#real kid into a fantasy world

[ellowynthenotking]

Dec 21

Dear Dad,

Despite the fact that I've barely been able to help or do anything more than sit around, one of the priestesses at the temple must have felt bad for me because she let me do some of the dusting that needs doing.

So the temple is pretty small, apparently tiny from what I understand, so most of the alters and stuff are in rooms about the size of broom closets with little doors that close behind people. Some of the closets, as a result, are not opened for months, so they get pretty dusty. 

So, I got to go around on the topmost floor, which is mainly filled with gods and goddesses of the sky and light, and are also up like 8 flights of stairs, and dust everything so the alters would be clean for the festivities. 

The priestess I talked to said that this festival was one of the few nearly universally practiced. It's pretty similar across the continent. 

The first evening will be mostly people drinking, dancing, and festivalling through the night, eating various festival foods, and then, in the darkest depth of the night, watching the play about the origin of the world and deities. From there, the little ones are put to bed, and there's even more festivaling and people leaving offerings on the various alters. Most will be left on the altar of the patron god of this city, but people hoping for specific things, love, success, etc., will leave their sacrifices on the alters of the deities who are most likely to provide for them. 

I don't know if there's a god of portals, but I've got a couple days to look for them and see if they'll help us. 

The second day is all about the different other gods. Then more festivities and sacrifices. Then, the third day is about this area, the fourth is about whatever god is the patron here, and the fifth and final night is about the temple and city itself. Then, more festivities, with the morning of the fifth day all about praying to the gods and resting. 

Then, clean up for however long that takes. So that's going to be pretty neat. I mean, I'm not going to drink, so I'll probably have a harder time sleeping those nights, but I doubt anyone will bother me if I want to sleep in. 

So there I was, making sure that I was carefully dusting everything because just because I don't really believe in these gods doesn't mean I'm going to risk messing up the alters. When I found Zunair in one of the somewhat cleaner ones. 

I wasn't expecting him, mostly cause I thought he was over at the bard hall or working a corner or something. 

I think I startled him as much as he startled me because we both jumped, and he yelled at me a little. He had his instrument, a small stack of papers, and what I'm pretty sure was my spare pen. 

I asked him what he was doing there, and he said he was trying to come up with a new song. He thought it might be a good thing to give up, a sacrifice. I asked him if he thought a sacrifice would help us get home, and he said it couldn't hurt for us to try. We'd seen some weird, amazing, really out-there stuff, and we knew someone was magically healing people. It seemed related to the temples, so maybe it was gods or other beings like gods. Maybe they'd answer our prayers even though there were sure to be so many other people praying. 

I hid myself away with him in the room. Zunair's obsession with music wasn't something I hadn't heard from him or for him before, and I was curious. I asked him about it, and I figured it would be something he was just picking up, something passing like the magic for me, something to do here that could make a little money if he was half decent at it. 

Zunair told me about his mom. His mother used to play and sing to him when he was little, and Zunair wanted to learn to play, too. He told me about her incredible singing voice and how she'd bring any room alive with music. He'd learned how to play a little bit from here while growing up, but when he tried to pick up her guitar after she passed, he thought his father was going to have an aneurysm. 

He didn't, and Zunair hadn't tried again. The pain of that interaction, the memory of his mom playing, had been too much for a long time. 

But here, he missed his mom, and this was something he could do to remember her that wasn't hurting anyone and wouldn't make his dad cry.

And here, and now, where he wasn't home, and he still missed his mom, and where he wasn't home and just had to be here, more or less alone with the pain he felt and the loneliness, he could try it again. So he was. 

It makes sense to me now why the other Bard Hall let him in so easily then and why he was putting so much of himself and his focus into it now. He needs something to focus on, just like I did, do. His just happens to be music.

I hugged him and told him I'd help cover with the others if he wanted help at the apartment. It's nice for him to do, and he has been getting a lot better. 

I dusted around him and left him to keep working on the song. I'm sure it'll be something. I can't say good. I really don't think it will be, but it'll be from the heart, and I think that'll make it good enough. 

And maybe the gods will appreciate something new and made from the heart. 

Thankfully, there weren't any other surprises while dusting. But it was still so exhausting that I napped for a little while, waiting for Riley to finish whatever her tasks for the day were. 

Reese gave me a piggyback on the way to the apartment, which is probably for the best because I'm not sure I would have been able to make my way up the stairs. There aren't many, but it would have been too many for me. 

This weakness is just the worst. 

I hate it.

I don't think much else worth talking about happened. Grace helped clean up the pools on the bottom floor of the temple, and Zunair told me he was much closer to being done with his song, which is also great. 

Overall, it was a good day, and I got to hang out with Zunair and get to know him a little better, which was a surprise and a pleasant one at that. 

Good night, Dad. I hope you're sleeping okay and that you haven't had to spend too much of the time I've been gone on cases. Or maybe you have, so you're not too worried about me.

Love, Jack

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[big-greer]

a BIG part of the lore of Dungeon Meshi is how ageism is bad. About how the long lived races treat the young lived races like children and thus infantilize them and do not show them the respect and understanding they deserve simply because of their looks or short life spans. Whether its because to them they look like children in their eyes (like half foots and gnomes) or because the adult ages of the younger lived races are still in the child ages for the longer lived ones and so they get treated/viewed as children (we see otta receive comments about getting with minors when in reality she dated adult half foot women. so we already see this view towards things like this are a thing in the lore) We see this with chilchuck, senshi, and marcille where the two later view chilchuck as a child and treat him like one even though he is a full grown man who drinks (and is supposed to have grey hairs) all because he looks young and in the newest episode its revealed he is 29 which is still young children to the two of them. We see how perspectives that characters are children because of their age being a childs age for a different race as opposed to their race or because they look like children is a completely infantilizing and disrespectful behavior that causes so many problems in the long run. a theme that is completely flying over the average tumblr users head.

ive seen people get furious at other people because they sexualize chilchuck and even marcille

“oh they look like kids so dont do that you freak”

you absolute fool you missed a major theme of the fucking story. But because they look young suddenly they are children? have you paid no attention to the story? did you just ignore how the ageisim and weird mindset about ages like that causes so many issues that could easily have been avoided. and as for the age one i see people getting furious at others for being into and sexualizing izutsumi even though she is a year past adult in tall man years, but because she isnt in the adult age range in real life (wild your applying real life society standards to a fictional medieval fantasy world). even though even in lore she would be well an adult able to get married and everything tumblr really does have the media literacy of a toddler.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

okay unironically I love so much that porter is like this world SUCKS its BAD here and it HURTS you why do you care abt it!!! and literally every single bad kid is like ngl we just hate ur ass it does not matter what ur philosophy is

[haunted-xander]

And so I, the fool, bleeds to play the saviour

[twinstxrs]

in light of recent canon academic conversations, riz adaine gorgug study sessions have never been more real to me. gorgug helps riz + adaine get out of their own heads when they’re overworking themselves, riz + adaine help gorgug with alternative studying methods because he learns best through visuals + experience. fabian’s there occasionally when he has a particularly difficult assignment/test but he makes them all swear never to speak of it in order to protect his “image.” kristen has shown up exactly twice: once for advice on a group project that was two months overdue & once to just lay on the floor and relax for an hour before leaving. fig didn’t know the study sessions were happening until sophomore year & now keeps getting monthly bans because every time she shows up she ends up accidentally distracting riz + adaine. also, sometimes after/in the middle of really long study sessions riz adaine & gorgug go to basrar’s together to unwind but fabian kristen & fig Are Not Invited (they do still text to ask if anyone wants something brought back from basrar’s. they’re not heartless, after all).

[tired-fandom-ndn]

Begging writers to just let teen characters break up over time, like it's fine, you do not always need an epilogue where the main character is still with their first boyfriend/girlfriend after years or decades, people and especially teens can just break up without it being a whole thing because that's just how growing and changing as a person works.

[tempestmothstorm]

Ok since Monika still has her admin powers in the side stories you think she could just discover them accidentally or use them without realizing

Anyways au where Monika and friends discover her admin powers but dont know about the wider context of what it means. So they just go around thinking Monika has magic and try practicing with a bunch of silly fun shenanigans because they figure it’s some chosen one bloodline stuff and not like. A product of their reality being a constricted digital science experiment.

This au will not end well

[manglam-marfach]

dyke!Chilaios has me understanding breeding kink all of a sudden

[llitchilitchi]

I get hating certain political systems and trying to abolish totalitarian regimes but at the same time many of them are so interwoven with our history and society they have become tropes and when I consume media with a setting where the monarchy is absolute and revered then I am playing my part and sucking that princeling off

[twilight-blaze]

cannot stop thinking about how if Hope is your party leader for the final fight against Orphan, his voice line at the start of the fight is a determined "this is for you, mom." I'm going to fucking cry

[spiralsublime]

why did none of yall warn me this season is about six kids hitting mid-life crisis before their junior year of high school?

[jeremiahthefroge]

Unironically, IS there anywhere to get a good beat-by-beat plot synopsis of the original Minecraft Diaries without watching it all the way through? I want to get a good idea of all the plot beats and characters and the general timeline to see about writing some fanfic, because the characters are living rent free in my brain, but I'm also like... VERY aware that it's a 2016 minecraft roleplay series... and I fear that I will ruin my own mental image of the series if I try to rewatch it all...

[behold-the-daybreak]

you know west wing is fictional because when there's a debate, the candidates actually stay on task and answer the question

[fluentisonus]

.

[welcometogrouchland]

[ID: digital fanart of the owl house. The piece features Luz, the collector, and kid belos. Luz is in her season 3 design holding her bat and a backpack with her palismen inside. Both items are at her side and she looks on at the audience with a determined expression. The collector is on her left and is facing away from us with a mischievous face. Kid belos is on Luz's right, holding a wooden sword in one hand. The shading on him is reminiscent of a 1600s ink ink drawing. The background is black and white text above the characters reads "thanks to them, 15/10/22". End ID]

Happy owl house eve folks! Sorry about the UK date system <3

[queenangst]

percy didnt want to be a half blood. he never wanted to be a hero. he goes home every summer. he craves normalcy. he asked for blue coke. he plays basketball and likes skateboarding. he made the empire state building light up blue for his mom. he turned down immortality because he wanted to live a normal life. percy has always, always wanted to stay tethered to the normal, mortal world. he didn't look back.