Intro (Delia)

The world is different from that as we know it in two ways:

First and foremost, it takes place on an “Alternate Earth.” An Earth AU, if you will. That is, it is like Earth, but with some great variation in the basic shapes and rules of things as compared to those of our Earth. More specifically, the continents and tectonic plates have formed differently.

Also, people on this world have a sense aside from the basic five sight-hearing-touch-smell-taste combination. That is, they have a sense of absence, or of something missing.

In addition, mythopoeic thought is not only a common way of coming to understand how the universe works, but really is the way things work. Everything really is personified, animate, as a “they” rather than an “it.”

Mythopoeic thought not only originates as the default way of perceiving, explaining, and understanding one's surroundings and the world they live in—the mythopoeic worldview remains a permanent fixture, even though it is far from regarded as a cultural universal any longer.

It is through mythopoeic thought that all complete, whole, and/or known things possess (and have always possessed—there are no “inanimate objects” without sentience, etc.) sapience, movement, life, and the ability to communicate through language, as all actions in a mythopoeic world are personified and deliberately willed to happen (things do not simply occur; they are willed to happen, or choose to occur. The mythopoeic world view makes things anthropomorphize (in both real and fictional realms), with everything as anthropomorphic, living, sapient, and concrete, with all actions acted out and deliberately willed to happen in a personifying manner. There are no objects, nor is there any concept of inanimacy). Things can only gain/acquire sentience and an individual sense of self if they are parts of a whole that collectively make up a hive-mind consciousness, and later become singled out from the group or highlighted as specifically important.

Parts of a whole or unknown things—unlike the whole that they make up—do not have any sense of self on the individual level, but instead have a hive-mind consciousness due to their status as not being individually important enough to stand out alone, yet still needed as part of the group in order to come together to form the whole.

Hive-minded things gain sentience after they are discovered, or singled out from the group. In instances when this discovery is highlighted, talked about, etc., the formerly hive-minded parts become individually-minded, which leads to huge changes within organisms (free-thinking, rebellious cells or components sprouting up absolutely everywhere after they’ve been mentioned, due to historical discovery of cells/that organisms are made up of cells).

The real-fictional divide and the subsequent loss of mythopoeic thought as the modal view

The divide between the real and fictional becomes anthropomorphized as people become aware of its existence, or come to differentiate between fiction and reality. From the origin of the fictional realm and the widespread perception of “real” and “fictional” as separate concepts, the predominance of mythopoeic thought begins to wane. Eventually, the loss of mythopoeic thought becomes worldwide. With the shining exception of the Channelers of Liminality and those who want to escape reality in the present day, the separation of real and fictional becomes a cultural universal. Things are now 'it's rather than 'they's; actions are now viewed in an impersonal, abstract manner rather than the concrete, personifying manner of yesteryear—things simply happen, rather than choosing or willing themselves to happen), the change wasn’t an instant, world-wide reaction but rather a process over time—the centers of civilization (of which there are multiple) spreading outwards as influence in the breakdown of the mythopoeic view and lack of separation between “real” and “fictional.”

However, even though the mythopoeic worldview remains only as a relic of the Channelers of Liminality and people who seek to escape reality, the original effects of mythopoeic thought still remain and will continue to remain, regardless of how people's perceptions regarding the world around them may have changed. Every whole and individually distinct aspect of the outside environment remains animate and sapient, even though almost no one still considers them as such.