Mischif.net, Since 1997

and as he dies the red dye seeps out of his hair and the protagonist best friend is like GOD DAMN IT DUDE WHY DIDN’T YOU WARN ME YOU WERE A WHITE HAIRED ANIME BOY THIS WHOLE TIME I COULD HAVE PREPARED FOR THIS

400 years ago, in the 1600s, in what is now Germany there was a guy named Phillipis Aurelius Theophrastus Bombastus Von Honenhiem. But he was a big asshole, so his classmates at university called him "Cacaophrastus" which literally means shit-talker.

He hated how medicine worked. See, even up until 1600, medicine hasn't changed much since the ancient world. The most up-to-date medical textbook, the core of physicians teachings in the 1600s, was a book by Galen. Galen was from ancient greece. People had invented guns, but they hadn't really improved on how Galen thought medicine worked.

Theophrastus, who called himself Paracelsus, was a bit of a rebel. He saw alchemists doing all this fantastic stuff with manufacturing new types of dyes and cosmetics and metal alloys, and he thought, why not use all that stuff for medicine? So he got to using cutting edge knowledge for the purpose of healing the sick. Which he did.

Do you know what the pre-paracelcian prescription for a musket wound was? A poultice made of cow shit and feathers. Paracelsus said to keep the wound clean, and let the body do it's thing. This saved uncounted lives.

He performed experiments, giving the same substance, in the same dose, to different people, and even testing on animals with different phyiologies, and observing how the same amount of the same substance can affect bodies didferently. He wrote "The dose makes the poison" thus inventing the occidental science to toxicology. Every time you go to the doctor, and don't get poisoned, you have this 1600s wizard to thank.

And he was a wizard. Medical knowledge at that time involved the construction of astrological talismans, made of magically imbued metals which counteracted the astral forces thought to cause illnesses. Along with inventing the foundations of modern medicine, he also engaged in the construction of magical amulets and potions, the theories of which all informed his work. Work which formed the foundations of modern medicine.

I "stole" this concept from a picture on XHS of someone else copying the same concept from ANOTHER PERSON XHS (the concept of slip trailing a mermaid under translucent glaze) and did my own version of myself to use with various poses etc. It's such a cool concept :3

Reluctant but he accepts the role even though he ends up hating it

Reluctant but he accepts the role and ends up loving it

Reluctant but he accepts the role and ends up neutral on it

He accepts the role happily but ends up hating it

He accepts the role happily and ends up loving it

He accepts the role happily but ends up neutral on it

He refuses the role and books it

He accepts the role but immediately introduces democracy to Camelot

Idk/secret 3rd option/neutral

I have asked this myself in the past and never gotten an answer.

It became pretty standard jargon, as I understand, to disambiguate when writing to other humans. First phys!Steve vs the Steve right next to you, just like you were taking to the machine, then getting looser (as jargon does) to reference, say, bearded!Steve vs bald!Steve.

Fics that I think I scribbled off just to get them out there get the kindest, most rapturous feedback. Fics I slaved over, agonized over, bled my soul into get a couple tepid replies. Fics I thought were me revealing the darkness and weird kink that lives in my brain, scared to even post it for fear of judgement, get, “Aaaw that’s so sweet!” replies. Baffling.

My conclusion? You just never know. You really just can’t know. When I did a workshop with 20 other writers I would try to guess what their critique of my story would be and I was right maybe 1 in 20 times. Only one other writer would have the same critique for my story that I had. And it wasn’t even always the same person.

The encouraging part about this is, if self recrimination, the fear that you know what people won’t like about your story, is holding you back, just say fuck it! You’re almost certainly wrong! All you can do is make it the best story you can for the energy you have. And yeah, sometimes that means scribbling it out in an evening and kicking it out to the void of the internet before you can change your mind or worry about editing it more than once because then you’ll never post it.

Like. I’ve always sorta understood that things grow moldy or stale or sour or such if left out, but I never really internalized it in a meaningful way.

But now I’m just like.

Yeah. The hungering dust. There exists omnivorous dust in the air that will eat my food if I don’t.

Those bagels have been sitting there for a week. Are we going to eat them soon or are we leaving them for the hungering dust?

Pizza’s been sitting out on the counter for an hour. Everyone’s enjoying the pizza, but if we don’t want “everyone” to include the hungering dust then we should probably put it away soon.

That’s just. That’s how food works to me now. There exists an invisible predator in the air that hungers for your yummies, and it will not hesitate to eat your food if you don’t make the effort to protect and preserve it. And eat what can’t be preserved before the dust can.

Like. No. I am here to enjoy their relationship! All of their relationship! Stop closing the door just because they made it official! They're fictional! They don't need privacy from the watcher/reader!