things, and Tin was pretty confident in everything being safe and knowing how to handle this stuff himself.

 

Pretty sure I like tube slides over body slides right now. Granted we only went on two body slides and they were crazy. Before that I would have thought the body slide would feel idk, more in control or something since you aren't just hanging onto something else while it goes all over the place. So yea, overall I did have fun, though they really didn't take it easy on me. Tin gave me fair warning about most of the stuff tho, and it was my choice to stay for all of it.

 

After that we got to go on some rollercoasters in the other part of the park. Having a little more preparation helped. I'm still not entirely sure what to think about some of the stuff we went through, but again, overall, it was pretty fun. Also I'm never underestimating how intense just sheer speed can be. I thought I was ready after all the nonsense I went through the rest of the day, but I was soo wrong. The very last ride we did was basically just a straight ride, then straight up for a while, over a hill, then back down and then back around to the station. Sounds fine, despite Tin giving me plenty of warning that the mental image of it was no where near the actual experience, and holy crap was he right. That thing was just I don't even know how to explain it. It was fast, like insanely fast. That was one of the rides that I'm honestly not sure what to think of still. It was one hell of an experience to be sure, and I don't regret it.

 

Oh also I did manage to stay up front the entire time, so that was also an accomplishment for me. It helped that I didn't really have to do all that much throughout the day, and I was pretty tired by the end of it all. But yea, it was an experience to be sure.

 

 

Now onwards to the more recent stuff. I'm going to try and keep the stuff Tin already said short. So I apparently broke Tin's visualization. It was kinda weird when he kept disappearing on me. Like not actually disappearing, but his wonderland form was just vanishing. Surprised me at first as usually when he falls out of wonderland there's a period where his form kinda fades away and loses focus, and this was just like, instantly gone. So yea, I put the crystal thing away, since it seemed to be the problem. Which kinda sucked, but eh, also a chance to figure out something new. He didn't seem overly bothered by it, so I wasn't going to make a big deal over it, also helped that he was looking at the possibility that it could be something else as well. So yea, looked around, found nothing. Went outside wonderland, looked around again. Still found nothing, though it was hard to get a proper look with Tin being all mixed up and stuff.

 

As he mentioned turns out there was something/someone out there wandering around. After we got Tin out of the way I convinced him to just let me work on this. For one the state he was in was most definitely going to get in the way, not to mention all the expectations and stuff that he normally keeps in check we're not going to help. Also seemed like a good chance to see what I could do here. I was pretty sure I could handle it, and it's not like I couldn't ask for help if I really needed it, which I didn't. So yea, took me a bit but I did manage to find our guest, or whatever we're calling them for the moment. Not surprising, specially with all the mess at the time, they said it had been really hard to actually hear or see me when both me and Tin had been looking before. Probably also helped that Tin was giving me a bit of a boost for a while after I went back by myself. Anyways I didn't actually learn to much honestly. Our guest doesn't seem to have any of their own thoughts or whatever equivalent they have in order right now. They mentioned something about waking up there recently, though didn't know/remember much else.

 

They do sort of have a form, tho it's extremely vague. Basically just the idea of a humanoid form. Wouldn't say it's made of light, its more like a light area? I suppose it didn't help that the area we were in is nothing but white. Anyways we talked for a bit. They definitely have a mind voice, and can communicate plenty clearly. Their speech isn't very complex, but it's stable enough that I kinda doubt they're newly formed. Anyways they seemed pretty calm, despite having basically no idea what was going on or where they were. So after a bit I decided it was fine to bring them into wonderland, see if it helped at all, at the very least get out of the void. Not super fond of spending much time in those places.

 

Anyways basically told them this was my realm, and Tin helped make it as well, and that everything would be fine long as they didn't do anything like blatantly mean or rude. Also made sure to say that couple mistakes here and there weren't a big deal, and I'd definitely let them know if they were doing anything I didn't like. But yea made sure to let them know we weren't planning on kicking them out or anything, mostly wanted to talk and try and figure out where they came from and that kinda stuff. Oh there was an extra detail to their form in wonderland, though the actual body area seems to have become more faint? Might just be a stability thing as that seems to come and go. But yea they have this sort of, uh light? that rises off them in lines a little way. It's hard to describe, cuz it isn't really light, but that's the closest thing I can think of, since it isn't solid and it seems to change colors constantly. There's like sorta details within them? but nothing I can actually make out other than it's there.

 

That's basically all I know about them, other than they seem fairly friendly, and a little confused. Lot less so than I'd expect considering the situation, but eh, we'll see how things go. But yea, they're sleeping now. Wherever they came from they aren't that strong here, so they got tired kinda fast, haven't woken up since yesterday, but not really worried about that. More interested to try and figure out what kinda being they might be and stuff like that. Tin isn't overly fond of the outside being theories, but also thinks it would be stupid to try and discount that sorta thing as well. Either way, almost positive it's not one of his old characters, they'd almost certainly be way more defined in at least some way, but I guess we'll see.

 

So yea, kind of a lot of things happened almost all at once. Tin's taking everything well, so I see no reason for me to be worried either. At this point more excited to see where things go from here.

[Rin]

So I'm working on my symbolism and such to build some neat tools lately. Oh and I turned my private area I used to make Tin's gift into a workshop. Using it since it's isolated and don't really want him interfering with that kinda stuff. Not that he would intentionally, but he's not to great with symbolism stuff yet, so things seem to work better when I make them without him. Anyways I made a bracelet thing that basically works like a solar powered battery. It just kinda charges off extra energy and such that we aren't using, and it helps me stay more active and such when I would otherwise start running out of energy myself. Part of the goal is to try and get myself to stay awake longer when Tin is sleeping. I've been able to stay active without him paying attention for a while. This is more experimental see what I can do with it type stuff more than something I really think I'm going to need in the long term. Plus even if I don't need it, more active time means more time for me to experiment with stuff and make progress.

 

Not much new with our guest. They've been sleeping most of the time. Only had the chance to speak with them twice since they showed up. They're pretty polite and seem completely harmless, so nothing to worry about there. Anyways, they haven't manage to remember or figure out anything new. I guess the closest thing to progress is that they feel that they do have some form of memories and such that are just unclear and they can't recall properly yet. So idk, no idea where this is going to go, but pretty interesting to meet whatever kind of entity it turns out to be.

 

Also I'm looking for any regular conversation partners. I like talking to people but it seems harder to get a good conversation going in random chat groups than I thought. Also smaller private stuff seems to be more interesting to me, at least so far. So if anyone would like to chat or anything like that, feel free to let me know. Posting or PM is fine.