#on something that hopefully never will happen

[frontlinebicepsoftheninth]

going through my drafts and came upon my old crackpot theory that while the events of htn are set before ntn, gideon's narration is actually set after atn, like harrow somehow forgets the events of htn or maybe just asks what it was like for gideon right after the lobotomy and the series ends with gideon saying "well, God stood in your doorway and said, 'You've thrown up again, Harrowhark...'"

[weed-cat]

with the news that just hit the US, i think it’s time for me to share my abortion story, or at least what i remember of it.

genuinely i feel so sick to my stomach right now. if this all actually goes through, people will die, people will become very preventably permanently physically disabled, people will suffer grievous emotional/mental trauma, from being forced to attempt to carry out a pregnancy. 

this is something that is absolutely terrifying for everyone who can become pregnant, and i can’t help but think about how it’s going to impact trans men and other masc genderqueer people who can become pregnant especially. there are already fewer options for us for reproductive care than there are for cis women because of transandrophobic healthcare systems, and it’s terrifying to think of how many of those already limited options could be taken from us. 

recounting of the events under the cut. cw for childhood pregnancy and for very shaky consent practices (also with a child)

i am someone who has had an abortion. i was a freshman in high school. i was taken advantage of by many people back then. i was so dissociated through most of the encounters themselves that i barely remember anything, but i remember how absolutely terrified i was when i saw the ‘positive’ line on the drugstore test i’d gotten from the school health center. 

i was 15. i was a 15 year old boy who was trying his best to cope with very severe untreated mental illness and who already didn’t want to be alive. i was a 15 year old child who was pregnant after a sexual encounter that i had at least not given clear-minded consent to, maybe not even given any sort of consent to at all. i didn’t even remember when/how i’d gotten pregnant, exactly, much less who the other party was. 

i was so, so, so fucking scared. i don’t even know how to describe it. early high school is very fuzzy for me, but there are so (relatively) many moments in this sequence of events that i remember vividly. 

i remember wrapping the test up in almost half a roll of public school toilet paper and almost putting it in the garbage before i changed my mind, not knowing if i’d have to ‘prove’ to someone that i was pregnant.

i remember begging my best friend at the time to skip the rest of the day’s classes with me, which she did so willingly, even though she knew she’d get in trouble. i remember sobbing in terror into her old Slayer hoodie while we just sat in a side hall in the middle of fifth period, and that at one point a hall monitor started to come up to us, but left us alone once she realized how clearly devastated i was. 

i remember telling the rest of my scraggly group of suicidal druggie friends, and how they all told me that they were there if i needed anything, but what could they possibly do to even begin to make this better?

i remember calling Planned Parenthood in my best friend’s tiny apartment while her mom was at work, and how her one and a half year old brother was in the room with us and yet had no way of being able to realize the intensity of that situation. i remember that i wouldn’t tell the person on the phone what my name was and that i refused to speak in anything but hypotheticals, even as i was borderline begging her to say that they could help me, that they could get that putrid clump of cells out of me. my best friend had her arm wrapped around my shoulders the whole time. 

i remember how gentle the person over the phone was with me. i was trying to sound older than i was, but in hindsight, i’m sure i failed miserably. i’m sure she knew that she was talking to a kid, especially when she asked for information about my insurance or annual household income that i didn’t have the answers for. 

i remember how, going into the call, i was 100% resigned and accepted to the idea that i’d have to pretend to be a girl throughout the whole process. i was pre-t, pre-op, still presented pretty femininely because that’s what was the safest and most comforting to me at the time. it was already enough of a hassle trying to have my gender respected in everyday situations, i wasn’t even going to bother trying to say anything about it while trying to access care for a ‘woman’s issue.’ but she went out of her way to ask me about my pronouns and gender identity, and so did every single other Planned Parenthood provider that i worked with during the process. 

i remember that i took the metro bus to my appointment while i was supposed to be at school. i had to do it that way because i hadn’t told my parents. almost 5 years later, i still haven’t told my parents that any of this ever happened. the only time i could get out of the house for long enough to go to an appointment without my mom trying to track me down was during the school day. she’d only get the robocall that i’d missed class that evening, long after i was in the clear. i remember hoping with all my chest that she’d take it at face value when i told her that i’d just been skipping with my friends like usual when she asked me why i wasn’t in language arts. she did. 

i remember how scared and alone i felt, walking into the Planned Parenthood building all by myself, hunched over myself in my hoodie and trying to drown out my fear with the Fall Out Boy music in my shitty earbuds. i remember how the receptionist smiled so kindly when she saw me, and the reassuring looks on the faces of a couple others in the waiting room as they saw a kid coming in for reproductive care, clearly petrified and with no one to hold his hand. 

i remember that the doctor was lovely. she showed me all sorts of 3D models and diagrams of what happens in the body when an early-stage pregnancy is terminated, and told me that there would be no invasive procedure, that she was just going to give me two pills, and that it would be like i was having a bad period, and after that i wouldn’t be pregnant anymore. 

i remember that, even though i’d been told over the phone that i would not be expected to pay for the care i received, i was still so worried that i’d misunderstood and that i’d try to leave and they’d hand me a check that i’d have no way of paying off. i remember that i swiped $20 from my mom’s wallet, just in case they asked me for money, even though i logically knew that that probably wouldn’t be nearly enough if i was presented with an actual medical bill. Planned Parenthood never asked me to pay, but it was a good thing that i had the twenty anyway because i had a blood pressure drop right after the appointment and needed to get myself a snack and some water.

i don’t really remember actually taking the pills that vividly, strangely enough. i remember that i did it at a sleepover at my best friend’s house for emotional support, that’s kind of it. 

but i remember the euphoric relief i felt when i dared to take another pregnancy test a couple days later, just to make absolutely sure, and it was negative. 

i remember my abortion story as being a gentle, loving, caring, respectful salvation that came when i needed it, during the terrifying, horrible, emotionally excruciating experience that was an unwanted pregnancy at age 15. i know how lucky i was to be able to have that experience. i know that so, so many people either cannot access abortion, or cannot access it in a way that was as comforting and affirming as my experience was. 

i want as many people as possible to have abortion stories like mine. the US national government is taking steps towards placing barriers between people who need/want abortions and the ability to access them at all, much less in as therapeutic of a way as i was able to. 

do what you can. reach out to your local officials. protest. include and uplift the voices of all who are impacted by laws like these, not just cis women. 

abortion saves lives. 

[posthumanwanderings]

updated my most used tags list a bit. click the music emojis for songs I really like from each console and feel free to hunt for my other tags by replacing the last words in the hyperlink with some future / tech / gaming terms or whatever ;)

dreamcast (🎶) - sega saturn (🎶) - ps1 (🎶) - ps2 (🎶) - psp (🎶) - xbox (🎶) - wii (🎶) gamecube (🎶) - snes (🎶) - gba (🎶) - futuristic - zplayz - zvidz - zpix - noplays - looks - tech - cg - cyberspace - cyberwave - y2k - y2k japan - y2k korea - sci-fi anime - 90’s anime - vr - future fashion - futuristic interiors - toonami - robots - mechs - graphic design - inspiration - gif - future music - vaporwave - trance music - ambient - dark ambient - drone - new age - techno - dnb - breaks - juke - lounge music - house music - sega life - sonic team - f-zero series - star trek - fighting games - sega naomi - pso - tokusatsu - merging realities - virtual reality - playlist - relaxing vgm - groovy vgm - atmospheric vgm - vgm inspired - menu screen - vmii - dj mute city - full album - full ost

[culmaer]

¶

[ace-malarky]

I am intrigued about soul magic please expand maybe :)???

hm yes hi Trade I can very much expand on that!!!

caveat that a lot of this info is very possibly stuff I made up literally this month bc I only had the vaguest idea of how soul magic worked before starting on this particular story (ie the box for it in the twinery thing where I keep all my worldbuilding legit just has the world it comes from in it and nothing else lmao ^^; )

The vague in-text explanation we get is thus;

“Users power their spells with their lifeforce,” Jasper said. “Its main applications are healing and interrogation, but it can also be used to create locks and the like that are fine-tuned to a specific person.”

which is very rough but honestly it covers the basics. Jasper knows what he's about

When he says locks, I'm meaning like... biometric kinda scans only I couldn't remember the word when I wrote that. I may go back and write that in actually.

The other thing it can do that is like. the main part of the plot of this story is that the mages can use it to control other people! They're getting other people caught for their crimes!!

Mostly when a soul mage uses their magic, they're relying on their own life to power it. So many soul mages burn out early because they don't get the exchange right, or they just use their magic too freely. If a soul mage is old it means that either

a) they don't use magic a lot

b) they know the best exchange rates for spells (eg smaller spells will take less life)

c) they largely use it via aids such as gems and older spells that have been sunk into items for general use

or

d) they tie their spells to someone else's life.

d is why soul mages tend to have a pretty bad rep amongst the wider mist worlds. They're not as bad as green witches in general but hoo boy.

sometimes!! sometimes tying their spells to something else is useful. This is how you get the healing; you convince the hurt person's body to heal itself gotdamn quicker and if they maybe get a year or so knocked off their life in the process they probably won't notice. Can they siphon off other people's lives to extend theirs? uh. technically. yes. that's the plot of another story (sort of)*.

This is how you get the biometric locks and other fun trinkets that non-mages can use; you set the spell into the lock or the item or whatever and give it a trigger phrase or motion which can be used by anyone. Biometrics will ofc only work for like the one person, but anything else is just dependant on the person knowing the phrase or the motion. Using an item with soul magic in it is obvious - Solaris likens the feeling to a sudden weakness at one point and doesn't like using it. You can fully faint while using soul magic if you're not used to it sort of thing.

This is how you get the interrogation; no one likes having their soul poked at ok. it feels gross. they can and will rifle through your memories. Sometimes they ask for consent first (it could also be a therapy tool, I guess) but holy fuck it's tricky to do without damaging anything. Weirdly this is a fine-wire one that tends to fall more on the mage's life being the one used up because they're still the one using the magic. They could tip it the other way, but then they run the risk of like. killing the subject before they get anything useful.

The controlling-other-people part of the magic is less well known which is why everyone is so fucken stumped by the shenanigans that start this story. It's like. fairytale kinda nonsense. "the soul mage made me do it" to the tune of "the boy who cried wolf", you know?

But that one is tied to the victim's life and can be set as intricately as the mage likes. Most people never know they've even been controlled, although they'll have li'l missing screeds of time where they've just blanked the fuck out and then come to, maybe in another place with no knowledge of how they got there

noticeably it does not work well on fully bonded ferals bc they have two souls and not everyone knows this. The mage that goes after Jasper fucks up by just suppressing his human soul to make him lose the fight and uh. well. buddy's got a lynx soul in there as well, and the lynx has access to fire. That one may have backfired (lmao) on the mage that set the spell, but I'm not sure yet

The other fucked up casefile I have is Elise who is the target the soul mages are trying to get ahold of in this story bc she has a green witch sharing her body who fucked herself over by attempting to use soul magic when she was already dying. There's a timeshare going on. The soul mages stabilised them and would like the experiment back, thank you very much, but because of the stabilisation thingy-majiggy, soul magic no longer affects them. Elise would like the timeshare broken, the green witch is fairly sure she'd die in that case and Does Not Want that, no thank you. They are however both agreed that they're not letting the soul mages get their grubby little paws on them. The soul mages would like her back because literally no one can work out how the fuck she managed to make that happen. like. the only other beings that have two souls are fully bonded feral mages and uh. demons. I think is how Skilkran is classed anyway. but yeah Elise is decidedly neither like damn she's just a girl who turns into a witch when night falls.

(soul magic probably could affect them, the parameters of the spells just need to be set properly but no one's actually thought of that yet. or maybe they have but it's been since they escaped so they haven't had a chance to test the theory)

anyway! yes! soul magery! it was uhhhh it was born out of a dumb joke with brother#2 because the first time I wrote it the magic was set in the saxophone of a dude who was playing um. soul music.

that scene still exists within The Soul of the Party because there are no depths I will not sink to for a dumb joke.

*this is Mint of Red String, they may have had a bad break up with a soul mage in their youth and the soul mage reacted by uh. cursing them to drain the life of whoever fell in love with them? That gets broken with the power of polyamory and also maybe necromancy because fuck yes the gays are winning this one.

[tianshanism]

I don't understand why some people assume that we don't care about Guan Shan? That we are more concerned about the fish and the studs?

We do care about the fish and studs:

The fish because well, it's dying and it apparently reminded Guan Shan of something or someone? She Li and his asshole friends were throwing the poor thing around, it's sad. Also the fish memes are obviously for comedic purposes.

The studs were He Tian's gift, need I say more?

But we care about Guan Shan the most??? I can't believe this has to be said and clarified. The 19 Days tags were full of crying, ready to fight and frustrated posts because majority didn't like what he was going through. There were also memes/funny posts to obviously lighten up the atmosphere. These have been around for years not just in our fandom but literally everywhere. As long as the post is not intentionally offensive/rude/demeaning, I don't think it's necessary to police other people's posts just because you don't get the joke behind it? You can always ask the OP what they really mean if you want. It sucks that some hOmiEs spoil the fun and mood for everyone else so I guess we should make use of the block button lol.

[magnoliamyrrh]

also lmao i had a full mental breakdown last night bc of the stress induced laugh lines rash (it was the last straw) but thank allah i put some cream on that bitch last night and by today its,,, mostly gone

[b1ttle]

The fact that “closet story” is only like…a little over 100k streams away from reaching half a million…I would like to personally thank the girls and the gays <3

[bonnie-bug]

made the mistake of watching one of those fake emergency broadcast videos on youtube (specifically one based in quebec where a good chunk of the world was rapidly covered in 14+ meters of snow in the middle of summer) and even tho it wasn’t supernatural spooky scary it hasnt left my fuckin head and now i cant stop thinking “what if something like that happens. what if there’s a demon attack. what if there’s some kind of creature in ur hallway right now. what if a fuckin scp was real and your only warning was an emergency broadcast just like that”

I dont even believe this kind of shit is real WHY is my brain so fuckin paranoid about supernatural shit. lowkey it happens every night but it’s always worse when I watch something even slightly supernatural horror adjacent. why. I only even watched the stupid video BECAUSE it wasnt a creature/scp/supernatural horror based one and I thought I’d be fine :(

[icewindandboringhorror]

anyone else with health issues (especially chronic stomach problems) ever just feel like............ what if I just went wild? what if I just gont funky bonkers? I still feel bad no matter what dietary and lifestyle changes I make, so why make any at all.. nothing makes sense or seems to matter ANYWAY, so what if I just stopped being careful about things to try and help my symptoms..? throw it all away and live like other people do, start Going to sleep at 3am wake up at 5am and eat nothing until 4pm and it’s just pizza and cold brew and a week old baconator wendy hamburger, run a marathon, cancel all doctor appointment, stop taking supplements and simply relish in anemia whilst eating entire packs of little debbies, etc. etc. 

[touyatodorokigf]

I miss drawing so bad

[oflgtfol]

im. hm. i wonder if my body hurts all the time because of accutane

[avatardoggo]

i am the smartest girl in school

[organic-homegrown-boyfriend]

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[thebibliosphere]

Do you have a preferred brand of enameled cast iron cookware? Please and thank you.

Le Creuset is the one almost everyone knows. I like them, and I even like their stainless steel range. (I’ve had terrible luck with All-Clad over the years, but my LC stainless steel pots have survived, well, me so that should count for something.) They are expensive af, but if you wait for the sales, sometimes you’ll manage to score a piece that will last you a lifetime for 50% off.

Same with Staub, Staub is probably the best-known rival to Le Creuset. I have one of their dutch ovens, and it holds up just as well as the LC, if not actually better. I feel like the meat inside stays juicier, though it is harder to clean imo. Not sure why, might just be a me thing. They used to be slightly cheaper than LC, but I’ve noticed a steep rise in their prices over the last decade. Again, look for them in the sales and you’ll get a piece that will hopefully last you many, many decades with the right care.

Lodge has recently (I say recent, it might have been years ago but what is time) brought out their own enameled cast iron products, and while they are much more limited in range than the other two, it seems much more affordable and would be a good starting point for someone to figure out if they want to invest in enameled cast iron pieces. I haven’t used any of their enamel products, but I do like their cast iron skillets and would hope that level of quality carries through. Might give them a whirl with some of my Christmas money if I find a good deal :)

[regardingjenmish]

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