#naturally i want to build on the concept and explore what it means in the context of 'jake english's fucked up brain' rather than just

[ultjade]

personally i like to give jake a brain ghost aranea just because i think it would be really exciting and fun. for me not for him. it would be hell for him

[g3l3mb]

how to generate creative ideas:

(i need to get this out of my brain)

Make moodboards, playlists, keep a list of people who inspire you. Before starting a project think about the general vibe you want it to embody. Ask questions like “What would this concept sound like if it was a song?” ,“What would this concept be like if it was a person?”. Create a shirt that looks like a building you like, literally anything can be combined.

Take unrelated things or concepts and mix them together. Let’s take Addams Family as an example. “What if it was a story about a typical suburban family…but GOTH!”. It basically flips everything upside down. Or “What outfit would someone wear, who’s personality is the mix of the vibes of these two songs?” Random word generators are amazing for this if you don’t know where to start from.

Try making something truly BAD and then add a twist to it. It’s a great way for your brain to let go of expectations and then think outside of the box. But you can also use this to find out what you do not wanna do under any circumstances.

Think without worrying about the limits of what you can do and when it’s time for excecution, find a way around what’s impossible. It births more creativity and adds uniqueness.

Consider what your idea is NOT before considering what it is. Limits are the best way to avoid getting overwhelmed and giving up. Don’t ALWAYS do this though (unless you wanna…), it’s just something to try out when you feel like you’re seeing too many possibilities to the point that they’re contradicting each other. Unless your goal is to make something full of contradictions, you’re a Free Man, do whatever you want.

Keep a list of random ideas you have throughout the day in your notes app or something and then at some point actually review them. Keep what you think is worth exploring and then act on it.

Find out how something works very throughoutly so you know which aspect can be changed to create something new.

Take a concept and break it down into smaller concepts, ideas, questions, key elements and then also break those ideas down etc. This will naturally lead to associations, unique ideas you wouldn’t think of without doing this. I found that this is a great way of coming up with metaphors.

This one is similar to the last two: take a piece of art you really love and try to find out the thought process behind. What’s the story, where did the artist get inspiration from, how did they incorporate those ideas in their work. How did an artist combine their personal interests and knowledge into one big thing. For example: Tolkien was an erudite linguist, so much so that he created entire functional languages in his work, such as Elvish in Lord of the Rings. Hirohiko Araki loves 80’s music so much he named characters in Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure after music references. This is why no knowledge is useless knowledge.

Think about the times you’ve been the most creative before. What were the specific circumstances? For me my best ideas always come when I have a strict deadline for something unrelated, like school (which I’m way too willing to sacrifice), or when I’m doing something mindless like walking and listening to music, or playing a game that requires no thinking. Most of the time after 10p.m. This doesn’t mean I can’t ���force” myself to be creative (tips above), it just means these are the times ideas come most naturally. For some people this might be being out in nature or experiencing high emotions, maybe having their life on the line idk, to each their own.

You can’t just create. You also need to consume. The more information you absorb, the more possibilities you have with your ideas. So if you’re not feeling that creative, that’s fine, it’s the perfect opportunity to learn something new.

If you don’t already do these things and you’re looking to get more creative my advice is to ACTUALLY TRY THESE OUT. You’ll best understand them in action.

[max1461]

only tangentially related but sometimes I wonder if survivorship bias makes us view modern art as less than older art, that time and cultural memory acts as a natural bullshit filter, that actually people were just as vapid and pretentious back then, but none of the vapid and pretentious work had enough cultural value stick around to be examined now

I think it's partly this, but it's partly something else.

This is probably gonna piss a lot of people off, but I think in a particular sense, contemporary art is just... straightforwardly more advanced than older art. I know, I know, but hear me out: I don't mean that as a value judgement. What I mean is like...

Ok, take math as an example. Math started out talking about things that everybody's heard of: triangles, circles, whole numbers. But as those concepts were better understood, they got abstracted more and more. Symmetries of shapes where abstracted to symmetry groups, numbers abstracted to rings and fields, eventually it was all abstracted to category theory, and so on. And now if you look at major research topics in modern math, things like e.g. the Langlands program, as a non-expert, it often looks like a bunch of fucking nonsense about bullshit objects that don't have anything to do with the real world! But even though I don't understand the Langlands program itself, I know enough math to understand why all the levels of abstraction that I have understood are meaningful and valuable, and I can see why going even further would be too. And math is useful enough that the results often speak for themselves.

So I think contemporary art is much like this. If you read contemporary art theory, you will immediately see that it is all very meta. Art used to be made about very concrete things—people and nice looking vistas and so on—that anyone could understand. And then theorists came along and built up frameworks for thinking about art, because they wanted to understand why that art worked, why it was powerful and emotive. And then new, avant-garde artist came along and made art about the frameworks, pushing at their edge-cases or exploring their unintuitive implications. And then new frameworks were built up to understand that art, rinse and repeat. This account is, as I understand it, a little bit ahistorical—the building and the pushing of frameworks was often simultaneous and often not clearly articulated. Although, frankly, the same could be said for the history of math. But in retrospect I think a pretty undeniable picture emerges.

So, to put it bluntly, I think one of the reasons so much contemporary art looks vapid is that it isn't for you. It's about things you've never heard of, in the same way that category theory is about spaces and morphisms, and explaining that to someone who's never heard of groups or topological spaces is basically impossible. And I think there are some differences—art is obviously, you know, totally vibes based in a way that math isn't. If a big wire sculpture with styrofoam cups on it or whatever doesn't speak to you then it doesn't speak to you, no one can defend it on "objective" grounds. And art isn't useful in the way that math is, so it doesn't demonstrate its validity to people who don't get it in any way. But what I wish people understood is that there are people, who know a bunch of art theory and art history, who that wire sculpture with styrofoam cups on it does speak to. It makes them go "oh, I love how it plays off of X and contrasts with Y" etc. etc. And that isn't going to happen for you because, like, you don't know what X or Y even are! But that doesn't make it valueless, it just makes it insular. Which, you know, contemporary art really is! I think there are a lot of contemporary artists who claim to not be doing what I just described, who claim to be making art "for everybody", but I think if you read their artist statements and stuff it often becomes pretty clear that this is not the case. And this is a valid criticism of contemporary art! But "vapid" is mostly not.

Pretentious, definitely. It's pretentious as fuck.

[shinidamachu]

inukag was born to be shipped by me and I was born to ship inukag as well

For ages now I've been meaning to write about the reasons why I ship Inukag as fervently as I do and @inukag-week felt like the perfect opportunity to indulge myself, so here we go.

I want to start with how aesthetically pleasing they are. From their perfect size difference to the complimentary color scheme of their outfits plus contrasting hair and eye colors, Inuyasha and Kagome just look absolutely good together.

Their character design makes it clear from the get go that they're visually a great match. The association is so strong that the audience becomes unable to picture one without the other, as if they're two halves of the same item. Different, yet unequivocally a team, a pair.

Decades ago, they already had that classic quality to them and I bet they'd never get out of style even decades from now. And the rich lore that surrounds the pairing only adds to that aesthetic: the well, the tree, the beads, the robe, the sword, all of it enhances how iconic they are. Even something as ordinary as star gazing becomes uniquelly theirs.

Futhermore, I just absolutely love the entire concept of it. The subvertion of the fairy tale archetype, the idea of a love that transcends time, of soulmates who actually work on building their bond. Loving each other was both inevitable and a choice they made every single day.

Inuyasha and Kagome were just two teenagers from different worlds — literally and figurativelly — discovering together what love was. This made their relationship very compelling, because the excange between them is insanely substancial.

And their overall dynamic is so wholesome. There was a push and pull, a give and take, that made it fluid rather than static. Every single milestone felt organic and kept the audience thirsting for the next one.

Nothing felt forced or rushed. The slow burn was competently written to showcase their relationship being build on a very strong foundation, consistent in intimacy, mutual trust and acceptance — recurring themes for them and for the story — and so the stages of their bond had such a natural pace, it highlighted how genuine and healthy it was.

Consequently, there are so many aspects of their connection to explore. There's a never ending room for angst and for light hearted moments and you can adopt a more mature perspective or go for comical instead: they manage to be versatile without being generic and to embod the best clichés in fiction without becoming one themselves.

It's hard to think of a trope they couldn't pull off or an alternate universe that doesn't work for them. It gives the fandom plenty of freedom to be creative and to have the best time with it.

Plus, their chemistry was off charts. The romantic tension bleed through every single interaction. Their passion is so strong you could feel it even in scenes that had nothing to do with romance. And they didn't even need to kiss to achieve that level of synchrony.

They were also compatible. Inuyasha and Kagome balance each other quite nicely. Even in a relationship, they still keep their individualities and remain interesting both as characters and as a ship.

The very thing that dooms most pairings — opposite personalities — is precisely what keeps them together. Inuyasha and Kagome are completely different from each other, but they're actually extremely similar where it actually matters: their morals and goals.

And they longer they stay together, challenging one another, growing through trials and tribulations, inadvertently learning what each other's needs are and fulfilling them, easing each other's sorrows, covering each other's backs, saving each other's lives in every possible way, learning each other and learning with one another, the more their dichotomy turns into a duality, because they gain a more nuanced perspective of themselves, of each other and of the world.

It's a level of understanding, closeness and respect incredibly difficult to match. And for Inuyasha and Kagome, no one else even came close.

Another thing is that they're not just complementary to each other, but to the story itself. Their romance enhaces the overall plot. It has a structural placement in the wider narrative, strengthening its core themes and fulfilling the characters individual arcs, ultimately resulting in a more compelling journey.

So many romances are disposable to their own story, but Inukag was detrimental to theirs. Inuyasha and Kagome's interactions served as pivotal points of their respective arcs. Taking only the narrative into consideration, their relationship holds a lot of weight and greatly influenced everyone around it and it tied everything together.

That's why their happy ending felt so satisfying: it feels earned because everything went full cycle. All of that symbolism, all of those parallels paid off. Anything different from what we got would simply lack narrative and thematic cohesion.

And even if they didn't end up together, they could never be circumstancial. There was a real reason why they met, a reason why the fell in love and why they had ever lasting impacts on each other's lives regardless. It wasn't just love for love's sake.

This is what makes them, in my opinion, an epic ship.

BONUS: their soundtrack is lit and their quotes are simply legendary.

[picnokinesis]

plottier / character focused thirteenth doctor fic recs

Ipseity by WalkerLister (43k, 10 chapters, gen) summary: Eight months since the Doctor sacrificed herself on Gallifrey, and Yasmin Khan is still struggling to move on. However, when she comes across a familiar face who is not acting like herself, Yaz may finally get the answers she has been looking for surrounding the Doctor. However, those answers will be revealed in a way a bit more dangerous than she had been anticipating. //Okay, so no one is surprised that I like the amnesiac!divisioned!13 fic, but in my defence, it's absolutely fabulous. This one was written waaaaay back in mid-2020, so we all knew that 13 was in prison and everyone was pretty sure that Jack was coming back due to some bts detective work, but that was about it - so, for obvious reasons, it doesn't align with ROTD, but it's such a fun one, guys, I love it a lot. Also, y'know, thirteen in a leather jacket and snarling at people? What more could you want?

don't have to make it to the moon by Ymae (28k, 7 chapters, gen/thoschei) summary: After New Year's, Ryan decides to stay traveling in the TARDIS for another little while. Only, the Doctor's rarely alright, and between experiencing the wonders of the universe, Ryan wants to figure out what's happening to his friend, too. //I love Ryan so much. He's such a wonderful character and I always love it when fics focus on him, or have him as the pov character. Unfortunately, fics like that are a bit few and far between, but this is one of them, and it's absolutely fantastic. It really delves into his character, but also his dynamic with the Doctor (especially after he talks to her in ROTD and she admits that she's scared and angry), and it's just auuuuuuugh so good!! And, it's also go some great whump and psychic content, with the Master showing up to cause trouble, alongside some gorgeous world-building, so I enjoy it very very much.

Ghost War by riptheh (25k, 1 chapter, gen) summary: All the Doctor wants to do is pass the time, and help a friendly face. So when a young man with a strange tattoo and a psychic wound shows up, she dives right into the mystery - and finds herself flung far into the future, mindwiped and alone, fighting a war that by all rights, shouldn't exist at all. A war she could help end, if only she could figure out who she is. //Oof, this one. It's absolutely stunning. This author really has a way of taking some absolutely fascinating and mind-bending concepts and just running with it, and just nails it each time. I feel like the less I say about the plot of this one, the better, because it sort of unfolds as you go, but please just trust me when I say that it's absolutely fantastic.

Lifelines by Sue_Denham (40k, 11 chapters, gen, wip) summary: Lifeline: a thing on which someone or something depends, or which provides a means of escape from a difficult situation. Set just after the events of Spyfall, the Doctor has a few things to work through. //Okay this fic is one of my favourites that's been posting over the last year or so - it's a brilliant exploration of Graham and Thirteen, and how different races deal with loss, guilt and death. I honestly think the best kind of sci fi takes concepts that we sort of take for granted, and then shows them in a completely new light. That's what this fic does. Also, Graham is just wonderful for the entire thing - though, as a note, Yaz and Ryan do end up somewhat side-lined, so bear that in mind if you're particularly looking for fics about those two, but I forgive it because it's such a great look at Graham and the Doctor. It feels like a character focused tie-in novel, y'know? Also it's pretty angsty in places, naturally, but that's what I'm here for haha.

Disordered by Echo (44k, 7 chapters, jack/13) summary: Messing with memories is always a risky business. Messing with your own memories, now that's just asking for trouble. The Doctor is very good at asking for trouble. And Jack is very good at finding it. //Ohhhhh okay so. This has been one of my absolute favourite Doctor Who fics for a long while. Definitely the shippiest of this list, but it's so lovely and such an excellent look at the Doctor facing the consequences of trying to get back her Division memories in the aftermath of s12, as well as the relationship between the Doctor and Jack across multiple regenerations. It's just so so good, flowing smoothly from very angsty to very soft, and the Doctor and Jack's voices are just spot on (especially considering that we see different versions of the Doctor, this is a particularly impressive note). Highly recommend!

The Trial of the Doctor by wreckageofstars (20k, 5 chapters, gen/thasmin, wip) summary: Haven is a planet at the edge of time, on the brink of destruction. Ravaged by the Time Lords and a war that time forgot, its people are desperate for justice before it’s too late, and the Doctor might be the only being left in the universe who can provide it — because she was the one who started it. So why can't she remember doing it? //Okay okay so, this one has only recently started posting but I've known about it since about 2020 and ohhhhhhhhhhh my goodness, GUYS. If you're not following this one, you need to be. It's a mix between Doctor Who at it's finest, Kafka at it's most unsettling, and Douglas Adams at it's most absurd, and it's delightful. There's so much in this one, and as always this author is just spot on with all the characterisation - especially Thirteen, who suddenly finds herself being prosecuted for a crime that she can't remember, and is forced into a situation where she's physically incapable of telling a lie. It. Is. Marvellous. Also there's a cockroach lawyer, whom I adore HAHA

lighthouse keeper by BlueLillyBlue (57k, 12 chapters, gen) summary: The Doctor is missing, and the fam is concerned. Featuring Yaz being a badass, Ryan being a cutie, Graham being a granddad, Jack being Jack, and the Doctor's complicated moral code. Also: space prisons, galactic war, the Doctor's time war trauma, the Doctor caring about people in her own weird and repressive way, and, most importantly, Thirteen wearing Jack's coat. //Oh, this one is such a favourite of mine. It's very angsty, so if that's not your schtick then - well, then you're kinda scuppered for all of my recs, to be honest, but this one is a bit on the dark side. Oh, but it's fantastic. Again, this one feels like a tie-in novel, and this author (as I think I've said before) is just incredible at crafting these very vivid worlds and really hard-hitting stories. The situation is pretty dire and desperate, and the Doctor is often faced with the fact that not every plan works out, and sometimes the only choices are bad ones. It's just really excellent guys (also! Thirteen in Jack's coat!!)

angel ellipsis by SleepyMaddy (36k, 8 chapters, gen/thoschei) summary: When the Doctor and Yaz find a planet in ruins, they’re only half surprised to discover the Master is responsible. But when his plan backfires, suddenly they have no choice but to work with him to stop his former allies from tearing the universe apart. It goes about as well as one might expect. //OKAY SO. This one is SO much fun and SO great - in particular, if you like the Master being a tricky bastard, but also getting screwed over by his own plans? You'll love this one. Everything about it is so vibrant and brilliant, and aaaaaahh man it all comes together in such a satisfying way. As with many of the authors on this list, this author just really gets these characters and how they tick, with some absolutely beautiful prose, and it's just such a joy to read.

nothing in the dark that isn't there in the light by river_of_words (6k, 1 chapter, thasmin) summary: Two weeks since Yaz got the most confusing rejection she ever hopes to get and the Doctor seems to have decided to blame Yaz for every single one of her furiously conflicting emotions. At this point she’s sort of asking to get hit. And at this point Yaz is sort of curious to find out what the Doctor is going to say that’s going to make her meet that request. //These next two fics are a lot shorter compared to the others, but I really wanted to include both of them because they're great and SO interesting to me. With this one, it digs into the Doctor and Yaz's relationship in the aftermath of LOTSD, and the ways that the Doctor does not actually talk about anything but does also tell Yaz more than anyone else. It's about the frustration that builds between them and the way that they're still finding more comfort in each other than anyone else. It's also a little feral, which as a thoschei shipper, definitely had a lot to do with why I liked this one haha. Anyway, it's really fantastic - really quick paced and emotional, and packing a LOT of punches with mostly dialogue in a very effective way. Go read it!

we'll do it right by daring_elm (3k, 1 chapter, gen) summary: She's never really noticed Yaz's perfume before. Shoulders relaxing, nausea subsiding, the Doctor inhales again, filling her lungs with jasmine and sandalwood, steel and glowing crystals and her box out of time. She can be back with Yaz within minutes of her leaving. She can save the child, change the foundation of Gallifrey and still return to have a picnic on Soria T4.  //Okay so I loooove love love this one because I just adore it any time someone explores the Doctor's reaction to the Timeless Child stuff after the fact, and this one is just so wonderful. The characterisation is just fantastic, and then just the progressive spiral of the plot as we follow the Doctor on a mission that is doomed to fail by the nature of her own timeline. It's about how by trying to change the past, all you do is mess up your present and your future, and I love that a lot. Augh, it's a gut punch and a half - highly recommended!

[ianthe-is-a-bitch-and-i-love-her]

I've found that when I review a book that was on the whole quite good, but the element I was most interested in didn't quite play out the way I wanted it to, I tend to spend most of my word count on what I didn't like instead of what I did, so I'm going to try for a little more parity here. The Stars Too Fondly is a thoroughly enjoyable sci-fi romance with a lot to recommend it. It begins on a near-future Earth, twenty years after what was supposed to be the first of many missions to begin evacuating humanity to a new planet using a revolutionary new technology that would make interstellar travel cheap and easy failed dramatically and inexplicably on the launch pad, resulting in the cancellation of the program. A group of four postdocs who watched the failure live on television as kids break into the now-derelict launch facility determined to find out why the launch failed and what happened to the crew, all of whom vanished without a trace during the catastrophe. However, the ship inexplicably powers up and launches with them on board, and now they not only have to solve the mystery but also figure out how to survive their multi-year interstellar journey and return, with the help of the ship's onboard AI who, for some reason, has been programmed to be a perfect copy of the missing captain of the original expedition.

I really enjoyed the tone and setting of the book, which is much more Star Trek than it is The Martian, with much more focus placed on character drama, mystery solving, and moral dilemmas than logistical puzzle-solving. The influence of Star Trek: Voyager in particular are worn proudly in both plot elements - a holographic artificial intelligence with questions about her personhood, an unplanned years-long journey that the crew is trying to shorten - and smaller elements, such as the use of food replicators and even a direct reference to the show's most famous episode, Threshold.

The characters were solid and compelling, with engaging dynamics unique voices. I also, barring one personal gripe, really liked the book's exploration of queer experiences. If I found myself on an unplanned space mission, I would also be very concerned about how I was going to get HRT meds!

The book makes use of a combination of plausible hard sci-fi theories, which stopped me from giving the concept of a dark matter engine my usual obligatory eyeroll, and bonkers off the wall pseudo magic soft sci-fi. These elements synergized better than I was afraid they would, but the introduction of the softer elements was a little jarring. Also kinda like Star Trek actually.

The plotting was perfectly solid, though not extraordinary by any means. None of the twists and turns were particularly surprising, but neither did they come across as trite or formulaic. The themes weren't anything novel either, but they were well-supported and conveyed. The writing itself was mostly pretty good, with a few of the rough edges and structural oddities that I've come to expect from debut novels.

So now that I've actually given the book its due, I'm gonna dig too deep into what I found disappointing.

I've noticed a bit of a trend between the last few books I've felt really compelled by, and that's the idea of a character falling in love with someone who, by their very nature, they are not going to be able to have an "ordinary" relationship with. It's what drew me to Flowers for Dead Girls, which is about falling in love with a ghost. It's what drew me to Someone You Can Build a Nest In, which is about a psychologically and physiologically inhuman monster falling in love with a human. And it's what initially drew me to this book, which is about a human falling in love with the hologram of a dead woman - a space ghost, if you want, or a ghost in the machine, if you'd rather. All of these books take some pains to explore the rough edges of these relationships, where the participants' desires are stymied by their physical differences. However, where the previous two books end with the characters establishing an equilibrium of sorts where their needs are met, even if their relationship doesn't look like what society or their own imaginations expected them to look like, The Stars Too Fondly just neatly resolves things such that their differences are no longer a concern and they can have exactly what they imagined. And I found that to be cheap and unsatisfying, especially because the resolution only works if you really, really want it to work. When you start digging into it, it starts falling apart.

It's a symptom of a phenomenon I'm calling, "So You Want to Have Your Tragedy and Eat it Too". It arises when an author has an idea for a very compelling and evocative tragic event or outcome that results in rich character moments and strong thematic resonance and very profound emotions that they really want to explore... but it would also make the happy ending they want for their characters impossible, either because the rules they've established for their story mean that the damage can't be reversed, or because the change is such that, even if the conflict were apparently resolved, the characters have now been changed by the event that they can never be as they were before, and the happy ending is now emotionally impossible.

When this conundrum comes up in the writing process, the author has to decide - do they want to explore the rich possibilities of this tragedy, or do they want to go a different direction that allows for their originally desired happy ending. It's a difficult choice to make, and unfortunately, it's not uncommon for authors to think they can take a third option, that they can come up with a way to have their tragedy but still make things work out in the end. And the end result is a solution that doesn't hold up to scrutiny. That's what happens here, to the point that it's hard to read the last couple chapters because the main character reads like she's deluding herself that everything is fine and she's happy. And you know, that could've been a really interesting - and tragic - direction to go on purpose and explore, but it wasn't on purpose, and it just winds up feeling like the book is trying desperately to convince the reader that everything is alright, really! I can't help but compare it unfavorably to the conclusion of Lovelace's arc in The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, which confronted the fact that nothing could ever be the same again so unflinchingly that it gave rise to A Closed and Common Orbit, one of my favorite books of all time (that I completely forgot when I was trying to list some of my favorite books in a conversation the other day and now I feel like I've betrayed it).

And while I have you here, I also really hate that they made the transfem side character super into astrology. That's a personal bugbear, and while it's one I have grudgingly tolerated the singular time that I have seen a transfem author do it, I really, really wish non-transfem authors would knock that shit off. Find a different quirky interest to give to your transfem characters.

Still, on the whole, I thought it was a really solid book with a lot of entertaining and compelling elements. Unless you are reading it primarily for the logistical and emotional challenges of a romantic relationship between a ghost and a human, I would recommend it without hesitation. If you are, check out any of the other books I referenced in this post instead (except maybe for A Closed and Common Orbit, but if you're the kind of person who would like those other recommendations, I bet you'd like it too).

[marie-m-art]

A recurring feature that I like in Neil Gaiman's and Terry Pratchett's stories is the mundane and ordinary juxtaposed and blended with the extraordinary and fantastical.

There's a lot of humour derived from this, but it got me wondering if the concept also works as a theme under the surface of the humour, so I'll explore that idea a bit here with examples from Good Omens and Discworld.

First a look at the humour side, because it's fun, and so that people know what I'm referring to:

-In the opening sequence of Good Omens S1E1: an angel and a demon (fantastical beings) are conversing like ordinary people, using idioms like "Well that went down like a lead balloon", against a setting of biblical proportions.

-The Archangels' meeting in S2E6 discussing first the Second Coming ("Nah!"), and then next on the agenda is the cleaning roster.

-The visuals of heaven and hell in general - it's the subversion of expectations on what these places "should" look and function like - offices, clipboards, contracts, bureaucracy. This is humour and seems like theme/motif at the same time; the visual cues say a lot about heaven and hell and their role in this story.

-Death from the Discworld books owns an umbrella stand and a hairbrush, likes kitty cats, and rides a white horse named Binky.

-In Small Gods, the Great God Om is incarnated as a tortoise:

And it came to pass that in that time the Great God Om spake unto Brutha, the Chosen One:

'Psst!'

Next, looking at the concept's thematic or metaphorical potential.

The following excerpt gets me thinking about how people put outsized importance on mundane things, and about normalcy bias kicking in when a narrow mind is confronted with extraordinary events.

From Good Omens book (about RP Tyler):

It is a high and lonely destiny to be Chairman of the Lower Tadfield Residents' Association.

[…]

Your car is on fire.

No. Tyler just couldn't bring himself to say it. I mean, the man had to know that, didn't he? He was sitting in the middle of it. Possibly it was some kind of practical joke.

Next, a scene that makes me think about retreating into the mundane to cope, after being confronted with an extraordinary event.

From Good Omens S2E6:

Nina: Oh, God, I should've been open half an hour ago.

Maggie: How can you think about that after all this??

Nina: People need coffee, I sell coffee, it's my coffee shop.

And next, thinking about how the minutiae of the everyday distracts us from paying enough attention to big world issues (a bit of normalcy bias again too). 

From Good Omens book (when the horsepersons of the apocalypse arrive at the airbase):

No one stopped the four as they purposefully made their way into one of the long, low buildings under the forest of radio masts. No one paid any attention to them. Perhaps they saw nothing at all. Perhaps they saw what their minds were instructed to see, because the human brain is not equipped to see War, Famine, Pollution, and Death when they don't want to be seen, and has got so good at it that it often manages not to see them even when they abound on every side.

Next, two excerpts from Discworld books. At first I was thinking along the lines of needing to focus on the everyday because we can't spend all our time focusing on big existential stuff, or, how we take the wonders of nature for granted because of busy lives; but then I realized, I think it's actually a clever inversion of what we consider to be ordinary - that just being alive, against all odds, in the vast universe, is actually quite extraordinary.

From Small Gods:

And one of [the brain's] functions is to make the miraculous seem ordinary and turn the unusual into the usual.

Because if this was not the case, then human beings, faced with the daily wondrousness of everything, would go around wearing big stupid grins […] And no one would do much work.

Gods don't like people not doing much work. People who aren't busy all the time might start to think.

Part of the brain exists to stop this happening. It is very efficient. It can make people experience boredom in the middle of marvels.

[more going on in the above than just the subject of the post, but I'm narrowing the focus here]

From Hogfather:

THERE IS A PLACE WHERE TWO GALAXIES HAVE BEEN COLLIDING FOR A MILLION YEARS, said Death, apropos of nothing. DON'T TRY TO TELL ME THAT'S RIGHT.

"Yes, but people don't think about that," said Susan. Somewhere there was a bed …

CORRECT. STARS EXPLODE, WORLDS COLLIDE, THERE'S HARDLY ANYWHERE IN THE UNIVERSE WHERE HUMANS CAN LIVE WITHOUT BEING FROZEN OR FRIED, AND YET YOU BELIEVE THAT A … A BED IS A NORMAL THING. IT IS THE MOST AMAZING TALENT.

And a quote from Terry Pratchett himself, inverting ordinary/extraordinary (the whole video is great, by the way):

Within the story of evolution is a story far more interesting than any in the Bible. It teaches us amazing things: that stars are not important - there is nothing interesting about stars. Street lamps are very important, because they're so rare. As far as we know there's only a few million of them in the universe. And they were built by monkeys! Who came up with philosophy, and gods.

He also mentioned here that his impression after reading the Old Testament was: "If this is all true, then we are in the hands of a madman!" Off topic again, but relevant to some of what went into Good Omens I think.

Not sure if I've proved anything here, and that wasn't the goal, but it was fun to find some quotes for my brain to play around with!

[honourablejester]

Spelljammer Campaign Concept

Since I’m space-ttrpg brained at the minute. One thing specific to spelljammer’s Astral Sea setting that I really wish they’d added more to is the idea that it’s full of dead gods. And live ones, yes, but it’s the gargantuan celestial corpses that I’m interested in. (Which sounds weird when I say it like that, but anyway). There’s a canonical city, the githyanki city of Tu’narath, built on one of these corpses, and apparently in older lore Red Wizards of Thay pulled an artefact that beat like a heart out of it. There’s an idea that some aspect of divinity or even life still resides in some of these vast remains, some spark of godhood that provides power and even some animation to a thing long dead. In whatever sense gods can die.

And. Look. That is a hell of a concept to just throw out there and dismiss in a single sentence and small sidebar in your new setting book. I’m mad about it. Anyway.

The Astral Sea is littered with the corpses of dead gods, strange and forgotten deities from thousands of worlds. Strange beings that have become strange places, islands in a silver vastness, sometimes still pulsing with the echoes of divine life and perhaps divine natures. Places big enough to build cities on. Or dungeons in. Big enough to explore. Searching for what?

So. Picture this campaign. A mysterious backer is approaching the crews of adventurous spelljammer vessels, sponsoring expeditions to strange places in the Astral Sea. Terrifying places in the Astral Sea. The remnants of what were once gods, and now are bizarre islands full of strange magic and the echoes of old divine domains. This backer is searching for something specific from these sites, these corpses, and, on top of actual payment, is willing to allow crews to keep anything else they find on these expeditions for themselves, provided they bring everything they find back and allow the backer to examine them and choose a single item for themselves. Upon receipt of this item, they will pay the crew what they owe, and allow them to keep the rest.

This is because it’s not an item they’re searching for, as such. It’s a shard. A shard of lost divinity. A fragment of celestial life, still throbbing at the hearts of vast corpses. The form it takes will be different every time. The form of the deity will be different every time, and so the seat of their last remaining fragment of divinity will be different also. It might look, and feel, like anything. But the backer will know it when they see it. And they’ll pay for it.

They’re not going to say this, of course. They’re not going to tell anyone what they’re looking for. But they’re sending crews out. Maybe they’ve been sending crews out for a while. No one ages in the Astral Sea, so maybe they’ve been on this quest for time without meaning. One shard isn’t enough. Not for their purposes. Many of them are so small and so faded, bare motes of potential after aeons of death. They don’t want a single fragment of divinity, this person, they need enough to make a whole one. A whole divinity. Necromancy of the rudest sort, a frankensteined apotheosis. If you eat the fractured souls of enough dead gods, sooner or later, won’t you become one yourself?

I’m picturing an eldritch lich, personally. One that’s been listening to whispers from the Far Realm for far too long. A puppetmaster being puppeted themselves, maybe. What forces in creation have an interest in the ascension of a frankensteined god? What would the results be of a god made of pieces, torn fragments, of so many lost and disparate and unwilling dead deities? Any and all deities. Good, evil, alien, of any and all domains, scavenged and consumed into a single, roiling whole. What sort of divinity would result from so traumatic a process? And what would that divinity then do?

But all that’s in the future. An endgame perhaps aeons or only a few remaining shards down the line. For the moment, what’s being asked is this:

Travel the Astral Sea. Find the body of a god. Venture into its depths. Bring me everything you find.

Now. I’m going to take objection to the description of the dead gods provided in Astral Adventurer’s Guide, and offer a different direction:

“The Astral Sea is also where one can find the petrified remains of gods who were slain by more powerful entities or who lost all their mortal worshipers and perished as a result. A dead god looks like a gigantic, nondescript stone statue that bears little resemblance to the divine entity it once was. Githyanki, mind flayers, psurlons, and other natives of the Astral Plane sometimes turn these drifting hulks into outposts and cities, many of which are hollowed out beneath the surface.”

A giant nondescript statue that looks nothing like the deity once did. No. Boring. Even Tu’narath still has six arms, so there’s some resemblance happening there. And besides. It’s just cooler, more fun, more interesting, if the dead gods do resemble what they once were. If they are influenced by what domains they once held. Because then … the universe is your oyster.

They’re all different. All these island corpses. These slain gods. This is the Astral Sea. These are the deities of a thousand worlds and a thousand species and a thousand forgotten realms. They might look like anything. Shaped by the echoes of the god’s nature and its domains and its species. The dead sea god that looks like a vast alien whale, whose gut is filled with strange waters and strange creatures, and into whose belly the party must venture. A forgotten deity of knowledge whose vast skull now contains a calcified, crystalline ‘library’ with aeons of knowledge written in light onto spun fibres of crystal. A deity of madness, darkness and despair whose corpse is a labyrinthine maze of passages that leech will and soul the further you venture into them, a lingering undead malice that doesn’t want you dead so much as maddened and undone. And your sponsor won’t care, so long as at least one of you makes it back, that shard of dark power clutched in your trembling fist.

Some of the bodies might still be guarded. Some of them might be inhabited, with cities and realms nested into their bones and calcified flesh. Some might be considerably more ‘alive’ than others. Some might be just stranger than others, deities so lost and far-flung and alien that nothing about even their inert remains makes sense. You have … an infinity of options here. Let your inner dungeon designer completely off the chain. These are the corpses of dead gods made physical, floating in an infinite silver sea of possibilities. There are no rules, not even physics. You could do literally anything you wanted here.

It'd make sense if the backer was sending crews to less well-known, and therefore perhaps stranger and more dangerous, corpses, just to be sure that no one had taken or destroyed what they’re looking for already. The more alive ones, more likely to still contain lingering power and divinity. So you have an excellent excuse to get weird up in here.

Basically, if you want a vast, eldritch, apocalyptic dungeon crawl, or series of dungeon crawls, in space, then the Astral Sea is very much the perfect setting. Although, yes, this is likely a high level campaign, unless you want to guide the party in with more accessible godly dungeons first. Even then it’s probably on the high side.

There’s also the shards themselves to consider. They’ll likely be potent magic items. You’re holding a piece of a god’s divinity in your hand. With powers probably themed to what the god would have been in life. Although they don’t necessarily need to be powerful. The divinity might be faded enough, shattered and torn by death, that it doesn’t do much externally anymore. Its power is intrinsic to what it is, not what it does. And maybe that makes more sense for how crews are willing to give them up afterwards, if they’re only mildly impressive amidst other loot.

Though that could be a thing. If it’s a magic item that you know for a fact your party will want to keep, and then that could bring them into conflict with their ‘backer’ before they ever maybe twig to the greater issue going on.

And there is a question of how and if they do twig to that. How would they find out the goals here. Are there other interested parties who’ve figured out what our backer is trying for? Or simply parties who are aware that they have been desecrating dead gods and who object on purely moral and philosophical grounds? How has society in the Astral Sea evolved around the fact that there are dead gods just drifting around?

How do living gods, deities with living dominions in the Sea, deal with the idea that there is a creature going around looting the corpses of their deceased forebearers? Grave-robbing in the Astral Sea can potentially be a couple of orders of magnitude more apocalyptic than the terrestrial equivalent normally manages, and I do love that.

(Or maybe it’s not apocalyptic. Maybe there’s nothing left in the dead gods that could actually make a new one, no matter how many you eat, and those few deities who are aware of our backer’s quest, deities of knowledge, perhaps, just look at them with pity for this obsession, delusion, of theirs. They don’t want them stopped because of the danger, but just because of the disrespect, the desecration. That, and the fact that eating bits of dead gods, while it might not make you a god yourself, still won’t do anything good to you, and perhaps there is a certain amount of not goodness happening that does need to be dealt with. Dealer’s choice.

Or perhaps the gods think that, and they’re wrong, and now you have to convince incredible all-powerful entities that there is a genuine threat there, whether they believe it or not)

I just. You can’t just put that out there, that this setting you’re casually sailing around is full of dead gods, and not … do something with it. Expand on it. Play with the implications of it. The Astral Sea is a vast, infinite celestial graveyard, and the remains of dead gods are locations you can interact with. That is a concept, and you can have a bit more fun with it than ‘nondescript statue asteroids that people can build on’ over here. Lingering echoes of what those deities once were, fragments of divinity, the sheer magical and theological potential of being able to grave-rob a dead god. Come on. You have divine corpses, in a setting where necromancy exists. Somebody’s gonna do something apocalyptic with the implications of that, you just know they are.

And in the process, you can get some really cool and weird dungeons to explore. Heh.

Spelljammer has such potential as a setting. The Astral Sea allows so many possibilities. How do you open with ‘you are sailing through a setting where you can make port at a god’s house or at a rock that is a dead god’ and just … park that there and leave it? Good god. Good gods. And bad ones, and weird ones, and completely inexplicable ones too.

I’m not sure Wizards quite understood how much they jumped the scale by bringing spelljammer back and putting it in the Astral Sea. So many settings have archmages and other people spend so many resources to try and reach the realms of gods, and in spelljammer you and your dinky ship can just sail up and knock on their door. Maybe not get in, but you can totally just heave up to any deity who has a Dominion in the Sea and at least knock. You can put your smuggler’s cache in a dead god’s skull. The deities are now, in this setting, significantly more interactable. If you want to try and necromancy a god’s corpse, that is a thing you can attempt.

Which is probably why they tried to tone it down with the whole ‘nondescript statues’ thing, that dead gods in the Sea are just rocks that people build on/in, but … Honestly? It’s still a dead god. You can’t undo the raw scale of that. And maybe you shouldn’t, either.

Nah. Play into the bonkers scale and setting implications of a potentially infinite number of god corpses just littered around the place, with the astral floating kingdoms and vacation homes of living gods keeping them company, and you in your dinky little boat sailing cheerfully out among them. Because that’s amazing, it really is.

Anyway. Have fun. Moving swiftly on.

[crypticmillipede]

OK EXTREMELY NICHE CROSSOVER but hear me out !! Stardew Valley Characters x TMA?

(oh yea spoilers for some Magnus Archives concepts/lore? but nothing plot-related)

the 12 Stardew Valley dateable characters as TMA Avatars:

Abigail: Could see either the Vast or the Stranger. The Vast because she adores exploring, asks existential questions, gets lost in things. The Stranger because of her character arc as an odd one out, someone who just doesn’t fit in with the rest of the town, unnatural, an outsider. Also because of her potential connection to the Wizard.

Alex: Likely the Flesh, as a sort of Jared Hopworth situation. He’s always talking about his bodybuilding, it’s pretty Flesh-aligned. I could also see him as the Hunt? His obsession with going pro, reaching his goal, something that never really happens but he’s always chasing. Maybe he begins to hear the blood?

Elliott: The Lonely. Relatively new to town, all isolated on that beach, I bet it gets quite foggy. Or potentially the Eye? I could see his fervor for writing as a thirst for knowledge, in a way?

Emily: The Spiral. Strange, bizarre, cryptic, a manic pixie dream girl (and i mean this with love), she’s gotta be the Spiral. I could also see the stranger, but she has a certain level of approachability that’s more Spiral to me.

Haley: This is tough for me. Maybe the Flesh, as someone concerned with their appearance, but that feels kinda surface-level to me. This is a stretch, but what about a Dark alignment? The way she sort of refuses to intake information sometimes (ignoring you), bores easily, she could be compensating for an insecurity by presenting a certain way? In the dark, she wouldn’t have to worry about any of it. Besides, she does have that Dark Room… (i admit this one doesn’t really fit, does anyone have a better idea? spider maybe? or even corruption?)

Harvey: The whole weight of the town’s expectation’s for their only doctor, his stagnant dreams of piloting, Harvey’s got to be affiliated with the Buried. Possiblyyy the Flesh, simply due to his profession, but the Buried makes far more sense for his character to me.

Leah: Hear me out on this one—the Extinction. She’s got a couple dialogue lines focusing on environmental destruction and humanity as a harmful species, she’s newly moved out of the city and into nature, radically replacing her environment. She’s so isolated in the forest, it might sometimes feel like she’s the only one left. If not, then the Vast, most likely. Or maybe Stranger or Lonely? She’s got options.

Maru: If anyone in this group is Eye-affiliated, it’s got to be Maru. She has this thirst for knowledge, always building, always looking up into the unknown of the cosmos.

Penny: She’s got to be the Lonely to me. How many times has she sat under that tree, picking at the grass and looking out into the river? She’s so isolated, despite being around so many people. If not the Lonely, then certainly the Corruption, with its themes of finally finding endless love and community, a hive who truly understands.

Sam: This is another tricky one to me, but probably the Vast? He’s so easy-going and carefree, for the most part, it fits in quite well with the Vast mentality of ultimate insignificance and the freedom that comes with it.

Sebastian: Although the Lonely is probably the easy answer, I could also see him as the Buried, honestly? Burdened by the weight of all the expectations pressing down on him, by his stagnation in a town he wants nothing to do with, by his lack of freedom and desire for escape. He has friends, close friends! It seems to be more of his general circumstances that haunt him, rather than isolation, necessarily.

Shane: While i know the Web is primarily associated with addiction, I don’t really feel that Shane fits with the Web in any other way? I honestly see him more as affiliated with the Desolation, given his often self-destructive tendencies, and the way he lashes out at others. Shane seems to resort to alcohol as a harmful coping mechanism. Of course, I could also see him as the End, given some of his cut scenes, but the qualities of the End don’t seem to match him as well as the Desolation.

Those are my takes!! Sorry I couldn’t narrow it down more, but there’re so many potentials, it’s hard to choose a single option for each person! These are superrrr subjective and up to interpretation, so I welcome any additional speculations or suggestions !! I kinda wanna know how other people would categorize these guys tbh? anyways yeah sorry about the long post, my brain is rotten. perchance.

[canidbld]

Feraveli: Tiktok and the "Therian Aesthetic"

Content warnings: oveuse of the word aesthetic (chat I am NOT a thesaurus 🙏), general ramble shenanigans, and it takes a bit to get to the point (very sorry)

Words: 1.9k

— Day 2 of Sol's November Writing Challange

Tiktok has been downloaded onto my phone since 2020, and I've been in an off and on dynamic with the app. There were periods where I'll be addicted to scrolling for months and moments where I'll just go cold turkey for equal amounts and in the time I've had the app, there's a lot of things I've learnt like what the app is about, how it works, why the algorithm is the way it is and why trends become trends and the users who make up the app. Not to say I completely understand the app at all, most of my opinion on tiktok are just patterns I've noticed which resulted into an assumed conclusion with no real backing and support other than a "I've had tiktok for 4 years"

In my opinion, Tiktok is an app that encourages consumerism and wants people to conform to a single box label and aesthetic and lifestyle, essentially encouraging you to make yourself a brand and it's because of the way the algorithm works. According to my boyfriend, the more you intensely focus on one certain niche, aesthetic, community or singular type of content, the more your account will be advertised to your desired audience/demographic that post or consume similar content. You can do things like following people who match the "theme" of your account, reposting content similar to what you want to post, liking and commenting on said posts as well and following and using hashtags that connect you to the content you want to make. All these actions, while necessary to build somewhat of a platform on the app, create a bubble at best and an echo chamber at worst. Everything you do on tiktok is anaylsed by the app to curate the "perfect" for you page (FYP) of all your interests and most content creators on tiktok are aware of this, that's why you see people who are stacked with merch of their favorite anime or why there are accounts who just post edits for a single franchise/character or people who post outfits under a single aesthetic.

The more you visually and materially show how dedicated you are to an aesthetic, franchise or community, the more people will see your theme and they'll follow you, want to be and look like you and then start buying products similar to the aesthetic you're advertising.

It's an app that's known to water down sub-cultures and aesthetics to the point that the origins and themes of these concepts become almost obsolete, favoring visual aesthetics over the true meaning of the sub-culture. Goth and Scene, for example, are one of the more obvious examples. Part of the reason sub-cultures with history dating back decades ago get so warped is due to the way the algorithm works and how tiktok and its users profits off of niche aesthetics and communities.

So, what does this have to do with therianthropy?

Tiktok therians have been a bit of a topic in the community. Talks of how tiktok is filled with misinformation and how the therians of tiktok just focus on the visual aspects of therianthropy rather than the experience. I've read from a lot of therians that were active during the 90's and 00's and the 10's that talked about how different therianthropy has evolved since back then when you could connect with other therians through forums and the era of essays that profoundly described their experiences about being a therian and the deeper meaning of what that meant to them.

For tiktok therians, on the surface, it seems the experience of being a therian is branded as making masks and doing quadobics. It's all tiktok constantly regurgitates. The "aesthetic" of being a therian is someone who wears masks and has those clip-on tails. It's being connected to nature and running and frolicking around in pretty meadows and exploring lush dense forests. Its muted greens and earth brown tones. It's the "therian bedrooms" with the fake leaf decor and the masks and tails hung on the wall. It's the slow-motion tiktoks of people doing quadobics.

What came with this aesthetic and branding came with tiktok pushing this content out to the millions of people who used the app and would come across these videos. Some of the people who saw these videos, who had no idea what therians were, would be introduced into a community that they wanted to participate in and so more people would post more content under this "aesthetic"

The aesthetic, of course, came with its downsides. The major focus on the the visual imagery of therianthropy would result in very little talks about the experience and introspection of being a therian and even less on the history of the community. Like I said earlier, tiktok can create a bubble and the therians who awakened through the app very rarely research past the tiktok search function which has resulted in a lot of misinformation and old debunked discouse rehashed passing through the algorithm like wildfire.

There has been efforts to push back against the misinformation through accounts that do talk about the history of the community and educate the therians on the app but the ratio between quadrobics and educators is unbalanced with quadrobics accounts being more in quantity. Doesn't help that tiktok favors quadobics content more, leaving the accounts that try to educate and talk more deeply about therianthropy and alterhumanity as a whole with little reach and a small platform. Even more is that some of the accounts that try and educate sometimes spread misinformation themselves.

Now, I want to add a disclaimer. You can absolutely enjoy quadobics and wearing masks, and not every therian is responsible for educating others when the resources for it can be found through Google. You don't need to explain your experience as a therian, you can just simply enjoy being a therian in however you express that and if it's through quadrobics and masks then you are just as valid and important as the therians who originated from alt.werewolf.horror.

The problem is how tiktok conflates this aesthetic of therians with the experience and identity of being one and makes it as if this is all the community is when it's not an accurate representation of the community as a whole. Honestly, it doesn't even touch the tip of the iceberg of therianthropy.

So when I came across an account that had recently coined the term "Feraveli," I instantly latched onto the label because I saw the potential in how important it is.

Feraveli was created in October 2024 and is coined by Solar (also known as @hellhoundtherian on tiktok). The summarised definition of feraveli is:

"People who enjoy the aesthetics of nature and animals"

Its a simple enough definition, made to be simple on purpose so people could build upon it themselves. This could mean liking certain habitats like forests or oceans or the dessert and the animals that inhabit them. It could mean liking concepts like the aesthetic of night and nocturnal animals. It could mean liking the mesozonic era of the past and liking the dinosaurs and animals of those times.

The term was coined to actually give a name to the tiktok therian aesthetic and that's why I think it's important for the term to exist because being able to give the aesthetic a name is the first step to being able to separate it from the experience and the therian identity as a whole. I believe that the term will give others the vocabulary neccesery to make it more easier for therians and alterhumans in general to vocalise more about their experiences allowing for more introspective conversations about how they feel versus the visual aspect of their identity. But more importantly, the term isn't just meant to be a term synonymous with alterhumanity. The term allows room for non-alterhumans to participate in the aesthetic without having to use nonhuman labels due to misunderstandings and misinformation.

Otherpaw is also a term that exists for similar reasons, to separate the aesthetic from the identity. The difference, I find, is that people who use the otherpaw label very rarely also identify as therians because they like the aesthetic of quadrobics and masks rather than actually identifying as an animal. Feraveli can also be that, but it's a term that wants to be explored and expressed rather than letting itself have a restrictive and rigid definition.

Feraveli can just be as simple as liking nature and animals but it can mean so much more than that to others who label themselves as feraveli.

In the feraveli carrd, Solar describes the different ways feraveli could be expressed, such as:

Dressing up as your chosen feraveli aesthetic (forest, nighttime, ocean) in whatever clothes you think represents that aesthetic

Decorating your room in items and trinkets and decor you think matches the vibe of your chosen feraveli aesthetic

Adopting other aesthetics and meshing it together with being a feraveli if it helps you express your feraveli aesthetic, such as taking aspects of fairycore, if you think it helps you express the vibes of the forest more

From an alterhuman perspective, I think feraveli can help other alterhumans express their alterhumanity more easily. For example, a bat therian who is a night feraveli, a fictionkin whose feraveli aesthetic matches the environment of their fictotypes media source or a robot kin that has a feraveli aesthetic centered around sci-fi and machines or even horrorkin who finds a feraveli aesthetic in environments like silent hill / foggy spooky areas. It's a lovely sandbox term, I think, that really thrives on creativity and expression more than anything and I'm so thankful the term exists.

For me, I'm a city and suburban feraveli. I like the aesthetics of the city and suburbs as I feel like it resonates with my canine theriotype. Both feravelis make me think of stray dogs and cats patrolling the streets which makes me feel euphoric when I picture myself as that. I express this feraveli type through dressing up more grunge and baggy because I think the style represents the vibes of the city. I wear blacks and grays for the same reason and created a playlist of songs that I think fits the aesthetic of the city. Another reason I feel so connected to these aesthetic feraveli types is because I also grew up and lived in these environments. I could talk about my personal feraveli more but I'd need more time to see what feels right for me under this label.

The term was coined recently, after all. Created only a month ago, not nearly enough time for the term to have solidified a culture for itself, but the beginnings of a community have sprouted on tiktok, and I hope that it continues to grow. It's exciting, to be honest, with feraveli being a newly created term to me. I'm excited to see the potential of it evolve like so many other terms such as copinglink, folcintera, and even the label therian itself as it has also evolved over time throughout the community. I'm even more excited to see and read potential essays about how others express feraveli and what the term means to them. I'm just excited to see how feraveli grows, and I hope anyone reading this will give feraveli a chance and incorporate the term towards themselves.

Feraveli carrd

Original coining post

Solar's (@hellhoundtherian) tiktok

[wonderlightdaydreams]

Alterreality Coining Post 2.0

On August 9th, 2023, I posted “AlterReality: A Coining Essay”. The purpose of that post was to coin a term that describes my personal experience while getting out my thoughts on metaphysics, imagination, and perception in writing. However, due to the personal nature of that essay, I wanted to make this post in collaboration with Lav (@WinreyPlace) and others to clearly and plainly state what alterreality is. While it is a broad term, there are limits to what it does and does not include.

As defined by someone else in the alterreality server: “Alterreality is a process of creating one’s unique sense of reality via imagination and belief. It can be described as a lifestyle or a philosophy, with one central idea: what makes something ‘real’ is nothing but the belief that it is real.”

Another definition Lav gave was “imagination as a lifestyle”. Alterreality can also be interpreted as daydreaming or imagination-based fantasies overlaying or interacting with consensus reality.

What alterreality covers:

Many experiences of those in the self-shipping community, such as going on dates with your f/o in the “real world”

Adding a fantasy narrative to your life (i.e. tests at school becoming monster fights) as long as you choose to believe in the fantasy narrative as part of your perceived reality

Many experiences are classified as roleplay, again, as long as you choose to incorporate the roleplay into your perception of what’s happening in your own life

What alterreality doesn’t cover:

Involuntary spiritual, psychological, or metaphysical experiences 

Any alternative reality experiences you were born with or had awakened within you

Identifying as something while living a non-altered life (i.e. if you’re wolfkin and you are going to mundane human school while only experiencing that physical reality, that's not alterreality)

Manifestation and law of attraction concepts. Alterreality, while it interacts with the shared reality we all experience, doesn’t change its course; instead it builds onto or reframes it. Alterrealizing should not and does not make struggles in consensus reality disappear or cause the universe to provide a more positive life. 

In short, alterreality has three aspects: intentionality, imagination, and belief. Alterreal experiences are incredibly varied and diverse; however, they all require these elements. 

Now, with the above fully explained, let’s understand the why and how. Starting with the why.

There are infinite reasons as to why one would alterrealize their own life. I do it because I find mundane existence to be boring, and I want to engage with something that is beyond mundane human life without believing in anything, particularly spiritual or supernatural. Any reason is a valid reason to create alterreality. You can do it for fun, as a coping mechanism, to connect better with your alterhuman identities, because you love fictional characters or worlds, to help you understand complex things better, as a tool of exploration, personal growth, and creativity, and so much more. You don't even need to have a why at all! There is nothing wrong with fucking around and finding out with your life :3. 

In terms of how to do alterreality, I repeat, there is no one way. I’m still figuring out all the ins and outs of doing it myself. But my best piece of advice is to give yourself permission to fully live inside of whatever fantasy narrative you choose to and let yourself believe in it. This can sometimes be a demanding or difficult process, especially if everyone and everything around you is conforming to consensus reality, but just like they find meaning existing in consensus reality, you are allowed to find meaning existing in alterreality! Another way to phrase all this is to just “fake it until you make it”. Ask yourself questions like  “What world or narrative do I live in?”, “What form does my alterrealized self take?”, “How would I act and speak in my alterreality?”, “What would my tasks, goals, or challenges be?”, and things like that. If you cannot do something in shared, mundane reality for whatever reason, make-believe a reason why you cannot do it in your alterreality too! As you develop your alterreality and discover what works and what doesn’t for your brain, you’ll find it will come more naturally to live out your imagination-fueled life. 

This world is in desperate need of whimsy and wonder. While there are various ways to make your life more whimsical, there are not many that involve actively living a lifestyle of fantasy. In a world where time is a finite resource, where the “have-tos” outweigh the “want-tos”, and where playing pretend is shunned once you age out of childhood, alterreality is a way to live in the physical realm, while embracing the fantastical. So, what are you waiting for, step into a world of your wildest dreams!

[the-east-art]

Easts Supernatural Rant

Just been thinking a lot about how bad Supernatural is lately because I've been going through the weeds reading old fics I've bookmarked and there's some good SPN ones. Background info: I watched SPN nonstop in middle school (roughly ten years ago) and if you go back in time you'll see that it was the fandom I was in way back when I first made my tumblr. I watched until about... season 10? When I realized it was never going to actually get good. So I was really obsessed with it for a good while but also it has been quite a while since I actually watched it.

rant under the cut o7

Okay so anyone who has watched Supernatural knows that it didn't start out actually so... bad. Supernatural starts out decent and builds up momentum fine in my memory clear through the final of season 5. I feel like among the fandom most people know that this should have been the ending of the series. For those reading who don't know, Swan Song ends with a really beautiful monologue about endings and in a tragedy with just enough of a glimmer of hope. Like it's a good ending. And then the series just kept going. do not get me wrong - there's a lot of fun episodes and concepts explored in the *checks notes* holy shit 10 FUTURE SEASONS, but it's also where a lot of the cracks really get bad.

However, in my opinion the biggest issue with Supernatural as the seasons progress is how whittled down the cast becomes. In the first few seasons there are a lot of supporting cast that you really get attached to - there's a bar for hunters, Bobby's place, a whole network of people connected to the principle cast.

While naturally the core of the series is Dean and Sam (and eventually Castiel) almost all of the supporting cast dies. And while I think the death is good in several ways, it really pushes the stakes of the series, especially in the earlier seasons where death truly was final and wasn't a joke. However you can only kill the supporting cast for so long until the show becomes... lonely. Messy. You start to not want to get attached to new characters because of how you know they'll probably die and then not get mentioned again. Many characters after their death just kind of... fade into the background never to be seen. While I don't believe that characters need to be mourned forever, you can't help but to feel that they are dropped for convenience of the show.

This has been on my mind because, as I've been poking around the annals of ao3 looking for diamonds in the rough, I've realized that really any fics that take place in any of the later seasons (let's say 8-15) to me might as well be a different show. It's a show heralded by characters I either don't know (Griffin Mcelroy meme of 'I don't know who Jack Kline is and at this point I'm too afraid to ask) or are character so completely reshaped by the narrative that I no longer recognize them (Castiel the character that just kind of does whatever will make the story interesting I'm looking at you).

What previously is a respectable narrative becomes blown out of proportion. I was reading a fic that dealt a lot with the themes of 'free will' and what that means and how do we try and exercise it, and I realize that I forgotten that, at one point, free will had been the theme of the series. The principle trio in the fandom is called Team Free Will because of that, but pretty much after season 5 all of that is thrown out the window. The first third of the series the boys are fighting against fate, and prophecy, and roles that they have been assigned to. But in the latter part of the series, as the narrative web spins further out of control, you lose that theming.

I mostly talk about this because I kind of find it interesting to look at. About what is engaging to me as a person, and what is a red flag. What I like in a story and what I don't. And I am chiefly reminded of moments where the series drops plot point, or muddies messaging (I have been reminded what The Voicemail is and how it is never addressed). And It's sad. Because I really REALLY loved the show once, and cared for the characters. And now I take refuge in fanfiction, because a lot of the aspects of the story and settings and characters hold SO MUCH potential, that is ruined in the source material.

Uhhhh yeah. Let me know what you think and let me know if have any questions about my opinions on stuff cuz I LOVE talking about art and narrative and stories. Or let me know if you want Fanfic recs because hell yeah I do.

[ellraiser]

Mudborne Devlog #6 - Garden Variety

Hey friends! The last month I was able to work on Mudborne pretty much full-time, so I got a whole lot designed and implemented - let's get into it all.

Biodiversity

After finishing the designs for all of the mechanics, I also spent some time trying to design how each of the 5 main regions would look and feel.

Originally when doing the overworld design I didn't think much more than what the waking vs dream world, but now I knew roughly the size of the world and the areas in it I knew I couldn't get away with just using the same "biome" style throughout the game - sure I could do a few different flora/fauna and setpieces to match the utility of that area in-game, but I wanted to make each of the regions more unique and interesting.

I went through a lot of different styles before settling, here's a few of them!

1. Initial idea, blue/greens for waking and then more vibrant for the dream

2. More detailed flora + grass that you can see in the first two green areas, can also start to see more interesting tree designs + stone decoration for the islands

3. Settling on the third "residential" area and the dream counterparts for the first three regions, plus starting to narrow down the snowy + central region styles

4. The current designs, with the first 4 regions implemented while I still tinker with the final central region

Lots of the color changes were tweaked slightly over time too - the first concept was drawn towards the start of september, the fourth one is what is currently used in-game (although still working on the 5th one)

The main thing I wanted was to have lots of variety and interesting plants and flora to make each region feel more unique outside of just palette changes - some areas also go a step further with some larger unique stuff, like the algae in the swamps or the flooded rooms in the residential district.

As I was designing them I changed the grass style to be an actual texture - darker blades that are part of the tiles themselves, and then lighter blades that I actually individually place.

I think this was a nice middle ground as I can get some unique grass patterns that are not tiled and dont look too repetitive. I also added a lot more stone tile decoration stuff, like the bricks or the vines - just to help make those sections more interesting as in contrast to the water they were very flat and empty.

For comparison this is what the demo had for a standards building:

And here is a normal building in the full game with the newer designs:

It's a bit more work to create the levels now as I have a lot more stuff to place manually - but I think the end result is worth it and let's me have much more interesting and pretty areas to explore, which is important for a game where I want players to explore and find all the secrets.

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Spore Printing

While working on and off on the actual world style, I started to work on implementing some of the new mechanics for the full game - the main one not really covered by the demo in any way is spore printing and hybrid mushrooms.

As it stands in the demo you farm mushrooms, each with a special effect to modify traits. You can then combine 3 of these together into 1 "magic mud" to modify your frogspawn.

With hybrid mushrooms the idea is that you can combine any two standard mushrooms together to make 1 mushroom with the effects of both - this means you could have up to 6 modifications within one generation!

To do this you collect spores from either natural spawns or your farms, and then you make 'prints' of the spores to paper, which lets you print two different mushrooms to the same piece of spore paper.

You can then use this paper in your farms - so instead of waiting for spores to form naturally you can just set the spores you want. You wouldn't even need to use a hybrid spore paper for this either, so it's a bit more control on exactly the spores you're farming.

Once the mushrooms bloom (as hybrids either mushroom's conditions can be met), you gather them as normal and grind them into powder as normal - but they are now a hybrid mushroom/powder with both effects applying to them when used.

This will get a bit complex, but it will be useful for a bunch of reasons - you can counteract 'bad' modifications you don't want into one mushroom, you can do more changes quickly in less generations, and then the main reason to solve more complex genetic puzzles.

It also gives the player a lot more options to approach making a genetic key, as there will be more than 1 'correct' answer or combination to meet the trait changes required across generations.

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The Kindergarten

In the demo you're just in an area based off the 'Spawning Pools'. In the full-game, after leaving this area to a central hub region, one of the first main regions you can go to is the Kindergarten.

This is the region where frogspawn+tadpoles are raised at the pond, as well as where mushrooms and bugs are farmed for resources and food.

Because of that the gameplay focus of this area is on learning about hybrid mushrooms, getting some better farming options, and upgrading the bug collection mechanics to make it easier to get bugs en-masse - like the bug traps that let you use extra-stinky frogs to attract and catch bugs automatically while you're away.

It also introduces the first overworld "obstacle" (not counting the puzzles like the gates or the pressure pads or lilypads) - algae blooms.

These deadly blooms can't be crossed, so you need to clear them. Luckily you have a whole hoard of frogs at your disposal, and by boosting the "Edacity" trait you can make some very hungry frogs that'll eat anything not nailed down.

Placing them in filters will slowly clear the algae nearby and let you pass through to the areas they're blocking off.

When you come to this region you'll get to learn about how to handle algae and given the tools to clear it - but you would of already come across some smaller blooms in other regions. So once you have the machines and the frogs from this region you can go back and explore those other areas.

I also wanted some stagnant water pools to this area as it seemed fitting with the theme that certain areas would be blocked off to make stagnant pools for certain bugs or flora to grow in - not entirely sure what I'll use these for yet but it's nice to have some stuff open ended for when I come to the actual real world design and playtesting to tie everything together.

While testing all of this I've been using a "dev" map - which is just a bunch of different regions slapped together each with a mini-island.

It's helping me visualise the look+feel of each region and means I've already implemented the gruntwork for adding that region - when it comes to designing the map of the full game I won't have to do much more work outside of just creating the areas, the rest is ready to go.

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Residential District

Moving onto the next main area, the residential district - this focus on two main things, Saturation, and Croakwork. Saturation is one of the frog traits, the higher the trait the wetter the frog, the lower the trait the dryer the frog.

This is taken to extremes in this region, as you will get the ability to make a 1S frog that is so dry it absorbs water, and a 7S frog that is so wet is seemingly makes more water. Together this frogs can be used with a Dehumidifer + a Hydrator to effect the nearby environment.

This is hinted at in the demo with the standard cultivators - that there'll be mushrooms that require the extremes of moisture and temperature, and this is the first region to cover those extremes.

Using these machines lets you make the environment a lot wetter and dryer than it should be - for example making extremely damp indoors regions, or extremely dry water (has science gone too far?).

An even more extreme use of this trait comes in with "croakwork" machines - automated machines powered by the sound of frogs, created by the Engineer. The first of these machines is the Drainer - a powerful croakwork machine that uses minimum saturation frogs to drain the flooded rooms of the residential district.

You can enter these rooms at first, however you can't interact with any of the flooded objects until you drain the room - revealing the objects plus anything else that might have been hiding under the water...

By draining the rooms you're helping to restore the region ready for the hibernating frogs to return, as well as uncovering some pathways to get around the area and find other secret places or basements.

Other croakwork machines introduced here include the "Masher" - an automated grinder upgrade, and the "Harvester" - an automated machine that will harvest nearby blooming mushrooms and renewables automatically.

There's not a lot in Mudborne that needs to be automated, so there's not too many machines, but there's a few that should be useful and as I play more I'll be able to spot any processes that might need an upgrade that can be added to the Engineer's stock.

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Fancy Flooring

While implementing these two regions I was also messing around with some flooring designs. Both the algae and the flooded room water are types of flooring, so I was already having to implement that system and the auto-tiling stuff, so it was easy enough to then start adding more decorative flooring.

These will go alongside a whole host of decorative items and furniture to allow you to make any area you're own.

I tried to give both the wooded flooring and wooden piers a bit more interesting textures to them too rather than being perfect repetitive planks, as the original texture (ripped from APICO) no longer matched with all the new design stuff I'd done with the environment.

I had to do some messing around with the flora in the water and the new grass, as due to how I render the order of certain things the flora would be on top - so when placing tiles you temporarily disable any flora underneath so it's not causing issues.

This is similar to how the algae disables any plants underneath it, meaning that you can't get bugs or mushrooms on any areas of water covered in algae - and also what I'd use with ice to decide whether to show a frozen/snow covered variant of the sprite instead of the default one.

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Ice Frog Cometh

After finishing up those two areas and all the mechanics in them, towards the end of this month I started working on the icy region, Cold Storage.

This is where the residents of the research pool store their food and genetic materials, using the cold to keep things preserved. This area introduces temperature extremes (hot+cold), as well as ice that can be thawed out - or created to allow you to cross deeper water by freezing it.​

I've only just now started to get the region loaded into the game - there was a lot of design stuff I was doing first. However now it's here I can work on the new machines that utilise the temperature and let you freeze water or melt ice. There'll be other things to unfreeze too - frogs, gates, and NPC...

As it's the region themed around storage you'll also get a whole bunch of new storage themed upgrades and advancements, like a big box to store all your frogs and search them easily, or an upgraded cauldron that can store all of your powders inside.

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While doing all of this there was a few other odd bits and bobs I was working on, like polyps which are growable jellyfish for the dream world - or huge mangroves which will have a special use in the dream.

I was hoping to have done all the mechanics this month and implement them all, but I ended up not getting through them because I was sidetracked by adding the actual regions themselves - I didn't need to for most of the mechanics (and even flooding/ice I could of tested without the region itself), but I think it helped me see how the region would look and tweak things with the mechanics to fit better into the world that I wouldn't of done otherwise.

Over October I'll be finishing up the cold region and the central region, and getting through the last lot of machines to implement (orange, purple and brown sections below)

With that done I'll then be able to leave the developer map behind and start designing the actual world itself - which is going to be most of the game development time I think!

~ Ell

[zattis]

Gentle Giants Can Do So Much

I think I've been fascinated by the concept of giants since I was about seven years old or so. I don't exactly know why, but it means that ever since I was little I've consumed a fair amount of content about them, most of it sfw, some of it... less so.

And it seems to me that the vast majority of content revolving around giants is violent. Perhaps that's to be expected. Maybe being so big means all that power has to go to your head.

But every time I see art of a giant character just crushing stuff without a care, it’s not hard to think of the casualties. That’s pretty typical for any Kaiju-oriented media, but it’s just sad to see a giant act like a regular old monster when they could be so much more.

The gentle giant is a much more appealing concept to me personally because they have room in their big heart for many. The gentle giant loves his small friends and is loved by them in return.

Imagine a giant in the winter or during a freeze. It's very cold outside, and though the giant is unaffected, there are many tiny people that are not so lucky. But the giant's body radiates warmth due to its overabundance of body heat and its clothes, so it has a solution. That night, many people struggling to find warmth cuddle up against the body of the giant and feel no ill effects of the cold despite sleeping outside.

Picture a giant working alongside a construction crew, helping them to move around raw materials and set the foundations of a new building in place. They do the heavy lifting while the tinies specialize in precision. Buildings that typically take months or even years to build are finished in a quarter of the time, and any dangers normal sized people may face working against gravity or heavy weights are mitigated when a giant is able to catch them if they fall or carry the weight for them.

Envision the aftermath of a natural disaster. A city is leveled. Casualties are unknown, but many are grieving. In response, a relief organization sends a group of giants and tinies alike to the disaster zone. Some of the giants come transporting enormous amounts of food and relief supplies in enormous refrigerators and containers they can wear like backpacks before they set them down in the cleared city center. Some work to clear out all the stray rubble, occasionally saving a person trapped underneath and reuniting them with their families and friends. A couple are simply there for emotional support, to hold the distraught in their large arms or to let them rest in their fluffy hair.

And even in those sci-fi or fantasy settings, imagine the protective giants fighting against the beasts or monsters only they can hold back, doing what they can to keep any monster from entering a populated area because the giants don't want their friends to be in danger. Perhaps they are helped by normal-sized soldiers or heroes, and both giants and tinies alike work together to protect their home.

Because the gentle giant is still human, even if they're a lot bigger. They choose to love humans, to care about them. And that's a powerful thing, just as powerful as being dozens of feet tall (or taller) and having the strength of hundreds of men (or more). The gentle giant has a heart that can hold many and arms that can hold many more. With that strength, they can lift up the world around them.

I don’t think that’s explored enough.

[niuniente]

Genuine question: how are you able to produce a coherent story while doing it on the fly? I've never been able to manage that. Do you have any tips? Is it a skill that can be learned and practiced?

I wish I knew! Working freely and improvising is really something which I have always done in creative works - school and education included, all to my teachers' horrors - and it just works for me. The more freedom, the better I work. I absolutely wither as a person, if I don't have freedom in my life.

I know my method doesn't work for everyone but here are a few tips if you want to try more freestyle way, or take creating easier. Of course, this doesn't really work in commercial work where you have employers, clients and deadlines but you can take some of these into such a world, too.

You don't need to know everything One of the core elements for freer creativity is to accept and live with the fact that you don't need to know everything. No, even if it's your OC. No, even if it's your world-building. No, even if it's your own idea you are working on/with. You only need a basic red line, a basic concept and then allow it to unfold naturally over time. The very same way as if you would move to a new place, start a new job, start studies in a new school, befriend new people. You do not know everything about any of these from the day one. You get involved more and more into them as the time flies by. You CAN approach your creative work like that, too. Have a new OC? Great, he/she/they/it is a new acquaintance! You don't usually know about acquaintances more than their name and looks in real life, so why should you know about this just met character of yours any more than that? Let them tell you who they are. Befriend with them (and realize some characters befriend with you easier than others). There's no hurry. "I don't know" is always a valid answer.

Don't immediately plan everything till its end This gives you freedom to allow the characters, story elements etc. to merge with each other peacefully and you can always revisit your earlier plans/thoughts and chance them. If you have already set into the stone your character's whole life with all possible quirks from birth to death, leaving nothing out - well, good luck with trying to fit that into your story. The characters tend to have their own agendas, wishes and quirks aside from your plans and wishes. The more you treat them as you would treat a living, breathing human being and take the journey as "I'm learning to know knew people", the better.

Don't assume. Explore. Allow. This goes together with the above tips but genuinely? Don't assume anything. The basic line works. "This is a story of a boy who befriends with an alien". That's it. That's all. You can start working with this idea. Details will follow later. Allow the stories come to you. There's no need to worry if it's worth of your time or attention. If you like it, if it comes to you as inspiration, go for it! See what comes out. Resting is very important to allow your mind to come up with ideas.

Get inspired! See how others do things and what they do! Get inspired! It is really great to see how others do things as everyone has an unique way of doing whatever they do. All sources are fine for inspiration! It doesn't mean that if you draw, only art can be your inspirational source. It can be books, nature, history, religion, societies, fashion, modern art, cave art, poem, food, stickers, countries, colors, shapes, crafting, mood boards, music. It can be your own experiences, wishes, dreams. It can be other people, their wishes, experiences, their looks and life experience. It can be an event in your life which made its mark on you. Damn, I've gotten inspiration from a random car register plate, too! The more you allow yourself to be inspired - and KILL THE CRINGE, IN THIS FUCKING HOUSE NOTHING IS CRINGE AND YOU DON'T HAVE TO BUY OTHERS' APPROVAL BY DENYING YOURSELF AND WHAT FUCKING INSPIRES YOU - the more freely you can create.

Respect your own inspiration Everything is already done. It's fine. Repeating trophies are what make creative people successful. Would you listen to your favorite band/artist if they changed their style completely? Do you moan that your favorite author or a comic artist did again similar stuff? Do we write hate letters to Stephen King or Neil Gaiman, that "Damn man, write something else! Again this same shit with tropes X, Y and O!" Whatever inspires you, inspires you. Whatever tropes you want to use, use them. No hesitation!

Not everything is for everyone You don't need to please everyone. Please the audience who is naturally pleased with what you do. Don't try to brake the code for success and analyze what you should do. Do whatever the hell you want.

Be Punk Genuinely, have a punk attitude towards arts and writing or whatever you do. Punk's original idea is that anyone can create. Literally anyone. The punk's fashion idea came from the 70's where bands did their own outfits and music - no matter what the quality - and their fans followed. Everything was supposed to be available for everyone; look, I'm a band artist, I painted this shirt's logo with red paint on my living room floor with a dollar brush - you can do it, too! Punk never asks if what I have created is good enough or am I good enough to do this. Fuck it! You want to play guitar, play it, however the hell you play it! You want to do crafts? Great, go for it! You want to try to make a cosplay outfit! Awesome, I wish you all the best! As long as you create, that matters. It never needs to be perfect or done the way that you're "supposed to" do it. A story driven comic without backgrounds? Ah, blasphemy! How about I do it anyway because who is stopping me, the Comic Police? Also, be kind to others who create, include those who are not at your level. Your inner punk rebel should always be giving hand and support to those who are starting (or who aren't or will be at your level, if you are super pro). Kiss the art elitism's ass and bite a good chunk out of it! In your household, art should be done with any equipment, with any method and you do not need polished art of the fanciest equipment (albeit some things do make creativity easier - if you can afford them, then by all means, you them).

It's not that deep - unless you wish it Your creations don't need to be deep, have any strong message, dive into current societal or political issues if you don't want to do that. Your story can be a story of a boy who befriends with an alien, and together they explore society's gender norms, but it can also be a story were the boy and the alien just play in the mud and eat ice-cream. Every story has its audience and you should be THE Audience number 1.

I hope these help! Most important thing is to find your own way to work, explore freely and allow yourself to be whatever you be and create whatever speaks to your heart's language.

[fandom-flight]

I'm about halfway through Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint,and I'm really impressed with how it practically bleeds with themes of storytelling and our relationship with stories as humans. There's the obvious stuff, like how the main character's whole shtick is being a reader with "bookmark" and "fourth wall" abilities, but as of about chapter like 240, I've never stopped tangibly feeling how much ORV seems to want to explore the concept of stories (and not just in the sense of the novel's world where stories are like a kind of power, though that is kind of part of it). I ended up having a lot of roving thoughts, so more under the cut

Specifically what I mean by this is that almost every aspect of the world building and the plot has some kind of commentary on how people relate to stories. The constellations, for example, are very clearly kind of meant to be audience stand ins, especially in the beginning. They're watching the stories of our main characters on stream much the same way that we the readers are watching the story of ORV on our devices in the real world, and oftentimes their reactions to the events mimic our reactions from the outside– they cringe when characters do embarrassing things, they ship characters with chemistry, they hold their breath when things gets tense, and feel genuinely sad and heartbroken when bad things happen to the characters in their show. It's through their financial support that some of these stories can continue to be told, kind of the same way that fans' monetary contributions to artists enables their art to continue being made. Kim Dokja even calls out how the tables have turned early on in the series, that he used to be the one watching them through a screen, and now the situation is totally reversed. The constellations also kind of mimic the negative effect that the audience can have on art– sometimes artists have to bend to the will of their supporters even when it goes against their desired direction for their own art because that's what pulls in the money, and the way that incarnations and dokkaebi have to listen to the will of their sponsors feels like a very on the nose parallel for this. ORV sets up both the constellations and Kim Dokja as content consumers who have a love of stories in common in order to make a statement about how loving stories is universal, while simultaneously laying groundwork to make statements about the line between reader and narrative. Another thing that Kim Dokja has in common with the constellations is that both he and they are increasingly brought to the boundary of the fourth wall as the series progresses. In the same way Kim Dokja starts to realize that he IS part of the story now, and that the people he previously just saw as characters are actually real human beings that he has emotional attachments to, the constellations also start becoming characters who appear in the story and impact it directly, rather than being detached observers. This process of becoming a part of the story after being emotionally invested in it is naturally not something that literally happens to people in real life, but readers wanting to insert themselves into a narrative they love is something very human. I mean, fanfiction is incredibly popular because a lot of us humans can't just leave media that we love alone, we keep thinking about it, we want to expand on it, change it, and sometimes even insert ourselves into it. Historically, myths have had many different versions circulate over time, with some cultures borrowing figures from others and literary giants creating characters of their own (or even versions of themselves *cough Dante cough*) to insert into these legends.

In addition to the very human desire to become a part of the stories we love, ORV also calls out how humans are are kind of enamored with certain themes, and that we show this by having these themes appear in various legends the world over. Realms of death, myths of resurrection, tales of slaying supernatural evils, all of these things are shown to be so universal that constellations sometimes have copyright disputes over them. The fact that the constellations that appear in ORV are so varied is another place where ORV proves to be a love letter to storytelling. The author has such a diverse collection of gods and historical figures that I can't help but see their love for stories as something so strong that it transcended culture and nationality. Furthermore, the fact that constellations obtain their status from how widespread their stories are feeds into the theme of people being stories, which is another interesting angle to look at the relationship between people and stories. ORV has characters literally say "people are stories" out loud, and Han Sooyoung references the philosophy that people only truly die when they've been forgotten, but there isn't a single second where I really stop feeling like this holds true for everyone in the book (and not just because souls being stories and people needing stories to live ends up being part of the worldbuilding). The idea is that our stories give us value, both intrisinsically and extrinsically. ORV represents this literally, as the notoriety of a story actually makes people stronger, and also stories can be used as currency or food to some people. Even on a scale lower than the constellations, the reputations of characters and the rumors of their incredible deeds can increase their value to outsiders, the same way that a person's reputation in the real world can affect their job prospects and social connections (this is a little more obvious and would happen in any story, but I think that the mythologizing of the ORV characters in their own universe is meant to exemplify the effect of a person's stories on their perceived value).

The theme of people being stories also extends to a related but still separate (I think) theme of everyone being the protagonist of their own story. Kim Dokja begins ORV by talking about how much Yoo Sangah feels like a protagonist. She has all the qualities that a main character should have, and Kim Dokja feels like he could never match that, despite the fact that he clearly wants to be a protagonist really badly. He wants to be cool, special, and confident, but it's not until the scenarios start and he starts being able to use skills in a way unique to him that he starts realizing that maybe he can be a protagonist too. And again, this is a theme that ORV just constantly exudes– Kim Dokja often explicitly talks about how everyone is living their own life and being their own person. When he sees Yoo Sangah and Lee Hyunsung for the first time after the intermediate dokkaebi Paul separates them following the golden thrones destruction, he's impressed by their growth while he wasn't looking, and we the audience are reminded that these people learn and progress as the center of their own world. When Kim Dokja is separated from his friends after the Dark Castle arc and hears what they've been up to, he muses about how, even without him, the world continues to turn, scenarios continue to run, and people continue to live. It very much helps that the author of ORV gives every side character a vibrant and memorable personality so that we can better empathize with them as their own people with their own lives, even though they might not get as much screentime. Characters who we do not think to care much about are shown to have significant development while the main character isn't with them. Kim Namwoon matures into a calmer, happier person in the Underworld long after I forgot he existed. Han Myungoh went from bring an insufferable nepotism baby to being a determined and loving father who is willing to be an ally. The author constantly reminds us that Kim Dokja isn't the only one in this world who is a protagonist with a story worth telling, and in a way, it kind of feels like they're also telling the readers that, not only are we the main characters of our lives, but we also can never forget that the people around us are protagonists of their stories as well.

In short, ORV uses just about every character and storyline to convey that humans may love to consume the stories of others, but we can't forget that we're also writing our own stories by living them. Humans are made up of the stories they love, the ones they write themselves, and the ones they put a part of themselves into, and I just get the sense that the author has a lot of feelings about stories and how important they are to us as a species in every sentence they write. I'm definitely curious to see how the story ends because I can't imagine how the author will conclude the series when making a statement about this theme seems so important, but anything that would be a satisfying conclusion to the story would really be counterproductive to making that statement. As a reader, I want a definitive "and they lived happily ever after after solving the story's problems," but since the author actually has Kim Dokja muse on how "he never felt satisfied by 'and they lived happily ever after'," I kind of can't imagine that that's how this series will end? Because it doesn't sound like the author was ever completely satisfied with those endings either. But I also don't think ORV is meant to be a tragedy, so I'm excited to see where things go!