#themed environment

[nostalgiapurgatory]

The Threshold of Death ' by Jaden Andrea ( Wynn Thorn) 2018

[cherryfennec]

Summer Times

Hi! I'm finally back from my two week abroad trip!

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

In the world of heavy metals, love is denser than hate!

[lily-on-the-fence]

Ahhh the Human Domestication Guide might be taking over my life >w<

I read the original and then started reading Dog of War yesterday and spent nearly the whole day readingg :3 Honestly it's so good and sweet and has just a liiiitle~ bit of tension to keep things fresh.

God it's such a dream of a setting I can't wait to sink my teeth into it and maybe write a little something or other!

[dracomort]

if there's one bit of fanon masquerading as canon that i would like to see die in 2024, it's the idea that voldemort can't love because he was conceived under love potion

that's about as canon as jkr supposedly planning to kill off ron and serve up fred/hermione endgame

Interviewer: How much does the fact that voldemort was conceived under a love potion have to do with his nonability to understand love is it more symbolic? J.K. Rowling: It was a symbolic way of showing that he came from a loveless union – but of course, everything would have changed if Merope had survived and raised him herself and loved him.

Source

[bonefall]

the cats of the park is just frostpaw finally getting some therapy

tbh tho I feel like them being separate from clan life would help her immensely. They’re not so wrapped up in this culture of battle so they have a new and refreshing perspective (and also frost doesn’t have to worry about ulterior motives because they are STAYING AWAY from THAT trainwreck that is the clans)

RE: Nothing in BB!ASC is set in stone until the arc is done BUT

One excellent thing ASC has done with the Park cats that is commendable, is that they're treated as legitimate. Not inferior or malicious. They're just another culture that Frostpaw is going to learn from. The bar is UNDERGROUND but we've finally hopped over it.

So I'd want to keep and acknowledge that.

I think I might have an interesting idea for Frostpaw's journey. Also, side note... I'm thinking BB!ASC will rename every book because these titles are actually awful, im sorry. So I'd call this one ASC: The Source of the River

Gonna jot these down;

So, to begin with, Frostpaw calls the human. While being heavily sedated, she has her first vision of Riverstar.

FROSTPAW DOES NOT HAVE A SPECIAL CONNECTION TO STARCLAN.

She NEVER would. Screw that. Instead-- learning to connect to this vision of Riverstar, to her ancestors and their wisdom, is a SKILL she would learn.

Frame the journey less as Riverstar's Side Quest and more as Frostpaw chasing the Revelation she had while anesthetized.

So when she wakes up, she's thinking about how incomprehensibly VAST Riverstar was. She can't even imagine how there's enough space in the world to contain such a being.

Even the Lake itself... the lake is just a droplet, being suckled like a kit on the teat of the Southern Inlet river

For a second, her troubles seemed like a small flea on the nose of a great, cosmic being. But as she reconnects with the mortal plane after her dream, the flea becomes an infestation. She doesn't know where to begin, or how she can save her Clan.

She thinks back to Riverstar. The river that feeds the Lake. Was that what he was trying to tell her? That she has to follow it to the source?

STOP 1: RIVER WARD

The BB!Tribe is massively overhauled. The Tribe of Rushing Water defines themselves as three Wards (Cave, Mountain, River), connected by living on the same stretch of river.

From them, she learns about connections. They are simply able to call upon each other for all they need, there's no need to "appoint" someone to manage everything.

Families and friends hold each other accountable, networking and negotiating constantly. When the group must act as one, it casts stones.

Their Stoneteller is a religious leader, but all cats connect with their ancestors by personally interpreting omens, even without needing to go see him.

(Contrast to BB!Clans, whose Clerics are the KEEPERS of holy knowledge, and it is a sin to interpret StarClan's will on your own)

Yet, there are downsides. She can see ostracised cats who skirt at the edges of the Ward, especially the descendants of a particular group (called Flicks) that she learns once tried to invade the River Ward.

Though they welcome travellers and have a positive view of Clan cats as "family," she learns that they freeze out those who break taboo. Even for smaller offenses-- social faux pas and personal disputes have caused rifts within the Ward.

And the personal omen interpretation means that two cats can try and justify their feelings with religious commands, leveraging any "soothsayer" (particularly religious cats) connections they have like a social pissing match, unless they're both willing to get dragged to Stoneteller.

From all this, Frostpaw learns that she CAN connect to Riverstar and her ancestors, even if she can't speak to them... and that she must LISTEN. Not allow herself to twist her ancestor's words.

And all the Wards are connected, by the source of a river. Suddenly she answers her question.

"How could the world be big enough to contain a being like Riverstar?" Because water isn't all in one place. It's everywhere. It pools where it can and flows where it cannot.

And yet-- a single people is connected by its water. Three wards, one River. Five Clans, one Lake... three siblings, one belly.

Her heart aches thinking about Curlfeather.

She thinks of when quarreling Tribemates are brought to Stoneteller to arbitrate, and be taught the truth. Brought up the river, to its source at the waterfall.

That has to be it! The source, the BEGINNING.

Stop 2 would be WarriorClan as she heads south, but I'm not sure what they'd teach her yet lmao. Monkeystar says "Hi! Do you want to learn how to play a kazoo"

STOP 3... I'd want to rename the Park Cats. Maybe the New Park cats.

(evil brain: "Neopark. Make terrible petsite joke. Be reincarnated as a lotus flower)

There would also be a BIG recap of Ancient Park culture, and the River Kingdom. Frostpaw knows they had KINGS.

And a lot of aspects that modern Clan cats have-- ceremonial sparring, mentors and apprentices, the Law of the Deputy... those came out of the River Kingdom, before its collapse in the Code Era.

But these cats are NOTHING like the glorious tales of a Kingdom warrior. In fact... this is THE park!

THE park that was destroyed, which King Arc-of-Park lead his people away from. How could it have been ruined if it's still here?

(Reality: the Park was shrunk and landscaped. It was destroyed in that time to the perspective of cats. Maybe she'll have some visions of the past through meditation...)

But the survivors, and those who chose not to follow their King... they remained. And they continue to thrive.

Like canon, have them teach her the ability to meditate. Unlike Tribe cats, meditation is about SIGNS, not OMENS. Omens are physical. Signs are psychic.

(Also i like Bee so im probably gonna keep him as Frosty's yoga coach)

She sees Riverstar a few times, has details of Curlfeather's scheme revealed to her in enough chunks to piece together,

but is eventually bowled over when her best, most productive meditation yet... results in a black shadow.

He has a shining pearlstone adorning his head, and deep, wet pools for eyes. Very few other features can be made out, besides his paw, which is shockingly normal compared to his wraith-like body.

Somehow, Frostpaw understands she is looking at a Patron. But she doesn't know who he is until he tells her, he is King Arc-of-Park.

Though remembered, he is not invoked often. The details of his appearance are lost. All that remains of him is his paw-- carried on in a few expressions and the -paw suffix. The one which Frostpaw herself currently bears.

Since Riverstar, his beloved son, so rarely speaks in straightforward terms, he has come to give Frostpaw her answers.

But before she speaks, trembling with desire for finally FINALLY getting the truth, almost frozen by the sheer volume of things she needs to know, he stops and tells her,

"You have earned the truth, Frostpaw. Be not afraid to ask for what you are owed-- but we only have time for three questions, and I shall ask three in turn."

Question 1: "What did you need me to learn?"

"Many things. How to find your own answers. The perspective of the thousand eyes you've met. The wisdom that only a pilgrimage can bestow. I, too, was no leader before I brought my people up the river, and now you too must save RiverClan. Have you learned what we sought to teach?"

She feels unsure... "I don't think I can know if I have, until I go home."

Even though he has no mouth, she can hear his smile, "That is a yes, child."

Question 2: "What am I learning about RiverClan and its history, if these New Park cats are nothing like my Kingdom ancestors?"

He hums, "You have come to the source of the river, and are vexxed to not find the water that is already swirling downstream? No cat stands in the same river twice, for it is not the same river, and they are not the same cat. Are my people gone, Frostpaw, or do they live on?"

Stunned, her jaw hangs open ever so slightly. She thought she knew the answer right away, but his simple question becomes a riddle on her tongue.

He tells her not to worry. She does not need to answer his questions immediately, as they're running out of time. Ask your last.

Question 3: "...did my mom love me?"

IMMEDIATE, "she did. Child of my distant blood, she loved you like a king loves his prince. Ferociously, ambitiously... selfishly."

He cradles her face in his one, massive, silk-soft paw, like he's reaching out of the shadows, across time itself. His last question, "She put you in a terrible position, didn't she?"

A lifetime's worth of love and agony bubbles out of the kid, "SHE DID. She DID and I never did ANYTHING to deserve this, I did everything she told me, and I just wanted to make her happy, and... and i miss my mom."

When she returns from her trance, she's crying.

But her companions are here to help her unpack all of what she just learned.

Will probably end up letting her recruit a little DND party lmao... maybe one cat from each pit stop. Heartstar shouldn't be the only girlie who's allowed to get expansion packs.

Make a little found family here that Frostpaw returns home with.

RE: NOT. CONFIRMED YET. NONE of this is BB canon yet. Just thoughts I need to get down.

[jetkast]

The discourse around "Wei Wuxian was oblivious" or "Lan Wangji was mean and didn't show his feelings" makes me so tired.

Clearly, many people have not loved someone so much it terrified them, loved a person in such imminent danger that every interaction became tense and difficult. The desire to remove that person from danger, control the situation (or even the person themselves), see them safe makes you yourself a different person entirely.

And on the flipside, the sense of belonging and care so absent and broken that you cannot see what is in front of you. Trust so destroyed (in yourself and others) that you no longer do the work (as you were trained to) to see beyond the cruelty and control as a facade for love and care. To see yourself as a sore and soft creature, encased in a hard weaponized shell that has to fight everything every second to survive, until it no longer seems worth it.

There is no nuance in either perspective, just a profound amount of fear and a drive for survival. MDZS is about war, class disparity, violence on a massive scale that also impacts every single relationship. One of the many reasons I love the story so deeply is that, yes, we see the connection between the two and the potential for so much, but the very reasons they are soulmates -- their values, sense of justice, intensity, dedication, sincerity, etc -- are also the exact reasons there was no option for them to be together under the onslaught of systemic violence.

They both understood that in their own distorted ways, and did not have the time or space to discover what they could make together instead. I think if they had even an iota of a chance to do so -- so close, teased at in LWJ's visit to Yiling with A-Yuan -- they would have tried. But they didn't.

It's all painfully human and real and I love mxtx for that.

[multifanbrainrot]

ah dead boy detectives and the idea/theme of being good, of choosing to do good regardless who you are or were and despite what you've been through

[mistythewizard]

Theme park au doodles

[fire-in-my-woods]

Tell Me Why is part of the LIS franchise. To me

[autisticaradiamegido]

day 251

so like remember when i said i was gonna be mentally ill about utena

[cirkkaa]

color studies of my favorite places in genshin

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Pluralities

sci-fi novella

a burned out 20-something with premonitions has a gender-questioning journey, after quitting their job and becoming friends with benefits with a trans guy

with a parallel narrative about a runaway alien prince in a space empire and his complicated friendship with his sentient spaceship friend

audiobook arc from netgalley!

[xylathesilkwing]

Was it just me, or in the North Star episode Jesse says fuck more often? It has been a few months since I played control, but it seemed like she said it a lot more(not that I’m complaining, this is a /positive)

I love my paranatural wife that curses like a trucker. Me core

but also it made me do MATH?? I hate math y’all. hate math. stupid roasting temperature

[bonefall]

Ok dude to a recent post of yours is have to know what other plants are sluts?

Rhododendron is the QUEEN of sluts. It will not STOP. Uprooting this fast-growing monstrosity is dick and half a ball because it has strong roots and woody stems; UK conservationists hate this stuff.

The most monstrous slut, Colonel War Crimes of the slut kingdom, is Giant Hogweed. Not ONLY is it voracious, not only is it huge, but this plant is NOXIOUS. You have to sequester it off when you see it and eradicate it in PPE. Actively dangerous just to stand around.

Other sluts are sitka spruces, mile-a-minuteweed, japanese honeysuckle, skunk cabbage... very aggressive invaders. The UK is under seige with invasive species since the island is REALLY unique in its soil chemistry. Once you deacidify it, you have a hard time fixing that.

[heytheredeann]

“Yes, there is a place where someone loves you both before and after they learn what you are.” ― Neil Hilborn