SHIT FUCK I DON'T KNOW

I HAVE A BOOK!!!!!!

✦ Grace Rocky Save Stars ✦

Across the vastness of space, against all odds, the most unlikely of souls find each other's savior and hero.

Thanks to all of you for giving this piece so much love!

Backlash against 2010's hustle culture? Backlash against 2000's "girls can do anything" messaging? I don't know. But why are the AI advertisements all about how you forgot your wife's birthday or your boss's deadline and the AI saves you? Why is the ideal young-20s woman a frail little girl who lives on her boyfriend's income and makes him lattes while she does nothing all day? Even the sports-betting craze feels like it reskinned the "savvy young day-trader who's skilled at reading the market" to "blind and dumb luck might make you a millionaire so you should try."

And it feels like there's something here because like--yeah AI is being advertised as a functionality of convenience, but so have things like food delivery apps. And I swear my best recollection of food delivery app advertisements used to be like, "busy mom comes home from work and finds the kids messed up dinner--oh well, at least there's doordash!" Like the key target is not someone lazy or useless, they're just busy as hell and won't this convenience service we offer help them a bit?

The instagram girlies were running businesses in the 2010's--most of them scammy bullshit I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole--but the aesthetic of being busy, hustling, operating with drive and passion, was in. The men were founding start-up companies and calling themselves entrepreneurs--again, scammy, 10 foot pole, etc. But the aesthetic of doing something and being capable was in vogue.

That said, these tags were what I needed to hear:

we're all gonna make it

Hypnotic suggestions from being mind controlled persist after the controller’s death, causing the victim to occasionally take actions to support the cause of a mind flayer cult that no longer exists.

Repeated demonic possession has left the patient with permanent gaps in their soul’s defenses, causing them to immediately get re-possessed if they go outside a consecrated area.

Post-resurrection trauma as the revived soul remembers an unpleasant afterlife.

Curse of bad luck - makes any small illness or injury potentially fatal if not treated with anti-curse in addition to anti-infection procedures

Magical reliance on a magical or nonmagical substance - can have any number of side effects

Repeatedly being drunk by vampires can cause an increase in blood production and therefore high blood pressure and related ailments. Can be treated by blood letting.

There’s a lot of hybridization happening in a lot of fantasy settings, and that’s just asking for a lot of people with weird half-dragon genetic disorders. Works out fine for some people, not so much for others.

Parasitized by (insert creature here). If you don’t take the correct precautions to keep it dormant it will continue to spread and eventually hatch out/transform you.

Repeated contact with the undead has left you open to their influence - leading to hearing or seeing things that other mortals can’t, which can distort or distract from more mundane concerns.

Alternately to being more vulnerable to intrusion, one’s soul can form a scar that makes helpful magic more difficult to take in.

Sleep disorders that make one fall into an impenetrable sleep at a specific trigger, or to do so for years at a time.

Out of phase with 4D space, one’s body not connected to itself or anchored in place/time in the usual way. There could be a consistent two hour gap between the things you hear and what has happened, you might clip into the floor as if it was in a different place for you, or you might slide through the material plane in cross section.

Intermittent intangibility.

Split into two people, each with only half your traits.

the forgotten dread: memory modification magic has caused the subject’s conscious mind to forget some past trauma, but their subconscious still remembers, causing them emotions that they cannot explain or justify ranging from mild discomfort to blind panic when presented with triggers related to the aforementioned trauma. often encountered in cases where the subject has paid an unscrupulous mage to make them forget their past as an ill-advised alternative to therapy.

Psychically Transmitted Memories: the subject’s mind has been linked to another person’s and, although the bond has since been severed, they have retained memories or thought patterns from the other person that are difficult to distinguish from their own.

Negative Life Syndrome (previously “False Life Syndrome”): seen most often in cases when the subject is exposed to dark magic while in the womb, Negative Life Syndrome leaves the subject’s life energies tainted by undeath without making them truly undead. common symptoms include intolerance of radiant magic, aversion to sunlight, and the inability to set foot on hallowed ground; rare symptoms include healing from negative energies, sudden necrosis, and the desire to eat flesh or drink blood of living beings.

lycanthropy

Awareness of too many dimensions makes it difficult to interact with just this one - either to keep track of conversations, or walk to specific locations without ending up on another planet instead

Telekinetic psychosis - delusions tend to physically affect those around you (but HIGH chance for ableism in this one!)

you have flare-ups where your skin tends to slough off and be replaced by some other substance

After sharing life energy with a dying loved one, you’re now both trying to survive off one person’s supply. Like chronic fatigue, but if your loved one gets too big of a bruise you won’t have the energy to get up until it heals

living in reverse

stuck at a certain age

supersenses lead to constant overstimulation

cursed into the shape of a deer for spying on the goddess of the hunt at her bath so your dogs eat you but they didn’t because they’re good boys and the spell wore off. unfortunately what triggers the spell seems to be looking at baths, not nudity.