My elementary school had the entire animorphs series and when I was in fifth grade I discovered them and I would check them out three at a time (I think at one point I was doing this every day) and just read through them. My teacher thought I was reading below my level and took away the one I was on and made me read "The Good Thief" and tell her how it ended before I could get it back.
This is eerily familiar, my elementary school experience looked very similar. Admittedly I figured out really quick that I didn’t want to be explaining the Animorphs to my teachers (my mom asked about the first book while I was reading it at seven and she was VERY CONCERNED–of course then she read them herself and is easily as much of a die-hard as I am), but yeah man, I know that feel.
Also I’m reading them out loud to my roommate and it’s fun times, and also-also you should ALWAYS feel free to come talk to me about Animorphs because it’s GOOD SHIT. I have a Rachel/Tobias fic in reserve that I wrote today but won’t post just yet because I agreed not to torture my roommate while she’s feverish.
"u dont know tragedy until you ship a dead girl and a bird" i feel it
son. it was sad as fuck when i first read it when i read it nearly 15 years ago and it is even sadder now because i was cold as fuck as a kid and now as an adult i have the fragile emotional state of an infant that’s been shown the first 10 minutes of the movie “up”. animorphs has destroyed me and showed me how to feel, and most of that is bad and i regret it.
Rewatching Fury Road while tipsy because houseguest, and SOME THOUGHTS:
The Doof Warrior is so fucking extra, I love him with my whole heart because. What.
Furiosa straight up tries to kill Max in that first fight. Like, he KNOWS the shotgun isn’t loaded and furthermore he wastes THREE bullets on nonlethal warning shots. SHE, on the other hand, does NOT know that, and tries to blow his head off with the shotgun, bash his skull in with the boltcutters, and shoot him in the temple with the handgun.
There is nothing I love more than that scene where Immortan Joe is coming up on them and they’re Definitely Screwed and then the door opens to reveal Angharad clinging to the outside of the rig to shield them with her body. So fucking good, God I love her so much.
The Vuvalini make me so happy. “I’m eighty years old heRE COMES THE HURRICANE.”
This movie is a really good exercise in one of my favorite lines: There’s nothing more dangerous than a true believer. And not just with the War Boys! Joe has totally bought into his own propaganda, that’s WHY he’s so dangerous.
This movie is also ALL about Actions Speak Louder Than Words. It doesn’t matter what Nux or Max says, it matters that Max warns Furiosa about the oncoming war parties and is willing to drive the rig to save them all, it matters that Nux helps them escape the Bullet Farmer, it matters that Max lets Furiosa use him as a rifle rest.
“Remember me?” FURIOSA. MY LOVE. FUCK ME UP. FUCKING ICONIC.
The loop of “Witness me” from the kami-crazy War Boy death chant to Nux’s final whisper before he saves the Wives and Max and Furiosa always wrecks me, I almost bawled in the fucking theater the first time I saw this.
Toast is a stone-cold Slytherin and I will not hear debate. “Don’t damage the goods.” Come on, y’all. Which is not to say I have strict headcanons for the others.
HA I lied, I totally do. Furiosa is a Slytherin/Gryffindor split who by nature of her situation chose Slytherin and falls back on that Gryffindor self over the course of the movie, Max is a Hufflepuff (a deeply traumatized Hufflepuff, but still). Angharad is a Gryffindor to the core, using her own body to save the others because she believes in the cause. The Dag is a Ravenclaw, exactly the kind of lunatic brilliance that Ravenclaw adores, and Capable is a Hufflepuff who throws herself into the cause for love of Angharad and for love of her people and for love of herself. And here’s the controversial one: Cheedo is a Slytherin. Her ambition is to survive, and she does whatever she believes must be done for that–flee the Citadel, return to Joe, lie to Rictus, all of it to achieve her goal. Nux earns a Gryffindor for turning his back on Joe, but the War Boys are mostly not…person enough to be sorted, just puppets, an old man’s battle fodder. Incidentally the Vuvalini are a general mix, most of them with Slytherin as an option if not a primary house, much like Furiosa. Valkyrie is the only straight-up Gryffindor, and Keeper of the Seeds is a Ravenclaw/Hufflepuff split, a rarity in the Vuvalini.
Immortan Joe is a Slytherin/Ravenclaw split, which makes him very dangerous.
I’ve always been mad vexed about it and just held my tongue bc I didn’t wanna fight but now I do wanna fight everyone who doesn’t like Jake Berenson and argues that he didn’t deserve to be the leader and that he gets too much credit for doing nothing and while I did not keep any receipts for callouts I may still write a post explaining my passions and sorry to all my followers who are gonna have to read it
I mean… Jake Berenson himself would make that argument, but everyone else should know better.
Jake made some Bad Decisions, but he did his best in a horrible situation and I will defend him for 10 pages if I need to.
I would also join in the defense of Jake Berenson.
honestly one of the most heart-wrenching, incredible images from the Animorphs series for me is from #13, where the kids, a bunch of 13 year old kids, their equally young andalite friend, and the two only free hork-bajir in the entire universe are all scared, stuck in the woods together and have decided to trust one another. And they pound their chests and scream out the mantra of the entire series free or dead in the face of the yeerk empire that threatens to enslave all of them and it just brings me to tears every time i read it
I want to talk for a moment about the infamous Trump Happy New Year tweet. We’re all familiar with it. It went like this:
“Happy New Year to all, including to my many enemies and those who have fought me and lost so badly they just don’t know what to do. Love!”
The general reaction could best be summed up as, “What an asshole!” But I’m glad he tweeted this, because it really clarifies things. Trump views everyone who didn’t and/or doesn’t support him as a conquered enemy. This ought to put to rest any talk of Trump “uniting the country” or “giving him a chance.” In fact, you know what, Donald?
If you are going to treat me like a conquered enemy, then I have to assume I am now living in an occupied country. And that means that from me, you get:
* no benefit of the doubt
* no cooperation
* no respect
and
* no legitimacy.
That tweet frees us all from any remaining scruples any of us might have had about rejecting his legitimacy and authority. You can’t be someone’s “enemy” and be their president at the same time.
Thank you for putting into words what was skeeving me the fuck out about that tweet, in a manner more eloquent than the “dear non-faith-specific God, he sounds like a literal supervillain out of central casting” that was springing to mind.
i think a lot of yalls pro-trans mantras are getting kind of performative especially now that we’re really in the trenches under trump’s presidency like it’d be real nice if any of yall bothered to call your local senators or local grassroots orgs about trans employment laws and trans healthcare and trans people’s exposure to hiv and donate to trans women and men etc in need for every ‘kill all terfs and destroy cis people’ post you type
here are some sample scripts you can use if you’re not sure what to say when you call [x] [x] [x]
throw in a few bucks for passport gender marker and legal name changes. urgently needed, easy to do. (this is how i was able to afford my gender marker and name change, these fundraisers are directly helping trans individuals) [x] [x]
read, bookmark, and share this list of 52 more concrete ways to support trans people & promote trans equality [x]
“I say eighteen years,” Jyn, perched on the edge of the
table.
“What? No way,” Cassian, leaning forward, focused.
Leaning back on his chair, Bodhi cleans his goggles.
“Well, they were Guardians before the Republic fell, weren’t
they?” Jyn is insistent, “They must have had some sort of code against emotional
attachments, like the Jedi.”
“Even so,” says Cassian, “It has to be longer than that.
Looking at the way they interact, the subtlety of the touches, the shorthand…
I say twenty-four, twenty-five years.”
“You’re not using your intelligence-gathering skills for
this, are you?”
“Well, it’s not like I can just switch it off!”
“But it’s an unfair advantage!”
Cassian brushes her off and turns his attention to the
pilot.
“What about you, Bodhi? What do you reckon?”
“Thirty-two years,” he says calmly.
Then, seeing as the other two are looking at him with raised
eyebrows, he adds:
“Give or take. Probably dated for like… five years before
that? I’m just guessing.”
“Shit, they’re coming. Credits on the table, boys!” says Jyn
in a whisper.
Each of them throws a handful of credit chips on the table.
“Alright, spit it out,” says Baze, walking up to their
corner of the mess hall, “the three of you have been staring at us for the last
fifteen minutes.”
“I told you,” says Chirrut lightly, “their intentions are
pure.”
“I don’t trust your definition of pure. And , in any case, it’s annoying. So what is it?”
Jyn elbows Cassian in the ribs to get him to do the talking.
“Well, we were just wondering… How long the two of you
have been together.”
“Married, you mean?”
Jyn nods vigorously.
“Well, we became involved when I was sixteen, Chirrut was fifteen.”
“The bit about no emotional attachments was never really a
rule. More like advice,” Chirrut answers Jyn’s unvoiced question.
“Very strong advice,” says Baze.
“Well, we were always unorthodox.”
Chirrut smiles at Baze, who leans in to give him a quick
kiss.
“Anyway, we were married some five years later, so that makes
it… thirty-two years?”
“Just about.”
Cassian and Jyn’s jaws drop, and they apparently decide to
give up on hiding their secret. Both turn to Bodhi.
“What?!”
“How did you know?!”
“Unbelievable!”
The two wail and stomp off, grumbling about “two hundred
credits!”.
Meanwhile, Bodhi leans forward on the table and gathers his
precious winning.
“Guess that means these are mine now.”
“So,” says Chirrut grinning, “are you going to tell them you
were born and raised in Jedha City, and that the marriage of two Guardians of
the Whills made city-wide news?”
listen kids, i am very tired and in all honesty have no authority to be giving anyone advice but looks matter in fanfic, how you present the work you created matters, okay
you’re trying to impress, you’re trying your very best to get someone to read this work you’ve created and how you present it is fucking important, ayight?? it’s like having a first date, you can’t just roll out of bed after three months without showering and be like “sup fam, suck on my tongue”
you have to look minimally presentable for people to want to metaphorically suck on your tongue, ayight kids?
so, get a nice title, something that ppl wanna whisper, something nice and related to the content ayight? it can be one word, it can be any word. that’s your calling card kid, that’s the piece of paper you slide over the table with your phone number. good titles can go a long way
and if titles are your name, the phone number is the tags and for god’s suck use the tags. how do you want people to find the unique things you bring to the table if you don’t put them in the database for them to search by name??? how will all those potential people you’re trying to win over find you without some proper tags, huh? they ain’t fam. tag yo shit
and while you’re at it, don’t talk down on yourself, don’t you dare talk down on yourself. you’re beautiful and ethereal and everything you do matters, and everything you do works to make you even more beautiful. “i suck at summaries lol xD give this a try tho”. fam no. don’t do that shit. it’s unnatractive. that’s like being greeted by your date with a “rawr that means i love you in dinossaur lol xD im so random how many kids do you wanna have also my family are all extremists come see our gun collection”
ppl are gonna run away from that. fast. you’re good. what you do matters, OWN IT. seduce your date with a beautiful summary, whatever you like, using any technique you like, just have a good summary ayight? that’s your bait, that’s what you use to reel them in as the beautiful siren you are just before you drown them in your amazing content and eat their hearts.
and if you don’t think you’re shit and are insecure about posting, then boi u better fake it ‘till u make it, my guy. i can assure you, you’re worth more than you could ever dream.
now that u got em reeled in, now that you got them to click the link and ask for a second date, for mcfuck’s sake correctly format your fic, use some goddamned paragraphs spacing. i want to see beautiful flowing lines of text, not a slaughtered ant colony that faintly resembles a wall of text. and dont forget theres a special place in hell for people who align center their text.
so.
maximize your readability, expand your goddamned market, become enticing to the point where no one can resist you, sloppy fic presentation harms your fic and it’s completely avoidable. take care of yourself and make smart decisions to get that sweet validation medicine friends.
I noticed the other day that girls usually adapt to their bfs hobbies like if they enjoy idk surfing the girls will start learning facts about it and buying cute things related to it for them and being so proud of their bf like they’re a star even if they aren’t that great at surfing just out of pure love and joy ….. But men never fucking adapt to their gf’s interests like they can’t possibly care less about makeup for example or they’ll just complain about them taking too long to get ready instead of sharing the passion for it and watching them create something beautiful and being interested in why is it that it makes her feel better to do her makeup. Men are so used to not trying at all fuck that tbh!!!!
yall are just dating the wrong fucking people lmao
Seriously, you ARE dating the wrong people. I work in a makeup store and the sheer amount of guys that are fully engaged in what their girlfriends/wives are doing with makeup surprised me. Yes there’s a lot of guys who scoff and roll their eyes about being in the PRESENCE of makeup, but there’s sooooo many that are consistently engaged, looking at colours wanting to help (even when they’re visibly confused and you can see they want to help but don’t know how). My boyfriend even knows more than I thought just from listening to me talk.
Find better quality guys that take interest in your interests and stop settling for assholes.
the person you’re dating should be your best friend. Not as in, date your best friend, but as in if your partner doesn’t engage with you at the same level as a best friend (or even just a friend), there is something wrong. It’s not long term material.
Couples that act like men and women are ‘opposite’ sides in the relationship game are such a weird concept for me. ‘Oh, we’re married, my wife is basically an obstacle to me getting a nice night out with my friends haha’ or ‘oh my boyfriend doesn’t do any of the housework ahahaha boys am I right?“
like, ?????? you,re not supposed to be on opposite sides, both pulling to get what you want. You’re supposed to be a TEAM. that’s, like, the whole point of a relationship.
Like, not only does my boyfriend know and care about my interests, even the ones I rant about that know bore him a little (and vice versa - I now know a lot about Eve Online and he knows more than he has probably ever wanted to know about star wars fanfiction), he also knows about my day to day stuff. Like, I’ll ask him to do the laundry and he’ll answer “okay but where’s the little net bag you put your bras in so they don’t get stretched in the washer?” because he fucking LISTENED when I bought it and told him what it was for.
like I said. You’re a team, conquering adult life together. That goes for everything, from getting excited and calling him over when I spot a simulator game on sale at the store (even though wtf simulator games I will never get the point of them) to figuring out the most efficient way to keep the living room clean.
*high fives my boyfriend, cartwheels out of the house*
Not enough people talk about the fact that Leonardo da Vinci was gay. Like, he’s literally the father of modern technology and one of the smartest human beings to ever live and I never ever learned in school that he was gay.
If all the LGBT people are as “DOOMED” as the bible thumpers think we are, hell, at least we’re in good company.
I was about to say I can’t believe I didn’t know this
and then I remembered the American education system
Yes, I can fucking believe I didn’t know this.
But yeah. Leonardo da Vinci was gay. Pass it on.
Leo painted a picture of his lover as Jesus and that’s the image we use today
Oh man that is sad. I’m sorry your teachers are failing you.
Some Leonardo facts you should tattoo on your heart:
He was actually convicted for sodomy at age 24, but the allegations were dropped for lack of testimony. The charges affected him immensely, as he was by all means, a very private person.
Da Vinci’s models for Christ are unknown. The claim that he depicted his lover as Jesus most likely arose from the bullshit about Cesare Borgia being the inspiration for White Jesus™ combined with the allegations that Leonardo and Cesare were lovers…There is little to no support for these claims. However, it’s speculated his lover Gian Giacomo Caprotti was the model for his St. John the Baptist.
He was universally beloved (minus Michelangelo lollll), like the nicest, funniest, gentlest, handsomest man you’d ever meet. He was generous beyond words, treated everyone equally, and loved to play pranks.
He was also fuckin’ ripped. It was rumored he could bend a horseshoe in half with his bare hands.
Often wore pink and other vibrant colors.
Rumored to sleep approx. 2 hours a night.
Was left-handed and ambidextrous. He was dyslexic, possibly had ADD, and suffered from frequent paranoia.
He was his own worst critic and often destroyed his work. He still left behind over 13k journal pages, filled with sketches and so many dick jokes.
His last words were: “I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have.”
Would buy caged animals from the market just to set them free. He was allegedly a vegetarian.
For a time he kept a pet lizard and made him a custom set of wings and horns. He would routinely scare the shit out of people with his ‘dragon.’
My all time fave: While staying in the Vatican he would invite guests into a residential room which had been filled with cleaned/dried animal intestines that he had sewn together. He fastened a bellows to the end of the intestines and proceeded to inflate them. Onlookers were so excited to see DaVinci’s new ”invention” that they didn’t even realize this asshole was just blowing up a giant balloon and pinning them to the wall holy shit I love him so much.
Where is the musical. Lin-Manuel Miranda, fix this.
could you imagine The Enterprise having like a yearly inspection and Kirk bugs out every time because the best running ship in the fleet certainly doesn’t become so because they follow therules. He has to remind the crew a week in advance to actually call him Captain and use formal titles. Bones and Scotty’s shared bathroom which is one hundred percent a liquor cabinet/distillery cannot be a thing.
Sulu has to collect all of his plants out of everywhere that’s not the Botany Labs and hide the illegal ones he picked up during their journey in his quarters. Scotty has to remove all of his Scotty-Approved-Modifications from Engineering. Spock can’t work four shifts in a row and break the ensigns that challenge him in the gym to sparring matches. Bones can’t medically offer alcohol to anybody. Uhura needs to not curse every ten minutes, in any language. Chekov needs to focus more on his console and less on every pair of legs walking by his station.
And then when he was Admiral Kirk, he wasn’t especially interested in actually giving the inspection he was supposed to give at the beginning of The Wrath of Khan.
Remember how he was all, “you know what, let’s just take these cadets on a training cruise!” and Bones was like, “what about the inspection?” and Kirk was all, “nah, man, fuck the inspection”? Yeah, he already knew the kind of shit he was going to find, and he was like, “you know what, I’ll just let y’all off the hook.”
no but when my fiance and I first started dating he said something along the lines of “I hope you don’t ever get irritated with me” because he tends to be pretty high-energy
and I assured him that as long as he isn’t like a lying, misogynistic asshole, it’s basically impossible to piss me off
and I meant it as a joke, but his face got all serious and he goes “don’t worry, I’m not a total idiot, I’ve lost enough brain cells already”
apparently when his older siblings were little, his brother told their sister that she couldn’t play basketball because she was a girl
watching trump slowly figure out what the presidency actually entails is a lot like what i imagine gilderoy lockhart looked like when the hogwarts teachers called his bluff and sent him into the chamber of secrets
So I’m all of four episodes into Borgias, and I’ve got an important question.
WHERE is my fic taking ruthless advantage of Cesare’s need for power and Micheletto’s utter loyalty? With the two of them having sex with deeply fucked-up power dynamics and probably a lot of unnerving knife imagery? About how Micheletto goes to his knees and does what Cesare commands because Cesare in his rich robes and wolf-smile is all the God Micheletto needs or wants, and about how Cesare knows that Micheletto could kill him in a heartbeat and would still place a straight razor in Micheletto’s hand and offer up his throat to be shaved with absolute knowledge that Micheletto won’t even nick the skin? About how Cesare could put a knife to Micheletto’s chest and Micheletto wouldn’t even flinch?
Anonymous asked: Okay, after the Fox News incident, I have to ask, how do the Avengers do on press interviews?
The Avengers are made up of a sharp-tongued billionaire with a short fuse, an easily insulted God, a traumatized scientist with BREATHTAKING anger management issues, a sullen and smart mouthed sniper, a spy with a cloaked past and the ability to kill with a look and Steve Rogers.
sorcerer's/philosopher's stone:
cries for james and lily, also absolutely cannot believe that dumbledore is leaving a baby on a porch in england in november. 8/10
chamber of secrets:
condescends lockhart into going into the chamber alone, then turns around and is like "great so that got rid of him" 10/10
prisoner of azkaban:
"you look to be in perfect health to me, potter, so i'm sure you won't mind me setting you homework. i assure you that if you die, you need not hand it in." bamf. says "not today" to the god of death." 11/10
goblet of fire:
there's that one time she puts a hand on harry's shoulder while her voice shakes. lov it lov her. 9/10
order of the phoenix:
unfortunately is part of the union of "adults denying traumatized harry any information." this, however, is offset by "have a biscuit, potter." 7/10
half-blood prince:
in her temporary stint as headmistress, she gets more done than dumbledore did in fifty years. amazing. 100/10
deathly hallows:
OH BOY. TALK SHIT GET HIT. MCGEE IN THE HOUSE HERE TO FUCK SHIT UP. 10000/10
So there has been a bit of “what if humans were the weird ones?” going around tumblr at the moment and Earth Day got me thinking. Earth is a wonky place, the axis tilts, the orbit wobbles, and the ground spews molten rock for goodness sakes. What if what makes humans weird is just our capacity to survive? What if all the other life bearing planets are these mild, Mediterranean climates with no seasons, no tectonic plates, and no intense weather?
What if several species (including humans) land on a world and the humans are all “SCORE! Earth like world! Let’s get exploring before we get out competed!” And the planet starts offing the other aliens right and left, electric storms, hypothermia, tornadoes and the humans are just … there… counting seconds between flashes, having snowball fights, and just surviving.
To paraphrase one of my favorite bits of a ‘humans are awesome’ fiction megapost: “you don’t know you’re from a Death World until you leave it.” For a ton of reasons, I really like the idea of Earth being Space Australia.
Earth being Space Australia
Words cannot express how much I love these posts
Alien: “I’m sorry, what did you just say your comfortable temperature range is?”
Human: “Honestly we can tolerate anywhere from -40 to 50 Celcius, but we prefer the 0 to 30 range.”
Alien: “……. I’m sorry, did you just list temperatures below freezing?”
Human: “Yeah, but most of us prefer to throw on scarves or jackets at those temperatures it can be a bit nippy.”
Other human: “Nah mate, I knew this guy in college who refused to wear anything past his knees and elbows until it was -20 at least.”
Human: “Heh. Yeah everybody knows someone like that.”
Alien: “……. And did you also say 50 Celcius? As in, half way to boiling?”
Human: “Eugh. Yes. It sucks, we sweat everywhere, and god help you if you touch a seatbelt buckle, but yes.”
Alien: “……. We’ve got like 50 uninhabitable planets we think you might enjoy.”
“You’re telling me that you have… settlements. On islands with active volcanism?”
“Well, yeah. I’m not about to tell Iceland and Hawaii how to live their lives. Actually, it’s kind of a tourist attraction.”
“What, the molten rock?”
“Well, yeah! It’s not every day you see a mountain spew out liquid rocks! The best one is Yellowstone, though. All these hot springs and geysers from the supervolcano–”
“You ACTIVELY SEEK OUT ACTIVE SUPERVOLCANOES?”
“Shit, man, we swim in the groundwater near them.”
Sounds like the “Damned” trilogy by Alan Dean Foster.
“And you say the poles of your world would get as low as negative one hundred with wind chill?”
“Yup, with blizzards you cant see through every other day just about.”
“Amazing! when did you manage to send drones that could survive such temperatures?”
“… well, actually…”
“… what?”
“…we kinda……. sent……….. people…..”
“…”
“…”
“…what?”
“we sent-”
“no yeah I heard you I just- what? You sent… HUMANS… to a place one hundred degrees below freezing?”
“y-yeah”
“and they didn’t… die?”
“Well the first few did”
“PEOPLE DIED OF THE COLD AND YOUR SOLUTION WAS TO SEND MORE PEOPLE???!?!?!?”
My new favorite Humans are Weird quote
“PEOPLE DIED OF THE COLD AND YOUR SOLUTION WAS TO SEND MORE PEOPLE?”
aka The History of Russia
aka Arctic Exploration
aka The History of Alaska
Being from Alaska, this was sort of how I felt going to college in the lower 48′s and learned that no one else had been put through a literal survival camp as a regular part of their school curriculum, including but not limited to:
1. Learning to recognize all forms of animal tracks in the wild so you can avoid bears and moose and search out rabbits and other small animals to eat.
2. Extensive swimming and climbing on glacial pieces with competitions to see who could last the longest, followed by a group sit in the sauna so we wouldn’t get hypothermia (no, not kidding, I really did this many times as a kid!)
3. How to navigate using the stars to get back to civilization.
4. How to select the right type of moss from the trees to start a fire with damp wood (because, y’know, you’re in a field of snow. Nothing is dry.)
5. How to carve out a small igloo-like space to sleep in the snow to preserve body heat and reduce the windchill so you won’t freeze to death in the arctic.
“I’m telling you, I don’t think we need to worry about territory conflicts with the humans. You know all those deathtrap hell-worlds in the Argoth Cluster?” “Those worthless rocks? Yeah.” “80% of them are considered ‘resort destinations’ by those freaky little primates.”
“I’m telling you, they terraform for fun!” “Don’t be ridiculous” “No, seriously. Some of their most celebrated cultural loci are built on swamps. They have an entire city that is literally in a body of water. Not, like, an artificial pontoon city, they literally sunk the foundations into water. For Grilp’s sake, they build elaborate structures out of frozen water AND THEN SLEEP IN THEM.” “Dear Thilak. Think we could get them to terraform our moons?” “Psh, they’d probably pay for the privilege.”
Eventually, it occurs to someone that humans are the perfect terraforming shock troops, as it were. They think it’s fun to be sent to horrible planets! They’re really good at surviving and then taming them! All you have to do is sit back and wait until the planet is habitable, and then move there yourself! It’s genius.
It only takes one try before the reality of the situation sets in: human definitions of ‘taming’ and ‘habitable’ are woefully incomplete.
“Why did you not eliminate the venomous plant life?” Grahssk’ti moans, clutching one limb.
“Those?” The human laughs. “Why bother? They’re not that bad. And they eat the mosquitoes.”
Grahssk’ti shudders. The ‘mosquitoes’ are… not to be mentioned. Just one swarm of them caused a landing shuttle to crash three planetary daylights ago.
“And the acid storms? Why did you not warn us of them?”
“I mean, they’re annoying,” the human says, shrugging, “but we figured the cool sunsets made up for it.”
Grahssk’ti flails helplessly. “What about the ten-meter tall Fanged Death Bringers? They can eliminate an entire settlement in under an hour!”
“They’re so cute!” the human says, brightening. “Have you met mine? Her name is Spot!”
So, you mentioned there are different type of magic users in your Alleirat story. Any chance we could get a break down of the different types?
GODDAMN
RIGHT YOU CAN
So I
suppose the thing that bears mentioning that the way magic works in Alleirat is
that a magic user (called a ‘worker,’ except for those who use fire magic) has
inherent ability for a mode of using magic—they can channel magic in fire, in
water, in plants, in metal, whatever, but they can’t do magic in anything else. Someone who can channel magic through living
plants can’t do the same with thread or water or fire, and they’ll never be
able to learn. So this can get REALLYspecific
really fast—someone might specifically be a silk worker, for example, or a
bronze worker. It’s more common,
however, to specialize into a wide category, like ‘weather’ or ‘metal,’ so I’ll
cover a few of the more common and/or pertinent ones.
Fire
magic, obviously. Fire magic is revered
as blessed by the Wanderer, the Alleirai god of fire, battle, and lies. Brenneth, the main character, is a smith,
which—in this universe—means that she’s specifically a broadly trained
blacksmith with the ability to work in fire magic. (Fire magic users are called fire smiths, not
fire workers.) This is pretty much what it
says on the tin, with one major exception: unlike most fantasy universes where
a mage can summon and throw fireballs, this is mundane fire, which means it needs fuel. A fire smith of sufficient power can project a pillar of fire, but it’s
incredibly short lived and impractical as a weapon. Combat fire smiths generally carry small
grenade-like packages that splash flammable oil over their target, when they
can then ignite with ease.
Brenneth is something of an exception to this
rule, because her trademark is something called white fire—white in Alleirat indicating death/deadly. White fire isn’t actually white in color, but
it’s the colloquial name for dragon fire, which needs no oxygen and no fuel save
for the magical power and anger of the wielder.
Brenneth earned her title of Fireheart by her preferred fighting style
of igniting her sword with white fire—she refuses to teach this trick to anyone
on the argument that it’s a dangerous technique with the potential for mass
destruction, and she expects it to die with her.
Weather
magic, also obviously. Weather magic is
revered as blessed by the Lady of Stars, the Alleirai goddess of storms, stars,
and fallen things. Crispin is a powerful
weather worker—and a fallen thing, and yes I am very pleased with that goddess. Again, pretty much what it says on the tin,
although to varying degrees. Some
weather workers expend themselves completely bringing down a single lightning
strike, others—like Crispin—can rally hurricanes and still be standing. Crispin is one of only a very few weather
workers in history to be powerful enough to summon winds that are sufficiently strong
and precise to carry him. Much like fire
smiths, combat weather workers often use an aid to direct their magic—it’s
energetically taxing to aim lightning strikes, more so the further from one’s
self the strike is going, so many weather workers carry rapiers. They strike the rapier, which is close to themselves
and strongly conductive, and then direct the charge at their target.
Plant
workers are also pretty much what it says on the tin, with the exception that a
lot of plant workers have actual plant heritage—briatan are tree-people, descended from the universe-equivalent of
dryads. The briatan are more powerful, but less precise than pure human planet
workers. Isla Akekrei, generally known
as Krei, the daughter of Brenneth’s old right hand woman and Brenneth’s new
military ally, is briatan and a
powerful plant worker—akekrei means oak.
Krei, like many briatan plant
workers, has tattoos in various plant-based inks on her arms, which she can
manipulate and move around at will, and, also like many plant workers, she
wears cuttings of vines and other plants on her person, which she can use as
weapons. You know that scene in Sky High
where Layla flips out? Yeah, like that.
Flesh workers,
ironically, are probably the most feared people in Alleirat, save Crispin
himself. Flesh workers channel magic
through living flesh, which means they’re the magical healers in-universe. However, a flesh worker is equally capable of
healing a mortal wound or of clapping
their hand to someone’s chest and making their heart explode, making every bone
in their body shatter, or flaying them alive.
The moment blood stops moving through the body, a flesh worker’s power
is no longer capable of affecting an individual, but up until that point… As long as they have skin-to-skin contact, a
flesh worker can do pretty much whatever they want, no matter how
physiologically improbable it is. The
only thing they really can’t do is
reattach a completely severed limb.
Incidentally, this is the most common kind of worker overall—and again,
there are degrees—and the most common type of worker to go full dark side. There’s a whole cadre of flesh worker
assassins because, shocker, they’re the best at it.
Death
workers, on the other hand, are viewed in a similar way to healers in most
fantasy universes—people literally cannot fathom
a death worker going dark side. Death
workers are basically a variant on necromancers, with the ability to see
spirits who’ve become trapped on the “wrong side of the day” (Alleirai religion
says that spirits exist between days/on the other side of a day, and keep watch
on their loved ones) and raise the dead as…puppets, I guess. It’s very rare that the latter ability is
used, and generally death workers are sort of like grief counselors/priests,
responsible for performing funerals and speaking to the bereaved.
That being said, death workers are fearsome in combat. There are stories from back when Alleirat was
a bunch of small warring city-states, millennia ago, about death workers at
war, and this is how they usually go.
Two armies have been at war for years, and one,
City-State A, is finally losing. They
know that if City-State B wins the war, they’ll sweep in and slaughter everyone
left in City-State A, burn their cities—the traditional Sack of Magdeburg-esque
situation. So, a powerful death worker
who’s been serving to ensure that all the spirits of the dead are safely on the
other side of the day goes to her lord.
“Lord,” she inevitably says, “I have the power
to end this war, here and now.”
Her lord demurs, because what she’s offering is
horrific in the Alleirai culture—you never
ever tamper with a dead body except to put them to rest in the manner
specified by the dead person. This is a
capital crime.
“I will do this, and you cannot stop me,” she
says. “So bring in all the guards and
tell the camp to go to sleep, and I will save us, and then I will die for what
I’ve done.”
Her lord agrees, because what other choice is
there? And the camp goes to sleep, and
the death worker walks out onto the battlefield, where the bodies of the dead
are neatly laid out and waiting to be laid to rest. She stands in the middle of the dead, and she
reaches out her hands, and all around her, they stand and take up weapons and
march toward the enemy lines. There is a
single night of battle. Every enemy
soldier who falls is raised to march in the death worker’s army, and there are
always more dead bodies to drive forward.
The sun rises.
The camp wakes. The enemy lines
are decimated, littered with dead bodies, and some distance away, somewhere
with a clear view of the entire battle, the death worker lies dead.
The worker wreaking havoc as a weapon of a
lordling when Brenneth and Crispin come back to Alleirat? A death worker fallen through from Earth
named Hoshiko, with no friends, no support, and a conviction that she’s going
insane. ILY Shiko, I’m sorry I’m mean.
hi, i just wanted to pop by and say that things we lost in the fire is an amazing fic! not many people can successfully write angst in fics without turning the character into a pathetic woobie drowning in wangst and manpain but you do it incredibly well! you're a super talented writer and i hope you have a wonderful day!!! :D :D :D
THANK YOU SO MUCH, oh my God I’m so glad you think the angst thing is going well. I have a POWERFUL aversion to the woobie trope and I LIVE IN FEAR, okay, IN FEAR. I’m so thrilled that people seem to be of the opinion that Grantaire is a well-executed character in ‘things we lost in the fire’, I’m??? I’m not a supremely coherent recipient of compliments, not gonna lie, but THANK YOU SO MUCH.
of course! :) i'm kind of a weenie when it comes to this sort of stuff so i tend to hide behind the anon button because interacting with other humans is terrifying, even over the internet, but today seems to be a good day cause i'm not panicking at all so feel free to publish the ask! :D
My buddy, I feel you so hard, I basically live behind the anon button. But thank you so much for your permission, I love getting to collect people’s responses to my fic!
Okay guys, for writing/general reference, a bit about what a ‘blacksmith’ is and isn’t:
A blacksmith is a generalist, a person who uses tools and fire to work iron. Some blacksmiths work more specifically, so you get, say, an architectural blacksmith, who focuses more or less exclusively on things like gates, rails, fences, or an artist blacksmith, who makes wacky sculptures or what have you. These days, though, that’s a pretty blurry line. ‘Blacksmith’ is a pretty damn broad term, but it’s nowhere near broad enough to cover everything encompassed in ‘metalworker’, which is how I often see it used. There are a LOT of different skills for working metal, and no one knows them all. Some other terms:
A farrier shoes horses. They may make the shoes, or they may buy them and then size them, but they actually do the shoeing. Unless the blacksmith is also a farrier, they don’t know shit about horses’ hooves and are not qualified to deal with them and probably don’t want to.
A blacksmith works IRON (or steel), usually almost exclusively. They might work with bronze or do a bit of brazing, but those are really separate skillsets. If you work, say, tin and/or pewter, you are in fact a whitesmith. You could also be a silversmith or a coppersmith, and so on.
Knifemakers and swordsmiths have their own highly specialized and fairly complex specialties, and usually a blacksmith wouldn’t mess with that unless they want to pick up a new skillset or if they’re really the only game going for a long way around. By the same token, a swordsmith might never have learned the more general blacksmithing skills. They’re not the same thing is what I’m trying to say here. Likewise armorers. There’s overlap but it’s not the same thing.
If you make metal items via molds and casting, you work at a foundry and are a foundryman.
Look, when metalworkers and individual shops and masters were the height of industry, this shit got REALLY specific. There were people who spent their whole lives making pins. Just pins. Foundries specialized and made only bells, only cannon, only cauldrons, etc. This is scratching the surface, I just wanted to make the point that ‘blacksmith’ is not the same thing as ‘magical muscly person who knows how to do everything related to metal’.
FOR ALL MY BITCHING, I REALLY DO LOVE MY THESIS, SO.
I’m a pre-med major, but I discovered over the summer that I really, really hate research. Which I pretty much knew already but now I have proof, so. But the point is that when I picked my thesis topic I said flat out that I would do an experimental thesis when Satan built a snow fort, and the guy in charge of the pre-medical studies division was my Orgo teacher so he knew not to fuck with me. (Teachers tend to fall into one of two categories with me: they get angry about butting heads with me nonstop OR they come to terms with the fact that it’s kind of like trying to corral a hurricane and thereupon give up.)
So I thought about what I could stand doing for a full year and decided that things I like include:
Medicine
History
Military history
Weird facts about old battle tactics
Things that make other people’s eyes bug out when I tell them
And subsequently I am writing my thesis on the development of battlefield medicine through American history and I’m gonna title that bitch Only Mostly Dead.
one thing that’s always bothered me about most people’s depiction of Holmes’s usage of cocaine is that most people in Victorian England were only just beginning to realize how badly it affected people???
like tbh I feel like a better modern equivalent would just be Holmes dumping a five hour energy into his fifth cup of coffee while Watson, a trained medical professional, stares at him in horror
