#its such a Specific way to describe it ?? if that makes sense??

[velvetvexations]

Regarding the m/m discussion, I'd like to bring up the concept of the "Yaoi Hole", which describes the hypothetical extra hole that "should" exist above the butthole in yaoi. It was kinda coined to mock the fact that yaoi often has stuff that doesn't make sense for a typical cis male body (like self-lubricating holes and stuff), so people were constantly like "omg haha so unrealistic, yaoi authors don't know anything about male biology, they write as if the characters had some sort of weird extra organ that functioned like a vagina !!". The term is considered relevant enough to have its own dedicated Wikipedia page btw.

Between that and the omegaverse stuff, I feel like its wild to claim that yaoi characters are "transfeminized" while ignoring the obvious transmasculine reading, like, oh, so there's a type of man that's often stereotypically depicted as smaller or softer than other men, and with some kind of biological difference that make him able to get pregnant or have some mysterious bonus hole in his genital area....... Wow, I feel like I've heard all that before.... I wonder where.... If only there was a type of trans person who was like that or was stereotyped this way.... I guess we'll never know....

it's truly one of the greatest examples of TRFs and The T/R/F specifically being uncomfortable when we are not about them

[mullermilkshake]

What about your soul?

The next stop is, Shibuya.

Mahito x Fem Sorcerer!reader Tags - Knife play/ cutting,Blood drinking,Torture,Physical abuse,Manipulation,Established relationship with Satoru Gojo,Kidnapping,Transfiguration,Canon like violence/events

<<< For more Dark/Yandere content, click this link to go back to the Masterlist! >>>

There was never any way that you would ever forget Mahito’s laugh.

Those visible teeth just behind his grin had something about it that would almost make you want to vomit, far enough sickly sweet to give you a toothache without the sugar rush. 

“You’re interesting, you know?” The metal edge and handle tickling the nerve endings of the back of your arm, light enough to miss it. “I don’t think there was anyone else it could have been, but you.”

But you knew it was there, he had been proud enough to show you the hideously beautiful reflection of himself inside it under the dutiful light that swung about your head. He was mostly pleased and excited of how he obtained this offensive weapon.

“Do you like the gift I got you?”

Mutilation was the only way to describe it, the little monstrosity he brought into the room which was whining and begging him to kill it. You didn’t know what it was, or even begin to acknowledge where it could have originated, but you didn't want it near you all the same.

“What’s wrong? You aren’t smiling.” His smile dropped when he clocked your expression. “Oh, don’t you like my little pet? He‘s always crying. I never really found out how to stop them from doing that.”

“Kiiiiilllllll meeeee.” It clawed at his feet like a dog, tears dribbling out of two dark holes in its face you assumed were where its eyes should have been.

Of course you weren’t smiling, specifically to the point of which Mahito had just made. There were more of them like this, disfigured and disgusting just begging for death. That made your very being melt with fire, crackling and distant from your body, outside of this room.

That’s where you wished you were. Did anyone know you were even gone? All those people running and rushing from the fire and you were the one to get plucked out of it.

Did Satoru even know you were gone? He must have done.

It would only be a matter of time before someone from Jujutsu high would come looking for you. Satoru being the first. You held up that much hope.

Satoru Gojo could obliterate this cursed person in a second flat, yet why was Mahito so confident? You were meant to be in Shibuya, accompanying a team to wait above the station, never meant to go inside at all, yet here you were, inside a small side room from what you could tell.

The disfigured thing rolled and laid on its side, sobbing and wailing as his feet until he stepped over it like it was nothing more than a doormat. “Do you think Satoru Gojo will be able to pick you out from the crowd? Maybe if you’re bleeding he might come to your rescue, but I doubt that.”

Had he read your mind? There was no way. “What are you talking about?”

What were his plans? What did he intend to do in a crowd that warranted Satoru’s acknowledgement? But he was in the station, he was right down here somewhere. Could he have the capacity right now to sense your cursed energy?

No, of course not, he would have been far too busy to even notice. Not that there was much energy to radiate from your body anyway.

“Satoru Gojo knows that some people will die in order for him to save the rest. Do you think he will favour you when push comes to shove?” He got incredibly close to you. “Will you assume he’ll save you? What if he notices at the last minute and regrets his decision for the rest of his life?”

Mahito yanked himself away and chuckled. “There’s only one way to find out!”

He brandished the knife and hooked it under your chin so menacingly, you could have sobbed right there in the small room. “Let’s really see if the body is formed around the soul.”

“No… Stay away from me.” You struggled against your restraints so that it made your fingertips numb and tingly.

“I know this will hurt, that’s the part I like best, when humans are cut and torn apart like little rabbits in the jaws of a hungry dog.

“Leave me alone!” There was no point in struggling.

The knife pushed and tugged the thin skin at your throat, slicing and cutting ever so slightly but it stung all the same. So much that it forced a strained whine from your lips.

“Let it out, just let it out.” He cooed, leaning in and drawing a long inhale close to the wound. “That fear. It is the best smell.”

Then he chuckled like a child, almost a giggle. “It's quite pretty you know? A pretty girl crying and wishing she was anywhere else but where she was, it’s quite poetic. Down here all alone while the man you care for is close by and doesn’t even care.”

Mahito leaned in and licked the entire length of your neck to make you cringe. “What would he think of you if he knew you were this intimate with another that wasn’t him? Would it make him angry, or would he want to join in?”

He drew back just as quickly and placed his finger to his chin. “Hmm. Maybe not. Satou Gojo isn’t exactly on good terms with us cursed spirits. My guess is that it would make him uncomfortable at best.” His lips drew up in an evil grin that bared his teeth.

“Let's make more cuts then, shall we? You taste pretty good and I think It’ll rile me up for the show you’re about to witness.”

What show? What was Mahito going to do that you were possibly needed for, or was it something he was just taking you along for the ride? Either way, that was an opportunity to escape. If Satoru was close by, then that would create a means to leave so you could go back to the others and follow the plan as it was laid out.

There was no way a cursed spirit like him would get past Satoru in any universe, let alone this one.

Your breaths were shaky at best. “A-alright. Do what you have to do and let’s watch this show of yours.”

Now that he had given you a little time to think, despite the pain, you had gotten a fairly simple idea of what type of person he would have been had he been human. Still a shock to see a cursed spirit speak, but still a cursed spirit nonetheless. He could still be exorcised.

Mahito was a child in a man shaped body. Playing to his ego seemed like one of the best ideas at the time and making him the most recognised person in the room applied to his seemingly growing self importance.

“You do? Well, let's get to it then. I want to taste all of your fearful blood before we begin.” But suddenly his tone switched, he took a hold of a large portion of your hair and pulled it.

“Let’s get you weak enough so you can’t use that technique of yours. Geto told me all about it.”

The pit of your stomach sank lower than ever, just the name of that man shook up every fibre of your being. “Who?”

But he’s dead.

“My benefactor.”

“What did you say his name was?” Were your lips trembling?

“Suguru Geto.” He was so proud of himself.

Before you could speak, he cut you again, deeper this time enough to get a scream out of you, and then, he dropped the knife and placed his mouth over it. Your arm let red drip all over the floor. Past his lips from an inappropriate seal and he sucked, the pressure allowing more blood to come out and into his mouth.

He was drinking your blood, the stickiness collecting at the corners of his mouth as his eyes went haywire. As he drew back, you sower his eyes had dilated. “Wow! This is amazing, I should do this to all of my play things!”

Mahito pulled your arm in closer and sucked the wound again, painfully pulling the skin apart with his tongue so you cried out in pain. It almost matched the disfigured thing laying on the ground in the corner.

“I wonder how you humans make each other scream. Is that what Satoru Gojo does? Does he make you scream like this, or is he incapable of feelings?”

“You’re insane, get the hell off of me!” That pain turned more into hate and anger than fear could ever hope to emulate.

“But you taste so good.” He cut you again to which it admittedly got you a little dizzy.

“Get off of me before I make you.” There was no way your cursed energy could do anything against him right now.

It was weak at best in comparison to Satoru. It was weak in comparison to any grade three sorcerer, but it was just as important. You were able to find things, people, places, with just a picture and your little runes you imbued with cursed energy.

You weren’t much of a fighter though, but you had not seen Suguru Geto in over a decade, perhaps you could bullshit your way through it?

“I told you,” Mahito pulled away, his face smeared with red. “Geto knows all about your little finding energy. It’s not very impressive if you ask me.

“But he doesn’t know what else I can do now, Even Satoru Gojo was impressed.” Shit. Okay maybe that was a bit too far.

Mahiot paused as though in thought for the moment. Scared perhaps? Thinking over his move before he played it. He cackled. “Pfft! Don’t make me laugh. Satoru Gojo is not impressed with anyone but himself.”

He pulled the knife to you and cut the restraints away, grabbing you by the arm and pulling you towards the door. “Are you ready for a little game?”

The blood instantly returned to your fingers and stung like hell, feeling weighted and pruned. You did your best to resist him and pull away, looking for anything to use to defy his grasp.

But you were in a train station tunnel, a train sat packed just up the way with subtle movement until you grew closer. The ominous low groan of the dull background noise bore into your very soul, making you eat up the groans of pain in your throat.

There were people inside. Tons of people and by the time Mahito had pulled you up onto the station's platform you noted just how many bodies there were inside. People dressed for halloween, couples costumes completely uninterested on their phones and scrolling through social media apps.

They were non- sorcerers, that's for sure.

You contemplated calling out and praying that your echo would reach someone, preferably Satoru, but with all these people crammed into a tuna can, your beating heart just ached at the possibilities of what Mahito could do to them in an instant, and there was nothing you could do about it either. You were still bleeding and the dizziness grew thicker behind your eyes. There was no way you could find Satoru like this.

What was Mahito about to do?

A little game.

What little game was that?

He pulled you towards the open door and dragged you in as the door closed. His grin told you everything and nothing. “Are you ready?”

“Ready for what?” You gasped and breathed shallow enough that no one noticed or looked up from their phones.

“The game of course.” He threw his hand out and rested his palm on the head of a man dressed as a clown, or was it something else? You weren’t sure.

“What the hell man-” His head practically exploded, growing twice the size of a yoga ball, all twisted and plump as though it were to explode when pressed against something sharp.

People screamed and scattered, pressing the door buttons to escape, but the train had already pushed off from the station. They dispersed and made their way to the end of the train cart like a stampede, all while Mahito laughed and giggled.

“Woah! This is going to be more fun than I imagined, and all you to see all of it unfold. How lucky you are!”

You struggled against him, only being able to do nothing more than to watch on in total disgust and fear at the people changing under his hand in an instant. A woman dressed as an angelic angel, squashed flat and round as she grew in size and squealed against the window.

A poor horse costume crippled between the seats and bars as it elongated and separated revealing the two people underneath, breaking their limbs and resetting them. The awful vomit inducing cracks and joints popping until they merged together and formed one weeping slug thing.

They were people. Humans and they were changed, just like that thing in the room that begged for death. Did they all think that? Were they still conscious? You recalled reading something on Shoko’s report, but never fully read it over. 

Why would you? You never went out for missions. You were Jujutsu Tech’s glorified sniffer dog, there was nothing you could provide physically on missions, so you didn;t bother to read most things you weren’t involved with.

Why the hell didn’t you read it all through properly?

Why the hell didn’t you listen?

Mahito pulled you along like the dog you were on a leash and stopped near the next door to where the others had collected by the train door, hoping to filter through before the cursed spirit could get his hands on them.

But they couldn’t see him. Could they?

So they must have thought it was you, because they were all looking at you, petrified and cowering behind anything they could.

“So you pretty thing. We have some time until the next station. Who should I transfigure next?”

There was nothing you could do to help them, but watch.

DISCLAIMER - Crossposted from my AO3 - I do not own any of the characters or anything from the anime. This is a work of fan fiction and is absolutely not representative of the views or intentions of the original creator(s).

Also please don’t post any of my work without permission thank you!

[liquidstar]

after a long pause i finally finished my newest oc batch ^_^ this time for owl feather: the scholar's guild. the members are more or less different types of academics, or just nerds, with their own different niches. as usual, more specific info+closeups under the cut <3

Name: Mercury

Name Origin: The planet named after the messenger god

Pronouns: She/her

Age: 28

Guild rank: Guidmaster

Weapon: Caduceus

Ethos (Power): Aileron (Enhanced speed and levitation)

Flaw power is based on: Her evasiveness- Though her power has evolved (the levitation) once she became guildmaster as she became a pillar for her guild, and successor to the former guildmaster.

Notes: I can be your angle... or yuor devil

Name: Keid

Name Origin: A star whose name means eggshels

Pronouns: He/him

Age: 19

Guild rank: 3 star

Weapon: Chicken sickles

Ethos (Power): Computative prognostication (He can calculate the outcome of events in his own head, but he can’t see outcomes beyond the one he calculated)

Flaw power is based on: His overly cautious and ruminative habits, though he tries to play it off like he's way more chill and not constantly existentially overthinking

Notes: But which came first...?

Name: Alasia

Name Origin: A star whose name references Idalion Tablet, one of the oldest known contracts

Pronouns: She/her

Age: 15

Guild rank: 2 star

Weapon: Shovel

Ethos (Power): Erudition (Psychometry- The ability to read the past of any object by touch)

Flaw power is based on: Her extreme curiosity, while her inquisitiveness on it's own can be admirable she can often get obsessive about it.

Notes: She's an archeologist <3

Name: Dimidium

Name Origin: Exoplanet whose name means "half"

Pronouns: He/She

Age: 22

Guild rank: 4 star

Weapon: Double-ended flail

Ethos (Power): Vice-versa (Healing and reverse healing)

Flaw power is based on: His simultaneous obsequiousness and brashness- Two extremes that she fluctuates between in a way that's both unpredictable and unhealthy.

Notes: Generally stoic either way so it's hard to tell...

Name: Navi

Name Origin: Informal name for γ Cassiopeiae- A navigation point for Apollo 1

Pronouns: He/they

Age: 19

Guild rank: 3 star

Weapon: Arm

Ethos (Power): Kefi (Energy direction- He can channel his energy into powerful attacks into his weapon of choice, which they designed to be their own arm)

Flaw power is based on: Their over-zealous nature. Though passion is a good thing, their ferventness can absolutely make him lose track of himself.

Notes: A weaponsmith who’s figuring out more technological approaches

Name: Talitha

Name Origin: A star system, whose name means "Spring"

Pronouns: She/her

Age: 13

Guild rank: 1 star

Weapon: Plastic wand

Ethos (Power): Metamorphosis (Magical girl transformation. She can shoot beams out of her wand now.)

Flaw power is based on: Her extreme tendency for escapism, especially in idolizing fantasy.

Notes: She's a magical girl 💖💖💖

Name: Misam

Name Origin: A star whose name means "wrist"

Pronouns: They/them

Age: 28

Guild rank: 5 star

Weapon: Wrist blade

Ethos (Power): Rigor (Enhanced precision)

Flaw power is based on: Their surprisingly to-the-point, often cold-blooded nature.

Notes: Nerds can be cool too, guys.

Name: Perwana

Name Origin: An exoplanet whose name means moth

Pronouns: She/her

Age: 27

Guild rank: 5 star

Weapon: Lantern

Ethos (Power): Callous luminance (Physically palpable hard light, created from her lantern)

Flaw power is based on: Her tenancy to place the burden of guidance onto herself- Literally a guiding light for others. Mostly in regards to erudition, the symbolic connection between illumination and knowledge. She wants to illuminate everyone. But this can be at the cost of herself.

Notes: These are her summer clothes.

[letsjam-art]

silly idea time

idk how this idea even started but the outfit i had in mind was way back from a doodle in 2021 or 2022, basically my 'what if' for temperance ending only instead of being wildly ooc and wearing a collared button up johnny becomes a cowboy. and because i was listening to vagrant song from wtwtlw (that whole ost really, and hardspace shipbreaker) i had the bright idea that johnny would finally become what his class in the ttrpg was an homage to and wander around collecting stories n telling them n kind of being a dead man walking/ghost story/witness/helper-bard r smthn but having been extremely tempered by the experience of v choosing to die for him, being shocked enough into actually thinking about his beleifs n what have you, humbled enough now to want to listen to others hed choose this path of wandering the continent of na, maybe for the first time in a long time actually taking in life around him yadda yadda. in my little scenario i also had it that even if/when the next corpo war broke out or the nusa annexed more free states, he wouldnt get involved like he used to, cause i think its interesting to muse on how a profound experience would greatly change someone so stuck in their ways like johnny. i think hed still be motivated by guilt and avoidance at first, but it would evolve into something more like a calling/altruism as he takes more seriously and uses more intentionally the time he was given as a dead man walking

also i realize how much of this 'outfit' is just putting v in a hat and calling them johnny like its some perry the platypus thing (also idk how to draw hats)

[ganondoodle]

You probably said it already somewhere, but how much do the Zonai/Rauru and Mineru play in your project?

i dont think i mentioned it in particular tbh

as of now i want to keep them as mysterious as possible, i am thinking about a way to obscure their faces as well since i want the zonau to FEEL like a mysterious, unknown group of people, the ruins you can find in my rewrite would be much withered too, and the tech as well, my goal is to give everything a good connection without robbing anything of its draw, and to me the zonau, which im pretty sure werent even declared as such in botw itself, were something so ancient you had only faint traces left and what the people that came after them learned from them after they were already long gone

its hard to explain but its a ... sentimental thing for me to think about a group of people that had definitely lived in the world but you have only the faintest traces of them, yet you know they were people just like you, had traditions you will never know, songs you will never hear, art you will never see and text that you will never read, its something so sad and yet so .. human? to me? that was what i liked about their mystery in botw that totk threw out the window

so .. im afraid i cant give you a clear answer, as im trying to find the balance between telling you enough to care about ganondorfs fate in my rewrite, while also keepign the zonau as mysterious as possible while makigng neither a one note bad guy, so you can agree with things on either side and understand why they did it while also knowing they shouldnt have ... i think im starting to end up with the theme of sealing your own fate by trying to avoid it + blindly trusting the teachings of old isnt always right (as in the zonau were warned of ganondorf being a threat thus sealing him in that horrible way to make it stop forever only to cause the exact bloodshed they wanted to avoid by doing it and the way botw bringing back all the tech to reenact the old tale of the first calamity only for it to turn on them .... idk if this is making sense but i feel like theres a neat thematic connection there that im trying to use gmjdfklgnmjdfkljk)

[infizero]

every time i so much as think about that scene where light looks at porn magazines while scowling i go into hysterics its genuinely the funniest thing i've ever seen

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

I don't really know how to put this into words without feeling totally insane but every time there's some kind of prophecy or prediction in a piece of media I can't help but wonder whether it becomes self-fulfilling as soon as the characters know about it. and I guess that's the thing with prophecies isn't it? if it's good, people will do anything in their power to make sure it happens. if it's bad, they'll try desperately to prevent it while in turn setting the exact events in motion to make it happen anyway.

all this to say I think the whole "the end of the world will happen in 2 years and it has something to do with jack slash" has been. a disaster since they learned about it. everything the prt or taylor or the s9 have been doing so far has been with that information in mind. Jack, now that he knows it's his fault and loves it, has been shoring up the s9s power, which he may not have gone to such great lengths to do if he didn't know about his involvement in an apocalypse scenario. so now they're fighting some horrible clone army rather than the normal... 9 or less unstable members . taylor is doing all this shit with the knowledge in the back of her mind that there's an apocalypse coming. she's got herself on a timer, and even though she says she doesn't think about it, she DOES. the prt refuses to meet any of her terms due to their dumbass bureaucracy and hypocritical rules or whatever . they refuse to make any sort of compromise, in turn killing (?) one of the undersiders, something taylor CLEARLY informed them would break any sort of tenuous truce or whatever that they had and set a war into motion. and now both tagg and alexandria are dead. and. maybe it's the guy who consumed too much time travel media in me but I can't help but feel like all of these events are just. inevitable pieces falling into place that are directly leading up to whatever apocalypse scenario we're waiting for. there's so much of a cause and effect chain crumbling right now. one less strong hero against the endbringers. the prt in fucking shambles, and as terrible as they are, they're losing a major piece of organization. it's gonna be chaos from here on out!! and all of this could've been avoided !!!!! imagine what would've happened if none of them knew about this apocalypse and had just. acted as if the future would go on as usual. how do you think things would've been different !!!!

[upsidedowngrass]

will say it is SO challenging to capture liams voice. when i was rewatching it on my bday w my friend i was STILL noticing things . character dialogue is so complex and i NEED to perfect it or ill collapse into the ground

[luvuomi]

yk i’ve had my fair share of “weird” dreams throughout the course of my life some more questionable than others.

but bro.. a nightmare about scara was not on my 2025 bucket list😭

[lorisystem]

.

[writerthreads]

How to avoid White Room Syndrome

by Writerthreads on Instagram

A common problem writers face is "white room syndrome"—when scenes feel like they’re happening in an empty white room. To avoid this, it's important to describe settings in a way that makes them feel real and alive, without overloading readers with too much detail. Here are a few tips below to help!

Focus on a few key details

You don’t need to describe everything in the scene—just pick a couple of specific, memorable details to bring the setting to life. Maybe it’s the creaky floorboards in an old house, the musty smell of a forgotten attic, or the soft hum of a refrigerator in a small kitchen. These little details help anchor the scene and give readers something to picture, without dragging the action with heaps of descriptions.

Engage the senses

Instead of just focusing on what characters can see, try to incorporate all five senses—what do they hear, smell, feel, or even taste? Describe the smell of fresh bread from a nearby bakery, or the damp chill of a foggy morning. This adds a lot of depth and make the location feel more real and imaginable.

Mix descriptions with actions

Have characters interact with the environment. How do your characters move through the space? Are they brushing their hands over a dusty bookshelf, shuffling through fallen leaves, or squeezing through a crowded subway car? Instead of dumping a paragraph of description, mix it in with the action or dialogue.

Use the setting to reflect a mood or theme

Sometimes, the setting can do more than just provide a backdrop—it can reinforce the mood of a scene or even reflect a theme in the story. A stormy night might enhance tension, while a warm, sunny day might highlight a moment of peace. The environment can add an extra layer to what’s happening symbolically.

Here's an example of writing a description that hopefully feels alive and realistic, without dragging the action:

The bookstore was tucked between two brick buildings, its faded sign creaking with every gust of wind. Inside, the air was thick with the scent of worn paper and dust, mingling with the faint aroma of freshly brewed coffee from a corner café down the street. The wooden floorboards groaned as Ella wandered between the shelves, her fingertips brushing the spines of forgotten novels. Somewhere in the back, the soft sound of jazz crackled from an ancient radio.

Hope these tips help in your writing!

[moophinz]

While it’s understandable when people are against a live action adaptation of a source media- and I’ve had many such thoughts and opinions on that topic myself- there’s a certain extent that starts to bother me. There’s been an enormous amount of adaptations that completely fail to understand the source material and were clearly made with the hopes of a quick cash in on something without a doubt, but there’s some other stuff to be talked about…

1) It’s another no brainer that things would change from one medium to another. Yet, the things that would need to change, and the things that were changed gratuitously are not the same despite some viewers trying to say otherwise. I often see people shrugging the most unnecessary differences in characterization as an “obvious” thing because it’s in live action. There are certain things that can easily remain intact if the people behind it put forth more effort.

2) Not having played/read/seen the original it’s based off before taking on a role is another big one. This is up in the air depending on how things go with the adaptation. Sometimes, there’s a very reasonable explanation behind why the actors involved didn’t, or they were told not to by the show runners/movie people because of [insert reason here that makes sense]. Regardless, there’s no reason for the very gatekeepy attitude taken by fans when they get offended by “filthy casuals and locals” *looking at you gamers*. And I don’t think it’s completely fair to expect every single last person involved to have encyclopedic knowledge on something. All I ask is that it be respectful to the original. Which can be a tall order depending on who’s involved. I know this type of behavior stems from people believing fans will be nicer and more accurate about the original, though.

3) Adaptations that are 1:1 with the source material feel useless, admittedly. I don’t want them to veer off track heavily to the point it becomes unrecognizable, but I also don’t want a clone of what it’s coming from. I like a nice middle ground where that adaptation is able to stand on its own.

[haru-dipthong]

Did you know that the english word “star” and the japanese word 星（ほし）don’t actually mean the same thing?

Language does not simply name pre-existing categories; categories do not exist in 'the world'

— Daniel Chandler, Semiotics for Beginners

I read this quote a few years ago, but I don’t think I truly understood it until one day, when I was looking at the wikipedia article for “star” and I thought to check the Japanese article, see if I could get some Japanese reading practice in. I was surprised to find that the article was not titled 「星」, but 「恒星」, a word I’d never seen before. I’d always learnt that 星 was the direct translation for “star” (I knew the japanese also contained meanings the english didn’t, like “dot” or “bullseye”, but I thought these were just auxiliary definitions in addition to the direct translation of “star” as in "a celestial body made of hydrogen and helium plasma").

To try and clear things up for myself, I searched japanese wikipedia for 星. It was a disambiguation page, with the main links pointing to the articles for 天体 (astronomical object) and スター（記号）(star symbol). There was no article just called 「星」.

It’s an easy difference to miss, because in everyday conversation, 星 and star are equivalent. They both describe the shining lights in the night sky. They both describe this symbol: ★. They even both describe those enormous celestial objects made of plasma.

But they are different - different enough to not share a wikipedia article. 星 is used to describe any kind of celestial body, especially if it appears shiny and bright in the night sky. “Star” can be used this way too (like Venus being called the “morning star”), but it’s generally considered inaccurate to use the word like this, whereas there is no such inaccuracy with 星. You can say “oh that’s not actually a star, it’s a planet”, but you CAN’T say 「実はそれは星ではなく惑星だよ」 (TL: that’s not actually a hoshi, it’s a planet). A planet IS a 星.

星 is a very common word, essentially equivalent to “star”, but its meaning is closer to “celestial body”. I haven’t looked into the etymology/history but it’s almost like both english and japanese started out with a simple, common word for the lights in the sky - star/星 , but as we found out more about what these lights actually were, english doubled down on using the common word for the specific scientific concept, while japanese kept the common word generic and instead came up with a new word for the more specific concept. If this is actually what happened, I’d guess that kanji probably had something to do with it - 星 as a component kanji exists inside the word for planet, 惑星, and in the word for comet, 彗星, and in the scientific word for “star”, 恒星, so it makes sense that it would indicate a more general concept when used standalone.

This discovery helped me understand that quote - categories don’t exist in the world, we are the ones who create them. I thought that the concept of “star” was something that would be consistent across all languages, but it’s not, because the concept of “star” is not pre-existing. Each language had to decide how to name each of those similar star-like concepts (the ★ symbol, hot balls of gas, twinkling lights in the sky, planets, comets, etc), and obviously not every language is going to group those concepts under the same words with the same nuance.

Knowing this, one might be tempted to say that 恒星（こうせい） is the direct translation for “star”. But this isn’t true either. In most of the contexts that the word “star” is used in english, the equivalent japanese will be simply 星. Despite the meanings not lining up exactly, 星 will still be the best translation for “star” most of the time. This is the art of translation - knowing when the particulars are less important than the vibe or feel of a word. For any word, there will never be an exact perfect translation with all the same nuances and meanings. Translation is about finding the best solution to an unsolvable problem. That's why I love it.

[prokopetz]

"But doesn't having a notion of 'balanced' combat inherently imply that all combat encounters are expected to be fair and winnable" well, no – it implies only that the GM has the ability to know whether a given combat encounter is fair and winnable.

There's a story that's been going around for decades about a Dungeons & Dragons party who encountered a large room full of treasure while exploring a dungeon. Immediately suspicious, they asked their GM a series of detailed questions about the room, but no obvious dangers were identified. Satisfied, they moved into the room – and were immediately set upon and eaten by the dragon that had been sitting atop the pile of treasure the whole time, which the GM hadn't mentioned because the players never specifically asked about the presence of living creatures within the room.

While this is obviously an extreme and ridiculous case, it illustrates an important point: as GM, you're the group's eyes and ears. If you don't describe something, the player characters literally can't see it – that dragon was effectively invisible from their perspective. The trick is that active malice isn't the only way to invisible-dragon your players; a group can also find themselves invisible-dragoned because the GM simply failed to provide sufficient information for the risk in question to be identified. This can happen through neglect, but it can also happen because the GM themself was unaware that the risk was present.

Now, hold on, you might be saying: the GM "plays" the entire world. How is it possible for the GM not to know that a risk is present? Well, that brings us back around to the subject of combat balance.

A game in which "balanced" combat is a meaningful thing to discuss is typically going to be one in which both the players and the GM are actually making strategic, tactical, and/or logistical decisions, rather than merely producing a description of their characters making such decisions. Without a good handle on the interplay of these decisions, it's completely possible for the GM to be wrong about the level of risk the scenario they've constructed entails.

That's actually pretty critical, because even if you don't care about the game being fair and winnable (and that's a perfectly valid stance), your players are still depending on you to be their eyes and ears, and to give them enough information to make good decisions about whether the fight in front of them is one they can win. A game where not every fight is expected to be winnable needs to be a game where the players have the opportunity to walk away.

No matter how objective you try to be, your own sense of the answer to that question is inevitably going to colour how you communicate about it. You being wrong about the level of risk at hand inherently increases the chance that your players will make bad choices. The party eating a TPK because they made a stupid decision is one thing; the party eating a TPK because they made a decision that looked reasonable from their perspective based on your unwitting miscommunication of the level of risk involved is quite another!

Sure, once the dice hit the table I'm probably going to realise that I fucked up, and I can adjust things on the fly to bring the level of risk that's actually present in line with the level of risk I communicated – but that's extra work I don't need with everything else that's on my plate. And that's a best-case scenario; if I'm running the game for a hardcore let-the-dice-fall-where-they-may group (and such groups tend to have a pretty significant overlap with groups that are cool with not every fight being winnable), I may not be able to adjust the fight's parameters on the fly without violating the social contract of the table.

Basically, whenever I see an OSR game with tactically crunchy combat brag about how its author never even thinks about "balance", what that's telling me is that running this game is going to create a whole lot of extra work for me as a GM. This is not a selling point.

[justanotherbirdbrain-blog]

A Workshop for Creating Magical/ Fictional Crystals: A Guide from a Geologist

Hi folks, its me, here to talk about fictional writing again! Today I'm just tackling the idea of magical stones/mana stones by looking at existing minerals today and some neat properties that they have, and how you can apply these things to a fictional world. The goal is mainly to help you if you are stuck trying to come up with a unique magic system, or a unique identification/characteristic of your mineral.

First Things First: Mineral Shapes

I am exhausted, petered out, down-right fatigued by seeing every mineral depicted with having the crystal structure of calcite and quartz. There are soooooo many cooler, more interesting crystal structures, don't you think you would stop and take a look at a perfect cube in nature? It is completely unsettling.

Second: Color

Color within minerals can either be really important, or not important at all! It is your choice to decide if color is going to be something that means something to your mineral. But what are some times when the color is important? Well.... there are some elements that are called chromophores, this classification just indicates that these elements, when present, will determine the color of whatever they are in. So, if you wanted to treat mana like a chromophore, you could say, "Oh everything that contains mana turns green!" This could mean that regardless of the mineral, if that mineral is a specific color, it means it contains mana. This concept is exciting because you can just stop here and use minerals that already exist! You can also use it as an indicator for a magical ore! Chromophores are typically metals, so if you are making a new metal weapon, making the ore of that metal a unique color would make a lot of sense!

However, your mineral can also just be every color of the rainbow like quartz and perhaps that's what makes identifying your mana stones elusive and create an illusion of scarcity that your character can solve.

There are other things that can change the colors of minerals, like radiation damage, and electron exchange, but I think that is beyond what would be helpful! So lets talk about some unique color properties that happen in nature that seem magical in the first place! Maybe you don't need to design a mana stone, but you want a unique gemstone that only the royal family passes down or something (IDK).

The first one is the alexandrite effect! This is where a mineral can change color in natural light vs. incandescent light. (the mineral itself is not changing, but the lights contain different amounts of different colors that then get absorbed by the stone). Even if you don't use electricity in your fictional world, you could have the colors change in the presence of light magic. This could create fun misunderstandings about what the mineral is reacting to!

Pleochroism

Pleochroism is something that most minerals have, it is frequently used to help identify minerals in thin sections, however minerals are usually not pleochroic enough for it to be visible to the naked eye! Pleochroism is just a fancy name to describe the change in how light is absorbed based on the angle of the mineral! So if you scroll up to the first image where I showed a lot of crystal shapes, most of them have angles where they are longer and shorter! This will effect the way light travels in the crystal. Tanzanite is a popular mineral that does this.

Photochromism

This is when a mineral will change color (in a reversible way) when exposed to UV light (or sunlight), I am not going to go too into the details of why this is happening because it would require me to read some research papers and I just don't feel like it. The mineral that is best known for this is Hackmanite!

Alright! These are all the really cool color effects that might inspire you or maybe not, but now I am going to talk about how you might find your minerals within a rock!

When I see a lot of magical caves/mines, typically I see them with some variation of a geode honestly, but most minerals are not found like that! Now I am sure most of you guys have seen a geode, so I will not really talk about those, but I will talk briefly about porphyroblasts which is when the mineral grows larger than the minerals around it, this happens in metamorphic minerals!

sorry random stranger, but this is an image of garnets inside a finer-grained rock at gore mountain in New York!

Another way you might find minerals is in a pegmatite! This is when all minerals are really large! This is a formed from really slow crystalizing magma!

But something else to think about is that your mineral might just be massive, it doesn't have to have distinct crystals, it may be similar to jadeite where small grains grow together which leaves it looking smooth and seamless! A note about all of these is that you would have to mine into the rock to find these, there would not be any natural caves in these rocks! Caves are only ever really formed in limestones and maybe marbles (rocks that react with acid).

How can your characters identify these minerals?

Typically when you are out in the field you will look to see what type of rocks the minerals are found in (The overall texture of the rock will tell you how it formed). If you know how the rock formed, it will narrow down the amount of minerals you need to think about by quite a bit! Next, you are going to look closely at it and observe its crystal structure, does it have an obvious crystal? if so what is the general shape? If it is broken, how did it break? Did it fracture like glass or did it break along uniform planes. Some minerals have a thing called cleavage (breaks along planes of weakness). If a mineral exhibits this habit, it will again help narrow this down. Next we can look at color. Color can be misleading, because minerals like quartz can be any color imaginable, but minerals like olivine will always be green! The next thing your character can do is test for hardness, minerals all have a specific hardness that can help identify it as well.

After you go through all of this, your mineral might have some special property! This could be magnetism, fluorescence, reactions to acid, or any of the color changing effects I mentioned above! Other than that, your character can take it back to a lab and do a number of things to identify it, but the most typical thing would be for them to make a thin section (very thin piece of the rock) and observe it under a cross polarized microscope!

On that note folks! I hope this helped in some way in thinking of new magic mineral properties! I have other guides that explore some different fictional worldbuilding issues you might run into, but if you have any topics you would like me to cover please that I haven't mentioned already, let me know!