#just to live out this specific fantasy

[sketchyorsomething]

Is it just me or is the reason little girls want to do horseback riding the wish to go on a ride at sunset through the woods and at the sea with no one else around you but your horse?

Basically the wish to be independent with no one telling you what to do and to be free?

[bacchuschucklefuck]

while teen while goblin while aroace while injured while doing your best

[serpentface]

What exactly are living gods in the blightseed universe?

Ok here's the (DANGEROUSLY vestigial at this point) Meta Deeplore:

There is a material form of energy that is utilized by biological bodies essentially as an animating force. This IS the vaguely defined, extremely ambiguous magic in the setting. It is what produces the actual experience of Consciousness and can be basically considered 1:1 with conscious experience. All life utilizes this energy (whether actually conscious life in the traditional sense or not).

It cannot be created or destroyed, and rather follows pathways of dispersal between one material plane and a parallel plane. This parallel plane is 'the ether' 'the dreamlands' etc, and has its own matter. Discrete entities from the dreamlands are essentially formed as a byproduct of consciousness and, when interacted with, are deeply susceptible to the influence of conscious Thought (they are essentially matter organized By consciousness and can be reorganized by consciousness)

These are the entities that can become living gods. Dreamlands fauna occasionally slips into prime material reality, at which point they are directly under the influence of consciousness and can be transformed. Dreamlands fauna in of itself is not directly perceivable but produces a sense of Presence, like the feeling of being watched when alone in the wilderness, a 'third man effect', a sense of inexplicable awe or fear, seeing shadows from the corner of your eye, etc. The combination of their tangible effects and their susceptibility to consciousness creates a self-reinforcing cycle that produces living gods.

IE: if one is on a forest and people experience the sensation of its presence, belief that there is some entity there may develop. This will follow the lines of the cultural worldview- say there are already beliefs in spectral hounds that encounter travelers at night, it might be interpreted as a location-specific hound, given a name and identity through stories. This in turn causes the dreamlands fauna to physically embody that form and the assumed qualities, and people will start having absolute materially real encounters with it, thus reinforcing the initial beliefs that created it and generating new elements of the mythology. This is what a living god is.

They need persistent, localized, and coherent beliefs to hold their forms. If a village creates a living god and is then wiped out in a disaster, the god will gradually lose its form and return to its initial state of a sense of Presence. This is also a limiting factor on the 'size' and power of a living god, if an entire religion formed around it and became a widespread phenomena, the living god itself cannot 'keep up'. It is sustained on direct and localized interactions, so belief becoming widely dispersed (especially if the localized belief is lost) will cause it to gradually become less discrete. The effect of this property is that living gods are almost always minor deities or spirits tied to a specific location by a specific nearby culture. A lot of deities in larger religions may have once had a living god component that is now indiscrete.

The living god of the Ur-tree is an unusual exception in that it was created over millennia, basically by the survival instincts of the Plants it interacts with, and has held its form over hundreds of millions of years due to this being ubiquitous and un-susceptible to cultural change. The only thing that could 'kill it' is if its forest was entirely destroyed.

So 99% of living gods can be described as thoughtforms created by the process of folkloric/religious development. They are created BY people and not the other way around, and nothing about their nature confirms or denies the existence of other deities or etc.

And yeah I'm going to be 100% real I am REALLY tempted to dump even this extremely ambiguous magical element like it is soooooooooooooooo fucking NOT important to the setting at this point. I've kind of allowed 'literal god entities created by mortal belief' to be just a tiny part of the world's fabric by their nature, like it works within the worldbuilding for such a hugely significant concept to ultimately be insignificant in the overall framework, so I COULD just Leave It but idk. If it were not for me wanting to still have my big fucking god tree and a talking dog as an actual character it would be out of here soooo fast..........

[pacifistcowboy]

thinking about espio “overly dramatic and a fan of the traditional way of doing things, probably including romantic gestures” the chameleon and silver “massive fan of gardening and plants and nature” the hedgehog. something something silver loves flowers and flowers are a very customary romantic gift

espio would make silver a bouquet and go out of his way to choose flowers specifically for their meanings, and silver would actually know what all the meanings are and find this to be the sweetest and most romantic thing anyone has done ever. espio will be riding this high for months.

[ta-bajna-cerna-okybaca]

Now that I finally got to play TWST diasomnia chapter 1 myself, I'm gonna need everyone who said Malleus was a baby throwing a tantrum for no reason to pay me 2000 dollars each

[sskk-manifesto]

Ep 5!!!

[lavellane]

i was so set on replaying veilguard for the davrinmance but oh my god im SO attached to my agent-of-fenharel hardingmancer rn i actually think the choice is out of my hands lol

[electriccenturies]

i think i could write a really good essay on the danger days fandom and what it functions as for those who engage (myself included). i think i can explain exactly why certain people who are into certain other things are drawn to it, and why it so often devolves into just Identity Category Soup™ instead of deeper worldbuilding or storytelling. And also why people get something out of that soup.

The story doesn't really exist (and what does kinda sucks) but I think, the way fandom ends up with it, it's ultimately about regaining control and achieving small-scale victories in the midst of a larger, obviously unwinnable conflict. It's escapist fantasy that boils down impossible-scale real world issues (corruption, bigotry, capitalism, rigid social roles) into ones you can directly interact and engage with. A world so small that you can shout over those in power. A world so small that you can just... opt out of it.

Truthfully, IRL there is nowhere you can go to get away from, say, gender roles... but in DD world you can say "fuck that, I'm moving to my alternative society which not only exists, but thrives" and then do it. I do NOT think gerard intended it this way specifically (you can read it as being about lots of things and also he's said as much) but yes of course becoming a killjoy is a perfect allegory for transition.

[pa-pa-plasma]

are americans really not allowed to bring food into movie theatres? are you guys okay?

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

The Endless Sea Between Us

sapphic fantasy romance between a witch who lives in a sea cave after her family died and was cast out from her village, and an banished mermaid who’s curious about humanity

they create a magical rune to swap species, both desiring the freedom each other’s homes promise

but when they start to grow closer the mer-turned-human is kidnapped by a witch-hunting prince and taken to his castle, and the witch must chase them down to save her

f/f, demi MC

[bacchuschucklefuck]

space sweepers but they're delivery people and are at no point on screen through the entire movie

[breitzbachbea]

Hmmmmmmmmmmm not to sound like most of my fandom mutuals, but someone put that blonde man on a leash.

[fictionadventurer]

For the ask game:

Title: As Falls the Midnight Moon

Genre: fantasy (any sub-genre)

As Falls the Midnight Moon by Jodie Akres

In the secret-filled city of Verram, knowledge is power. Restia, the unassuming caretaker of the city's archives, knows this better than anyone, so when a thief gets away with a secret that could bring down an empire, Restia takes to the dark and winding city streets to track him down. Her journey entangles her with ruffians, gamblers, smugglers, and some of the most powerful men in the city, but she will do whatever it takes to track down the document before the moon sets.

[sonnburn]

I’ll never understand the appeal of fanservice.

Like, am I alone in absolutely not caring about celebrities real lives at all? I love the things they make (like the characters they play or the music they make) but I usually know next to nothing about who the actor/musician/artist etc. is behind it and I don’t want to. Those are real people, not content for me to consume. I want them to have privacy and I regard them as completely separate entities from the things they make.

Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one with this hard line separating fiction and reality.

[seijorhi]

as everyone else has said, please take you’re time. your writing is worth waiting for 🫶🫶

also, the scion oikawa question you got about him sleeping with other people made me think, would that kind of thing be more likely in the fics with group yanderes like bonten or even the hq teams? since obviously reader can’t be with all of them all the time, would they seek out (purely for sex) other girls just to fill the need? or is it still a no like your response about oikawa

Thanks nonnie <33

Tbh again the concept of the yanderes I write fucking anyone aside from the object of their obsession (the reader) really isn’t something I’m all that interested in putting that much thought into ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

If that’s how you wanna headcanon the characters go right ahead, it just ain’t for me