UntetheredDreams

i do think that in general it’d be kinda cool if i did the minor arcana by ages/eras instead of it being what character fits since each age is kinda rife with nonsense.

also the one deity i didn’t really get to include is EFFE, but that’s ok bc she can be part of the minor arcana since she’s a venerated deity anyway (so is TLoTM but like. dw about it).

anyway tho:

the fool -> Aeyar (centaur goddess of spring, meadows, horses/mounts, grasslands, flowers, insects, and honey/sap)

the magician -> KIBARUM (god of the harvest, fertility, crops, farming, alcohol, festivals/celebrations, drunkenness, rest/relaxation, the seasons, pubs, and famine)

the high priestess -> Iyara (demi-goddess of prophetic visions that lead to madness)

the empress -> IIARAN (goddess of the universe, creation, cantatio (bardic magic or the magic of music), the stars, melody, musical instruments, birth, life, parenthood, gift giving, charity, and compassion)

the emperor -> IISIDIA (goddess of the universe and cosmos, creation, destruction, rhythm, harmony, cantillo (deep magic that runs the universe), authority, loyalty, devotion, death)

the hierophant -> Cyvaris (alter god form of MUINENS associated with the physical weaving of terranean fate)

the lovers -> MARTH (venerated god of alchemy, science, technology, innovation, ores, crystals, earth metals, artificial light, oil, welding, craftsmanship, hard work) & BRULENE (goddess of tactical strategy, maps, sculpting, statues, monuments, pottery, kilns, weaving, looms) — the reason they’re the lovers is they’re (obvs) lovers but also because they’re both transgender :)

the chariot -> KOST (god of bodies of water, seafaring, voyages, travel, boats, exploration, and all marine life)

strength -> YLENE (goddess of war, strife, battle, weapons, bravery, courage, blood, guilds, desperation, loss, strength, fortitude, the taming of fire)

the hermit -> MIZDARR (god of nature, plants, animals, hides, forests, the wilds, fun, craftiness, play, laughter, survival, brutality, duality, and keeper of The Thicket—a magical area which hides dark secrets)

the wheel of fortune -> MIRANKA (god of oaths, bonds, relationships, coitus, and camaraderie) & RANKIMA (alter of MIRANKA and goddess of unity, oasis, palm trees, mirages, dancing, family, and obligation)

justice -> MUINENS (goddess of order, justice, architecture, armor, guardians, protection, peace, oracles, divination, truth, integrity, prophecies, fate, destiny, and cities)

the hanged man -> Rhidae (god of jealousy, herding, domestication, hunting, possession, commerce, and regret)

death -> IDMIR (god of the earth, soil, plate tectonics, continents, mountains, earthquakes)

temperance -> YUTARA (agender deity of healing, medicine, immunity, poison, studiousness, knowledge, schools, language, communication, gender expression, and disease)

the devil -> QHOZION (god of chaos, hatred, grudges, perfectionism, reincarnation, amnesia, sacrifice, deceit, dreams, nightmares and visions)

the tower -> The Fall of Lapsundi (the first world, abandoned by its goddess and left to fester in its own pain; its scars haunt the narrative and the goddess who left it)

the star -> Palanthia (minor god and leader of the stars in the sky, hope, treaties, collaboration, hanger of constellations, and the personification of MUINENS’s shield)

the moon -> Idyendhop, The Great Mirror (goddess of the moon, darkness, tides, winter, mirrors, and cool air)

the sun -> Phyddione, Prisoner of Light (the sun, light, warmth, sunbeams, sun rays, wildfires, and blindness)

judgement -> The Lady of the Mists (goddess of sorrow, grief, burial, funerals, fog, mist, wandering, bridges, ruins, and a psychopomp of unburied terranean souls, guiding them home to Cerullius)

how do you distinguish grey from other colours beyond black and wite?

Distinguishing features of moral beige:

The protagonist is constantly agonising over Hard Choices; however, circumstances always conspire to prevent them from actually having to make those choices, so in practice they're just angsting over stuff they might have done.

The text exhibits a recurring pattern whereby the protagonist seems to to have made a Hard Choice, but new information is reliably revealed shortly thereafter which retroactively establishes that whatever they did was the morally upright course after all.

The protagonist's moral impulses are straightforwardly heroic, except in one specific context which lacks any clear real-world analogue; for example, being prejudiced against telepaths.

The protagonist's actions are consistently reasonable based on the information available to them – they're merely operating on bad information basically all the time due to a bizarre conspiracy and/or a series of increasingly implausible misunderstandings.

Reblog from @valtsv:

>being shown someone's morally grey original character

>ask them if their "ethics" are actually sustained attempts at meaningful change and self reflection or just Killing Bad People I Don't Like

>"it's an ethical character sir"

>it's killing people they don't like

Its is more like you hiring some guy to do private investigation about how your husband maybe cheating on you and Sherlock comes to your house high as fuck. Walks into your living room and without taking a moment to even talk to you or sign any paperwork, he turns around—pupils as big as god—and just says

“Its your best friend Brenda. I’ll email you the invoice.” 

So consider this, Holmes, at 2am, desperately searching the flat for the stashes of NOS cans, only to keep coming up with passive aggressive pamphlets about the dangers of caffeine overdose.

Watson wakes up to a stench like Satan’s ass to find Sherlock sitting by his bed with a re-heated pot of cold brewed Deathwish Coffee that had been hidden in the back of the toilet tank (brewing) for five months.  Sherlock is trying to say he’s proud of John’s cleverness in finding most of the stashes, but he’s passed into the fifth dimension and all John gets is a creepy vibrating grin and a sound like a shaken cat.

So it’s more like realizing that your flatmate with the caffeine/sometimes drug death wish will only chill the fuck out when he has some strange mystery to unravel, so you spend your free time scouring reddit posts that might actually feature a real missing person. Or a ghost. You really don’t care which at this point. When you finally find something your flatmate is THRILLED and straight up stops eating because he thinks he can survive on intellectual curiosity alone, and yeah that’s not good, but it’s better than what he was doing to himself before. Your success is comparative, okay? You stick around for the meeting partly because you’re curious, partly because this is your home too remember, and partly because you’ve found that writing up these insane excursions helps pay off your student loans. Your Patreon is thriving. The entire time your flatmate is interviewing this poor SOB he keeps breaking into manic grins and you’re kicking him under the table, trying to help him remember that others aren’t happy about a death in the family. Halfway through he pulls a cigarette from a stash in his smelly bedroom slipper, offering the client one and yeah, that’s very nice, but… no. No thank you. He’s dressed impeccably and has a violin worth millions just lying on the floor, but the flat as a whole looks like a tornado just blew through and there’s something growing on the walls beside the makeshift lab. Is he rich? Dirt poor? Impossible to tell based on the surroundings. The entire time he rattles off observations about the client not at all related to the case and his continuing good mood depends entirely on how impressed the guy is. If he mentions “magic tricks” or “I saw that on Youtube” you’re prepped for damage control. 

By 8:00pm you’ve finally convinced your flatmate to look up from his research and go half on a pizza, but the second it gets there he shrieks in excitement and runs out the door, demanding that you follow with your legally dubious gun. You apologize profusely to the delivery guy and double his tip, begging him not to call the cops. No, not because you’re afraid of arrest, you just know the head of the local precinct and he’s a pain in the ass. 

You run after your flatmate knowing damn well you have to be up early tomorrow because despite maintaining a private practice you still don’t make enough to get your own apartment. 

I mean — it’s textbook hyperfixation/understimulation right there — I Also forget to eat and sleep and do Human Things when I’m vibing with whatever makes my brain go, and I Also take (medically prescribed) stimulants when I need to think. And Also adhd understimulation makes mundane existence an agony that one will do nearly anything to escape but at least in the modern day we have things like video games and netflix so it’s a little easier to actually get that escape without y’know completely self-destructing along the way (Sherlock Holmes plays Among Us to fill the void between cases change my mind)

And while it’s entirely legit that a modern ADHD sherlock might self-medicate with energy drinks and home-brewed toilet-tank-coffee, I’d LOVE to see an adaptation where Sherlock just. has a prescription?

So instead of hunting down his secret Bad Habit Stash, John could be like “hey, sherlock- the pharmacy called, your meds are ready” and then sherlock would be all “LATER JOHN IM ON A CASE RN I DONT NEED THEM” and John’d be like “sherlock no that’s not how that works”

Drugs are only illegal for us poors.

BTW @maramahan when I was seeking treatment for my ADHD one of the first things the psychologist asked me was if I’d ever done coke, because it is, to borrow your turn of phrase, “entirely legit” that a person with undiagnosed ADHD would self-medicate with coke. That’s a real thing that happens all the time on college campuses all over the US, and in Britain too, I’m sure. Coke is known to affect the brain similarly to adderall, conferring many of the same benefits to people with ADHD, and depending on your environment, it might be easier to access.

I’d argue it’s debatable whether adderall is actually any “better for you” than coke, mg for mg. I mean it’s essentially the same shit as meth. The reason we consider adderall safer is because of how doses are administered. If people could microdose 5mg slow-release capsules of cocaine the way they do adderall, instead of snorting entire lines of it, then the negative health effects would probably be about the same.

in which murderbot is a very normal terracotta soldier and ART the dragon spirit of a chinese junk who dwells in the ship's keel. they meet in the ming dynasty perhaps, when ppl are sailing places extra willy-nilly.

*Nüwa is the mother goddess in chinese mythology, known for creating humanity from yellow clay and repairing the sky.

thank you @mutualrapport for hosting the event! original prompt below.

also, @sonnetseven - yes - life is to be lived and enjoyed!

Almost Real's POP CULTURE issue is live on Kickstarter! Time to introduce the cute yet vaguely horrible cover critter, a living gachapon toy bioengineered by scud aliens!

The wild gachapede is a segmented worm-like arthropoid that lives parasitically inside a bivalve-like "giant diatom" in shallow, sandy-bottomed seas of the scud homeplanet. The giant diatom's shell is made of two interlocking lid-like frustules of transparent silica, allowing light to pass through to its veins of symbiotic unicellular algae. Much like the microscopic diatoms of earth, giant diatoms reproduce in two different ways, asexually and sexually. Asexual reproduction is carried out by the two frustules separating and each generating a new frustule, a phase during which they may be parasitized by the gachapede. But because the new frustule is always smaller than the old one, like the lid and body of a box, eventually one lineage of giant diatoms is too small to safely carry out asexual reproduction. These tiny ones will finally give up and reproduce sexually by releasing sperm and eggs that will join to create new larvae and maximum-size giant diatoms. The parasitic gachapede has a relatively low impact on a large healthy giant diatom, as it lays dormant until the frustules split, surviving off the "bloodstream" of unicellular algae.

Scuds have used the unique properties of these two organisms in combination with their civilization's advanced biotech to create a collectable toy; twisting the basic bodyplan of the gachapede into thousands of variations of "funny little guys." The wild diatom has been modified into a "gachapod," which is far more spacious and transparent than its wild counterpart. To obtain the toy, you crack open the two frustles and recycle the gachapod (which will now grow into two new pods). However, once removed from its food source, the gachapede typically only lives a couple days at most. At the end of its life, its cuticle calcifies and makes them into a rigid figurine. Scuds who are really into the gachapede scene will pose their gachapede into a desirable pose like a insect collector pinning a bug.

A bit of dialogue, for @flashfictionfridayofficial's prompt of "Can't You See?"

"Can't you see?! We're doomed-!"

SMACK!

"...!"

"Kids. Leave. We need to have a talk."

"But-"

"No. Bed. Adults only."

"But-!"

"..."

"Okay."

"Goodnight..."

"Night!"

"..."

Click.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!"

"I'm telling the truth! We're fucked! Our last chance at the cure just exploded! What, do you want me to tell them that we're going to be okay, that it'll be sunshine and rainbows as we get eaten or go insane?!"

"You don't just say that we're doomed like that! They're kids!"

"It's the truth! And, I'm teaching them about reality-"

"No, you're teaching them to give up the moment things get hard! Look, I know you know nothing about kids, but here's the thing. The kids already know that, without the cure, we're going to die!"

"We are! The cure is gone!"

"No, the perfect cure is gone. We know that there's still samples from the testing phases."

"But we don't know where they are!"

"But we have ideas! Can't you see, it's not over!?"

"...but..."

not that you have ever been a good or proper dragon. when you hatched out of your egg, your eggtooth was too smooth. the other dragons were rough with you, put little holes in your wings.

you were not bold. you were odd. you liked rippling water and the shine of chitin when bugs scuttle and of course the movement of the stars. those were all acceptable interests albeit maybe not traditional. perhaps you had inherited these through some great-great-uncle or something. certainly a dragon may be wise, or clever, if they are not bold.

yes, you have been a great deal of a puzzle to the other dragons. your body is smaller and rather more soft than it ought to be. so speed should have been yours, perhaps - your mother said it would be like fighting a shadow. if a dragon is not aggressive, it may instead be cruel, sly; a backstab. but alas your scales - so iridescent that they almost shine like the moon at night, a glow from within - you are not a shadow, you are a beacon like the flash of a knight's blade. your father has said at least you would make a fine egglayer, a nice mate to a good male. a dragon like you may still be a good mother perhaps; and that is a fine thing to be; although of course it would have been better if you'd been a trove-hoarder instead.

what a dragon must not be is kind.

you have watched her now for six moons. what a good and proper dragon would do is to go inside and to snatch her. a very proper dragon would have kidnapped her many times over, but you will be the delight of your brood to princess-snatch even at all. when you catch her in your jaws and bring her home, they will love you, then. they don't think you're capable of it, but you are, because you're a proper dragon. you can show them that. if you go in, now, right now.

you are rather too glossy to hide in the shadows, so instead you have learned how to appear flat and round, a puddle of light. (how your siblings would mock you! a dragon should be matte, to blend with the night). you dapple your flank with mud. you perch in odd angles atop of trees, scuttle like the bugs you love - hither, tither, frantic.

what you must not do is fly with your wings full-out. alight, you will be limned by the moon's corona. you will be a beacon. you must remember this when (not if) you snatch her.

____

you found her because of the lake. this lake in particular was your favorite - nestled deep in the woods, between two mountains. it is very quiet; there is nothing to horde there so no other dragon bothers you. a gentle waterfall spills over into a deep cove, and there are many mossy caves you've spent your afternoons napping in. while it is not proper for a dragon to prefer such things, you like to lay in rolling tenure just under the water. you have become excellent at holding your breath, can do it for hours. it is the easiest way to appear as a patch of sunlight.

she was not sunlight. she was the night's joy. the dark press of water. her face at first concealed by many diaphanous layers. her breathing quick and quiet.

she had pulled them back to drink from her water flask. and there she had been: a princess. your first very-real princess. right there, only the reach of a single talon from you. if you had simply lunged then, you would have been able to take her easily, in one single movement.

but you did not take her.

by which I mean: there are no contraindications to getting the rabies vaccine for post-exposure prophylaxis.

every other vaccine usually has a few contraindications like ‘don’t take this if you’re allergic to it’ or ‘if you’re pregnant discuss the risks and benefits with your doctor’ or ‘don’t give to children below age 6′ or something, but not the rabies vaccine. if you’ve been exposed to rabies, there is literally no medical reason that can justify not getting the rabies vaccine–you can be deadly allergic to literally every single ingredient and the correct decision is still to administer the vaccine, because if you don’t, you’re 100% guaranteed to die of rabies. even the life-threatening allergies are a step up in survival rate (especially since anaphylaxis is something that can be managed, even if there are risks associated with it)

which is to say, the rabies condition: if a character has been ‘exposed to rabies’, aka, in some impending absolute worst-case scenario, like the apocalypse or some death curse or the destruction of their entire city via demons or whatever, then that character has to take action and the consequences and risks no longer matter, because literally any other outcome would be better, and 1% chance of survival is still better than 0%. that doesn’t make those actions necessarily good, the same way that injecting yourself with something you know you’re deadly allergic not a good thing to do, but it’s still better than dying horrifically of rabies. desperate times and desperate measures etc

I'm reading a book right now where the main character's nation/government (including close coworkers + the father of her best friend) are most likely betraying her, but despite the fact that she is a high(ish)-ranking member of the military and the daughter of a high-ranking member of the government, there has been virtually no point where she shows any sort of emotional loyalty to them. She may need to turn her loyalty over to other people, etc....

And it doesn't seem to matter emotionally.

The people who she's realizing might be betraying her already don't treat her extremely well, and she doesn't seem particularly fond of them. Her loyalty is by virtue of birth, not patriotism, by most indications.

This isn't a problem unique to this book--the people committing the betrayal often have tells right from the beginning of a book, and it often ruins any sort of emotional arc. The reader already doesn't like them, and sometimes the main character doesn't either, so who cares.