#creating an encounter

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 212

“Did we just pull an Isekai?” 

“I mean, does it count if it’s practically just Ghostwriter’s usual shit, just more chaotic?” 

“Sam, this is like a game, look, we even have inventory overlays!” 

“Yeah but Tuck, I died so therefor I pulled an isekai, right?” 

“Shit, why does that make sense?” 

“Boys, perhaps actually look into your overlay there? Perhaps look at the map as well?” 

“... oh my Ancients, guys, we’re not the players, we’re going to be the bosses of this game.”

. . . 

“This is going to be so much fun guys.” 

The JL Jr team would really like it to be known that they are in fact done with Klarions shenanigans. This is literally the first day school is out for the summer for them! Who even showed him DnD and anime anyway?!

[thinwhitedoc]

SHERLOCK | Martin Freeman as John Watson

[larrylimericks]

12May24

A Tomlinson hug can’t cure blindness But a barricade moment reminds us: Our hearts can perceive Things our eyes cannot see, Like love and compassion and kindness.

[orpheuslament]

man does anyone remember taz balance

[lurakha]

FAR CRY 5 (∞)

[hmslusitania]

i loveee your ✨mostly crack✨ fic idea and i'm wondering... do you have any other dickroy headcanons (&/or fic recs)?

Firstly thank you so very much 🤩🥰

As far as headcanons hmm idk it’s difficult because I either ship them as a thing that happened when they were teenagers or as a “Roy’s got two hands and he’s using both of them to chase after his daughter and make sure she’s okay while Dick and Donna hang onto the straps of his quiver” kind of way.

But okay like one, obviously, and this is probably canon and I’m just eliding a panel from my memory but, Dick absolutely helps teach Lian gymnastics and acrobatics.

Also Dick and Roy tend to have this competitive edge between them over leadership and secret identities and usually being the only people on their shared team without actual superpowers and that competitiveness absolutely carries over into any romantic relationship they have and it’s the same kind of competition bullshit but like it’s A Thing now.

Also as adults, many of the OG Titans will occasionally revert back to bratty nicknames for each other from when they were all fourteen (canon) but I think the first time Roy calls Dick “short pants” in public after they’ve hooked up, Dick just like. Blue screens.

And like, Dick is not known for being a man who has flings but Roy kind of is, and so I think most of their friends would assume this is just a short-lived whatever, maybe make some off-colour joke about how their whole competitive dick-measuring contest has gotten out of hand — surely they could’ve just gotten Huntress and Kory to compare notes? — and it’s their mutual grave offence at this entire suggestion that does actually make both of them realise “oh shit this is real.”

[cheerfullycatholic]

!!!!!! FETAL DEVELOPMENT IN MINECRAFT!!!!!!!

THIS IS SO COOL!!!!!!!

[incomingalbatross]

I am going to have to chew on what you're saying about religion and relationship in Christian fantasy because I tend to shy away strongly from stories that make God a fictional character. One of the things I often cite as liking about A Canticle for Liebowitz is that it never tries to tell you what God is thinking or doing - it doesn't insert him into the text as a fictional character. Which is kind of exactly the opposite of what you and OP are praising in Narnia. And maybe there's a difference between something set in the Real World and something designed as Fantasy. But anyway I need to chew on this...

okay YES that's extremely valid! I can agree with that too - which suggests my opinion is either more complicated or more fickle than I realized. xP

I think... I think I want it acknowledged that God is a person. BUT making God a character is dicey, as you say. C. S. Lewis pulled it off I think, but... would I dare, personally?? Hngh.

I think it may, perhaps, be more about worldbuilding than narrative presence. As you say, with things set in the real world (or its speculative future), if it's Christian fiction we know Christ is there. We don't need to SEE him, and religious experiences should probably be depicted with caution and restraint.

But if you're writing a fantasy world that's supposed to exist in Christian cosmology (is that the right word? within a universe/multiverse created by God, I guess I mean - again, like Narnia), where the characters have religion - THEN I think what I'm really asking for is that God be at the center of that religion in a way that makes him recognizably Someone and not Something. At least if the character is motivated/sustained by their religion.

Because the more you're trying to depict your fantasy characters having realistic spiritual lives/experiences, the more I think the Force Of Goodness or Creator or Light or what have you that they lean on probably needs to be a Person?

On the other hand! In LotR characters are very clearly receiving graces and devoted to the good and soldiering on in virtue without Eru ever being so much as mentioned, so you can clearly write deeply spiritual Christian fiction without religion in it. And I have seen SW fanfic interpreting the Light Side in a very Christian way and loved that, while being stuck with "the Light Side of the Force" as about as impersonal a label as you can find. So maybe I'm just making things up here. I don't know.

I DO feel strongly about portraying the Trinity as Persons and not Functions, because it seems to me that religion is rather hollow if there isn't Someone you can love at the center of it all. But I also agree that portraying religion or spiritual life does NOT need God to be a "character" as such.

[ssylverr]

[chotachica]

Okay okay I agree with everyone talking about the possibility of Pluto finally getting to go to France and meeting Duke in one of his shows, but I now raise you: What if they met BEFORE and Duke was actually the one to tell him about France and the lights and everything. What if Duke were the reason he wanted to go there in the first place. What then.

[serpentface]

Do psychotropic drugs and/or ritual play a role in any of the blightseed cultures? A pretty broad question, lol

Yeah that’s a very broad question, the answer is about as much as it tends to play roles in real history. Alcohol is pretty ubiquitous (outside of cultures that abstain from intoxicants) and used for a variety of purposes, opioids are commonly used in some parts for pain relief or recreational purposes, stimulants (usually in mild, natural forms) are used to provide extra energy, and hallucinogens are most commonly used as part of a larger religious framework (rather than for recreational purposes). Any more elaborate answer kinda has to be case by case in a certain culture or part of the setting.

I'll just take this as an opportunity to talk about the one established sect that pretty much REVOLVES around psychoactive use. This is the Scholarly Order of the Root, which is a sort of mystery religion + elite community of scholars who currently occupy the Ur-Tree and its forest in the far southern Lowlands (southeast of Imperial Wardin, on the same land mass).

The Ur-Tree is the obligatory Huge Fucking Fantasy Tree (and its surrounding forest). It’s a mass of vegetation about a mile tall and almost as old as Plant Life Itself, its upper branches are primeval plants, which become more modern the nearer they get to the ground (and each 'level' holds tiny ecosystems, some containing descendants of LONG-extinct arthropods/other small animals). Its lowest branches and the surrounding forest are contemporary plant life, and all is connected and protected by an incomparably MASSIVE fungal mycelium network (which is itself a living god).

A lot of the Scholars' more secretive practices revolve around experimentation with substance use with the goal of expanding the Mind and transcending the body to fully connect to the Dreamlands, and they have a supply chain of traders and mercenaries called Rootrunners who traffic substances into the Lowlands. Most of their psychoactive use is in a very intentional capacity and not just like, for fun, but a LOT of them are just straight up addicted to cocaine (in the form of alchemically refined bruljenum, which is used for practical purposes of its stimulant effect during long hours of work).

All known psychoactives are desirable for experimentation (particularly hallucinogens), with each having properties that either allow expansion of the Mind, transcendence of the body, or outright divine communion. Their effects are logged in great detail and interpreted to form the basis of the Scholars' understanding of the natural world and reality itself.

The most important substance is Ur-Root, which is root matter from subterranean levels of the Ur-Tree that have both their own intrinsic psychoactive substances and a very, very high concentration of living god mycelium. The tree root contains DMT and the mycelium has its own wholly unique effects (being an actual living god). They alchemically refine it into a purer, more potent form, and use it to expand beyond the body and directly commune with the Giants, a group of entities they have identified as the only true gods.

An Ur-Root trip starts off with minor visual distortion, which turns into shifting fractals that slowly obscure the vision. Eventually the senses are entirely taken over by a 'tunnel' of rapidly shifting fractals and geometries. In a complete trip, the experiencer gets a sense that they have been pushed through a membrane and entered another realm, finding themselves in a distinct experiential Space.

At this point they may encounter entities which communicate to them in a language impossible to describe but wholly understood. These beings are understood to be the Giants, or at least aspects of the Giants that mortals are capable of comprehending (they often take familiar tutelary forms of the Mantis or the Snake, or appear resembling the same type of sophont that the experiencer is, all composed of ever-shifting geometries). The experiencer often feels a sense of unconditional and endless love from these beings, though the Giants may be more hostile and may appear in the form of the Trickster (usually a cultural figure regarded as malicious, be it an animal or otherwise) in a bad trip.

(^Up until this point, this has mostly just been a DMT 'breakthrough' experience ft. 'machine elves' and the like).

They are then removed from this space and returned to something that feels like the real world, but is nearly unrecognizable. They have a sense of rapidly moving through time, and will usually see 'the spires' towards the beginning, which just so happen to look like this:

(source + some context via Implication- the spires are exactly what this art is depicting)

The experiencer continues to move across an unfathomable amount of time, occasionally 'seeing' other such flashes of unfamiliar landscapes and creatures, and yet also being devoid of all their senses, the 'seeing' is pure, unfiltered experience. There is a sense of interconnectedness with all life, and that one has become the forest (or even Life) itself. The sense of time is wildly distorted, the trip lasts only about 5 minutes but feels like an eternity and is understood as literal hundreds of millions of years.

The experiencer has usually lost any remaining sense of Self and individual consciousness during this phase (in which case this time distortion is usually a neutral or even peaceful experience), but some retain a fraction of their identity, and find themselves trapped and conscious while experiencing what feels like eternity (which can be LIFE-CHANGINGLY distressing, even after the fact).

(^This latter part of the trip is the effects of the Ur-Tree fungus).

The trip ends with a sense of rushing through the ground and back up into one's body, at which point they will abruptly return to their senses and consciousness. The details are then immediately retrieved via interview and recorded in immense detail. The whole experience is understood as having been full comprehension of the Dreamlands, communion with the Giants, and then a tour through the act of creation.

This is done as part of the initiatory practice into the inner mystery-religion of the scholars, and as needed for study by high scholar-priests. It is not taken lightly, both as it is absolute communion with the gods and reality, and in that it can be a very, very difficult experience. People who have gone through this often walk away with a permanently shifted perspective, often in a positive and/or comforting way- a sense of interconnectedness with all life, a peace with the concept of death, seeing less of a point in individual ego and the concept of Self, and comfort in the sense of divine love they (may have) experienced. This heavily influences the philosophy of the Scholars and has had effects by proxy in the religious worldviews of the region.

Details of this experience are closely guarded, and initiates are given absolutely no prior knowledge and expectations for their trip. This is seen as a necessity- their naivety will allow for a true, unfiltered experience, and can be used to gauge whether they should or should not be accepted. Those that have a distinctly bad trip upon initiation may be assumed to have been 'rejected' by the giants and thus denied full priesthood, though this largely depends on How they interpret their distressing trip- those who identify this as a test and harsh lesson in a journey to enlightenment may be accepted (as this is how fully initiated scholar-priests interpret and handle their bad trips).

This inner priesthood is only a small fraction of the Scholarly Order, and its greater function is as a hub of education and repository of knowledge, and Scholar-trained doctors can provide some of the best medical care available in the setting ('best medical care in this setting' only means so much but it's pretty solid, relatively speaking). Only a chosen few Scholars ever get to commune with the Ur-Root, and most of the divine secrets revealed in the process are kept hidden (though they indirectly influence the politics and worldview of the entire order).

[isfjmel-phleg]

"Ms. Martha Sowerby"

Absolutely not, not in a 1916 setting. "Ms." was not widely used until the 1970s, so it would have been "Miss." Or perhaps even "Mrs.," because in this sequel Martha is currently the housekeeper at Misselthwaite, and housekeepers were typically addressed as "Mrs." as a sort of courtesy title whether they were married or not.

[wodania]

I wish critique of colonialism and feudalism in westeros was more welcome in the asoiaf fandom, considering the books are literally critiques of medieval and fictional politics. Like some people embody feudalistic lords a little too much when they see a critique of the most powerful ruling house in this fictional world and say “well so and so house did it too so shut up!!!” Like the inner medieval tyrant is showing. You are not a dragon you are a 20 year old from the United States of America. Quit dismissing every political analysis of a political book bc “so and so did it too”. You’re so boring.

[marcmorrigan]

According to the artist, when it was suggested that a smile might benefit the look of the finished portrait, Attaché Nohell reportedly replied, "I thought the purpose of this was to be honest."

Super fun commission of @waterloggedsoliloquy's OC Sicely Nohell (they/them) and their terrible, horrible, no good, very bad lusus figure Commanding Officer.

[chillinglikeashilling]

I really don't hate Kit but his fans don't do him any favors by acting like Jentry kissing him once, figuring out he's been lying the entire time he's known her and then not being interested in starting to date this new version of him she doesn't really know is a sign that Jentry is being written as especially flawed or the writing of the show is bad.

I think it's true that Jentry is overly concerned with appearing normal but I also don't think she owed Kit anything up to and including the kindness she did show him.

I don't think Jentry dangled the possibility of getting back together in his face, i can see (maybe) why he thought so at first but she's so clearly uninterested and wary of him in the scene where she proposes they work together because from Jentry's perspective she is talking to a stranger that had been lying to and stalking her.

She gave him a chance to make up to her that he was part of a murder plot with her as the intended victim. That's all. Forgiveness is not the same as romantic interest and she only offered him the former.

Jentry tried to be friendly but even during the mission to steal the robe Kit is already overstepping. Implying things to Gugu about him and Jentry, rejecting Michael on Jentry's behalf even as she is listening to him and explicitly telling him she would say yes?! Like I'm sorry but if Kit was only doing this so they could get back together the Michael mum scene was a flashing neon sign that Jentry was not offering that. She's not being unclear or hiding her interest in Michael, she is literally shouting it in Kit's ear.

Jentry ended up dating Michael and he has powers but apart from her eventual relationship with Michael showing how Jentry has grown as a character and learned to embrace both her powers and that her life will never be normal - Michael despite his own flaws is a) a person Jentry knows and trusts and b) very upfront with Jentry about the visions. As soon as he figures out the visions are real he tells Jentry. Michael's powers also have absolutely nothing to do with Jentry- Kit being a face painting demon is not because of Jentry but him hiding that he's a face painting demon is a direct result of him being part of a conspiracy to kill her! It's not like he happens to be a face painting demon who already lives there. Seducing and Killing her is Kit's entire reason for coming to town in the first place!

Also Michael takes no for an answer. After Kit rejects the mum on Jentry's behalf (against her explicit instructions not to!) Micheal doesn't try and convince Jentry that she's wrong for rejecting him. Michael always backs off when Jentry pulls away even though she is clearly and consistently romantically interested in him.

I don't think it's Kit's fault that he's isolated and bad at reading signals. I do think he made a lot of assumptions starting from immediately after the kiss because again they don't even agree to start dating before he pulls away and then she learns that he was lying, but somehow he expects that they're going to jump into a relationship after they steal the robes.

I also don't think it's Jentry's responsibility to work overtime to understand things from his perspective when he's being pushy and ignoring the very clear signs that she is interested in Michael and also I can't emphasize this point enough- he moved to town and spent months lying to her face specifically because he was an agent in a plan to kill her. I don't care how or why he changed his mind -that's enough reason for Jentry to have thrown his ass in the portal directly after the fair.

[starry-bite]

will is so pathetic wet cat in love with his wife this man would do anything for her