Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

Anonymous asked: I have a question about Alleirat. You've mentioned that the society isn't advanced enough for HRT and such (yes I read your tags please don't shame me) is it because they have a heavier reliance on magic? So that the advances we've made with technology would be substituted with a magical alternative? Sorry for the bother,

My dude, I write more tag than post sometimes, far be it from me to shame you for reading my tags.

And yes, you are correct!  Alleirat isn’t very developed technologically speaking–they have gravity-driven indoor plumbing, but only a basic system, and clockwork (like…clocks for example, I guess), but it would just never occur to them to do something like build an internal combustion engine because they have magic to perform the same job.  Horses (as well as most other fauna) is stronger, more resilient, and longer-lived (also often bigger) due to the high concentration of magic in the world, so short-distance travel is easily accomplished either on foot or on horseback.  For long-distance travel (Alleirat as a continent is maybe a little smaller than Russia?), they have what they call kathen, or ‘gates’ (like a magic door, basically), which are controlled and manipulated by teams of specifically trained magic workers who literally cannot do other types of magic.  Kathen can’t transport large amounts of cargo because the opening can rarely be made larger than maybe a set of double doors, so shipments are often accomplished by sailing ships or overland caravans.

Medically speaking, again, they’re heavily reliant on magic.  A specific kind of magic worker called a flesh worker serves as a universal healer, but that does mean that there are some logistical limitations in comparison to our own medically advanced society.  A flesh worker can repair the damage from a sword wound to the chest or even kill a cancer with a thought, yeah, but the idea of an organ transplant, a limb reattachment, or even a blood transfusion just wouldn’t occur to them.  So a flesh worker (re: the HRT thing) might be able to increase one hormone or decrease another, but it would be a wicked precarious arrangement far less manageable than our medically accomplished version.  Likewise, a flesh worker might be able to perform the equivalent of top surgery (or, if you went to one of the less legal flesh workers, actually alter the bone structure of your face) but…there are a lot of limitations there.  Moreover, they don’t have the equipment to even start to approach some of this stuff–like, a flesh worker does all their healing with their bare hands, they don’t exactly keep sterile needles around for blood transfusion.

…I’ve put a reasonable amount of thought into this.

formerlyknownasemily:

hereforpizza:

curiouscarson:

toocutetopay:

akai-kaede:

nilesymon:

i wonder if magic is real, but only in a really mundane way.

when i was little i could almost inerringly switch back to disney channel right as the ads ended when i was channel surfing.

maybe youve never accidentally crushed a ladybug underfoot. maybe your microwave popcorn never burns. maybe you can spin around lots and lots of times before you get dizzy.

is that magic??

honestly im not sure if these are magic or just small, invisible skills. im not sure which i like better.

My ankles never twist.  I’ve always been rather active, I did track for five years (all the running events), and one time while running I stepped in a hole, lost my shoe, and landed sprawling about five feet away.  I pulled my shoe on and kept running.

I have a coworker who somehow makes better coffee than everyone else even though the grounds come pre-measured and all you have to do is load them up and push a button.  I have a friend who has inch long nails that never break.  My brother can copy origami just by looking at the finished product and my mother can do the same with knots.  I knew a guy who never made an error when typing.

Maybe we all have little magics, the kind that you don’t realize you have.  Just tiny things that make your life slightly better but are completely unnoticed on the outside.

this is the cutest post i have ever read…

Nooo I’ve actually shared this theory before. Like my Dad is really lucky finding parking spaces. And I’ve never cracked my phone even though I drop it on the time and have an average case. Like what if everybody gets one trivial part of their life that they’re illogically lucky at?

this post makes me feel better about myself 

Left turn magic here. I’ve pulled up to 4 lane roads with medians and had no traffic at 5 pm, just to turn left.

(Source: dolichomorph, via academicfeminist)

jebiwonkenobi:

It seems like the first rule of magic, or at least the first limitation mentioned, is usually ‘you can’t bring back the dead.’

And I know it makes sense from a writing standpoint, but I also wonder if it comes from somewhere else. If that’s just the first, most common human response to hearing that magic is possible.

Maybe the first question was, ‘Are the dead still going to stay dead?’ for so long that people stopped needing to say it, that it just got answered right away. Yes, the world will still hurt. Chin up, you can make fire from your fingertips. Maybe you can hurt it back.

(via minutia-r)

lsunnyc:

celynbrum:

somethingdnd:

lsunnyc:

can we take a moment to just think about how incredibly scary magical healing is in-context?

You get your insides ripped open but your friend waves his hands and your flesh just pulls back together, agony and evisceration pulling back to a ‘kinda hurts’ level of pain and you’re physically whole, with the 100% expectation that you’ll get back up and keep fighting whatever it was that struck you down the first time.

You break your arm after falling somewhere and after you’re healed instead of looking for ‘another way around’ everybody just looks at you and goes “okay try again”.

You’ve been fighting for hours, you’re hungry, thirsty, bleeding, crying from exhaustion, and a hand-wave happens and only two of those things go away. you’re still hungry, you’re still weak from thirst, but the handwave means you have ‘no excuse’ to stop.

You act out aggressively maybe punch a wall or gnash your teeth or hit your head on something and it’s hand-waved because it’s ‘such a small injury you probably can’t even feel it anymore’ but the point was that you felt it at all?

Your pain literally means nothing because as long as you’re not bleeding you’re not injured, right? Here drink this potion and who cares about the emotional exhaustion of that butchered village, why are you so reserved in camp don’t you think it’s fun retelling that time you fell through a burning building and with a hand-wave you got back up again and ran out with those two kids and their dog? 

Older warriors who get a shiver around magic-users not because of the whole ‘fireball’ thing but the ‘I don’t know what a normal pain tolerance is anymore’ effect of too much healing. Permanent paralysis and loss of sensation in limbs is pretty much a given in the later years of any fighter’s life. Did I have a stroke or did the mage just heal too hard and now this side of my face doesn’t work? No i’m not dead from the dragon’s claws but I can’t even bend my torso anymore because of how the scar tissue grew out of me like a vine.

Magical healing is great and keeps casualties down.

But man.

That stuff is scary.

shit just got creepy

Or maybe magical healing doesn’t leave scars or damage. It is magical, after all.

So after years of fighting, your skin is still perfect. Unmarred. In fact, you’re actually in better shape than regular people who don’t get magical healing when they fall out of trees or walk into doors or cut themselves while cooking dinner. You’re in such good shape that it’s unnatural.

And the really good healing magic takes away more than just the obvious injuries. You first start noticing it after about ten years when you go home and haha, you look the same age as your younger sibling, that’s funny.

Not so funny ten years later when they look older. Or forty years later, when you bury them still looking like you did at twenty. When do you retire from this gig anyway? How much damage is too much damage?

How many times do you glimpse the afterlife, or worse, how many times don’t you? What do you live through, get used to, show no outward sign of except a perfectly healthy body, too perfect for any person living a real life.

How many times are you sitting in a tavern with your friends and you hear the whispers, because the people around you know. How can they not know? Your weapons shine with enchantments and your armour is better than the best money can buy and there is not a damn scar on you. You hardly seem human to them.

How long before you hardly seem human to yourself?

And you find yourself struggling to remember the places where the scars should have been, phantom pains that wake you screaming, touching all the old injuries and finding nothing there. It’s all in your head. Was it ever anywhere else?

How long before you’re fighting a lich or a vampire or some other undead monster and you wonder…

…what makes me so different?

Here we go someone who GETS IT.

Not gonna lie, this is my number one consideration when I’m constructing magical universes.  If magic can heal, what effect does it have?  Do you retain some of the damage?  Can it only heal to a point?  Does it heal EVERYTHING, right down to the aging of your cells?  Does it force your body through the usual healing process, just really really fast, and leave behind knotted scars and damaged bone?  Does someone else have to take on the damage so that a soldier can keep fighting (and what does that do to the soldier, when a mage walks out onto the battlefield and dies of blood loss without a blade laid on them)?  Does magic stop working at ‘death’ or can you raise someone whose heart is stopped?  Does magic take time to heal–if someone is bleeding out from a slit throat, could they die during the healing?  What price does the healer pay for the healing?  Are they weary, are they injured, are they sick?  What price does the healed pay for the healing?  What kind of trauma does that leave?

Magic is only interesting if you pay a price.

(via cthulhu-with-a-fez)

Honestly I feel sort of ridiculously lucky re: potential ships in the upcoming Star Wars movies, and I’m realizing that it’s possibly just me?  But LET ME LAY THIS OUT FOR YOU.

MOST LIKELY: Finn/Rey.  These two children are cute as shit.  They’re just so damn excited about the world and the universe and green and the Force and each other.  Finn is all star-eyes and bear hugs, and Rey is all toothy grins and fierce protection.  It’s fucking precious.  Sit with me and think about Rey coming back from Fuckety Nowhere to find Finn recovered from his injuries and learning how to be Resistance, and she bounces off the Falcon and runs up to him and throws her arms around his neck for a hug like they did in Starkiller, and when she pulls away she holds onto one of his hands and they smile at each other like the adorable little fucks they are.  BONUS: interracial relationship between a white woman and a black man, which is still something that’s considered more than a little taboo.  Racism is a thing guys, and it’s SO IMPORTANT that representation of this sort of relationship be in the media, especially in such a big-name franchise as Star Wars.  Finn is affectionate, self-determining, and allowed to show emotions like fear and anxiety without any in-narrative penalties, and that is NOVEL, unfortunately.  And Rey is…well, Rey.  Come on, guys, I want to be Rey when I grow up and I’m sure you do too.  She’s able to be the hero, and not in the sense a lot of us are familiar with: there’s no assault, no rape, nothing like that.  She just finds a droid, and then she finds a lightsaber, and then she has the Force, and then she fights for the people she cares about, which is the same way that Luke became a hero.  No one criticizes her for being female.  THIS WOULD BE A GREAT COUPLE.

SECOND MOST LIKELY: Finn/Poe.  The jaCKET?  That is all?  No, seriously, though, this would be a great ship: the dashing pilot and the rogue Stormtrooper.  The entire base would ship it.  Poe would shout down anyone who talked about Finn being a spy, and Finn would learn Droid to talk to BB-8, Poe’s best friend.  This would be a ship with a lot of teasing smiles and laughing, arms around shoulders and warm support.  It would be about Finn learning to be an independent person and Poe welcoming someone new into his family.  BONUS: interracial gay relationship between a Guatemalan man and a black man, which is a little taboo in a different way.  Homophobia is a thing guys, and it’s SO IMPORTANT that representation of this sort of relationship be in the media, especially in cuh a big-name franchise as Star Wars.  Finn is everything I described above, and Poe is dashing, confident, intelligent, skilled…and caring toward his squadron, kind to a stranger, and respectful toward women, including those who have authority over him like Leia (insert battle hymn about the greatness of General Leia here).  Poe is a whole other thing from the standard cocky bastard of a pilot we know from movies and TV.  And please sign me right on up for this new type of dashing heroic gentleman, I am on this bullet train to a brighter future and you should be too.  THIS WOULD ALSO BE A GREAT COUPLE.

OTHER MORE UNLIKELY COUPLES: The Damerons (Finn/Poe/Rey).  It would be great for all of the reasons above, with the addition of the Poe-Rey dynamic of, I imagine, “Look at how beautiful and powerful and glorious this girl is” from Poe’s angle and “You are nice to me and handsome and I’m not sure what to do with any of that” from Rey’s.  Technically the best of all worlds (interracial! everyone is bi except possibly Rey!), but unlikely because, well, it’s a threesome, and that renders it frankly improbable for Hollywood to make it a thing.

And of course, THE ONE PAIRING I’M NOT EXCITED ABOUT: Kylo/Rey.  Um.  No.  Not least because things are looking like she’s going to be Rey Skywalker and that makes them EITHER first cousins OR siblings, depending on which twin is Rey’s parent, and yes, Luke and Leia were almost a thing, but let’s just take a hard line on No Incest this go-round, shall we?  But also because that would, I think, be wildly unhealthy unless they pulled off some sort of miracle.  And because honestly my main interest in a redemption arc for Kylo is the one that is Entirely For Leia’s Benefit, and I’ve read enough stories about poor damaged boys whose actions weren’t their fault at all being saved from themselves by the purity of love and…like…give the man the dignity of his own choices, okay?  I can feel sorry for Kylo because of the way he’s so clearly been manipulated and groomed by Snoke, but unless there’s evidence of actual legitimate mind control it’s still his choice to side with the Dark.  I have a lot of firm opinions about human dignity and free will and even though he’s currently a spectacular bastard, Kylo Ren still has free will and he has exercised it and as a human being he deserves to have his choices recognized as his own.

ANYWAY.  My point here is that no matter what you ship hardest, it needs to be recognized that either of the two most likely ships to happen will be almost groundbreaking in the representation they’ll offer.  I will make no judgements and fight no wars about what kind of representation is ‘most important’ because, you know what, it’s ALL important.  It matters that kids see interracial relationships on the big screen, presented as grand sweeping romances rather than comedy or tragedy.  It matters that kids see gay relationships that way.  It is important that teenagers and adults and children look at the characters they love and see themselves there, see the people they love there, see their friendships and relationships there.  Duking it out about who is more oppressed and therefore more deserving of that representation lessens us as people.  You, as a person reading this, deserve to see yourself in a character, in a hero, and so do the other people on the street, friends, strangers, enemies.

I want us to have it all, guys.  I want you to have everything: trans characters who are fierce and strong, women who can save galaxies, men who can be gentle and emotional and heroic, gay and lesbian romances full of light and laughter, racial diversity because, hey, when your copilot is covered in ten inches of hair what’s a little melanin between friends.  I want you to have ace characters with adoring husbands and wives, nonbinary characters and genderfluid characters whose friends would die for them no matter what their pronouns are today and vice versa, aro characters with badass spaceships full of loyal crew they love, characters with ADHD and autism and schizophrenia and depression going out to save the world with the people who care about them, physically disabled characters with blasters concealed in their prosthetics or souped up hoverchairs.  ALL OF IT.  And this movie series isn’t going to give us all that, because all of that is…it’s a lot to ask, and I know it, but I want it anyway.  But this movie is virtually guaranteed to give us something, some starting point, and you know what?  I’m ready to take what I can get while I work on finding a way to give you guys everything.

regional differences

idiopathicsmile:

“oh hey,” she said, “it’s a really touristy area, but since you’re gonna be passing through anyway, you might as well stop by pier 29, see the dragons. also, there’s a—”

“hold on,” i said. “i knew your city had mountains, but. dragons? uh, actual living dragons?”

“dude, it’s not a big deal. they’re there all the time. of course they’re majestic and everything, but they’re loud and cranky and mostly they lie around eating garbage. now and then the city council will talk about trying to make them roost somewhere else, but—”

“dragons,” i repeated. i knew it was making me sound like a rube, but it was a lot to take in. “you live in a city that has dragons.”

“no, it’s cool, we used to go see them when i was a little kid. it’s worth doing. but that whole area is mostly dragon-themed gift shops, and the commercialization is kind of a bummer. also, sometimes a dragon will melt somebody’s car and it’s a whole problem.”

“fairytale-style, giant scaly fire-breathing dragons.”

“honestly, i forget other cities don’t have them?” she said. “there’s a few other sites on the west coast where they gather. portland calls them wyverns, but that’s a portland thing.”

“chicago’s got, like, bunnies and songbirds,” i told her, “but otherwise it’s just your typical vermin. pigeons, rats, sphinxes—”

“sphinxes? what the hell.”

“oh, yeah, they nest in the el tunnels. sometimes a fucking sphinx will flap down out of nowhere, bring the whole train to a halt until the front car answers a riddle.”

“that sounds exciting,” she said.

“it’s the worst. your train winds up being twenty minutes late, and you just have to hang out hoping somebody up there read their mythology. there’s supposed to be a program where the conductors get trained in riddling, but i don’t know. rahm emmanuel keeps saying it’s not a budget priority.”

“huh,” she said. “guess the grass is always greener and all that. but on some level, it’s nice to remember that even with all these big box stores, the country still has some variety left in it.”

“yeah, did you know that in rhode island they call water fountains ‘bubblers’?” i said.

“whoa, seriously?”

“i read it somewhere. crazy, right?”

“crazy.”

(via primarybufferpanel)