#it goes well!

[lena-in-a-red-dress]

Kara Prince AU Pt 7

With their biggest secrets out of the way, Lena and Kara grow closer than ever. Soon, Kara shares more about her family, her upbringing, her trauma. She learns that this Lena, her Lena, was raised with love, and that she only lost her mother to cancer a few years ago.

Though its clear that Lena misses her mom, its less anguished than in the other universe. There are no thoughts to what could have been, but what has already been, and cherishing the time they had together. In a way, it brings Kara and Lena closer together, having family to miss.

Lena's a little nervous when, a few months into Kara's stay, Diana comes to visit. In town, she's Kara's cousin, but in the cottage she's the woman who raised Kara, her support and her family. But despite Lena's apprehension and desire to make a good impression, the moment Diana locks eyes on her, the woman kisses both of Lena's cheeks and wraps her in a warm embrace.

"Kara has told me much about you," Diana says, making Kara blush. "You are as beautiful as she said."

Lena smiles, shooting Kara a look. "Thank you. I'm just lucky Kara came to my shop when she did."

"Yes... the girl with the flowers," Diana echoes with a grin.

Kara's blush deepens, but she smiles when Lena leans over to kiss her cheek.

Kara takes Lena's hand. "I'm the lucky one," she murmurs.

"Some thing I have learned since joining man's world," Diana comments, "is that sometimes, is that luck is merely a facade for fate."

She looks at the two of them, content in their happiness.

"The gods smile upon you."

[batcavescolony]

Katniss is such an unreliable narrator. She says "Then something unexpected happens. At least, I don't expect it because I don't think of District 12 as a place that cares about me" girl you deliver strawberries to the Mayor, you hunt and trade for the district, when you fell at Prim being chosen someone caught you, when you went to Prim people parted for you, when you volunteered EVERYONE stopped. Idk how to tell you but I think you're a pillar of the community.

[neocatharsis]

South Korea’s National Assembly has passed a resolution to lift the martial law (190-0).

Parliament votes against martial law decree. All 190 members who were able to enter the main hall voted in favor of the bill. None voted against.

Lawmakers are clapping after the vote. You can hear them saying, “Good job.”

© kchartsmaster : josungkim

[lesbian-disaster-academic]

i used to be so good at writing strong, thoroughly-researched, thoroughly-edited essays.

as a kid in hs, my teacher literally came up to me, holding my 40 page essay on the intersection of the European witch hunts and capitalism/exploitation/gender roles (it was supposed to be 7 pages...whoops) and went like "this is literally a master's-degree level thesis. what are you doing?? you could literally use this as your final dissertation in a master's program, what the fuck."

NOW??? NOW?? you'd think I'd be oh so skilled. but alas. i can barely piece together two ideas. adhd skill-regression is so so real. im SOBBING

[eulaties]

love how each pjo book takes place in the span of a week. so like every summer percy has one crazy week and then the rest of his year is normal

[stiffyck]

Good luck during pride month to all the aroaces who are gonna be blasted with "love is love" everywhere

Edit:

This post includes aplatonic people, loveless aros and any other people who fall anywhere on the aro and ace spectrum.

Stop saying "but theres platonic love and familial love-"

[heartorbit]

MWAH!

[aethersea]

another thing fantasy writers should keep track of is how much of their worldbuilding is aesthetic-based. it's not unlike the sci-fi hardness scale, which measures how closely a story holds to known, real principles of science. The Martian is extremely hard sci-fi, with nearly every detail being grounded in realistic fact as we know it; Star Trek is extremely soft sci-fi, with a vaguely plausible "space travel and no resource scarcity" premise used as a foundation for the wildest ideas the writers' room could come up with. and much as Star Trek fuckin rules, there's nothing wrong with aesthetic-based fantasy worldbuilding!

(sidenote we're not calling this 'soft fantasy' bc there's already a hard/soft divide in fantasy: hard magic follows consistent rules, like "earthbenders can always and only bend earth", and soft magic follows vague rules that often just ~feel right~, like the Force. this frankly kinda maps, but I'm not talking about just the magic, I'm talking about the worldbuilding as a whole.

actually for the purposes of this post we're calling it grounded vs airy fantasy, bc that's succinct and sounds cool.)

a great example of grounded fantasy is Dungeon Meshi: the dungeon ecosystem is meticulously thought out, the plot is driven by the very realistic need to eat well while adventuring, the story touches on both social and psychological effects of the whole 'no one dies forever down here' situation, the list goes on. the worldbuilding wants to be engaged with on a mechanical level and it rewards that engagement.

deliberately airy fantasy is less common, because in a funny way it's much harder to do. people tend to like explanations. it takes skill to pull off "the world is this way because I said so." Narnia manages: these kids fall into a magic world through the back of a wardrobe, befriend talking beavers who drink tea, get weapons from Santa Claus, dance with Bacchus and his maenads, and sail to the edge of the world, without ever breaking suspension of disbelief. it works because every new thing that happens fits the vibes. it's all just vibes! engaging with the worldbuilding on a mechanical level wouldn't just be futile, it'd be missing the point entirely.

the reason I started off calling this aesthetic-based is that an airy story will usually lean hard on an existing aesthetic, ideally one that's widely known by the target audience. Lewis was drawing on fables, fairy tales, myths, children's stories, and the vague idea of ~medieval europe~ that is to this day our most generic fantasy setting. when a prince falls in love with a fallen star, when there are giants who welcome lost children warmly and fatten them up for the feast, it all fits because these are things we'd expect to find in this story. none of this jars against what we've already seen.

and the point of it is to be wondrous and whimsical, to set the tone for the story Lewis wants to tell. and it does a great job! the airy worldbuilding serves the purposes of the story, and it's no less elegant than Ryōko Kui's elaborately grounded dungeon. neither kind of worldbuilding is better than the other.

however.

you do have to know which one you're doing.

the whole reason I'm writing this is that I saw yet another long, entertaining post dragging GRRM for absolute filth. asoiaf is a fun one because on some axes it's pretty grounded (political fuck-around-and-find-out, rumors spread farther than fact, fastest way to lose a war is to let your people starve, etc), but on others it's entirely airy (some people have magic Just Cause, the various peoples are each based on an aesthetic/stereotype/cliché with no real thought to how they influence each other as neighbors, the super-long seasons have no effect on ecology, etc).

and again! none of this is actually bad! (well ok some of those stereotypes are quite bigoted. but other than that this isn't bad.) there's nothing wrong with the season thing being there to highlight how the nobles are focused on short-sighted wars for power instead of storing up resources for the extremely dangerous and inevitable winter, that's a nice allegory, and the looming threat of many harsh years set the narrative tone. and you can always mix and match airy and grounded worldbuilding – everyone does it, frankly it's a necessity, because sooner or later the answer to every worldbuilding question is "because the author wanted it to be that way." the only completely grounded writing is nonfiction.

the problem is when you pretend that your entirely airy worldbuilding is actually super duper grounded. like, for instance, claiming that your vibes-based depiction of Medieval Europe (Gritty Edition) is completely historical, and then never even showing anyone spinning. or sniffing dismissively at Tolkien for not detailing Aragorn's tax policy, and then never addressing how a pre-industrial grain-based agricultural society is going years without harvesting any crops. (stored grain goes bad! you can't even mouse-proof your silos, how are you going to deal with mold?) and the list goes on.

the man went up on national television and invited us to engage with his worldbuilding mechanically, and then if you actually do that, it shatters like spun sugar under the pressure. doesn't he realize that's not the part of the story that's load-bearing! he should've directed our focus to the political machinations and extensive trope deconstruction, not the handwavey bit.

point is, as a fantasy writer there will always be some amount of your worldbuilding that boils down to 'because I said so,' and there's nothing wrong with that. nor is there anything wrong with making that your whole thing – airy worldbuilding can be beautiful and inspiring. but you have to be aware of what you're doing, because if you ask your readers to engage with the worldbuilding in gritty mechanical detail, you had better have some actual mechanics to show them.

[stil-lindigo]

ARTISTS FOR PALESTINE 🇵🇸 - On the 6th and 9th of March, I'll be doing art requests on stream with other notable artists to raise money for Operation Olive Branch and the PCRF.

I'm incredibly lucky to be counting quite a few big names in the roster, including known Jesus and Odysseus enthusiast @wolfythewitch, the extraordinary fanartist @denimcatfish, and the incredibly talented @troubledminnesotan, as well as Lilypichu from OfflineTV.

You'll be able to watch the streams on the day of the event either on my twitch channel here, or via the links provided by the artists below.

Lilypichu

Cuptoast

Akairosu_

Sevvanto

Wolfythewitch

[hinamie]

sympathy for cain

[mejkosmos]

why has 2024 literally been THE summer of toxic old man yaoi i'm genuinely tweaking rn

[charcarts]

circumstantial

[time-woods]

i literally have such a massive backlog of art anddoodles bc of these 3

myfucked up kittycars . .

[honestlyitsjustsam]

favourite moments of bg3 -> (5/?)

[sleepymccoy]

This is also a bit of a culture query, cos these are all in my house so I genuinely cook with these all (except chicken salt, that's been in my cupboard for ages)

But I'm not from the USA and most people here are, so I wonder if that's similar! Maybe your cupboard is identical to mine. Maybe we use the same stuff but call it something else. Maybe USA has a different relationship with pre mix spices and you use none of it. Maybe you've never heard of pre mix spices. I dunno. That's why I'm asking!

I use plain herbs and spices as well. Especially when making a complex meal I'll do it myself. But I use pre mixes other times, so I'm voting. Voting for a pre mix doesn't mean you don't also use paprika! If you genuinely have no pre mixes in the kitchen tho, then hell yeah, tell me!

Also, I know I haven't listed everything in the world. One, that's impossible. Two, this is a bit of a culture thing so I just checked my kitchen and used those. This selection is representative of me only

(you don't have to be from the USA to vote, obvs, we just all know that's how the results will end up. Please tell me about your spice mixes in other countries!!)

Morrison spice blend: Pepper, tumeric, ginger, cardamom, parsley, salt

Chinese five spice: Star anise, cinnamon, clove, fennel, Sichuan pepper

Chicken salt: Salt, chicken stock, garlic, paprika, pepper, onion, celery

Gluhwein gewurz: Orange peel, cinnamon, lemon peel, star anise, hibiscus, clove

Chimichurri: parsley, garlic, oregano, vinegar, chilli, salt, pepper

Za'atar: thyme, cumin, coriander, sesame seeds, sumac, salt, chilli

Garam masala: coriander, cumin, cardamom, cloves, pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg

[cheesewhimsy]