"I think it is literally the closest bond that two people of whatever gender can have. It's beyond the body. It's kind of soul partners, and it's beyond time and space. It's the biggest kind of stake relationship you can have. Even if they were married and had 4 beautiful adopted children, I don't think it could be the same kind of power of connection and partnership they have. The sacrifice they both made, not just for this relationship but for what this relationship also means. The two halves of the structure that needs to be in place for society to run in the end, and I think they both know that, and I think they've given everything to it. I think to say whether it is or it isn't romantic frankly would belittle it. It doesn't really touch the sides of actually how big a deal it is. Which is why I think the final image of them, kind of beyond time and space, kind of sums it up. Whether they see each other again or whether they live together in a little cottage by the stream doesn't matter. The connection is bigger than I think almost the connection between any other characters in the show or in the world. It's beyond that, it's massive, and those final lines - the journey they've both - men that they've both had to become to keep it there - I find it very moving."
-Harry Lloyd, What are your thoughts on Jayce and Viktor's partnership?
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So my trainerâs bf cheated on her. She broke up with him. Heâs holding her stuff hostage until she agrees to talk with him. Which she refuses.
She trains; for free mind you; three college linebackers, a college wrestler, two martial artists, a body builder, and⌠wait for itâŚ. a Navy seal. Weâre gonna go get her shit for her.
So everyone who commented on this being like the avengers, you are absolutely right. Thatâs what all of us had in our heads as we were rolling over to dudeâs house. But Iâm very proud to say, this ended without violence.
Arrival:
So the super friends all jumped into one of the linebackerâs explorer and headed over to dudeâs house. Ok the squad: you all know me, but the other martial artist is a little wirey hapkido guy, the linebackers are all giants (an estimated combined weight of Iâd say 750-800lbs), the wrestler looks like an escaped gorilla, then the navy seal looks like your average guy but something about him is unsettling. Really unsettling. Unfortunately, the body builder had to work. Anyway, we send the Hapkido guy and the wrestler to the door first and dude answers, screams at them, and then slams the door in their face. Then the giant linebackers head over and they ring the door bell again. Lo and behold, he was much more polite, but still denied access. Finally, me and the seal join the fray. I casually make my way towards the front of the group, but the seal decides to CLIMB THE BANISTER. We all just turned and started at him completely shocked when dude answers the door. He looks at this weird mismatched group of relatively threatening individuals and one guy perched on his banister like batman. He was like âFINE. Go take what youâre looking for.â
Retrieval:
So weâre all walking through the house gathering what we think are her things and putting them into two boxes. Mind you. We are completely guessing. We didnât even tell her we were coming, therefore we had no list of items.The only one really being productive was Hapkido, who was legitimately looking for stuff. The linebackers were just randomly picking up furniture, turning it over, and putting it back down. Just showing off how strong they were. In case the numbers game wasnât enough, I guess they were letting him know they could break him if they wanted to. The seal was just shadowing dude in his own house. Walking behind him, not saying much, just being creepy. Then thereâs me. Who was causing general mischiefâŚ. He said to take what I was looking for, thatâs what I was looking for. Ahaha and the wrestler made a fricken sandwich. Because âyou guys look like you have it under control, and Iâm a sucker for egg salad.â We were in and out in 15 minutes.
Delivery:
So the autobots rolled out and headed towards homegirlâs spot. She was conveniently outside when we rolled up. We got out and she was like, how do you all even know each other. The truth is, we donât. She sent us all an email once and didnât blind copy us all. She vented to all of us about dude holding onto her stuff and we started emailing and that was that. We told her that we went to see her ex. âOMG what did you say to him?â Nothing. Weâre not messenger boys. Weâre delivery boys. And we gave her her boxes of stuff. She went through the first box and said that was most of her stuff. Then she got to my box and asked âWtf is all that shit.â So I explained that I took all the batteries out of his remote controls, his deodorant, the light bulb out of his master closet, every pair of dress socks that I could find, the laces out of his running shoes, and all the toilet paper in the house. The guys just looked at me and kind of nodded like they were impressed. She then unexpectedly started CRYING and thanked us. So you have this group of meat heads all standing awkwardly with this weeping trainer. It was quiet for a second when the seal was like âSoâŚ. chipoltle?â And we all got burrito bowls.
With everything going on in the world, and the year I've had, I'm glad tumblr still exists. I want to get lost in that depth fandom brings when you just need more of the stories and characters you love.
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so if thereâs one single trope iâm always down to fight itâs the animal bride (folklore motif 402??) which a lot of you are probably familiar with as the selkie - the fisherman either falls in love, steals her skin to trap her on land/gain power over her, or they fall in love and THEN he steals her skin to keep her from leaving, and either way she spends a lot of time gazing sadly out to sea and then she or her child finds the skin and never returns again.
and thatâs awful on a whole lot of levels - itâs not love, itâs control.
BUT. but the thing is. you how selkies/seal women was a pretty common variation of this? another really popular one was swans.
i just want you to think about that for a moment. swans. likeâŚI get it, theyâre pretty, graceful birds, certainly itâs easy to imagine them magically becoming pretty graceful ladies? but have you ever fought a swan. swans are awful. swans are the devilâs geese. imagine seeing a pretty magic lady and being absolutely enchanted by her, and stealing her magic feather cloak, and then you go up and say âhey iâm in love with you, let me make you my queen, it will be great, weâll be so happyâ and she just looks at you for a moment andâŚ
you know i was going to say maybe she just shouts for her sisters and suddenly youâre realizing youâve made a terrible terrible mistake bc youâre surrounded by big fucking birds who are all hissing. but honestly if this swan lady is as aggressively down to brawl as any other generally unhappy swan, then sheâd straight up fuck you up on her own. sheâd just deck you roundhouse, honestly. you donât fuck with swans. why does this trope exist
okay but consider this: a woman walks to the park every day and feeds the swans and watches them paddle gracefully around the lake, sighing to see how beautifully they swim.Â
finally one day, a swan comes up to her and says âwhy donât you come and swim with us? you always sigh so wistfully to see us on the water, and you would be most welcome to join our company, for you have always been a true friend to our kindâ
and the woman says, âi canât swimâ
and the swan says, âweâll teach youâ
and the woman says, âliterally i canât swim, my husband stole my sealskin and should i venture into deep water i would surely drownâÂ
and the swan says âyour husband fucking WHATâ
the next morning the womanâs front yard looks like this.Â
and neither the woman nor her husband are ever heard from again, though for very different reasons.Â
I know a real-world mama swan who got shot in the wing and walked four miles overland to get back to her babies and dad swan, with her broken wing bleeding and dragging the whole way. She just kept going. Donât mess with lady swans.Â
Also? Swans donât have a lot of obvious physical markings that divide the males from females. So some idiot might be like, âdamn, thatâs a sexy bird, I wanna marry herâ and then like. Itâs a dude swan. You just transformed thirty pounds of angry aggressive bird into 200+ pounds of angry aggressive adult man, who will totally kick your butt. (Also Iâm pretty sure that if you turned a lady swan into a human, you would not get a willowy little 5â˛0âł girl. Youâd probably have a 6-foot amazon with biceps the size of your head. Swans are heavy birds and it takes a LOT of muscle to get them into the air. They are among the baddest bitches in the bird kingdom)
And when a swan decides to beat you up, it is not with fancy martial arts. Swans are brawlers. They have bone clubs built into their wing joints specifically for beating people up. A human swan is gonna come at you screaming and spitting and just keep punching you in the face until you regret every decision you have made ever in your life and also some of the ones your parents made too.Â
Hey, rpg tumblr, I think you might enjoy The One Ring.
Some stuff that it does:
-Adventurers aren't mercenaries, they're either brave and meddlesome or Really Going Through It
-Your adventuring party specifically has a stat for how off the hook it is, Men Of Bree increase this stat
-As part of character creation, everyone picks a home base
-As part of character creation, everyone picks another PC as a bestie and becomes Shadowed if their bestie gets hurt
-There's a corruption mechanic, getting Shadowed, but you reduce it by taking a break and gardening for a few years
-There's a robust downtime system where everyone goes home after an adventure and then you all meet up like ten years later with full beards and prizes in Regional Avocado Growing and whatnot
-Combat and Walking Too Hard both deal damage, and traveling matters as much as fights
-The dice are genuinely easy to understand, and you have lots of ways to tilt the odds on a roll. You're not held hostage to your own luck
-The art's gorgeous. Really needlessly pretty. This would be a coffee table book if it wasn't also such an unfairly well made game
In conclusion, I just read it and it was supposed to be a gift for a friend, but now I'm apparently buying them a second copy.
(This game feels like a fever dream. I was expecting to snooze through it and instead my brain is alive with Game Design.)
The One Ring⢠Core Rules - Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal
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For years I would look at posts and questionnaires about neurodivergence that takes about being so focused on something that you forgot to eat and be like, "Couldn't be me. Being hungry is so uncomfortable! Your stomach is growling and cramping? How do you ignore that?"
Then someone informed me that neurotypical people have a whole bunch of "hungry" sensations before they get to that point.....
Yeah, I don't get it either, but apparently this is a Whole Thing.... Like they somehow detect blood sugar dropping and go, "Ooh, time for lil snack!"
See also: there is a feeling of "oh, I need to pee" that happens before "fidgeting around in my seat to finish this thing before running to the bathroom"
I read this and was like, "this can't be real" and then I looked for sources and like--
Adapting Intuitive Eating for Neurodivergent People
"This can be very harmful for neurodivergent people, as many neurodivergent people struggle to feel internal cues and bodily sensations, including hunger and fullness. An emphasis on âonly eating when hungryâ can result in neurodivergent people delaying eating until they are so hungry that they are shaky, highly irritable, or even on the verge of passing out. A focus on âstopping when fullâ may cause neurodivergent people to overthink every bite they take and scrutinize whether they are truly hungry or truly full.Â
To modify Intuitive Eating for neurodivergent people, it may be important to focus on eating enough and eating consistently throughout the day, rather than eating according to oneâs hunger and fullness cues. Neurodivergent people may need more of a structured meal and snack schedule than neurotypical folks in recovery, as well as some guidelines around a minimum amount of food. This does not make their eating less intuitive or their recovery less real - it is an important way of honouring their bodyâs needs and unique ways of functioning."
The Map of Drak'Arna - an update on my worldbuilding project!
This is an introduction to the world of Drak'Arna while referencing the map I've created in the process - images are under the cut :)
Core premise: This world explores the question âWhat if the alchemical theory of classical elements - that instead of atoms the worldâs building blocks are the elements Air, Earth, Fire, and Water, were true?â
Due to this, things that make up the world of DrakâArna have a âsignatureâ that indicates their elemental makeup. Therefore, flora, fauna, fungi, and sapient species have elemental signatures that are impacted by their environment as much as their parents.
The way that elemental signatures are determined is based on the geographical location of the species. The world is a globe with a few key elemental locations.
Air: encompasses the atmosphere and sky, there are a few different layers that determine what kind of creatures can exist there but notably a feature of Air + Earth is the Aerlands - floating islands that float across the world, either anchored in one spot or are piloted.
Earth: from a globe view, a band of Earth splits the globe into two distinct hemispheres. This is further reflected underground with subterranean ecosystems and eventually a place the dead go.
Fire: the center of this element is found in the southern hemisphere and is a volcano called âThe Spireâ that resides on an island surrounded by flowing lava. Between it and Earth there are various desert and savannah biomes.
Water: the center of this element is found in the northern hemisphere ocean called âThe Seanoteâ as it is seen as a hole in the ocean, the edge characterized by its waterfalls.
In addition to this, there is a spectrum of Hot/Cold and Wet/Dry that mirrors our worldâs equatorial and polar effects on winds and oceans.
North Pole: Dry + Cold. Technically also wet due to the ocean, but an ice sheet is not noted on the main map.
South Pole: Dry + Cold, due to it being connected to the main continent, this is an extremely cold desert referred to as âThe Badlandsâ.
Equator: Wet + Hot, also has dry pockets of land.
What about Aether?
Aether is the fifth element and is what is found at the core of this globe. It is the reason the four elements are able to exist so close together in âorderâ rather than âchaosâ. This will also play into a softer magic system that covers a wyrd-like fate, curses, and shape-shifting.
Map Making
Through a lot of trial and error, I create the map of DrakâArna as pictured below after starting with some core starting points - there are two points that represent Fire and Water while between the two, in a sine wave, Earth keeps them separated. This enabled me to create various magical and mundane biomes and features.
Initial colours and drafts:
You can see a snippet of what it's become in my blog's header but I'm really happy with this progress and how it looks when I project it onto maptoglobe which I highly recommend!Â
~ ~ ~
*flops* compiling months of work into a single post feels like I haven't gone into enough depth about it so please ask me any questions you might have. I'm currently working on making these updates a bit more formal and putting them onto Campfire as a world wikipedia too.
Cheat code for writing disabled characters in sci-fi/fantasy without eliminating their disability:
Don't change humanity, change what's available to humanity.
i.e.: If your magic removes/fixes a defect or your sci-fi lets you select for traits at birth, that's changing humanity. That's altering a fundamental aspect that real humans live with, and distancing your fictional version of humanity from the real deal by cutting out a portion of it that your setting deems "undesirable."
If your magic/sci-fi aids a defect (like magic netting that acts as a brace, or a wheelchair with wheels that transform to fit the environment), then you're taking humanity as we know it and saying "wouldn't it be cool if we had these tools?"
Don't change what makes us human, change what humans can create.
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I was inspired by @jezifster's recent question about non-gendered royal titles, and I put together this graphic to serve as a jumping off point for people writing monarchies in SFF !
Obviously this non-exhaustive list contains mainly western titles, all in English. Feel free add any on additional gender neutral terminologies that you can think of, including those from different languages and cultures!
A small addition: I'm not a linguist or historian and put this list together based on some quick googling! While you're free to flex the usage and meanings of these words however you choose, researching the real-world context of each term before using them in your own writing is a best practice.
Worldbuilding-wise additional sentient species are often a big deal, but TDP doesn't lose a lot of words about these guys.
This could just be my flesh bias speaking, but I assume they are more like ... elemental spirits? Probably few in number, not forming their own societies, might not reproduce (sexually), possibly ageless, stuff like that. An interesting question would be whether they are created artificially (Finnegrin being Elmer's creator sounds intriguing) or whether they occur naturally, e.g. occasionally spawning close to a nexus.
