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robot discrimination allegories are kind of tired and hard to do right but i do think theres smth interesting in exploring the themes of humanization and dehumanizion with androids. like customer service robots built to be humanoid while the worker drones aren't. how certain people may be more willing to empathise with a robot that looks like a white person over a real human being. would companies want to create androids that act as humanlike as possible in order to exploit customers empathy? or would they do the opposite in order to avoid questions about ethics and sentience? much to think about. much to think about.

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fucking. even deltarune’s premise is so crazy

you, suicidal nonbinary younger child desperately lacking connection and belonging, still grieving the loss of their childhood idol and buckled over with irredeemable complicity in her disappearance, likely exacerbated by accusations from her mother, estrangement from her sister and your only childhood friend, and negligence from every other resident of your small hometown including your family — this is her mother speaking: atone for your guilt by artificially realizing a religious prophecy despite your resentment of the naively optimistic and ultimately unhelpful religion it begot in which you are not only metaphorically but very literally strung up and puppeted like the good dog you are, constantly gendered one way or another by your puppeteer, and put under unbroken surveillance that further accentuates your feelings of guilt until you can't even play piano (which you used to, for her sister).

the prophecy in question amounts to what is essentially a tropey stage play for your puppeteer — another emotional performance, another veil to hide yourself behind — but also a perfect realization of the lively and purposeful life you yearn for. on your quest to "save the world" (god) you are accompanied by a living image of the lonely childhood you're trying to resurrect, whose presence and romantic advances make you uncomfortable, the screaming and wrathful corpse of the one you killed, a reminder of your guilt, and the manifestation of life and hope, who becomes your first truly close friend despite a subtle strain on your relationship. you can't get that close because of the secrets you keep from her and the thing always watching over you and everyone else; if the act shatters and they find out what's really happening, either they won't care, which is horrible but familiar, or they'll care too much, which is worse because they'll stop you from martyring yourself for a fictitious prophecy and you can say goodbye to ever seeing dess again. the representation of your childhood dream is now threatening to divulge the details of the prophecy and the person who most cares about you, upon seeing the prophecy's end, swears they'll never let it happen. you convince yourself you don't care. you silently hug your childhood goodbye. a sudden and uncanny happiness saps at your resolve to die but does it matter? it's a game. it's play-acting. you're being a problem child. you don't feel anything.

remember: you promised.

and like that’s probably not even all because we’re only halfway through ??? how do you write this shit

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Shooting thoughts into the ether. Ttrpg world doesn't write itself.

In a serf based society, the magician is often a system with apprentices, journeymen, masters, etc. Even if everyone uses a little there's an economic distinction between making/repairing clothes with your family unit versus specialized tailoring, so magic is certainly artisanal in that sense.

One interesting expression of this could be the myriad ways magicians resist proletarianization in a changing society. In the example of zapping trash away a wealthy guildsman could be petitioning courts to hire inexpensive day laborers (in some societies like this using indentured servants or slaves- maybe pooling local forced labor pool as a grim community event) while also tightening control of magical education, so as to force others to play by their rules. After all, if their craft doesn't elevate them or provide greater financial gain than a common worker or serf, then the last thing they want is for their profession to be viewed that way.

On another note, would they potentially ally with wealthier patrons (a la the old "court mage" trope or even a full staff of live-in magicians) tasked with maintenance of specialized and remote infrastructure? World the magicians demand a portion of the tolls levied on those roads for the service rather than one-time fees?

Most fantasy magicians are functionally engineers. You go to school, learn a trade, and apply that trade for money. I assume many of them would have government good state jobs zapping trash into other dimensions and charging by the ton per hour. Economically similar to designing and maintaining roads.

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GLOSSARY:

anima (n.) : the measurable soul.

borehole (n.) : (of chronotics) a narrow tunnel of eliminated chronal strata now occupied by undecided future spacetime with a new “present” layer at its bottom. This new layer is causally isolated from the rest of present spacetime.

cenote (n.) : a sinkhole in chronal strata.

compact (adj.) : (regardinrg noöses) a mind that wields a “life sized” scale of computational power, i.e. comparable to local wildtype brains.

chronal strata (n.) : sedimentary past spacetime.

chronotics (n.) : the study of the growing block universe.

colic (adj.) : possessing wetware.

large (adj.) : (regarding noöses) a mind that wields above a wildtype scale of computational power, such as via a tight network of compact minds.

mesh (n.) : a type of colic wetware that requires permanent encasement and life support.

mustard (n.) : a seedlet specialized in detecting and filtering semiohazards.

noösis (n.) : (plural: noöses) a mind with an anima.

nootics (n.) : the science of mental architecture.

seedlet (n.) : sapient artificial intelligence.

semiohazard (n.) : a set of information that, when encoded into a stimulus, may evoke a destructive response in a perceiver.

Throneroom (n.) : the coronal home planet.

wildtype (adj.) : (regarding genetic or nootic condition) occurring in nature.

Psychesoma — Struggling ex-model in neutral nation. Currently housed by Noumena while they financially, physically, and emotionally recover.

Noumena — Fortress of a person with an unknown job. Philanthropic streak. History of violence.

Boytoy — Drafted US soldier. Future fodder.

MOUS — Heavily mechanically augmented reconnaissance agent. Hardly conscious.

Intel — Nootically engineered info absorbtion agent. Gleefully passionate about dossier construction.

Molar — Lethal close quarters combat agent. Dozy until activated. Apathetic but easy to control.

Sunflower Florets 1 & 2 — Entwined mesh clones of a single genetic donor who was an esteemed pilot. Grown as expendable pilotware for a spy jet.

Sunflower Floret 3 — The permanent onboard seedlet overseer of Florets 1 & 2. Tentatively emotionally attaching to the meshes.

Balanceaban — War logistics and research manager for México. Dislikes human suffering so has prioritized weapon lethality.

GOSSIP RING — Surveillance satellite housing a dozen nootically linked meshes.

Cygnet — US tactical and civic health coordinator seedlet. Young (~3 years old) and panicking at its insurmountable task of saving the collapsing nation.

GOD’S FAVORITE — Cenote sensor with a seedlet-human mesh operator system. Designed to blast chronal strata with high energy particles to create boreholes.

Last Lamb — High-volume scientific testing mustard. Public figure known for their regular communication of semiotic research.

Little Bell — Software systems analyst for The Pursuit of Sleep superproject. Lost and vulnerable to addiction.

The Harvest — Senior magazine editor for the Ministry of Arts. Mother of Little Bell.

Five Summers — Wealthy nutritionist from the Department of Nourishment. The Harvest’s closest friend.

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In the D&D campaign I'm running with my wife's siblings, one of them learned about how trolls regenerate within minutes of any damage not caused by fire or acid, and then asked why people don't just like. Cage them and eat them, forever. Why there aren't troll meat dungeons in the king's castle as a safeguard against sieges or famines.

And you know, I thought it was a fair question, so I said that if you eat enough troll meat, you start getting troll-y. And then I went further and just treated it like troll flesh is a general contaminant - if you eat enough troll, you'll turn into a troll, but if you bury enough dead troll flesh in a forest, the trees will start growing in strange ways, and will scream and heal and bleed when you hit them with axes.

I liked this idea. So as we played further, I just played around with the idea of Troll Origins, and I came up with something sort of like the Odyssey, but instead stealing Helios's cattle, it was Hathor's, and the horrible, awful, unending immortality was her curse of the army that pillaged her lands. A god of healing does not condemn you to die, she condemns you to live.

And then I got this fun idea for maybe the king that led the army is still kind of alive in the troll taint. Like a sort of literal fisher king. The kingdom is sick because he is, literally, the kingdom. The trees that bleed, bleed his blood and their screams are his screams. He is both the faintly green bear running down the mountain and the faintly green deer and there is no way past this without suffering. He is the entire ecosystem, and he eats nothing but himself and he dreams nothing but death and yet still, on and on and on and on, he lives.

Anyway they're traveling next session so I'm throwing this shit at them. I already have some gross ideas for like. Describing everything like it's a body (flowers red as blood, white as bone, pink as meat, grass fine as hair) then finally throwing horrible living things at them. Trees that grow eyeballs that turn and stare at them, or flowers with teeth instead of petals and trolls that speak in long dead tongues about how they wish they'd never tried to rob a god.

Anyway I'm passing this on because this is my new troll lore and I want it to become canonized in the way that all D&D lore becomes canonized: By having eople read it and go "oh, neat" then start doing that too.

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Hibrides and Brakul like ~8 years before present when they were still besties, chatting at dinner.

Exhaustive overview of things going on in this image below the cut:

-The meal is a variant of the staple pepper and cheese stew with barley, onions, cilantro, and cabbage. Hibrides has a sub-average spice tolerance so it’s been made pretty mild, and Brakul has extra condiments to salvage it. 

-Condiments on the table are two types of peledyo (fish sauce), which is used both as a cooking ingredient and as seasoning (often in place of using salt alone). The one by Hibrides is mixed with wine and honey; Brakul has the straight fish juice. There's also spicy fish paste (peledyo byproduct mixed with raw chilis), and a yogurt sauce (yogurt, vinegar, chilis, raw crushed garlic, cumin, salt; dyed red). Both are very good mixed in most soups.

-Both of them have swallows to eat the soup with, and Brakul has gesego (balls of fermented maize dough, dried, good in soups or for dipping in yogurt sauces). There's a plate of figs and paneer as a dessert (desserts are typically eaten either as an accompaniment for savory meals or between savory courses).

-The camiche leaves/flowers are decorative and mostly there to smell good, but are edible + pretty good raw and a staple food item among Wardi peoples. Some might dare to undergo the social faux pas of plucking the decorative camiche and putting it in their soup.

-The duck vessel contains mixed date wine. For most meals the ratio is ~2:1 water (or other complementary non-alcoholic fluid) to wine.

-There is no fucking way they can eat all of this. Leftovers that are liable to quickly spoil will go to household staff first, household dogs second, and the household shrine third. You're not Really supposed to give unwanted leftovers as votive food offerings, but just about everyone does it from time to time.

-Basins of water and a cloth are placed to the right of diners to clean the hands as needed (Brakul has his on the left because he’s left handed, but if he was a guest/with guests he’d be expected to do the right side. Etiquette thing.)

-Hibrides has two sets of very fine silver cups that used to belong to her father, one set depicting scenes of running gazelles and one set depicting comedic Khait Bridegroom folktale erotica. She was fascinated with the detail of the silverwork as a kid and her dad gave them to her as a wedding gift. They show up in several drawings I've made wrt this household (the gazelle cups are in this one).

-Wealthy households employ servants to do the vast majority of the cooking, but women’s participation in preparing meals for their family is culturally valued enough to override this to Some extent. Adult noblewomen will usually at least Participate in the cooking on formal holidays and when guests attend, and sometimes will do all of it once weekly on the day of rest (in which servants are at least Ostensibly off-duty to attend to their own households). It's also culturally standard across class lines for people to serve themselves and pour their own drinks once the food is brought out (though house staff will have done pretty much everything else seen here).

(This logic also applies to other domestic tasks most women are assigned to. Even the wealthiest women will do practical textile work for their family members. This operates on multiple levels- it is expected + potentially satisfying work to directly participate in clothing your family, some garments for significant events (the formal naming of year old babies and weddings being big ones) are traditionally made by the mother, and a noblewomen generally won't have much else to do on a daily basis so like, might as well.)

-Sitdown meals are consumed on the floor with cushions and a low table, though some snacking will be done on couches. This (along with sleeping on the floor) is a commonality among most sub-Viper seaway peoples. These practices are sometimes framed within the Wardi sphere as an example of the virtue of humbleness, or as a spiritual matter of groundedness with the earth when undertaking life-sustaining acts like eating and sleeping, but it's ultimately just a longstanding traditional mode of leisure that tends to be the most comfortable for people who grew up with it. A lot of people find it funny that some foreigners habitually eat at tall tables in tall chairs like, what are you trying to prove, big guy?

-In EXTREMELY formal high etiquette situations, the proper seating posture is to sit on your knees with a straight back and your hands placed on your lap when they aren't in use. Hibrides does this habitually when eating because she takes a lot of pride in looking cool and dignified, but it's not even remotely necessary here.

-This is a smallish table intended to seat up to four people. Wealthier households commonly have a designated 'guest room' (often just past the main entrance of the house) with a larger table + couches, and a smaller table in private areas of the home for family meals. Lower class households often lack tables altogether and serve food on grass mats, or around the rim of the cooking hearth (usually rectangular depressions built into the floor and ringed with flat stone).

-Placing a dining table over a cowhide rug isn't that common, Janeys is just tacky with his home decor. It's a bad idea. It's hard to clean.

-They're at home and enduring hot summer weather so are approximately 40% clothed. Bare breasts aren't sexualized or subjected to modesty standards in the Wardi sphere, but their public exposure has some negative class connotations so many women won't go bare chested in public/with guests around unless nursing. It's very normal to go topless within the home and pretty much everyone in this society has seen their female relatives' breasts.

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Did you know that hogs enter a state called "soil hibernation" during the hottest summer months? When temperatures exceed 95°F for more than a week, wild hogs will dig shallow depressions in moist soil and enter a semi-dormant state where their heart rate drops by 70% and they can survive without food for up to 18 days. This adaptation evolved in their Mediterranean ancestors as a way to conserve water during drought conditions.

Scientists have observed that during this soil hibernation, hogs experience unusual rapid eye movement (REM) sleep patterns. Their brain activity suggests they're having complex dreams, primarily focused on rooting behaviors. Researchers at the University of Barcelona's Wildlife Research Center have recorded electrical patterns suggesting that hibernating hogs mentally "practice" foraging techniques during these dreams, which may explain why hogs appear to have improved truffle-finding abilities immediately after emerging from their summer torpor. Some rural communities in southern Spain even time their truffle hunting seasons to coincide with the end of the local hog population's soil hibernation period.

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cell bio professor closed out today's lecture on free-radical oxidation in mitochondria and programmed cell death by saying "you've probably all seen those commercials for fruit juice that says it's got antioxidants, which are said to prevent this sort of thing from happening, or at least slow it down. well, they don't work. this is an inevitable fact of life— this process that lets us live is also the thing that kills us, and it's why all of us will die someday. there's no escaping that. it's been with us since the dawn of eukaryotic cells; our pact with mitochondria is to the death. anyway, enjoy the rest of your friday, and remember, exam four is next week!"

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I feel like politicians' insults about each other have really gone down hill. These days it's all "moron" and "loser", so childish. Think what you will of Paul Keating, but he gave us such gems as "he's a shiver waiting for a spine", "debating him is like being flogged with warm lettuce", "he's like a lizard on a rock: alive but looking dead", "he's all tip and no iceberg".

Where's the creativity these days?!

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The noble Bus is a mode of transportation befitting the descendants of hunter-gatherers. Bus is a sort of urban beast that must be tracked, pursued, and taken, by force if necessary. It brooks no cowardice; by its own fortitude it engenders nobility in its hunters. Driving is faster, granted— but cold, solipsistic, enervating of body and spirit. The car is an apparatus of regression; the driver cocooned in womb-like solitude meets no hardship, no test of his mettle, and reacts to all discomfiture with the dyspeptic grumbling of an opium-eater prodded from his stupor. To travel and arrive by Bus requires resourcefulness, grit, alacrity, patience, and guile. The Bus-rider laughs at adversity and looks upon his fellow-passengers as brothers. What though the road construction waylay him? What though the rain wet his shoes? Shoes— pah! What cares he for such baubles? Not for him the base ignominy of "road-rage" hang on my stop's coming up I gotta finish this post

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Embalming fluid helps, and I actually replaced all of my organs with cotton to work on the illusion of life.

why did no one tell me about vampires before i became a lich. “oh noo i can’t go out for a sunny beach day!! i don’t show up in mirrors!!” i need to use a special deodorant not to smell like maggots. i studied for 103 years for this

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Have you even considered jerking off over a portrait of me my liege

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Saving this for the Bward plots

Touch Prompt List

For anyone who needs it I thought i share this prompt list I have saved. I have no idea who made it. This prompt list had 55 different prompts all about touch. You can use this for anything you want. Drawing/writing/anything.

touching foreheads

running fingers through hair

hiding face in neck

caressing the other’s hand

feeling their pulse

patting the other’s head

holding hands

shielding the other one with their body

listening to the other’s heartbeat

spooning at night

laying their hand on the other’s neck

pushing a strand of hair behind their ear

nudging the other one

putting an arm around the other’s waist

hugging each other

massaging them

holding the other’s chin up

squishing the others cheek

high fiving

bandaging/stitching up an injury

kissing the other’s brow

falling asleep on the other’s shoulder

carrying the other one in their arms

whispering in their ear, lips touching the skin

stroking the other’s arm soothingly

kissing the top of their head

pulling the other one towards them

feeling for each other in the dark

tickling the other one

grabbing onto their arm

doing a pinky swear

caressing the other’s back

tasting their smile

washing the other’s body

kissing their bruises and scars

lifting the other one up

putting their head on the other’s chest

stroking their leg

leaning into the other’s side

patting them on the back

sitting close and knees touching

braiding the other’s hair

giving them a piggy-back ride

feeling their temperature

caressing the other’s cheek

holding the other’s jaw

touching their elbow to get their attention

dancing with each other

holding onto the other’s shoulders for support

putting a hand over the other’s mouth to shut them up

sitting on the other’s lap

gripping thigh

linking arms with each other

touching cheek to cheek

tracing the lines on the other’s hand

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Food history has been so sanitized by the demonization of carbs. “Our ancestors only had fruits and veggies they didn’t have all these refined carbs” our ancestors drank beer 25/8 because the water was bad. Our ancestors drizzled honey on shit ever since we knew it existed. We’ve been making bread for our entire recorded history. It’s true that bleached sugars specifically are a new thing but high glycemic carbs are not new at all, we’ve been consuming them for thousands of years

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i am a Sucker for scenarios where someone encounters their younger/other self and has the opportunity to give them the compassion and understanding they haven't received.

but I am also, and possibly even more, a Sucker for scenarios where someone encounters their younger/other self and uses it as an opportunity to externalize absolutely horrifying levels of self-loathing

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ttrpg where the amount of overkill damage your last pc took as they died is the starting xp you get with your next character. the best way to accelerate advancement is to get in way over your head and be torn to shreds