Editing Visceral Knot

A '''Visceral Knot''' is term for a [[Visceral]], material thing that has become spiritually "twisted" and distorted in the way it functions.

== Common Properties ==
Knotted things tend to be diverted away from "normal", [[Innocent]] society, both by the [[karmic]] rules protecting Innocent set in place by the [[Seal of Solomon]], and because the normal flows of [[spirits]] will tend to move around them to avoid their influence.<ref>This power has a weight but it’s not a physical, real-in-our-world type of weight. It’s about being able to make the rules or influence things. If the spirits pay a lot of attention to you then you can say ‘screw you mother Nature, I’m going to do my thing’ and she’ll say okay, sure. The rules start bending, the spirits start doing the equivalent of walking on the other side of the street instead of messing with you, and the ground basically dips under the weight of your ovaries/cohones. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/07/15/12-7-spoilers-knots-depressions/ Bonus: Knots & Depressions]</ref> Because there are limited spaces and times where Innocents aren't present, this often leads to them clustering together and bumping into each other.<ref>Because there’s a narrow band of places that fit the bill of being remote enough but not too distant from humans + human sentiment, they tend to cluster. This can give us Founder-inhabited island chains where each island has a rule, or areas with rules that overlap. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/07/15/12-7-spoilers-knots-depressions/ Bonus: Knots & Depressions]</ref>

Things generally need to be somewhat isolated from the outside world to become Knotted, as the outside infuences would otherwise correct the knot and tie things down.<ref name=":0">“Visceral Knots,” Bristow spoke.  “Visceral, meaning our material practices, tangible, rooted in our world, in solid things, in meat, in stone, soil, nature, and construction.  Items, men, and things like men are visceral.  Bogeymen, goblins.  If it bleeds, it is often in this category.  You, student, are visceral. [...] The Knot, then, is what happens when this visceral thing or process is twisted.  When incarnations such as time, death, violence, or dream run through the visceral, they have processes.  Twist the process in an unnatural way, and you twist that which is solid.  When you twist it enough, you get the Knots.  These can be people, Others, places, and things.  Isolation from the rest of the world is often a prerequisite, or the things that would knot them would be tied down by outside connections.” - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/11/07/cutting-class-6-4/ excerpt] from [[Cutting Class 6.4]]</ref> There also generally needs to be some external magical force allowing things to grow twisted without simply collapsing, which will influence the way the knot develops.<ref>The reality is that [[Classification|few categories we give Others are tidy]].  Knotted-up societies do not fit among those few.  Whatever drives the knot tends to loom large and influence them.  You almost never get a subhuman that is ''only'' subhuman. [...] Again, whatever forces create the isolation needed for these things to happen without self-correcting, they will taint this rapid or distorted evolution.  We rarely find feral variants on humanity who aren’t touched by other categories or other ways of becoming Other. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/11/07/cutting-class-6-4/ excerpt] from [[Cutting Class 6.4]]</ref>

== Knotted People ==
<blockquote>''Main Articles: [[Aware]], [[Crossed]], [[Denizen]], [[Oddfolk]], [[Other]]<nowiki/>s''</blockquote>Sometimes termed just the Knotted. If generations of people come and go within a stable Knotted Place, they will generally become knotted and adapted to that environment, becoming [[Oddfolk]].<ref>Oddfolk (that Bristow called Subhumans) come about when generations come and go in a knotted space, adapting to that peculiar environment. These knots are almost always stable. Not a concern for Kennet, but good to touch bak on.<br><br>Other types of Other that tread very close to being human, may spontaneously manifest, change from regular people to Others as the area changes, or migrate in as a knotted location (esp. endgame type knots like Zed listed) sets up. There are subtypes of these guys for each type of knot, including knots Zed didn’t get into. Some knots are unstable and their inhabitants may recognize this instinctively, living in kind, like we all might live if we thought the Earth was going to get hit by an asteroid tomorrow. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/07/15/12-7-spoilers-knots-depressions/ Bonus: Knots & Depressions]</ref> This can also happen if the generations themselves are knotted and twisted in on themselves, with incest and isolation, and/or radically unusual lifestyle and diet, usually with magical influence involved. Some can become knotted and stabilized, some will stay unstabilized.<ref>“When you have a knotted place, it’s not ever evenly ''knotted,'' and you can have fluid areas and hard areas, high-energy areas and there’s a whole bunch of sub-classifications.”[...]“They’re fluid, it’s like how some people will get weird in Kennet below, like the Bitter Street Witch, but these guys ride that hard, they’re always in flux!  Super cool.” - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2023/01/10 Excerpt] from [[Hard Pass 22.7]]</ref>

== Knotted Places ==
<blockquote>''Main Article: [[Knotted Place]]''</blockquote>Knotted places will attract, filter for, and/or create denizens who are in tune with the particular distortion that has the area in it's grip.<ref>As I mentioned with the guards on the last page, these places can naturally draw in & filter out certain types. Certain stripes of Aware can find it hard to avoid getting into places when your usual innocent would have to drown without being seein in certain connected currents under moonlight before they could wake up sputtering on those strange, knotted shores. Innocents might also find it easy to end up there, if their mindsets are right. A kid with terminal cancer might find it easier to get to that place where nobody can die. The kinds of people who get filtered for are also the sorts of people who stay or reinforce the knot. At least until they stop being a great fit. If that kid comes to terms with his mortality, he might find his way out. Or he might get offed, like how Peter Pan apparently killed the kids in Neverland who grew up. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/07/15/12-7-spoilers-knots-depressions/ Bonus: Knots & Depressions]</ref>

Major knots may reach the point where life is physically impossible,<ref>The Knotted Noose – spirits or forces conducive to healthy life and survival bail out and we get flooded with negative influences. This is really common and Zed estimates about 75% of knots a practitioner deals with go this route. Sometimes it’s intentional, to get humans out of an area. Bad goes in, good goes out, things get unsustainable, so humans leave. Zed’s recommendation: get the innocents out and then burn it down or let it burn itself down. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/07/15/12-7-spoilers-knots-depressions/ Bonus: Knots & Depressions]</ref> or some or all of the area may collapse and some of it's rules and layout invert into a "mirror world" or "underworld" type environment.<ref>Inversion – Strong pressures from the knot’s flows and forces push at the location, but the locations is strong enough to withstand it. There’s nowhere else to go in the face of the pressure except… in, or across, or down, or up. Things flip around. Sometimes this is piecemeal and we get a few areas inverting and absorbing whatever it is that’s causing the pressure. Sometimes it’s the entire city. (Bristow talked about places like this, and Tashlit has a crime boss brother who lives in one). Transgressive with a lot of usual rules and conventions upended, sometimes depending on the forces that helped make ’em. Can be a collection point for Aware, those on the border of human & Other, + those who fall through the cracks. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/07/15/12-7-spoilers-knots-depressions/ Bonus: Knots & Depressions]</ref><ref>There are twisted places where the natural things a place needs are upended.  There are places where things are inverted, undercities and mirror cities. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/11/07/cutting-class-6-4/ excerpt] from [[Cutting Class 6.4]]</ref>

Mildly knotted places are common, the sorts of places where even Innocents will notice e.g. the layout is confusing or time seems to pass oddly.<ref>Knots are natural, common, and everyday, we just don’t notice them a lot of the time. Even the innocent might notice time flows differently in some places, or it’s weirdly easy to get lost in other places. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/07/15/12-7-spoilers-knots-depressions/ Bonus: Knots & Depressions]</ref> Moderately knotted places can often be identified by the fact that they're harder to enter to leave.<ref>“How long did it take to drive in?”


“From the time you told me to mark the distance?” Zed asked.  “Forty-five minutes, roughly.”


“The area ''is'' knotted,” Raymond cut in.  “If that’s where you’re going with this.”


“It’s knotted and it’s getting worse.  It’s harder to enter than it is to leave,” Musser said.  “Visiting Bristow in some of his old haunts, I got an education in such matters.” - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/07/14/false-moves-12-7/ excerpt] from [[False Moves 12.7]]</ref>

== Other Knots ==
[[Magic Item|Items]] and [[Other]]<nowiki/>s can become knotted in much the same way people and places can.<ref name=":0" />
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[[Category:Basic Information]]
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