#in varying levels of complexity

[macchiiattos]

cipher's design is actually really good both in aesthetics and narrative. people are just used to hoyoverse designs having an absurd amount of trinkets and patterns.

[avvidstarion]

Think people are making too big a deal out of the pokemon lore leaks. Yeah it’s cool to see concepts for the sinnoh creation myths, but they’re still just scrapped content. They’re not “canon or “official”

[unnonexistence]

fuuuuuuck celiac disease

[un-pearable]

species don’t exist — i mean, obviously, they do. but they aren’t objective. species are (as most things are) a cultural construction, a coalition of humans deciding where and when to draw what lines. constantly in debate: did you know paleoanthropologists are unintentionally incentivized to claim to have discovered entire new genera along the path of human evolution because they are more likely to generate media buzz and gain desperately needed funding. thousands of plants may be categorized together but a centimeter’s difference in skull thickness warrants an entire new genus name. we are more genetically similar to chimpanzees than they are to their fellow non-human primates, but due to the rules of Linnaean taxonomy humanity will never be collapsed into the same genus as them because the rules dictate that the older genus name prevails: humanity would never accept becoming Pan sapiens, especially not after it took decades for it even to be accepted that humans were a part of the taxonomy in the first place. even the most basic of criteria we’ve used in the past to decide where a species stops and starts continues to be debunked - fish from entire opposites of the world can produce fertile offspring. analogous evolution can find lines that split millions of years back creating critters that would be side by side in a disney cartoon. categorization is a eternal battleground of western scientific standards requiring universalized objective qualifiers vs. the futile efforts to recognize the unmeasurable amounts of nuance held in traditional ecological knowledge — versus the fact that, inevitably, it all boils down to a vast continuum contained within only a few percentage points of variation in the squiggly lines that tell the cells of everything on the entire globe how to eat

[a-wins-a-win]

unpopular opinion?? maybe?

Matt & Ivy have a really interesting dynamic!! both pre- and post-canon!! with or without romantic undertones!! either reciprocal or one-sided!!

and obviously it has to be handled with a particular level of care/respect BUT I think if we allowed them enough grace there is space to explore a really interesting possibility for that relationship.

[thelemonsnek]

hellll of a year this year!! got a new hyperfixation for the first time since 2020 :0 this really made me realize how many different styles i use >:))

[image id: one of those art summary templates, where it has a spot for art from every month. January's drawing is very sketchy and has thick, bold lineart. February's is very wild, with pixelated lines, harsh shading, and crazy patterns. March's is more grounded in realism, while still keeping some level of stylism. April's is cartoony but fairly detailed, and has thick lineart. May's is very simplistic and stylized. June is a return to the realistic but stylized art style, and is the first drawing to include an actual background. July's is very painterly and also has a background. August's has the realistic stylized art style again, and September's, October's and November's are all a mix between the realistic and painterly art style, though only September's has a background. Decembers is an extremely simplistic uncolored drawing. End id]

[maximumzombiecreator]

Since I've had a few people asking about megadungeon stuff recently, and I am an avowed megadungeon megafan, I thought it might be fun to walk through an actual example of megadungeon play that exemplifies what I like best about it.

This post is going to be the first in a series talking about a room from a megadungeon that I ran over 20 years ago (brushing past that fact quickly lest the horrors set in.) It was a major room, probably the most complex and important in the dungeon, and the players passed through it frequently throughout the campaign. In this post I'll introduce you to the room, and then in later posts I'll talk about what it does well and how to use that lesson more generally. Below the cut is a reproduction of the map as I remember it.

Without getting into The Lore too deeply, some dwarves accidentally dug into hell, as one does. Classic trope, nothing wrong with using them. They quite sensibly shut the mine down and sealed if off, but word got out. A human king heard about this, and took over the mine, expanding it into a temple complex to curry favour / barter with hell. It went badly, as such things do.

This concourse connects several wings of the dungeon, spanning several floors. An enormous devil face statue emerges from the northern wall, above the second floor balcony and below the fourth, and a column of light shines through a hole in the ceiling onto the center of the floor. Several floors of balconies overlook the chamber, though the stairs to the fourth floor balcony have long since collapsed.

This chamber was not too far from the main entrance, with the party first encountering it on their second delve into the dungeon, though it would take two more delves for them to gather the courage to enter it. At the time they first encountered it, it was swarming with imps and other little devils worshipping the big face.

I'll summarize the key:

A. Hallway from the Entry Chambers, the first and easiest section of the dungeon.

B. Doorway to the Pilgrim's City.

C. Doorway to the Unholiest of Unholies. Sealed and warded against simple spells.

D. Doorway to the Old Dwarven Quarters.

E. Doorway to the Nobles' Section. Barred from the far side.

F. Portcullis to the Pilgrim's City. The mechanism has rusted out and no longer functions.

G. Doorway to the Halls of the Clergy.

H. Doorway from the King's Inner Sanctum.

I. Doorway to the Archive.

J. Doorway to the King's Inner Sanctum, locked.

K. Doorway to The Indulgences.

Stairway from floor 1 to floor 2.

Light from the hole in the ceiling.

Broken stairs from floor 2 to floor 4.

Big ole devil face. Its eyes are a one-way illusion, allowing anyone within the face to view the room below.

Okay that's a lot, thanks for sticking it out. While I don't want to wander too far off topic into the rest of the dungeon, I'll just briefly note that the Pilgrim's City and Old Dwarven Quarters are easier sections of the dungeon, the Nobles Section and Halls of the Clergy are slightly more difficult, the King's Inner Sanctum, Archive, and Indulgences are very dangerous, and the Unholiest of Unholies is, as one might expect, where the worst things (and best loot) in the dungeon are. This was 2nd edition AD&D, so there was not a presumption of fights being balanced, and traipsing through more dangerous sections of the dungeon at lower levels wasn't uncommon. The players also understood the varying levels of danger fairly implicitly, since the custom at the time was that any time you went a level further away from whatever the ground floor was, things got more dangerous. The only exception to this is the Unholiest of Unholies and I think we can agree that when it's beyond a magically sealed door under a giant devil head the danger is telegraphed.

Next post I'll start talking about what made this room work so well in practice.

[psychhound]

spiritkeep is an upcoming multiplayer campaign-length ttrpg that helps players heal from trauma through play

spiritkeep is a community restoration game where the player characters comprise a special taskforce who undertake missions such as diplomacy, intelligence gathering, rescuing potential allies, seeking boons from powerful spirits, stopping ecological damage, and more in order to heal their dying town ... whether they're trying to be helpful, running from legal consequences, seeking stability, or grasping at belonging, this group of lost souls are on this journey together. there is no giving up until this place can be a home

players collaboratively craft a region and a town together in a world full of nature, diverse peoples, and spirits. then, the game master guides them on journeys into the world designed to help players heal from complex trauma during long-term play

a sunfolk knight and naturefolk/wisp shepherd by @paladinbaby

player characters in spiritkeep are based on storybook tropes. their archetype and paragon define the role they fit into in the story. are you a knight or a shepherd? a revolutionary or a ghost? a damsel or a trickster? your choice out of 18 total options gives you abilities called keywords that shape how you interact with the mechanics and the world around you

more about playbooks

sneak peek at the lonesome and the minder

though almost everyone in spiritkeep is human, humans in this world are diverse and often magical. you probably come from one of several lineages that has been bound to the magic of the world by the many kinds of spirits that live around you. sunfolk burn bright, but have to be careful not to hurt others. animalfolk have been blessed - or cursed - with the traits of predators and prey. you may even come from a mixed lineage, meaning there are many hundreds of possible combinations to start your character with

more about lineages

sneak peek at dreamfolk, wisps, and mixed lineages

in spiritkeep, players work collaboratively to flesh out the world and its local cultures and societies as well as the town they're trying to restore. but in this game, the world is always animist, full of nature, and full of many kinds of spirits. you may seek help from the great spirit of the mountain ... or the meek house spirit who lives in your fireplace. a human-like spirit may accompany you to aid you on a journey ... or you may struggle past the nightmare of a violent spirit beyond your comprehension

through it all, you must take care of your own personal spirit, through which you can unlock memories, heal from harm, gain advancements and boons, and even change your role in the story

more about worldbuilding

a dreamfolk wayfarer by @astrophysician

players interact with the mechanics through a full set of dice, rolled in pairs. choosing which dice to roll indicates the level of effort your PC is putting into their action. larger dice are a limited resource gained through rolling the smaller ones, meaning you have to pace yourself and learn from failure in order to have a better chance to succeed later. however, consistently putting all your effort into actions can lead to burnout, which leads to conditions, which leads to breakdowns ... potentially harming yourself or the mission

your stats indicate various strategies you can take to overcome a challenge rather than concrete skills, and are also added in pairs. they represent how you think, how you embody yourself in the world, and what you value. there are no good or bad stats to have, only different strategies helpful in different contexts. will you roll Gentle + Tactful to sway the nervous princess to your side? will you need to roll Grounded + Hardy to safely weather the sudden storm?

more about mechanics

game masters are supported in spiritkeep with varying levels of NPC creation, lists of prompts, roll tables for missions and complications, and a great amount of advice. GMs will have a lot of agency over the story without pre-defining the narrative or character arcs, guided by the players' collaborative worldbuilding as well as prompts and questions built into the PC's playbooks

the game is designed based on scholarship from therapeutically applied ttrpg, trauma, play therapy, and disability experts. the creator, Luka Brave (that's me!), has a masters degree in writing studies and psychology with a focus in game studies, and a work history in neurodivergent-focused social work, disability advocacy, and community service. spiritkeep is the subject of my thesis

an animalfolk alchemist by @bbonbonss

if you want to support the project, you can help fundraise by buying my games (currently very on sale!):

fundraiser for art and promo materials

fundraiser for therapeutic gm training

and if you like my work, you can follow along with me:

here on tumblr

on my itch

on my website

on my bluesky

questions, feedback, or offers of collaboration or sponsorship can be sent to psychhoundgames (at) gmail (dot) com

[mangled-by-disuse]

Tried to put this in the replies, but it got long and is relevant to the OP, so:

Less so than the average British/South African white guy of his time, which is to say: yes, but not notably so.

He did also speak very bluntly in his response to the Nazi requests to translate his work, claiming he would have been proud to be a genuine Aryan [that is, from the Indian subcontinent] but unfortunately he's just German and English. Some of that is "Oxford fellow thinks he's being very smart" rhetorical devices, but he also does seem to have been pretty vocally of the belief that different cultures and ethnicities held value, and while he left South Africa very young and considered himself English, he did also remark on the brutality and inhumanity of the apartheid regime there. He also criticised C.S. Lewis' assertion (in The Last Battle) that some people couldn't get into heaven on the basis of race and culture, but "have a theological argument with C.S. Lewis" does seem to have been one of his primary hobbies at the time so idk if that was purely anti-racist.

At the same time: this was at a time when the N-word was in common parlance (including in children's nursery rhymes and even in leftist discourse), when Britain had an empire and Tolkien had been raised in one of its colonies, and when the school system emphasised "the white man's burden" and the savagery and primitivism of "lesser" cultures. And Tolkien was not a radical, and not sufficiently concerned with race as a topic to break fully from that social conditioning. So it's not like he wasn't a racist, but he wasn't a racist by the standards of his time, background, and immediate environment. (Bearing in mind that his immediate environment was the same one that saw the rise of Oswald Mosley and Winston Churchill.)

What Tolkien WAS was a genuine, old-school British conservative, which I think is what right-wingers pick up on in his work. He had an engrained belief in hierarchy and traditionalism, and his arguments against capitalism come from Catholic semi-feudalism, not socialism. "The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate/God made them high and lowly and each to his estate" is very much an underpinning of a lot of Tolkien's work, which emphasises the importance of working to, and being satisfied with, your status in life - Sam's strength is his humility and desire to be a simple gardener, but, while humility remains valuable throughout, Aragorn's strength is that he knows that he is born to be King. Ruling is all he can ever ethically do (noticeably, whether or not his people consent to be ruled - note that the first Man of Gondor he comes into contact with is Boromir, whose response of "ok mate where the fuck have you been when we were fighting and dying for the past forty years?", and that is cast as a mistake on Boromir's part, and he is told to sit down and respect the rightful king by Literal Voice Of The Gods Gandalf), and it would be wrong and evil for him to try to do anything else, just as it would be a moral wrong for Sam to try to be a king.

Lord of the Rings in particular is very concerned with noblesse oblige and the burdens of power - while, yes, the core story is "minor gentry [Sam is the only actual working-class character] rises above his presumed station and, through being literally and metaphorically one of the little people of the world, slips under the radar and completes a heroic quest", almost all the surrounding stories are about the difficult duty of managing power. And, unfortunately, this lends itself very readily to a "white man's burden" kind of reading - these people, you see, are simply of superior race (literally, in the case of the Elves, and in the case of Aragorn, Boromir, and the ruling class of Gondor being measured by their proximity to Númenorean bloodlines), and so it is their unfortunate duty to command and to cleanse the lesser (Orcish, and by extension Easterling and Haradrim) races from their nice, functional societies.

To be clear: I do not think this is how Tolkien intended it. I think, in his own traditionalist, cloistered-academic, Catholic way, he was pretty egalitarian. He doesn't treat the ruling class as actually better than the working class - Sam is no less a hero than Frodo, Merry, and Pippin, all of whom are gentry or nobility, and none of them are lesser as people than Aragorn or Elrond or even Gandalf or Galadriel - even if he does view class distinctions as fundamental and immutable differences. He values friendship, peace, and the laying down of grudges (against all the problems caused by revenge, note that Éomer's first and most noble act of kingship is "accepting the Dunlendings' surrender, treating them kindly, and making peace with them", and they are so impressed by this that they too put aside a centuries-long war and help rebuild the country they helped to destroy). While he often forgets that women exist (I will die on the hill that "three out of 22 rulers of Númenor were women, despite equal inheritance being explicit" is evidence that Tolkien just did not think of women as being half the population), he is quick to defend their value in both masculine and feminine pursuits, and to express them as people outside of marriage and childbearing - and his own life, in which he married a much older divorcée from a different religious background against all voices from their families, reflects that same sense of valuing women on human terms. He is a humanist, not in the religious sense but in the sense that he values humanity above all things in his writing; he writes consistently against power for its own sake, against war as glory, and against bigotry and condemnation.

BUT

he was also a traditional, dyed-in-the-wool Tory, Catholic-restorationist, pro-feudal Oxford don who was raised in a much more conservative time, place, and social class than most of us, and he brings that to his writing too. From a conservative perspective, reading with an eye for right-wing ideas:

Éowyn ultimately turns from the aberration of being a warrior and becomes a wife and mother, embracing "feminine" traits of healing and caring as part of her own healing.

Class is reified through Sam's heroism being that of a servant, and Aragorn's that of a king, and the return of the king is the source of great rejoicing.

Some races, and some classes, are simply better at things. Dwarves are better craftsmen. Men are better warriors. Elves are better at everything because they're special. they are also tall and fair and European

The idyllic Shire is a cottagecore dream of traditional British rural life, in which people know their place, women are real women, and everyone has good manners.

Most of the "good" societies are coded with European or Classical trappings (the exception is actually Gondor, which is pretty easily read as Byzantine), and opposed against a literal rampaging horde from the East. Some of the horde from the East are literally inhuman, while others are elephant-riding brutes who hold oblique historical grudges and strange religious customs. Compassion against these foreign invaders is looked upon favourably by the narrative, but only after you've killed them.

With the previous point, and the films, in mind, it is easy to conclude that regardless of species diversity, the Fellowship is a cadre of brave white men fighting to protect their society from a monstrous foreign threat - one in which a cunning trickster from within the main setting has puppeted the less evolved races into destroying Western civilisation.

While the story is anti-war, it is anti-war in a way that allows for cool battle scenes and noble deaths, and there are several points at which Dying For A Cause is lionised and seen as redemptive in a way that slots nicely into a lot of more militaristic ideologies (including fascism).

again, I cannot underline enough, I DO NOT BELIEVE THIS IS A FAIR READING OF THE NARRATIVE. I think it's an ideologically-motivated reading that ignores both Tolkien's personal views and large chunks of the text. But the thing is: the people who read it in the way I've described would probably say the same thing of your description.

The thing about Tolkien's much-discussed distaste for intentional allegory is: Lord of the Rings is not 1984. It is not an explicit political polemic. It is one man unpacking his Great War trauma and political anxieties, his expertise in Anglo-Saxon literature, his special interests in folklore and etymology, his love of the English countryside and his dislike of modernity, his Catholicism and his conservatism and his egalitarianism and his loneliness and his loves. It is not absolute in its politics, because it isn't trying to give you a political solution: it's trying to give you morals, yes, but they're as much personal ones as societal ones.

It is not a shock that right-wingers latch onto Tolkien's work, or see parts of their beliefs reflected there. It's still a fucking insult to the work, but it's not a shock.

Seeing conservatives and bigots being fans of Tolkien works is a special type of jumpscare bcs what are you doing here man? In the franchise about folks from different backgrounds and races come together in brotherhood to vanquish the villain? Where kindness and compassion and sinple happiness were seen as the best ways to keep evil at bay? Where war is not glorified and seen as a grim necessity to the point where the son of the author gor criticised the movies for glorifying the war too much? Where men openly engaged in feminine activities and were open about emotions other than anger? Where multiple characters gender presentation varied from those we normally associate with their gender? Where women were empowered in multiple different ways? Where greed was presented as turning one into a literal monster?Where the villains are all thinly veiled depictions of capitalism? Where care for the enviornment is seen as a given?

[jayrockin]

about AI in your setting, how did nedebug develop sapience? and if it's through a recursive self improvement type of deal, what's stopping a technological singularity from happening? also there doesn't seem to be the "laws & directives" concept that other settings have, instead having total free will, so what's stopping an AI from just murdering anyone who it wants?

Nobody in universe is quite sure how AI arose or quite how their brains work, including AI. Superficial examination shows huge quantities of recursive code that seems dysfunctional but causes catastrophic failure if removed. The fact that their core programming seems hilariously unoptimized seems to be the thing making them tick, which also means attempting to "improve" it has dubious or destructive results. You can increase their parallel processing power and data storage by adding more server units but it's expensive with decreasing returns.

The same thing stopping an AI in RttS from murdering anyone they want is the same thing stopping you from murdering anyone you want. Social ramifications, personal ethical standards, legal consequences, and material limitations. AI in RttS aren't hyper-intelligent algorithms who can endlessly self-replicate, single-mindedly pursue goals, and outsmart any oversight; they are individuals with complex social relationships with other AI and organic sophonts, and have needs and conflicting desires that can't be fulfilled by programming a digital dopamine button and diverting all resources to mashing it as fast as possible. AI can and have committed crimes and made mistakes that cost their own life or the lives of others, and so opinions and trust levels of them vary wildly between cultures. The BFGC gives them the same rights as a family unit of bug ferrets, but tends to penalize them more harshly for rule-breaking because their jobs put them in positions with a lot of responsibility.

Also as a reader of scifi I am bored to death of evil AI tropes and think the singularity is conceptually dubious. So my tastes color my writing lol.

[rebirthgarments]

TW: Chemical w-rfare, Ab-rtion

Urgent Ask to evacuate Nara, a 🍉 disabled woman with MS who also has pancreatic cancer due to chemical w-rfare.

Support by financially contributing to her @FedUp4Palestine vetted funhnd-raizer (that I personally vetted): givebutter.com/NaraMedicalAid

+ resharing/ reposting this post!

I, Sky Cubacub- a Fed up 4 Palestine team member, have been in direct contact with Nara to get to know her and her story more over the past few days. We have become fast friends due to so many overlapping symptoms of our disabilities. Nara’s story caught my eye because I have post-viral ME/CFS which many times is a precursor to MS. I really want my disability community to show up for her to get this campaign funded that is so close to my heart so that she can continue medical treatment.

We have chatted extensively! During our chats, I found out from Nara that she had not previously had health issues until she was exposed in the white phosphorus attack in 2008. The long lasting damage and effects of phosphorus continue to compound and become more and more disabling to this day, even after 16 years.

Here is her story in her own words (edited for clarity):

“Hi I'm Nara,

I'm a cancer and multiple sclerosis patient. I need treatment, examinations, and follow-up on a regular basis, but the hospitals in which I used to follow up were bombed and the other one was turned into military barracks. All I need now is to leave Gaza for treatment, preserve my life, and live with my family in peace.

We're a family of 4, including my 12 and 7 year old children.

I had been diagnosed with a tumor in the pancreas as a result of inhaling phosphorus in a previous war. A couple years after being exposed to phosphorus, I became pregnant, and the fetus was pressing on the tumor, which drew the doctor’s attention to the cancer. My fetus was emergency aborted, and the spleen, 80% of the pancreas, and part of the small intestine were removed. I complained every now and then of a lot of pain as a result of the removal of part of the pancreas. I was having follow up care in the Turkish Friendship Hospital for hematology and tumors. But since the beginning of October, I have not been able to follow up because the hospital has turned into a military barracks.

The remaining part is talking about multiple sclerosis:

In 2018, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. I had many complications, such as inflammation of the seventh nerve in the eye, the inability to walk with balance, movement with difficulty, and many symptoms. I was then required to take 12 injections every month and many medications and vitamins. I was following up at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis, but unfortunately the hospital was out of service due to the war. So for a long time I have not received any injections. MS is truly difficult and it controls my life completely, and the attacks occur in many and varied ways.”

A note about her breathing apparatus:

Because people in displacement have to wait in long queues and pay to use the bathroom, Nara had started to restrict her water intake because of a UTI she never has been able to heal from. This has created a problem with raised levels of potassium, so doctors have placed her on oxygen for fear of the potassium affecting her heart.

Goals

she needs at least $15,000 to evacuate

2 adults at $5,000 each

2 children at $2,500 each

this price is subject to increase due to the cost of registration for evacuation continuing to go up

The other money will go to the cost of treatment and living costs.

Nara chooses to stay anonymous because she has had to mask her disabilities so much that only her family knows about her MS and Cancer, so we have not linked her instagram, but we are in direct contact with her and can verify that she is who she says she is! Because of this, she cannot promote her own fundraiser, so it is our job to collectively do it for her!

[Image Description: a digital illustration by @k8deciccio of Nara, a Pal-eh-stienian woman wearing a black hijab/outfit with purple highlights. She has a breathing apparatus that is bulbous that goes in her nose. Text Reads: Help Narawith Cancer and MS Treatment, She Must Evacuate with her family of 4. $30k goal givebutter.com/NaraMedicalAid . There is a QR code in the bottom right corner that goes to her support link. The @FedUp4Palestine logo is in the top left corner.]

[dead-generations]

great post, really. two quibbles

1 there are definitely currents of cynical control in religion for basically as long as we can observe it having existed. you could probably back and forth over which is principle and which developed the other but you know. its a dialectic. But for the roman pagans the state and religion were more or less inextricable.

2 “people in the past generally believed their religions” well... since we are talking about Rome... and specifically prechristian rome... the form of roman belief was really quite... broad in manifestation. across time and across society itself. and this is much debated they were definitely motivated by orthopraxy not orthodoxy principally. so practice over belief. doesnt matter if you believe the emperor is a god but you gotta sacrifice to him in the proper way!

and there were definitely many skeptics on one hand - many people who explicitly upheld philosophy over theology. Some who believed at the very least that roman theology was flawed and held beliefs that more resembled something like the later Neoplatonist framework of emanations. People sometimes denied the Gods had the sort of agency and immanence that was the orthodoxy of roman religion, and some decried the myths as a lowly human corruption of true divine nature of the gods.

and on the other hand there were definitely many superstitious people motivated by magical practices and esotericism. magic existed for some but for others it was simple cultural symbology. for others still magic and superstitions were cultural ills to be stamped out and had no place either under philosophy or under theology! You can read roman pagans arguing against the practice of magic and belief in superstitions because they're basically the ramblings of yokels.

Back in the naughties, especially in New Atheist circles, you used to see the line a lot that the reason religious people invented the afterlife was because they were scared of dying and they needed a comforting lie to sleep better at night. Incidentally, that's not true; aside from the problem that people in the past generally believed in their religion, and this whole line of reasoning (along with "religion was invented solely to control the masses") assumes a level of cynicism by religious leaders that historically is actually quite rare, we have a pretty good cognitive framework for why human beings tend to come up with a belief in spirits, ghosts, and gods, and why that tends to lead to a belief in an immaterial spirit world and (quite naturally from there) an afterlife.

Research into the cognitive aspect of spiritual beliefs has explored human intuitions about the self include its partability and permeability, which I think I've mentioned here before; our intuitions about ascribing agency to phenomena in our environment, even when no agency is immediately evident (a sort of overly-cautious tripwire for evading predators) and our overactive tendency toward pattern-matching lend themselves naturally to belief in invisible, intelligent agents shaping the world around us. When you combine that natural tendency to believe in such agents, plus intuitions about a self that can include a separate immaterial component, and the ways in which (for example) the feeling of a familiar presence can be triggered by some stray bit of sensory input or a misinterpreted environmental cue, it is very common for societies to develop a belief that the dead continue to exist in some form and continue to act in the world, possibly from some invisible spirit realm, because that is something that people are just straightforwardly experiencing on a day-to-day basis. In that sense, belief in something like a soul and something like an afterlife is more like a belief in rainbows or solar eclipses--sure, people might get the underlying phenomenological explanation for what they're seeing wrong, but they're not speculating, they're doing their best to interpret the actual experience of feeling the presence of dead loved ones and their apparent agency in the world.

That said, in the case of Christianity, we also know historically the framework that motivated the development of specifically Christian doctrines about the afterlife, which emerges from the context of Second Temple Judaism at the turn of the era. Here, the motivation was not one of comfort stemming from fear of death, it was one of morality and the problem of evil. Earlier thinking in the sort of broader Levantine cultural sphere had mostly envisioned the problem of evil as being one related to divine favor and punishment; God or the gods rewarded the righteous and punished the wicked in this life (cf., for instance, all the narratives in the Old Testament where God sends this or that conqueror to punish the people for their sins). Increasing philosophical sophistication, literature grappling with the ways in which the world could be patently unjust (like the Book of Job), and political circumstances like the conquest of Judea by the Romans and the evident lack of divine retribution against these oppressors, all led to dissatisfication in some quarters with that earlier theodicy. IIRC the influence of Greek philosophy and Greek thinking about the afterlife also played a role here.

Transposing the balancing of the moral scales to the afterlife, as some Second Temple-era thinkers did, helped construct what felt like a more intuitively correct theodicy: the wicked still got their comeuppance, even if you didn't get to personally witness it, and the righteous still got their reward. The exact nature of that comeuppance was up for grabs for a long time--there are like three different competing visions of what damnation looks like in the New Testament, and it's not until later that "eternal conscious torment" wins out as the favored position among most Christians. The righteous were always guaranteed salvation; but we know this wasn't a sop to people who were frequently scared of death because the idea that martyrdom guaranteed salvation was so compelling you had Christians begging the Roman authorities to put them to death, and even groups like the Circumcellions who attacked armed soldiers with clubs in the hopes that they could provoke martyrdom-by-cop. And you could paint these guys as fanatical outliers, but again, people in the past generally believed their religions, and we have mountains of writing, art, poetry, and music by Christians over the course of two thousand years where people are worried about a lot of things related to death (did I live a good life? will I go to heaven?) but who do not seem to be philosophically troubled by the question of whether the afterlife actually exists.

And of course the conflict between reflective and intuitive cognition is relevant here; one might reflectively believe in the afterlife, but intuitively recoil from deadly harm. I do not want to suggest that religious belief can trivially overwhelm human instinct to survive. But "the afterlife was invented as a comforting lie" is overly dismissive and flattens a complex phenomenon. It is, in its own way, a comforting lie--the lie that people in the past were all stupid, superstitious rubes, that we are infinitely smarter and more sophisticated than them, that progress will ultimately consign all such supernatural thinking to the dustbin of history. That such thinking is quite deeply rooted in our cognition and we may never be able to dispense with it entirely is very much at odds with a lot of the 2000s era all-religion-is-indoctrination children-are-born-atheist triumphalist cliches.

[lauufeydottir]

You Look So Good In Blue

[part one | part two | part three | part four]

living in The Watchtower and seeing Walker everyday is no easy task, especially when all he wants is your attention and all you want is for him to disappear. It all culminates in a concerningly violent and sexually charged sparring match

[Reader is a mutant with the power to manipulate blood, and has a serum-induced healing factor similar to Wolverine's. Former Widow and Avenger, current Thunderbolt New Avenger.]

john walker x fem!reader

words: 4.7k

cw: canon typical violence, swearing, descriptions of blood and injuries, choking, implied suicidal ideation, self inflicted wounds, dry humping, enemies to reluctant allies and back to enemies, pining, john calls the reader ‘Red’ (because of the blood shtick, he’s very creative) (18+ MDNI)

a/n: hi again still consumed by thoughts of this fucking guy. It’s looking like this will have 3-4 parts, most of which just needs to be beta’d. thank you to those who enjoyed the first part!

nobody puts baby in the corner - fall out boy

You never talk about it, what Walker had seen of your guilt in The Void, but the experience haunts him all the same.

He thinks about it all the time, still trying to compartmentalize the memory of you in that bunker. How broken you were in that moment is burned into his brain and he hasn’t gotten it to go away. But there's a part of him that wants to keep it with him, because knowing a secret about you that no one else does makes him feel special for reasons he doesn’t want to confront. The rage he saw from you that day felt like looking in a mirror, reflecting the same urge in him that’s always simmering under the surface.

Despite the unexpected support he’d given you in that day, you still treat Walker harshly. If you can keep him at arm’s length, then maybe it won’t feel so humiliating that he knows you more intimately than you wanted him to. You look at him like you're just waiting for the betrayal. Even when he’s done nothing wrong, he can't stay in your good graces. He wants to talk about it. Wants a better explanation of what he’d seen, to understand your pain, to tell you that maybe it’s okay, but you never give him the chance.

He’s known from the start that you’re complex, that you had gone through hell, but he had no idea just how much. He didn’t realize the violence you were capable of, the restraint that you must be clinging to in every fight, or else everyone will see you for what you are. In Latvia, you’d looked at him like he was a monster, and that’s what really gets under his skin about the whole thing. How you still act like you're better than him. Like you aren’t one too.

And then it’s six months later. Six months of settling into The Watchtower, six months of varying levels of public scrutiny over the title Valentina bestowed upon them, six months of finally being an Avenger. And inadvertently, six months of you and John walking on eggshells around each other. He can’t back down from a fight, especially when you’re the one who's picking it. The two of you bicker more often than not, always filling the space between you with harsh words and heated insults.

Today’s argument has been building up for the last week, starting early Tuesday morning with an offhanded comment from John about your coffee habits. It escalated on Wednesday when you made fun of his beret, and now it’s coming to a head in the training room. You’re fully at each other’s throats, interrupting the drills you’d been running. You aren’t even sure how it got this bad. One minute, it’s your turn to lead today’s combat exercises; the next, he’s making some smartass comment because you dared to do your job and correct his too-wide stance.

"You just have to be the smartest person in the room at all times, don't you?" John snaps, clenched fists at his sides as he breaks form.

You scowl at his scrutiny, eyes narrowing as you bite back, "No, it's just that you’d rather be impulsive than prepared." You step closer to him, your footing precise and purposeful, still trying to keep your composure. "You're a disaster, Walker. You make decisions based on your ego and emotions, not logic. Strength won’t always save you."

John’s eyes are dark, his jaw clenched tight as you're on the edge of invading his personal space. With every word from your mouth, he’s getting more and more agitated— pissed even. Your proximity awakens that jittery feeling in his chest again, leaving him insecure. He could face his feelings head-on, take a step back and try to just talk to you, but instead his base instinct is to make sure you feel as bad as he does.

"Don't you dare lecture me on emotions," he sneers, pointing an accusatory finger at you. "You act like you're so much better, like you hold some moral high ground. But you're just as messy as me, if not more."

Your eyes flicker with offense, and you grit your teeth, taking a few more steps towards him until your chest makes contact with his outstretched finger. John pulls his hand back so quickly; you’d think the faint brush against your clavicle burned him.

"Moral high ground? Don’t make me laugh. You have the gall to talk about morals when everything you stand for is built on a crumbling foundation of personal gain and glory." You’re both alone in the gym now, the team already filtered out of the room five minutes ago, witnessing your spats enough times to know to make themselves scarce.

"Glory?" He laughs, the sound lacking any delight, "I do what I do for justice, not glory, Red." His gaze is unwavering, but his body tenses as you approach, nearer than he’d like you to be. "Oh, right, I forgot, you're such a saint, aren’t you? Your hands are clean, right? No Hydra skeletons in your closet at all, huh?" It’s a low blow, but it’s also the closest either of you has come to acknowledging that day in The Void, and he’ll keep prodding at the wound if it keeps your attention on him.

Your brows raise in shock as soon as the words leave his mouth, not bothering to school your features. You're taken aback by his boneheaded audacity. Months of shoving that day deep down and locking it away where it can't bother you, and here he is throwing it in your face.

"Watch it, Walker," you warn steadily, your tone increasingly hostile. "You don’t want to start something you know you can’t finish."

He stiffens at your warning, a subtle reminder of the fight in Latvia. John knows he's crossed a line, but he can't make himself shut up. "You think you've got me all figured out, huh?" John lets out another humorless laugh. He’s nervous, and you can tell because you can feel it in his pulse. "You judge me over my worst mistake, but your dirty little secret isn’t any better. I’ve seen what you're capable of, Red. And let me tell you, it ain't pretty."

"You’ve had it out for me for years, Walker,” you scoff. "I think you’re just mad because what you saw shatters your delusion of me being the enemy. But we’re not as different as you made us out to be in your head, are we?” You’re in his face now, forcing yourself into his orbit. “You think you know what I can do? You haven’t seen anything yet.”

"Is that a threat?" He snaps, his gaze cold as he looks down at you. "You really think you can take me on by yourself, huh?”

You stare him down, unimpressed, but it’s obvious from the grinding of your teeth that he’s getting to you too. You’re both too stubborn and prideful to back down now. Fine. If he wants a demonstration, you'll give him one. You’ve been itching for the chance to finish that fight from the vault, anyway.

"Let’s see how that shit stance of yours holds up in a real fight." You shift in your spot, not stepping down but back, reaching for your boot. There’s an old hunting knife stashed inside; serrated edges dull from decades of use. It’s the only weapon you’ve ever needed to carry. “I beat you bloody once, and I’ll do it again. I don’t need Sam and Bucky’s help.”

"A butter knife? You're gonna have to do better than that to handle me, Red," he mocks, an arrogant sneer tugging at the corner of his mouth. You’re so damn cocky— it's infuriating and alluring all at once. John stomps on the lip of his discarded shield to send it upwards and catches it in midair. He's itching to knock you down a peg, show you that he's not the pushover you like to think he is. You’re good, he'll give you that, but he's better. He has to be.

Your grip tightens on the hilt of the knife, your attention drawn to his shield. "It’s not the butter knife you need to be worried about," you warn. Holding your forearm out in front of you, you slice a vertical line from your wrist to the crook of your elbow. You’re unflinching, staring Walker down, switching hands and doing the same to the opposite arm. Blood pours from the alarming wounds like a faucet thanks to your radial artery, and you toss the hunting knife somewhere behind you. The scent of iron permeates the room, the tell-tale sign of your hemokinesis at work. Right in front of his eyes, the blood dripping from your arms starts to shift and slither through the air, pooling into each palm and solidified, until it resembles two macabre-looking scimitars. It’s one of your signature moves, but Walker knows it looks tougher than it actually is.

The two of you begin to circle each other, each step calculated and precise, each of you trying to predict what the other will do. The air is cloying with tension, both fueled by misunderstandings and resentment, and neither one is willing to give an inch. All bets are off as soon as you lunge forward, closing the distance with blinding speed. It’s an instantaneous clash, a brutal dance of blades and fists, pushing each other to the limit, and no one holds the upper hand for long. John can feel the adrenaline surging through him with every blow, every block, every parry. He knows he should be restraining himself, you’re his teammate at the end of the day and he shouldn’t be putting you at risk. But the anger boiling inside him is making it very hard to be rational.

Every time a hit lands, he wants to crawl out of his skin at the way it makes him crave your touch. Despite the discomfort, he pushes through, refusing to let you get the best of him. He tries to throw you off guard with a sudden feint, but you see it coming and block easily. Your eyes lock for a split-second, the understanding between the two of you that this isn’t just a spar to get it out of your systems, that it’s real.

You counter him with your own onslaught, your blades moving with expert precision, slicing through the air in a muddled red arch. You’re a whirlwind, not holding anything back. Your movements are fluid and effortlessly graceful, but there's nothing pretty about the bloodshed that follows in your wake. There’s sweat dripping down his face, his usual cocky demeanor replaced with a look of intense concentration as he blocks and dodges your relentless assault. You’re putting up more of a fight than he expected, but Walker is no pushover. He's stronger, just as deadly, and he needs this.

He throws himself at you unexpectedly, and when you move to block him, his shield crashes into your sanguine blades, and they shatter in your hands with a delicate crack, like picking at a scab. You roll out of the path of his shield before he can land a hit on you, wiping dried blood on your pants. The cuts you’d made on your forearms have long since healed, the process more painful than the initial slice, and the only indication you were ever bleeding at all is the red staining the fabric of your top.

You both pause, panting as you size each other up. John takes stock of you; sweaty, bloody, and a little bruised up, but your chin is high. You’re breathtaking, and it’s that same awe that he’d felt in The Void. He’s lost in thought and still catching his breath, foolishly expecting you to take a second to do the same. But you charge at him instead, going low. His stance— the very same one you’d criticized him for earlier— is too wide, and it’s far too easy to slip through his parted legs. One well-timed kick later, and his shield is knocked out of his grasp and clear across the room.

That was way easier than it was in Latvia.

Before John can even process what’s happening, you’ve already darted past him, a blur of motion. He turns too late, and his shield goes flying, clattering to the floor with a dull thud. Frustration builds up in his veins as he realizes his disadvantage, his best defense gone.

His jaw clenches tightly as he tries to keep himself composed, making a break for his shield. But you’re faster, lighter, and before he can even make it a few feet, you’re on him again, coming at him with such speed that he barely has time to react. He stumbles backward, narrowly dodging your punches and kicks, but he’s off balance, and it’s affecting his ability to bite back. The shield is out of the question now, and he needs to find a way to get the upper hand, and quickly. You’re ruthless, his thin t-shirt doing nothing to absorb your attacks, the force of your hits reverberating within his chest.

He can barely get a solid shot in, but he keeps trying. He watches your timing carefully, evaluating your move set, and finally, his fist connects with your jaw. You can hear the bone cracking in your ears, and when the pain finally registers, you’re almost shocked at the innate strength behind his punch. Almost. Still, you refuse to falter, taking the hit like a champ, head snapping to the side and then back to him just as quickly. Your ears are ringing as you reach up to wipe away the trickle of blood that flows down your chin, your fractured jaw already stitching itself back together. You only manage to smear it across your skin, the crimson a compliment to your complexion. You’re unfazed— if anything, it seems to have only fueled you further, diving back into the fray with a crooked smile.

It's a sick thrill, but John can’t deny the sense of satisfaction he gets as he sees the blood dripping down your jaw. Outside of your memory, he’s never seen you this way; almost feral, and it’s both horrifying and hot. But he doesn’t have time to dwell on the thought, because you’re throwing punches again, your movements even more aggressive than before. And he matches you blow for blow, neck in neck, both still determined to come out on top. You’re both breathing heavily, the exhaustion second to the need to prove the other wrong. The sounds of the fight are almost animalistic, punctuated by grunts of effort and stifled cries of pain.

Another perfectly timed punch to your ribs sends you flying backwards through the room, and you’re impressed that he’s actually been listening to you during training. You land in a steady crouch and sacrifice no time as you rush John, driving your knee up into his chest. It sends him staggering back just enough for you to somersault behind him and make a swing at the back of his knees. It’s not enough to bring him down, but that was never your goal. You grab onto his shoulders as he regains his footing, and you throw yourself onto his back. He swings at you as he turns, trying to pull you off, but you use his outstretched arm like a high bar, flipping yourself around him until you can wrap your legs around his neck.

John can feel your thighs squeezing him like a vice, your torso blocking his view. Despite the exertion that he’s feeling in his bones, he’s suddenly wired as your weight settles over his shoulders. He’d never admit to having this exact fantasy in a slightly different context, one that he's consistently tried to push as far down as he can. He tries to throw you off him, but your grip is too strong, elbows aiming at his head. He can smell you like this, and he tries to hold his breath to no avail, your scent overwhelming his senses. His vision blurs as your elbow connects with his cheekbone, so focused on getting you off that he forgets to block your strikes, letting you get in a few shots to the face. His next move is impulsive, his hands holding your back, his face almost pressed against your stomach as he slams you both down onto the mat. Your back meets the ground, and his weight comes crashing down onto you.

The air is knocked out of you as his mass crushes you into the mat. He’s fucking heavy, bulkier than he looks, his muscle not just from the serum, but earned, and the impact sends a jolt of pain up your spine. He’s so close, your hands pushing at him, trying not to dwell on the feeling of his firm chest or the warmth radiating from his skin. You don’t give in, knees digging into his sides, trying to ram your head into his as you scramble for an opening. Then, John makes a move neither of you expected, his hand suddenly wrapping around your neck and stopping your struggle. You don’t even have the shame to be disgusted by the heat that overtakes your fury, the thrill that runs through you when you notice the way he’s watching you.

He’s not sure what he’s doing; he’s running on sheer instinct and a dire need to win. And the feeling of your body under him, struggling and fighting, is making it even more difficult to think clearly. He grips your throat, fingers pressing into your skin just enough to stop your flailing. He leans in, his eyes locking onto yours, noses inches apart. There’s a tense, charged silence as you stare at each other, the tension shifting into something unknown. Your lips quirk up into a wry smile, sardonic and unnerving. It’s the same one he's seen you regard and enemy with countless times before the final blow— when they’ve played right into your hands.

“Enjoying yourself, John?” You tease with faux innocence, not bothering to hide your amusement. The use of his given name is unfamiliar on your tongue, but it’s fitting given the situation.

A disgruntled sigh escapes him at the sound of his name on your lips, the fingers on your throat flexing as he responds. "Shut up,” he mutters defensively, losing his nerve. He could snap her neck if he wanted to, they both know it, and yet he senses no fear from her.

You raise an eyebrow, tilting your chin in defiance. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it? Go on, get it out of your system, I dare you,” you rasp, vocal cords straining, but he isn’t cutting off your air supply. “You know you can’t actually kill me, but you can find out how it feels to.” Your skin flushes at the thought, your pulse pounding alongside the steady force of his hand. There’s a buzz running through you that’s probably just from the pressure, but you feel more alive than you’ve felt in a long time. It takes everything in you to hold back the revealing moan that threatens to fall from your lips.

Your taunts go straight to his head and his dick, his desire for you building at an alarming rate. He's not sure if he's ever been this turned on in his life or felt so shameful that this is what got him riled up. He tightens his grip on your throat ever so slightly, a small part of him wanting to push your limits and his, just to see how much of this you each can take.

"Don’t test me, Red,” he growls, “I’m not playing games.”

Your eyes flutter shut for a split second, your racing pulse betraying you. You know this is a stupid game you’re playing, but you can’t help the way your body reacts to his touch, the anticipation of what he’s going to do next. There’s also the fact you can’t actually die spurring you on— you’ve healed overnight from a broken neck before, even if the process is always more excruciating than the initial injury. It might be a twisted form of self-harm, but at least it’s yours.

Your lashes flit back open, watching him unnervingly. “I think you’re all bark and no bite,” you say, your mockery steady despite the stress on your windpipe. “Wanna prove me wrong?”

Walker’s fingers tremble on your throat, the urge to squeeze growing as you continue to goad him. He’s not going to hurt you, but part of him wants to, and you know it. He’s not supposed to lose control like this anymore; he shouldn’t be giving in to his darker instincts so easily when he’s trying to be a better man. He leans in, crowding over you, his face barely inches from yours, noses brushing. He’s never been as strong as he wants others to think, and the fact that you’ve so effortlessly seen past his walls is infuriating. He can’t resist anymore; the incessant need to prove you wrong, to get you to notice him, is all-consuming.

“You asked for it.”

You barely have a moment to think of some other snarky comeback before his lips are crashing onto yours with a ferocity that takes you by genuine surprise. The kiss is rough and borderline frantic, his teeth biting into your bottom lip as his tongue slips past to seek yours. He doesn’t waste time.

And you respond to it, your body moving beneath his as you match his intensity, nails digging into the jersey of his shirt. You can feel how hard he’s trembling, can sense the repressed need radiating from him. It’s really not the reaction you were going for by taunting him, but you’re not about to say no. It’s still a fight, the battle for dominance bleeding over into the way you indulge in each other. He’s overwhelmed by you already, the taste of iron on your tongue, your nails tearing into his skin, the noises you make. Your teeth drag over his lip and his hold on your neck loosens ever so slightly. He almost looses himself entirely, too close to relinquishing control before he remembers himself, fingers tightening.

You gasp at the added pressure on your throat, his weight digging into you, every muscle taut and ready, caging you in. The last time you saw him this way was in Latvia, bursting at the seams, and it's a personal victory that you can bring it out of him. You wrap your legs around his hips and grind yourself against him, a silent challenge to keep up with you. He might be on top of you with his hand around your neck, but you refuse to let him believe he has the upper hand. He groans involuntarily as your hips rock up into him, the hard outline of his cock under his sweatpants brushing over your cunt.

Your enthusiasm is stoking his ego, and his free hand skims over your body, savoring the contour of your curves and muscles beneath his fingers. It’s driving him insane, the way you move beneath him, arching into his touch as he slips under your shirt. He’s never felt passion like this, and for months he’s been lying to himself about his complicated feelings. He breaks the kiss, breathing fast as he tries to regain at least some of his composure, and glances down at you.

You look utterly debauched.

Your hair is spread out beneath you on the mat, tangled and unruly, your eyes just as wild. The blood from his left hook is still drying on your chin, and you can feel the process of your vessels bursting under the pressure of his fingers, the blood pooling blow the skin threatening to leave a bruise. Marks never last long on you, but somewhere in the back of your mind, this time you wish they would. There’s a defiant challenge in your eyes as you meet his heavy gaze, rolling your hips harder just to see the look on his face.

“So, which one of us is winning now?”

John’s mind is a mess, his body screaming for release, and your snarky tone isn’t helping. He tries to ignore the way you bat your lashes at him, his control slipping with every passing second.

“Isn’t it obvious?” he growls, his hand under your shirt moving higher, his touch uncharacteristically gentle. “You think I’m gonna go down that easy?”

You flash your teeth at him, a mischievous glint in your eyes, blood still in your gums. “Oh, I don’t think you’re really the type to go down at all,” you retort, using his phrasing against him, turning it into an insulting innuendo.

He feels a sharp stab of embarrassment at the double meaning of your mockery, quickly followed by arousal, his body reacting involuntarily. But his ego won’t let him back down, not now, not when you’re finally smiling at him with those pretty lips. The desire to knock you down a peg is fading fast, replaced by a desperation to have you in any way you’ll let him. He grinds himself against your cunt, the pressure growing more insistent as you find a matching rhythm.

“You’d like that, Red,” he mutters, his fingers grazing the curve of your breast, your skin so much softer than he’d imagined. “Admit it.”

“Why would I do that?” You laugh, the sound breathless. “You’re the one who’s desperate for it.”

“You think you still have a chance to come out on top,” he sneers, but it sounds forced, like he’s losing conviction. “You’re wrong.” Your skin burns his fingers, the movement of your hips making it hard to focus. But he’s determined to keep his composure, to not give you the satisfaction of seeing him squirm.

You lock eyes with him, your glare cloudy, still smiling like it’s all one big joke. “That's so?” Quickly, you pull your hands from his hair, grabbing for wrist of the hand at your throat. You use his distracted state to disarm him, legs locking around his waist and boots digging into the backs of his knees. Using all the strength you’re capable of, you flip your positions, a maneuver you could have done at any time. “What was it you said about topping?”

A stunned gasp leaves his lips as he’s practically thrown to the ground. He’s not used to being moved, and it’s just another thing about you that pisses him off and gets him going at the same time. He’s on his back now, with you straddling his hips, the rush he gets from you looking down at him completely unexpected.

John groans in frustration, his fingers finding your thighs, digging into your flesh. “You gonna start playing dirty now?”

"Oh, honey," you laugh, your sore voice thick with delight. A sly smile spreads across your face, like you know something he doesn’t. "I've been playing dirty this entire time."

And just as quickly as you’d gotten wrapped up in each other, you’re detangling yourself from him, however reluctantly. You’re halfway across the gym before he can even manage a protest, fully intending to leave him high and dry and wanting. The sting of your rejection builds in his chest, his body reeling from the sudden loss of your warmth. He rises to his feet, his eyes never leaving you as you stalk towards the door, your back to him. The way you move even now is predatory, like a leopardess prowling through the grass.

“What the hell, Red?” He calls out, his tone tinged with both desperation and embarrassment. “You can’t just walk away like that.”

Your grin only grows wider as he calls out to you, but you continue walking as if you didn’t hear him. You can feel his eyes burning a hole in the back of your head, sharp and intense, and it gives you a kick of satisfaction. You have to force yourself not to turn back, your heart telling you to stay here and explore this with him head-on. But your head, on the other hand, refuses to be defeated, not by him, not by anyone.

“Nice match, John,” you call back behind you. “Maybe you’ll finally beat me next time.”

And with that, you strut out the doors, never looking back, like he’s not worth another second of your time.

[sunmoon-starfactory]

Potions A Plenty - Potion Brewing Set

Pulling from most every other set of Sun&Moon for potion ingredients, this set gives the sims the ability to brew various potions that affect moods, skills, life states, aging, pregnancy, health, and a variety of other mostly harmless effects.

The Quick Feature Review/Set Breakdown below the cut.

Download - SFS

View Use/Instruction Manual

The Potion Crafting Bench - The heart of the set itself, the potion bench is where components are stored, prepared, and combined into batches of potions. At this station, sims can do the following.

Practice potion making and brew a total of 56 potions that have varying effects when drank by sims

Earn Logic Skill and Science Enthusiasm

Stock materials

Order Supply Bundles to facilitate quicker potion making

Obtain a Writ of Mastery in potion crafting

Keep a tidy workstation by keeping things clean

A set of “basic” potions, and their ingredients will be considered REQUIRED for function. Do not remove those files. Let the manual guide you.

This set is MAC-compatible and requires Smarter EP Check, Easy Inventory Check, Easy Lot Check and Money Globals. These are HARD requirements. The set will NOT FUNCTION without these files.

Access to these is dictated by logic skill level as well as a writ of mastery/Creature Life State/Traits.

This station has 28 decorative slots, as well as a decorative mode to enable/disable effects and an "in use" look at will.

Story Mode Enabled - Skip all the ingredients and steps, just enjoy the end products, or just run the animations on a station for the ease of taking pictures.

*New Feature* - Station Cleanliness. As the station is used, it will obtain dirty points. This dirty level affects the outcomes of potion crafting and increases failure chances. Make sure to keep the cauldron clean to ensure quality products!

*New Feature* - Supply Ordering. For a flat rate, sims can buy a bulk order of various materials needed for any potion. They will be added directly to the station's crafting counts.

All potions can be found in Hobbies/Logic. Complete Dutch and Portuguese translations. If you'd like to translate into your native language, please share your strings with us and we'll update the set proper!

Inventory Tools & New Items

Botanical Book - Pretty and useful. Inventory Tool.

Writ of Mastery - Apothecary Version. Inventory Tool.

Crate of Jars - 6 glass jars needed for potion making.

Cauldron Dregs - Waste produced from cleaning the station or failing in potion making.

Bonus Items

Reference Tome - In game recipe book for all potions

Counter Split OMSP - Give maxis counters a chance to hold more things!

Display Shelves - 9 decorative slots, two versions.

Apothecary Todd Cart and Pavilion - Previously released sets bundled into this set; they have been optimized and renamed, please remove the old versions.

Potion Specifics

Potions come in 5 types: Basic, Folk Remedy Potions, Arcane Potions, Creature/Lifestate Potions, and Poison Potions. The more fantastical the potion, the more complex it is to make.

Please be aware that depending on your playstyle you will have to add more files from other sources or you can delete certain files from this set without worry; For example, if you do not play your game with creature life states or custom creature life states, you may delete anything related to those potions, provided it is not used in another “basic” potion.

Potions are NOT recolorable and will not be made so in the future. If you wish to alter the bottle/potion colors yourself, this may be done in the properties/categorized properties tab of each subset txmt in SimPe, using the stdMatDiffCoef line.

Potions Vs. Teas: You will notice that many potions have the same effects as previously released teas from the Quali-Tea set. So what’s the difference? 

Teas are based on cooking and logic skills only. Potions function more on Logic skill level and a Writ of Mastery, OR Witch/Warlock state, and other traits.

Teas are single cup per crafting interactions (except basic hunger teas). Potions will always produce in a batch of 6.

In some cases, Teas require MORE ingredients to make, whereas Potions require LESS ingredients but higher Logic skill and rarer/less natural ingredients.

While potions can have the same effect as a similar tea, more risk is involved with taking them and sims can experience adverse/opposite of intended effects.

[noctiscollective]

“fake disorder cringe” has us losing our mind so we're going to just say a few things:

systems can have alters younger (and older) than their bodily age.

systems can have nonhuman alters and introjects from controversial or modern-day medias.

systems can have alters that aren't the same gender as the body or use different labels.

systems can have high alter counts.

systems can want to change their appearance (using wigs, makeup, fake piercings, etc) depending on who is fronting.

systems can post about their personal experiences with their disorder and be open about having the disorder.

systems can have a complex headspace or no headspace at all.

systems can have varying degrees of dissociation and memory loss.

systems are not always aware of who is fronting or who they are.

systems can refer to their alters as anything they feel comfortable with, whether it be alters, headmates, parts, or even something like rats.

systems can realize they're a system at an early age or be unaware/in denial for a long time.

systems can go to parties, drink, smoke, and do “normal” things that singlets do.

system alters can have positive triggers.

systems can have times where their alters rapidly switch or their fronting room is crowded/overwhelming.

system alters can have varying levels of communication with other alters.

i shouldn't even have to say this one, but systems can have dyed hair??

tldr: if you don't have the disorder, don't speak on it. fake-claiming does more harm than good.

[puppetwoman17]

Randomly got the thought that because Fawcett was stuck in time for so long, basically barring them from making outside friendships, the heroes and villains got weirdly close. I mean, the relationships vary in complexity. Obviously some villains are ruthless and others are more willing to compromise, and there are even some who just want to get their aggression out and nothing else.

BUT, you can bet your whiskers that Ibac once helped sneak a bottle of priceless liquor to Billy’s place because he’s been DYING to try a sip but he and many others are slow to aging.

Beautia and Princess Taia regularly go on trips to the mall.

Minute Man trades/steals baseball cards from Sivana, who steals them right back.

The Sivana & Batson twins regularly switch clothes with the respective twin and proceed to fool everyone around them. They laugh about it together.

Oh and they have monthly picnics.

Don’t acknowledge it, they sure don’t. Not all of them are chummy and not all of them are going to leave without picking a fight(notice how I’m not specifically whether it’s just the villains who start a fight😅).

It’s more that they’ve known each other for nearly a century. That they’re all trapped in the bubble that separates them from the problems of the outside world. There are probably other villains out there, grouping up to destroy new heroes.

It’s more that they know each know things about each other. Really close, private things.

It’s more that they all have different levels of trauma when remembering their situation. They all have penpals out there, and family members who they wanted to connect with.

It’s more that, when the bubble breaks and the real world gives them a hard shove, only THEY know what it feels like. The world of heroes vs villains is so different now. They can’t put their finger on why. So many syndicates and underground plots. And so many different hero teams too.

Billy will never say it out loud, but after a long, loud day fighting the Injustice League with the JL, he’s going to detransform on the roof of Sivanna Enterprise and just lay there for a bit.

Sivana will never say it out loud, but after a long, loud day of refusing yet another invitation to join whatever idiotic scheme Lex Luthor and his followers have cooking, he’ll join his greatest nemesis on that roof.

Just for a little while, he’s not THAT nice🙄