#like describing the weather

[padfootastic]

so i was rereading my stuff (as i often do lol) and came across one of my absolute favourite things i’ve ever written.

“it is my life’s biggest regret that it was my actions and my mistake that led to james’ death, to both their deaths. they were…the last people on earth who should’ve died so young. james and lily had so much life in them, so much left to give. and i will never forgive myself for the part i played in ending that light. i know i don’t deserve your forgiveness but i’m so sorry, baby.”

and despite sirius’ attempts to stem the tears, they spilled over anyway, and gosh, it ached to see this strong, proud man break down in front of him like this. harry didn’t think sirius deserved to feel this way, but he also knew a thing or two about (irrational) guilt and he knew it was an insidious, poisonous thing that crawled up your body, slowly killing you from the inside out. sirius had been carrying this inside him for a decade and a half, and he was only now letting himself feel the grief and the guilt and the loss, letting himself mourn properly. (and wasn't harry humbled at the thought that sirius considered him trustworthy enough to break down in his arms? it was frightening, the knowledge that he quite literally held his godfathers heart in his hands right now, because who was he kidding, he was the last potter left now who could grant him his absolution)

[uncanny-tranny]

Maturing is realizing the Waffle House Index is a shitty unit of "measuring" the severity of a catastrophe, and we should never have plainly and callously celebrated a company that is willing to sacrifice their employees during a hurricane for below-par food. We should never celebrate this, anyway, but the sheer level of crass jokes that are associated with this "metric" is uniquely cruel.

[guest-1-2-3]

I am realizing that the majority of the ships I love or have ever loved are “I am sarcastic and appear standoffish sometimes but I love deeply and care deeply and maybe my love language isn’t physical affection or words of affirmation or loud grandiose things but it is in the little acts of service and experiences we share that convey how much I love you.” and then “literally disaster chaos but very well-meaning and kind person who can and will say ‘I love you’ a million times and kiss and hug because they love loudly and they see past what most people see in the one they love.” People look at them and go “how are you dating that person they’re so opposite to you?” and they smile because they match so much more than people think. And they don’t need to love in the same way to be in love with each other.

[serpentface]

Do psychotropic drugs and/or ritual play a role in any of the blightseed cultures? A pretty broad question, lol

Yeah that’s a very broad question, the answer is about as much as it tends to play roles in real history. Alcohol is pretty ubiquitous (outside of cultures that abstain from intoxicants) and used for a variety of purposes, opioids are commonly used in some parts for pain relief or recreational purposes, stimulants (usually in mild, natural forms) are used to provide extra energy, and hallucinogens are most commonly used as part of a larger religious framework (rather than for recreational purposes). Any more elaborate answer kinda has to be case by case in a certain culture or part of the setting.

I'll just take this as an opportunity to talk about the one established sect that pretty much REVOLVES around psychoactive use. This is the Scholarly Order of the Root, which is a sort of mystery religion + elite community of scholars who currently occupy the Ur-Tree and its forest in the far southern Lowlands (southeast of Imperial Wardin, on the same land mass).

The Ur-Tree is the obligatory Huge Fucking Fantasy Tree (and its surrounding forest). It’s a mass of vegetation about a mile tall and almost as old as Plant Life Itself, its upper branches are primeval plants, which become more modern the nearer they get to the ground (and each 'level' holds tiny ecosystems, some containing descendants of LONG-extinct arthropods/other small animals). Its lowest branches and the surrounding forest are contemporary plant life, and all is connected and protected by an incomparably MASSIVE fungal mycelium network (which is itself a living god).

A lot of the Scholars' more secretive practices revolve around experimentation with substance use with the goal of expanding the Mind and transcending the body to fully connect to the Dreamlands, and they have a supply chain of traders and mercenaries called Rootrunners who traffic substances into the Lowlands. Most of their psychoactive use is in a very intentional capacity and not just like, for fun, but a LOT of them are just straight up addicted to cocaine (in the form of alchemically refined bruljenum, which is used for practical purposes of its stimulant effect during long hours of work).

All known psychoactives are desirable for experimentation (particularly hallucinogens), with each having properties that either allow expansion of the Mind, transcendence of the body, or outright divine communion. Their effects are logged in great detail and interpreted to form the basis of the Scholars' understanding of the natural world and reality itself.

The most important substance is Ur-Root, which is root matter from subterranean levels of the Ur-Tree that have both their own intrinsic psychoactive substances and a very, very high concentration of living god mycelium. The tree root contains DMT and the mycelium has its own wholly unique effects (being an actual living god). They alchemically refine it into a purer, more potent form, and use it to expand beyond the body and directly commune with the Giants, a group of entities they have identified as the only true gods.

An Ur-Root trip starts off with minor visual distortion, which turns into shifting fractals that slowly obscure the vision. Eventually the senses are entirely taken over by a 'tunnel' of rapidly shifting fractals and geometries. In a complete trip, the experiencer gets a sense that they have been pushed through a membrane and entered another realm, finding themselves in a distinct experiential Space.

At this point they may encounter entities which communicate to them in a language impossible to describe but wholly understood. These beings are understood to be the Giants, or at least aspects of the Giants that mortals are capable of comprehending (they often take familiar tutelary forms of the Mantis or the Snake, or appear resembling the same type of sophont that the experiencer is, all composed of ever-shifting geometries). The experiencer often feels a sense of unconditional and endless love from these beings, though the Giants may be more hostile and may appear in the form of the Trickster (usually a cultural figure regarded as malicious, be it an animal or otherwise) in a bad trip.

(^Up until this point, this has mostly just been a DMT 'breakthrough' experience ft. 'machine elves' and the like).

They are then removed from this space and returned to something that feels like the real world, but is nearly unrecognizable. They have a sense of rapidly moving through time, and will usually see 'the spires' towards the beginning, which just so happen to look like this:

(source + some context via Implication- the spires are exactly what this art is depicting)

The experiencer continues to move across an unfathomable amount of time, occasionally 'seeing' other such flashes of unfamiliar landscapes and creatures, and yet also being devoid of all their senses, the 'seeing' is pure, unfiltered experience. There is a sense of interconnectedness with all life, and that one has become the forest (or even Life) itself. The sense of time is wildly distorted, the trip lasts only about 5 minutes but feels like an eternity and is understood as literal hundreds of millions of years.

The experiencer has usually lost any remaining sense of Self and individual consciousness during this phase (in which case this time distortion is usually a neutral or even peaceful experience), but some retain a fraction of their identity, and find themselves trapped and conscious while experiencing what feels like eternity (which can be LIFE-CHANGINGLY distressing, even after the fact).

(^This latter part of the trip is the effects of the Ur-Tree fungus).

The trip ends with a sense of rushing through the ground and back up into one's body, at which point they will abruptly return to their senses and consciousness. The details are then immediately retrieved via interview and recorded in immense detail. The whole experience is understood as having been full comprehension of the Dreamlands, communion with the Giants, and then a tour through the act of creation.

This is done as part of the initiatory practice into the inner mystery-religion of the scholars, and as needed for study by high scholar-priests. It is not taken lightly, both as it is absolute communion with the gods and reality, and in that it can be a very, very difficult experience. People who have gone through this often walk away with a permanently shifted perspective, often in a positive and/or comforting way- a sense of interconnectedness with all life, a peace with the concept of death, seeing less of a point in individual ego and the concept of Self, and comfort in the sense of divine love they (may have) experienced. This heavily influences the philosophy of the Scholars and has had effects by proxy in the religious worldviews of the region.

Details of this experience are closely guarded, and initiates are given absolutely no prior knowledge and expectations for their trip. This is seen as a necessity- their naivety will allow for a true, unfiltered experience, and can be used to gauge whether they should or should not be accepted. Those that have a distinctly bad trip upon initiation may be assumed to have been 'rejected' by the giants and thus denied full priesthood, though this largely depends on How they interpret their distressing trip- those who identify this as a test and harsh lesson in a journey to enlightenment may be accepted (as this is how fully initiated scholar-priests interpret and handle their bad trips).

This inner priesthood is only a small fraction of the Scholarly Order, and its greater function is as a hub of education and repository of knowledge, and Scholar-trained doctors can provide some of the best medical care available in the setting ('best medical care in this setting' only means so much but it's pretty solid, relatively speaking). Only a chosen few Scholars ever get to commune with the Ur-Root, and most of the divine secrets revealed in the process are kept hidden (though they indirectly influence the politics and worldview of the entire order).

[howdyboh]

I've nothing new so here's a drawing from the end of november I finally decided to post 🌷⛈️

[aurosoul]

[gxdcomplex]

I'm vanilla, baby

I'll choke you, but I ain't no killer, baby

[not-poignant]

You've never seen snow before?? Coming from a 907 area code, i think you nailed cold down pact. I don't think i could describe like a beach or something. Do you have resources that help you describe weather you are not familiar with?

Never seen snow! Okay no well I've seen it from a distance in a plane on a mountain, and I saw it from a distance once in the UK on a mountain, lol.

But up until those points, I hadn't even seen it on mountains up until my mid-30s.

As for resources, they're honestly kind of like "the same" as they are for everyone else - the internet, TV, books, etc. I say "the same" because not everyone knows how to research? But I enjoy researching stuff, and I like recreating the sense of things.

But I always did find it amusing that you know the first two really long fanfics I wrote on this site heavily feature snow, snowing, ice, blizzards, ice powers, cold temperatures and so on and meanwhile the place I live hasn't seen snow since like the dinosaurs. :D

[cloud-somersault]

Sorry, I just feel like the prose should have a personality 🤷

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[fastwiemagie]

Finally it's cold enough for this beautiful patchwork jacket

I thrifted this beautiful patchwork jacket (for 8€!!) at the beginning of summer. Totally the wrong season for it, as it's also lined with warm fleece fabric. But I knew I just had to wait. Winter is always coming. I'm really happy I get to wear it finally!

There's just one thing I'd like to change: this jacket didn't come with draw strings to make the hood tighter. That is a feature that's very useful for windy days, so I can prevent the hood from being blown of my head. I will have to do a quick-fix and add drawstrings myself.

[image description]

Picture 1: A close-up picture of Amy (me), looking kinda tired. She's a young, fat, white woman with glasses and long brown hair. It was on the way to work early in the morning, so tired is accurate (though I had a good nights sleep! Yay for that!). You can see the cute pointy end of the patchwork jacket hood. It's autumn now, so there are lots of layers: visible is the chunky knit fabric of my short-sleeved cardigan, it's a cosy knit in dark colours (black and red) mixed with some white specks. Also the black scarf with silver trees printed on it shows up a bit at the neck. Otherwise, the colourful patchwork jacket dominates!

Picture 2: A close-up picture of a public bench, with my light purple backpack sitting on it. A pink tote a bag with a white flower print (total with green stems and leaves!) is laying next to the backpack. You can see the trees are slowly changing colour and the first fallen leaves are down on the grass.

Picture 3: A mirrored image of Amy (me). Amy's a young, white, fat woman with long brown hair and glasses. She's wearing black jeans and shoes, but the top is way more colourful: You can see a bright red cardigan peaking out under her patchwork jacket. And the patchwork jacket itself is a riot of colours!! There's vibrant orange, red, purple, green, blue.... and embroidery of leaves, flowers and spirals on top! [/image description]

[beholdthemem]

The trouble with living in the land of never ending summer is that sometimes you write about people who live somewhere it actually gets cold, and then you are confronted with the fact that you have no idea how to dress them.

[genderqueer-miharu]

Last year climate change hit us hard because with the hottest months in recent times and now it hit us again but in the opposite way with the coldest days in recent years

[skyriderwednesday]

If you hear me hooting in the distance, it's because my arbitrary decision to base my chronology on the original Strand versions of the stories has just paid off.

So it briefly came up through Letters From Watson that there are two openings to The Resident Patient, since when he decided to omit The Cardboard Box from Memoirs, ACD rescued its opening and grafted it onto Resident Patient. We read the 'grafted' opening with LFW, which makes the setting an unusually hot and muggy October.

However, in the original opening, it's instead cold and windy, and Watson notes that it was "towards the end of the first year during which Holmes and I shared chambers in Baker Street".

Therefore, as originally published, The Resident Patient takes place in October 1881.

[hydrangeyes]

Playing Potion permit for a few days straight and while I LOVE it, I also have alot of.... thoughts.

Like I love love love this game, genuinely sat down blink and it's been a month non stop.

So with that said...

Let's just narrow it to romanceable:

- look, I was so happy I could romance Victor (I loved him first and soooo glad I got this legit after the update).

- I like matheo purely out of spite and wanting to give him a frustrated kiss on the lips.

- WHY CAN'T I ROMANCE THE TWINS? specifically Collin???? Like hello????

- but like, also: Moira, Dev, Nova (I said what I said), Rinehart, Lucke, Yorn (god please legit first bestie I made I love him so much), hell Opalheart (anothe I said what I said), Derek or Dean! Freakin' Dan also! (Edit: I just found out that Dan and Dev are the same person- split personality? Huh????)

Just. Why is Rue an option???? I legit thought she was AT MOST 12. 😮‍💨

Anyway, idk maybe It's because I just started actually romancing but it feels so.... last minute thought of? Like the actual dating part? Just odd the heart bar is completely maxed if you've only been on 1 date.

I wanna focus on this because if I focus on other aspects, I'll just get sad and go play stardew to clear my head.

Cause I am HEATED about how the resources are just... so small and the stamina bar being what it is.

Someone needs to make a mod to have these folks romanceable plsssssssss (I'm not at the point where I wanna make them myself tbh 🙃)

I was so ready to romance Osman till I found out he's already married 😮‍💨 another bestie I made, and I like that he worries about our well-being

[bearsgrove]

"oh wow i thought that was an animal but that was a whole ass grown up adult man" my friend after i made an inhuman noise last night