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skonen_bladesWe called the rich kids ‘Upgrades’.
They were the ones that had been born with all of the benevolent tweaks and cellular advantages that money could buy. Longer life span, all possible congenital defects erased, optimum health, even faster mental response times.
You’d think that we would envy them. Well, we certainly envied their bodies. They looked like gods. Like they’d stepped out of commercials and into real life.
What we didn’t envy, though, were the mental changes that the parents felt justified in doing to their children.
The Pixelator was one such augmentation. The rods and cones on the back of the eye were enhanced for better than perfect vision. However, a filter was placed between the brain and eye to make sure that all nudity was seen as pixilated blocks of colour. It was put there to keep the kids from seeing naked flesh before they reached the age of majority or until the parents thought it necessary to remove the block.
Of course, it didn’t work. Kids were having sex anyway. The entire experience for them just became pixilated blocks of colour. They lied to their parents about being virgins.
When the block was lifted, some of the kids went and had it secretly reinstated. One glimpse of actual nudity, of actual sex, and they were turned off. Their entire sexual awakening had been in a haze of blurry blocks of colour and they wanted it back.
Playing with the body is one thing, but playing with the mind was always something I felt uneasy about.
I’m grateful that my parents never had enough money to change me.
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They were the ones that had been born with all of the benevolent tweaks and cellular advantages that money could buy. Longer life span, all possible congenital defects erased, optimum health, even faster mental response times.
You’d think that we would envy them. Well, we certainly envied their bodies. They looked like gods. Like they’d stepped out of commercials and into real life.
What we didn’t envy, though, were the mental changes that the parents felt justified in doing to their children.
The Pixelator was one such augmentation. The rods and cones on the back of the eye were enhanced for better than perfect vision. However, a filter was placed between the brain and eye to make sure that all nudity was seen as pixilated blocks of colour. It was put there to keep the kids from seeing naked flesh before they reached the age of majority or until the parents thought it necessary to remove the block.
Of course, it didn’t work. Kids were having sex anyway. The entire experience for them just became pixilated blocks of colour. They lied to their parents about being virgins.
When the block was lifted, some of the kids went and had it secretly reinstated. One glimpse of actual nudity, of actual sex, and they were turned off. Their entire sexual awakening had been in a haze of blurry blocks of colour and they wanted it back.
Playing with the body is one thing, but playing with the mind was always something I felt uneasy about.
I’m grateful that my parents never had enough money to change me.
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Date: 13 Dec 2008 22:20 (UTC)no subject
Date: 13 Dec 2008 22:37 (UTC)no subject
Date: 14 Dec 2008 00:35 (UTC)no subject
Date: 14 Dec 2008 00:40 (UTC)no subject
Date: 14 Dec 2008 01:09 (UTC)This phenomenon first came to my attention when flipping through a psych textbook when I was in my early teens. It had two photos of a woman sprawled on a bed, one in a bikini and one covered from neck to mid-thigh by a satin sheet. The latter seemed more attractive because while you saw less, it carried the suggestion that the woman could be naked under that sheet. And if you're fond of contemplating naked women on occasion (as I was then and am now) that kind of thing makes you pay more attention.
I've seen echoes of the same thing many times in writing and in games. If you write less and hint at more, it's not a good idea because it means that the reader/player's imagination does the work for you, but because it means their imagination does work. Active involvement is an important part of making an experience engaging. The trick is in finding a balance such that the activity feels effortless.
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Date: 14 Dec 2008 08:51 (UTC)no subject
Date: 15 Dec 2008 23:08 (UTC)no subject
Date: 15 Dec 2008 23:30 (UTC)no subject
Date: 16 Dec 2008 17:17 (UTC)I came here through
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Date: 16 Dec 2008 19:27 (UTC)no subject
Date: 16 Dec 2008 20:22 (UTC)