#vestigal structures

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Dolphins also have pelvic bones. Whales have legs.

#IntelligentDesign

[etchif]

Okay but genuinely. Why is Cats so severely hated on. I get the 2019 movie is largely what brought it back into the public conscience and thus strongly shaped the current generation's view of the show but there has to be more than that, people were hating on it even before the film came out. It almost feels like Cats (or god forbid LIKING Cats) is treated as somewhat of a musical theatre taboo. The One Show no one likes and you're not allowed to like because everyone will look at you funny, even folks who don't normally care much about musical theatre. Come on guys they're just kitty cats

Yadda yadda nice opinion did a youtuber give it to you try forming your own opinions on things without parroting other people's etc etc

[apocalypticdemon]

godd i'm so. compelled. by the audio in this show. i'm finally allowing myself a re-watch, now that school is out of session, and i finally got to 'the ladder' episode. and i noticed that, right after sir john gets thrown down the ice hole, that the audio gets strangely muffled.

almost like it's underwater. the only thing that isn't muffled is the music in the background.

[cutecipher]

As much as Im an anarchist i think that many communists are right in that in order for a anarchocommunist society to exist a transitional government structure is necessary first and frankly it may have to last generations before it can be dissolved, but it will eventually have to be dissolved

[junranghae]

i forgot the jun evolution theory denier subplot of wonwoo diary

[blorbologist]

Y'know, I think I figured out why the Hells still feel like a new low-level party to me, even though they're level 13 and almost 100 episodes in.

I don't quite think it's the lack of conversations, or the fact half the party's plot hooks are big ties to past campaigns - though that definitely plays a part.

... Bell's Hells still primarily rely on quest givers.

Most of their goals are given to them and do not feel organic to the party, and constantly remind us that the Hells are pretty much never the most powerful people in the room. Which is usually something you see with a low-level party.

NPCs offering jobs is not a bad thing; it's a very common plot hook. Matt has been extremely skilled with using NPC quest givers in those two campaigns. Not only do they provide an obvious plot thread, but they can put the party in the path of others (say, the Nein running into the Iron Shepherds while doing a job for the Gentleman and everything that came of that). And the Hells had a solid start with it too - Eshteross was an excellent quest giver!

The problem is that Bell's Hells have never really not had a quest giver.

Maybe it's a byproduct of the more plot-heavy structure of this campaign? But while prior parties have felt like they decided on their course of action and what they prioritized, Bell's Hells feels less like level 13 (13! Level 13!) experienced adventurers and more like an MMO group clicking on the exclamation point over an NPC's head. Where does the plot demand we go next? Who do we report back to?

They're level 13.

At level 13, Vox Machina had just defeated a necromantic city-state to clear their name and Percy's conscience. And, you know, the Conclave just destroyed Emon. No one was explicitly telling the group to gather Vestiges and save the world (though Matt guided them there), and they were usually among the most powerful people in the room. They chose which Vestiges to prioritize, which dragons to tackle when, even if the over-all plot was pretty clear.

At level 13, the Mighty Nein were celebrating Traveler Con (another PC goal, I'll note) after brokering peace between two nations, accidentally becoming pirates and heroes of the Dynasty. The Nein regularly chose what to do based on personal goals, not grand ones. Though definitely smaller fish than Vox Machina at this level, they were very independent and gaining solid political clout.

While we're at it: level 13 is one level lower than the Ring of Brass, who had a huge amount of sway over Avalir. They ended the world, and also saved it, while in the grand scheme of things being only a smidge more powerful than Bell's Hells are now.

Can you really see the Hells wielding that amount of influence, when they're constantly being told what to do next?

The god-eater might be unleashed, so Bell's Hells have no time to do anything but what is asked of them. No time for therapy unless stolen from Feywild time, no travel on foot and late-night watches. They haven't even had time to grieve FCG. Percy was grieved in the middle of the Conclave arc. Molly was grieved when half the party was still in irons.

Matt is in the very unfortunate spot of not being able to give the Hells the same agency as the other two parties. Not only because of the world-ending plot introduced so early on; they are surrounded by characters they know (and the cast knows) are stronger and wiser than them - the familiarity of the past PCs and NPCs is to their disadvantage.

Why would the party reasonably ignore Keyleth's task that will help save the world and go off on a romp? Why would the cast when they know well Keyleth has to be sensible and with the best intentions in mind? The stakes are just too high.

It means that the Hells still feel like they're running errands instead of pursuing their own destiny. Their accomplishments are diminished as just being parts of a to-do list, and any stakes feel padded by several level 20 PCs/NPCs standing 5 steps away ready to catch them.

This isn't Bell's Hell's fault, nor is it Matt's. It could be amended, I think, if the Hells are really left to their own devices for a long period of time without support and shortcuts (like during the party split)... which would be really tricky to pull off at this point in the campaign.

They're level 13. They're big fish, but they're stuck in a pond full of friendly sharks, so they don't feel big at all.

[anim-ttrpgs]

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy July 11th Update, Wolfmania, Our Biggest Update Yet!

This update was delayed by about one week, but I think everyone will find that this was well worth it, as this has been our most significant update ever to the rulebook and general content of Eureka. Where do I even begin?

Maybe I’ll start with the best part. For a limited time, this update is FREE! You can grab a PDF from the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club Discord server from now (July 11th 2024) until the next book club round starts! (Which will probably be about a month.)

Here’s just a few of the highlights for this update, you’ll find the full changelog below.

Major cleanup and copy-editing is underway again finally, and we managed to eliminate 42 pages of unnecessary blank space and extraneous text, as well as rewording and reorganizing many rules sections to make them clearer and easier to read. You now only have to read 20 pages before the first mention of how to roll dice, rather than 70.

Ten new character traits.

A PC’s Wealth stat now has a much greater effect on them in more areas of gameplay.

A ton of new art assets.

A bunch of massive improvements to combat that make it flow smoother with fewer interruptions, some of these improvements will be discussed in detail in their own post.

Repurposed Chapter 7 into being a chapter dedicated to GMing and homebrew.

Huge cleanups to the supernatural chapter.

Some changes to monsters overall to make them more modular and less restrictive in character creation.

Two new playable “supernatural” “creatures.”

Two new mage traits as well. (Which also double as two new spells for the witch)

The weaknesses of a vampire are now a bit more subjective and modular. For instance, in character creation you can trade off a greater sensitivity to garlic for a more potent sense of smell, or a lesser sensitivity to garlic for a weaker sense of smell. Vampires are now also explicitly thematically tied to religion, religious trauma, and religious horror.

Wolfmania! The wolfman monster now has different transformation options during character creation. You now choose your wolfman PC’s partial wolf transformation and full wolf transformation, with four options for each. There are some major narrative trade-offs for different combinations but I’ll let you figure that out for yourself.

Then, there is "The Eye of Neptune." "The Eye of Neptune" is a Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy adventure module that has languished in an unfinished state for like six months, but we finally got it like 99% complete. The only thing missing are the maps and the artwork, which it is fully playable without.

Man has built a city of steel and black blood atop the endless abyss. It is a beating heart bound together with labyrinthian pipe veins. Hundreds of miles away from civilization, it stands in the midst of the Gulf of Mexico with naught but empty horizons around it. Within is a vast structure of winding halls, grinding machinery, and thousands upon thousands of small parts working to achieve a grand design. It is the Offshore Oil Rig Neptune, and it was once run by 200 workers. Now, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has fallen to more or less a dozen. These last vestiges of life in the rig spread themselves thin and work their hands to the bone to keep the massive beast running. In the midst of this overwhelming isolation, two members of the already shorthanded crew are unaccounted for, Seth Barlowe and Lukas Ward. The installation manager, Noah, has convened a meeting to try to find out what happened to him. With the crew already severely shorthanded and tensions running high, a mysterious disappearance is the last thing anyone needs. 

You can get a copy of The Eye of Neptune, as well as another adventure module, several stories, and continuous monthly rulebook updates from our Patreon for only $5/month!

Now here's the full changelog! I'm mercifully putting it under a Read More because it's our longest one yet!

CHANGE LOG 

Copy-editing Progress: Thoroughly copy-edited up to p. 47.

CHAPTER 1

Better clarified how Heat increases.

Minor edit to Role of the Narrator.

Changed the name of Chapter 1 to “Core Gameplay Rules”

Minor tweak/clarification to what happens with a 7-9 on a Heat roll.

Instead of +1 Heat when the villain is in league with the police, Heat now simply does not decrease for the duration of the adventure. 

Heat rolls are now made whenever an investigator’s Heat increases by 3 or more within a single scene, rather than being made on multiples of 3 Heat.

Added another entry to the list of how Heat can increase

How much Heat an investigator starts the adventure with is now based on their Wealth stat.

Minor sentence reworks

Added a more detailed story of A.N.I.M. and Eureka’s history to the foreword

Moved Verisimilitude section out of Foreword down below Inspirations 

Moved “Deadly Combat, Permanent Consequences” to Chapter 3 above Grievous Wounds

Moved the “Monsters” section of the foreword to Chapter 8

Better clarified starting Heat

Lots of copy-editing and minor twinning, additions, and tweaks

Fixed the Quick Term definition for Truth being inaccurate.

Moved a bunch of sections from Chapter 1 to Chapter 7, including Heat

CHAPTER 2

Fixed the Believer Snoop accidentally being put with the Woo-Woo trait

Tweaked the None of My Business Trait

Changed Traits section to “Mundane Trait List”

Changed the amount of Penetrative HP for Not Finished Yet trait to 13 instead of 10

Added holster to item list.

Found out bump stocks are no-longer illegal 

Added “It’s for a Book” trait 

Added “Moneybags” trait

Added “The Ascot” trait 

Added “Gang Way!” trait 

Added “Dangerprone Damsel” trait

Added “Master of Disguise” Trait.

Added “Ninja” Trait

Added “Quick Draw” trait

Edited the Food Budget item to be more clear

Changed it so that guns no-longer come with bullets, these must be bought separately

Changed having +2 Wealth to “middle class” and +3 Wealth to “upper middle class,” to better describe how the Wealth skill actually influences the game

The formula for calculating WP is now 3D6+6+[Wealthx2]

Increased the WP price for certain items to reflect the above change

Added “Frugal” trait 

Added “Kleptomaniac” trait

Added art of example investigator Nick Morgan

Moved a bunch of sections from Chapter 2 to Chapter 7

Moved some stuff about investigators losing items to Chapter 7

Moved some stuff about homebrewing traits into Chapter 7

Changed the name of Chapter 2 to “How to Make an Investigator” because now all the NPC stuff is moved to Chapter 7

Better clarified skills

Changed the heading “Additional Traits” to “Choosing More Than Three Traits”

CHAPTER 3

Added clarification that sometimes it does matter whether a weapon is a blunt weapon, a piercing weapon, or a cutting weapon, and we trust players to be able to intuit what types of weapons are what.

Made animal teeth and animal claws separate entries on the weapon list

Better clarified when Speed needs to be calculated and when it doesn't

Explained what a node map is

Removed the rules for doing turn order based on Reflexes rolls, and finally made it so that Epicenter Initiative works with firearms combat.

Added rules for equipping weapons during combat

You now add Acceleration bonus to Athletics rolls for characters moving long distances in theater of the mind combat. Need to go around and remove the special speeds for various supernatural characters. 

Added a section that explains why so many pages is dedicated to combat despite this game being an investigation game primarily

Added art of some small knives

Put “Deadly Combat, Permanent Consequences” to this chapter instead of the Foreword

CHAPTER 4

Added some art to the gun information list 

Made Fully Automatic Fire have a hard limit of 12 bullets per attack. 

Added Quick Cycling rule, allowing characters with a +2 or more in Firearms to fire Two-round Bursts with Single-Action and Repeating firearms.

CHAPTER 5

Added rule for ride-by attacks to basic melee attack

Better clarified Escape

Attempts to disarm a character now have bonuses or penalties based on the difference between the Athletics skill of the two characters involved, similar to how Escape attempts work. 

CHAPTER 6

Clarified that Acceleration is not affected by Composure

Tiny tweak to how chases are described

Better clarified when Speed needs to be calculated and when it doesn't

CHAPTER 7

Added “How We Play Eureka” section explaining which optional rules we personally do and don't prefer

Changed the name of Chapter 7 to “Advanced Narration and Homebrewing”

Added a ton of stuff from other chapters to Chapter 7 to make it a general chapter for Narrators as well as help with game/module design and homebrewing. It is currently a little bit of a mess but is at least serviceable until we get to the point where we can fully copy-edit it.

CHAPTER 8

Minor vampire tweaks

Made it so that that the vampire sensitivity to certain scents is more codified and now causes composure rolls, and now works more like their compulsion to count things in that the placement of the weakness on their tiers of fear determines how much of a bonus they have to Senses checks involving smell and taste. 

Adjusted Even Monsters are Afraid of Something section to reflect the above changes 

Added more mechanics for how NPC vampires interact mechanically with weaknesses. 

Better clarified the full moon roll for wolfmen. It is now just 1D12+1. 

Better codified superhuman strength as a rule.

Gave the math for handling consistent HP across alternate supernatural forms its own section.

Completely redid the wolfman wolf forms. Now during character creation players can choose one of four options for each of the wolfman’s wolf forms, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Up to 16 possible combinations! Wolfmania!

Improved the werewolf trait to fit with the updates to wolfman

Adjusted wolf manifestation of vampire to fit with new wolfman rules. 

Better clarified vampire claws

Added Supernatural Bonuses and Investigation Rolls section

Tweaked wolfman involuntary transformation so that the form they rampage in is still random even if they are already in a wolf form when the rampage starts

Changed stats of vampire’s bat manifestation

Better clarified vampire sunlight and silver weakness mechanics

Totally revamped vampire’s monstrous beast manifestation 

Redid the Superhuman Speed mage trait, made it a lot better 

Improved the Stealth bonus of the Invisibility mage trait

Improved Stealth bonuses of thing from beyond.

Added a “Purpose” mechanic to living dolls, which is what the doll in question was built to do. When they act towards this purpose, they get +1 to rolls, and when they fail or otherwise ignore their purpose, they may lose Composure. 

Updated Even Monsters are Afraid of Something section to reflect the above

Made it so wolfmen lose 2 Composure from skipping a meal instead of 1.

Clarified that the thing from beyond does not need to stay in human shape the entire time they are digesting a human victim. 

Clarified the possibility of escaping from a monstrous supernatural beast’s stomach for both the giant wolfman forms and the monstrous vampire manifestation. 

Clarified Telekinesis trait

Added “Manifest Weaponry” Mage Trait

Added “Incredible Strength” Mage Trait

Added ability for an investigator to be a talking dog.

Changed “wannabe monster hunter” to just “monster hunter” and added a new sidebar

Rewriting large chunks of the first half of chapter 8, redefining each type of supernatural investigator, and adding a fourth category of investigator. Work in progress

Monster investigators now only require 18 investigation points instead of 21. 

Removed “Is this a monster or a mage” section. This is no-longer needed now that these categories are more clearly defined. 

Removed blood sacrifice from the witch’s true nature and just committed to making it be about cannibalism and about using magic–any of their magic–for petty and/or entirely selfish reasons. 

Gave witches a proper weakness

Changed the name of the witch to Fairytale Witch

Moved Alternative Witch into the misc. category

Removed large chunks of chapter 8 that were either no-longer needed or had become so outdated as to be contradictory to other rules

Vampires now gain 1 additional point of Composure for every 5 Morale or Composure damage they do to their victim during an attack, to better codify how they feed on human suffering as much as the literal blood they drink.

Added the “Monsters” section of the Foreword to this chapter instead

Changed the name of the Thing From Beyond’s “Shapeshifter” trait to “Imposter Syndrome”

Moved some stuff about homebrewing traits into Chapter 7

Elegantly designed and thoroughly playtested, Eureka represents the culmination of three years of near-daily work from our team, as well as a lot of our own money. If you’re just now reading this and learning about Eureka for the first time, you missed the crowdfunding window unfortunately, but our Kickstarter page is still the best place to learn more about what Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy actually is, as that is where we have all the fancy art assets, the animated trailer, links to video reviews by podcasts and youtubers, and where we post regular updates on the status of our progress finishing the game and getting it ready for final release.

Beta Copies through the Patreon

If you want more than just status updates, going forward you can download regularly updated playable beta versions of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy and it’s adventure modules by subscribing to our Patreon at the $5 tier or higher. Subscribing to our patreon also grants you access to our patreon discord server where you can talk to us directly and offer valuable feedback on our progress and projects.

The A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club

If you would like to meet the A.N.I.M. team and even have a chance to play Eureka with us, you can join the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club discord server. It’s also just a great place to talk and discuss TTRPGs, so there is no schedule obligation, but the main purpose of it is to nominate, vote on, then read, discuss, and play different indie TTRPGs. We put playgroups together based on scheduling compatibility, so it’s all extremely flexible. This is a free discord server, separate from our patreon exclusive one. https://discord.gg/7jdP8FBPes

Other Stuff

We also have a ko-fi and merchandise if you just wanna give us more money for any reason.

We hope to see you there, and that you will help our dreams come true and launch our careers as indie TTRPG developers with a bang by getting us to our base goal and blowing those stretch goals out of the water, and fight back against WotC's monopoly on the entire hobby. Wish us luck.

[aethon-recs]

Tomarrymort Advanced Pack – 12 Longfic Recs

If you’ve made your way through the Tomarrymort Starter Pack and Intermediate Pack reads, here are 12 beautifully written, timeless fics that are Tomarrymort on hard mode for when you’re ready to dive into something that will really challenge your every reading muscle. This selection of fics features some of the most skilled writing I’ve come across in the entire fandom, and I love how these authors tackle incredibly complex subject matter and plotlines and characterization choices with such bold and unflinching perspectives.

Please mind all tags (including CCNTW, explained here) as you may find some themes within some of these fics difficult or challenging to read for a variety of reasons.

This is Part 3 of a 3-part series (see here for Part 1 and Part 2). I hope you get as much enjoyment from reading these additional 3.1 million words of incredible Tomarrymort longfic as I have!

*

Tomarrymort Advanced Reads

ǟʟʍǟɢɛֆȶ by eldritcher (M, 134k, complete)

Setting: Canon Divergence – Book 6 Premise: If Harry and Dumbledore team up with Voldemort to save the magical world from a catastrophic threat. Why I rec it: Eldritcher delivers one of the most epic love stories of a lifetime — with Harry and Voldemort surviving a trip to the moon and back, and Harry’s love for Voldemort transcending time and space after Voldemort makes the ultimate sacrifice to save the world and, against all odds, return to Harry. The prose is absolutely transcendent — amongst the best I’ve encountered not only in fanfic, but in all of fiction I’ve ever read. I can’t say enough about how much I love Elditcher’s writing style and how beautifully the story unfolds — there’s a very nice lyrical rhythm underlying all the sentence structure and word choice in the fic that flows like nothing else I’ve read before.

Anabiosis by @itsevanffs (E, 32k, WIP)

Setting: Canon Divergence Pre-Book 1 Premise: If Voldemort resurrects early and takes a teaching job at Harry’s primary school. Why I rec it: This is one of the best and most realistic and gutting depictions I’ve ever read of the quiet tragedy of Harry’s pre-Hogwarts years growing up experiencing severe neglect and an absence of love throughout his entire childhood. @itsevanffs did a magnificent job of capturing Harry’s limited POV and all the fluttering hope his still-trusting heart holds when he meets Mr Riddle, the first teacher who’s ever treated him with kindness. My heart ached so much for Harry throughout this fic, and the emotional arc in this story has continued to haunt me for a very long time afterwards.

Eight Days a Week by @vestiges-of-light (E, 802k, complete)

Setting: Canon Divergence – Book 7 Premise: If Voldemort captures Harry shortly after his sixth year, which leads to an unlikely truce and eventual partnership that ends up saving the magical world. Why I rec it: This fic combines a sprawling political epic with an incredibly extensive exploration of kink. The author asks a great question in the tags: "Why is only vanilla sex literary?" — and this fic does a fantastic job of proving that messy, filthy, raw sex scenes don’t have to be made sanitized or palatable for mainstream consumption in order to have just as much of a place in a plot-driven, serious longfic as vanilla sex does. Against the high-stakes backdrop of international political intrigue, there’s a very nice domesticity to Harry and Voldemort’s relationship, and how much they trust each other and can be stripped bare and vulnerable in front of each other is very poignant and touching to read about.

Embryo by @cannibalinc (NR, 28k, WIP)

Setting: Time Travel (1940s) Premise: If mysterious new transfer student Harry appears in Tom’s sixth year in a state of near complete amnesia. Why I rec it: One of the defining character traits of Tom Riddle is that he’s an absolute genius — the most talented academic mind to ever walk through the doors of Hogwarts — and this fic absolutely delivers on that aspect. Told from Tom’s POV, this fic is like reading a complex multidisciplinary text spanning philosophy and physics and mathematics and magical theory, all interconnected by the mystery of how Harry appeared and where he came from and why he is so utterly forgettable to everyone but Tom.

found by @honbug (E, 112k, WIP)

Setting: Non-Magical AU Premise: If Tom grows up in a world with no magic, but has had strange recurring dreams his whole life — dreams of a boy with green eyes and a scar, dreams of a dark graveyard and magical snakes and other mysterious things. Why I rec it: The character work done in this fic is absolutely breathtaking — one of the best character studies of Tom Riddle I’ve ever come across. This is a Tom who grew up without magic, but is no less cold and vicious and psychopathic and teetering on the edge of madness. The story arc follows Tom from his early childhood through his rise as a ruthless leader in an organized crime syndicate not unlike the Death Eaters — all the while that he’s haunted by dreams of Harry, his Harry, even as the dreams start to drive him to the brink of insanity.

how large the teeth by MaidenMotherCrone (E, 257k, complete)

Setting: Voldemort Wins AU Premise: If Harry grows up as an outcast in a world where Grindelwald and Voldemort have already won long before he is born, but he’s still the subject of a prophecy that designates him as their world’s savior. Why I rec it: The worldbuilding is so exquisite and complex in this fic — the author did a spectacular job at completely reimagining the wizarding world from the ground up if the Dark Lord were to win a long time ago and how their extremely inequitable society would subsequently be structured. Harry’s defiance throughout is lovely, and his growing entanglement with Voldemort adds to all the high-stakes and risky moves that he makes throughout the fic. The plotline is very action-packed — a lot of complex plot threads are interwoven throughout the story, with an undercurrent of revolution and discontent simmering under the surface until it explodes in a glorious finale.

In Willing Sacrifice by @hikarimeroperiddle (M, 1,197k, WIP)

Setting: Canon Divergence – Book 4 Premise: If Harry finds Voldemort in Riddle Manor the summer before his fourth year, and enters into an unlikely alliance with him before returning to school that year. Why I rec it: This fic covers so much ground — at 1.2 million words (so far!), it’s the most detailed rewrite of canon starting from book 4 that I’ve ever come across, weaving in plenty of magical theory and political intrigue as Voldemort takes Harry under his protection initially in a mentor capacity. The relationship between Harry and Voldemort unfolds in such a beautiful way in this fic — with Harry growing to fall in love with Voldemort, despite all of Voldemort’s murderous and violent qualities, without losing an ounce of his humanity or the inherent goodness inside of his heart along the way.

Lover's Spit by @blogalinda, @k3uuu (E, 88k, WIP)

Setting: Non-Magical AU Premise: If Harry and Tom grow up in a small town together in northern England, and Tom has harbored an obsession for Harry ever since primary school. Why I rec it: An absolutely stunning coming-of-age story set in modern times. This story is striking in so many different ways. It perfectly captures the voice of fringe internet communities in such an authentic way. It also poignantly captures the social isolation and erosion of privacy from living in a small town where gossip spreads like wildfire, and how the internet amplifies these dynamics. At the core of the story is a really sweet love story between Tom and Harry that I am literally obsessed with — every single one of their interactions is so tender and pure — and it’s such a startling contrast to how Tom’s internet persona is portrayed that makes the sweetness all the more heartfelt.

Mi Aedijekit by @kitastrophea (M, 282k, WIP)

Setting: Post-Canon Premise: If Harry is captured by Voldemort and placed under the Draught of Living Death, only to awaken in the far future where Voldemort has ruled over their world for over a thousand years. Why I rec it: A linguistic and sociological tour de force. When Harry wakes up from his magical coma over a thousand years into the future, the world has been entirely transformed, and the skill and effort that the author undertook in fleshing out a society where there’s been a thousand years of cultural change and evolution in language can’t be understated. One of the most unique and fun aspects of the story is learning the new vocabulary of the future alongside Harry for the first time. I love how the fic examines how even Voldemort gets bored with immortality after a millennia of ruling — and how, even with a thousand years separating them and memories of the earlier times scattered to the wind, Harry and Voldemort are still inextricably drawn together.

Of Kings, Of Pawns, and Of Men by @ambivalens999 (E, 129k, WIP)

Setting: Canon Divergence – Book 5 Premise: If Voldemort ends up in Harry’s body and Harry ends up in Tom Riddle’s body after a bad encounter with the dementors at the beginning of book 5, and they can’t figure out how to swap back. Why I rec it: This is such an interesting take on the bodyswap trope, which is given a very serious and plotty treatment here. For fear of the safety of his friends, Harry has to go along with returning to his 5th year at Hogwarts in Tom Riddle’s body and being sorted into Slytherin house, while Tom passes himself off as Harry Potter. There’s a mystery behind the depth of Tom’s knowledge and familiarity with Harry, as he knows more about Harry than even Voldemort should. Is it the scar horcrux? Is it Voldemort? Is it something else entirely? The inherent combativeness and magnetism between Harry and Tom keep the tension high as they push each other’s buttons and circle around each other like wolves trying to establish dominance.

Phobia by @katsitting (E, 48k, complete)

Setting: Post-Canon Premise: If Voldemort captures Harry and brutally tortures him to the point of breaking. Why I rec it: This fic does not sugarcoat Voldemort’s capacity for cruelty and sadism in any way, and I admire the author’s commitment to depicting the most horrific of scenarios. Having read countless fics with this setup, I’ll be honest, the depiction in this fic is probably the most likely outcome of any Voldemort-captures-Harry scenario. They do not fall in love. It is not a fun time for Harry. There is gore; there is brutal prisoner torture; there is extremely extensive non-con. I found it very raw and unvarnished — not an easy read, but a very memorable and evocative one. And yet, despite the themes of darkness explored in this fic, it ends on a note of hope.

The Foul (part 1) / The Great (part 2) by @meles-merrivale (M, 24k, complete)

Setting: Time Travel Premise: If Harry gets thrown back in time a thousand years into the past, and does whatever it takes to stay alive until he can meet up with Voldemort again. Why I rec it: This is a fantastic depiction of the slow descent into madness following a disastrous time travel accident and what a thousand years of immortality does to one’s sanity. It’s also a great exploration of the time travel paradox and whether anyone has the power to change the past, or if pivotal historical events are, by their very nature, predetermined. By the time Harry encounters Voldemort again, he is a shell of the person he used to be, but gradually, he finds more of his original humanity and spark for life the more his relationship with Voldemort progresses.

*

[mindblowingscience]

Stromatolites are the earliest geological record of life on Earth. These curious biotic structures are made of algae carpets growing toward the light and precipitating carbonates. After their first appearance 3.48 Ga ago, stromatolites dominated the planet as the sole living carbonate factory for almost three billion years. Stromatolites are also partially responsible for the Great Oxygenation Event, which drastically changed the composition of our atmosphere by introducing oxygen. That oxygen initially wiped out stromatolites' competition, enabling their prominence in the Archean and early Proterozoic environment. However, as more life forms adapted their metabolism to an oxygenated atmosphere, stromatolites started to decline, popping up in the geologic record only after mass extinctions or in difficult environments. "The bacteria are always around, but they don't usually get the chance to make stromatolites," explains Volker Vahrenkamp, the author of a new study in Geology. "They are largely outcompeted by corals."

Continue Reading.

[nepthys-merenset]

I got this idea for Dmitry and Lane's first kiss in my head, and basically couldn't rest until I got it out of my head. Sooo...here you go--my first fanfiction in literal years. Enjoy my delulu dreams!

Title: "A Search for Understanding"

Pairing: Lane x Dmitry [Heaven's Secret: Requiem]

Word Count: 1,595

Rating: T

Taglist: @rc-catalog

TW: Mild blood, mutual roughness.

“Sit.”

His keen blue eyes tracked her every movement as his voice, cold as ice, shattered the silence in the room. She closed the door gently, as if she could appease him by treating his office with care, and crossed the room, sinking into the chair in front of his desk. He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest, surveying her silently. Waiting.

Unconsciously, her eyes swept over the desk. Spartan in its cleanliness, it showed that Dmitry—the General, she corrected herself, she had no right to familiarity with him—truly was a military man through and through. Three manila file folders, a letter opener, and a lamp were the only items on its surface.

Her gaze lingered on the letter opener.

Just in case.

***** 

Dmitry had been a military man all his life, long before hellfire rained from the sky and the Horsemen of the Apocalypse walked the earth. The structure made sense to him—added order to his life. As the cataclysms worsened, military discipline and protocol went from rule of law to suggestion to mere relics of the past, but vestiges of the chain of command remained. He clung to the remnants, the last bits of his old life, even as his squad dwindled.

Some deserted, deciding to spend their remaining days with their families. Others were killed. Still more simply vanished, lost to the frozen wasteland.

The files of three such soldiers, their careers tersely summarized in manila folders, lay on his desk. One, he would unseal and finally label “killed in action” when he finished with Lane. Two others were still labeled “missing in action,” a hopeful gesture that he found increasingly inappropriate with every passing day.

He leveled his gaze at Lane. Things had made sense until that goddamn angel had pulled her from the Rift and forced him to save her life. No matter what new nightmare the apocalypse brought, no matter what thinly veiled resentment the immortals showed him on a daily basis, the chain of command between him and the human members of the squad made sense.

He was responsible for Anna, Greg, Lester, Nick, Noah, and the rest of the squad, and he trusted without question that they would obey him. That they respected him as a leader and wouldn’t turn on him.

But you—I can't trust you.

Lane unsettled him. Confused him. He found himself studying her often, trying to find meaning in her fleeting expressions and subtle glances. Sometimes, he could have sworn he saw a glint of red in her eyes, but he forced that thought down whenever it came to him. That was impossible, and besides—he couldn’t possibly be watching her closely enough to notice a thing like that.

Clearing his throat to attract her attention, he flicked the file on top of the pile open and roughly turned it in her direction. “Noah’s file. Years of immaculate service.”

A quick glance—brown, he noticed—before she looked down at the file. His gaze wandered to her lips, following their minute movements as she read.

Stop it.

“No issues worth documenting with any other squad members. And you claim he suddenly attacked you and Boris Romanov with a knife.”

More silence. She only frowned and shook her head slightly, as if to say, I already told you everything.

He cracked, slamming his open palm down over the file. “Explain yourself! What happened in that room?”

She looked at him fleetingly, before her gaze turned left, towards the letter opener—

My gun. She went for my gun the last time—

A quick rustle of fabric as she moved, and he exploded into motion, reaching for her.

*****  

One push.

One push, and she would have the letter opener and her freedom. She launched herself upwards, out of the chair and onto the desk. One knee landed on the desk, the other foot planted firmly on the floor as she grasped wildly for the letter opener.

Her hand closed over it and she brought it to his neck just as his hands closed, viselike, over her wrists. She froze, her hand trembling as the vein below the letter opener pulsed with life.

One push and the life of the man who had saved hers would end.

Indecision paralyzed her. She would be free, but she would be alone. Without the one man who had managed to read her like a book and given her a place in this new world, however begrudgingly.

The blade shook, drawing blood. Her eyes strayed downward.

Red, she noticed. Not like mine.

Unwilling to either continue or relax her grip, she raised her eyes, meeting his cold blue stare. His hands loosened on her wrists but didn’t fall. There would be bruises tomorrow. Of that much, she was sure.

“You could do it,” he murmured, barely moving his lips. His life was in her hands, just as the key to unlocking her past could be in his. “But where would you go from there?”

Anywhere. Or nowhere.

She couldn’t say why she dropped the letter opener, or if it was even a conscious decision. Maybe it was a decision spurred by her longing for connection. Maybe it was the ephemeral memory of the night he’d helped her with her work. Or maybe it was her lost humanity, locked deep below layers of confusion and apathy. But regardless of reason, the blade slipped from her fingers, clattering to the desk with a lingering sense of finality.

Something had changed between them.

They moved as one, both filled with longing—one to understand why she couldn’t take that final step towards freedom, the other to understand why she was the one thing that disrupted the painstakingly maintained order of his life.

He stood, locking his arms underneath her as she raised her other leg, kneeling on the desk. Kicking his chair aside, he turned, pushing her roughly against the window as they thought, unaware, in sync—

I need to understand you.

Her hands tightened around his neck, bringing more blood—red—to the surface. As his life flowed over her fingers, their eyes met—brown and blue. Keen, both searching, both beginning to find what they sought. Answers.

There was nowhere else to go. The room was filled with a sense of inevitability as their lips crashed together in a demanding kiss. She gasped, a tiny little noise, as warmth flowed through her. Her fingers, sticky with his blood, tingled as she locked her hands behind his neck and forgot herself in his embrace.

Is this what it was like before? Before the Rift?

She felt like she was closer to understanding what she had lost—what she may have experienced before those three years had vanished from her life. In his arms, she felt the closest to alive than she had since Cain had pulled her from the Rift. Like a person who actually mattered to someone.

He grunted, adjusting his grip as her back rubbed against the cool glass behind her and her legs wrapped around his waist. He bit her lip sharply. Blood trickled down her chin as she gasped again, tangling her hands in his hair and pulling once, twice. First experimentally, then with force. All the while, their searching lips moved against each other.

A deep, appreciative sound rumbled through the General as he turned again, thrusting her back onto the desk without care. Blood dripped onto the covers of his missing soldiers’ files, marring his perfectly kept records. He didn’t care. He needed to understand her, and he knew he was getting closer.

One arm swept out, clearing the desk, and the lamp flew to the side and shattered against the wall. Consciousness returned along with the crash, loud and abrupt.

With a groan that felt like acknowledgement of the madness that had gripped them, Dmitry pulled back. Lane fought for breath, touching the blood on her chin. Both stared at the broken lamp, its shards glinting reproachfully in the dying sunlight.

What have you done?

He was still the man whose orders she may have to defy one day, the man she may have to betray eventually, to unlock the mysteries of her past.

She was still the woman who may have caused the disappearance of two of his soldiers.

And he was still her superior officer, a man with no order in his life except for the chain of command. His only remaining oath as a soldier.

She hardly dared to move, but she still slid from the desk, and they stepped away from each other. Her hand over her mouth, his hand on his neck. Breathing hard, eyes cautiously trained on each other. Their connection was undeniable, unavoidable, but the distance seemed insurmountable.

He deliberately looked away from her and said flatly, “we’ll discuss this later.” In a vain attempt to convince her that he meant her squadmate’s disappearance, he gestured at Noah’s file, askew on the floor, before dismissing her. “Go back to the estate.” 

She didn’t believe him—she knew he wasn’t thinking about Noah right now—but she grasped at his words like a drowning woman would at a life preserver. She wasn’t ready to explore what had happened, either. But even as she agreed, doubt swirled in her mind. Was he her barrier, or her key?

“Yes, General.”

As she left the room, she glanced behind her. Dmitry dropped heavily into his chair, his head falling into his hands. Light reflected off of the bloody letter opener, still lying just out of his reach, and the door closed behind her.

They would have to continue searching for answers later.

[slavonicrhapsody]

coincidence

OK SORRY you sent this when the first DLC trailer dropped and I never got around to answering it. I guess now that the DLC is out we actually have some more context to discuss… yay?

So obviously the columns in the Volcano Manor throne room look pretty similar in shape to Belurat’s columns — they’re both spiraled Solomonic columns. When I first saw Belurat’s columns in the trailer I IMMEDIATELY thought of Volcano Manor. Upon closer inspection though, they look pretty drastically different stylistically:

The Manor’s columns are very loose and naturalistic with very fancy, baroque ornamentation, whereas Belurat’s columns have a very rigid, geometric structure and a tighter coil. The design philosophy feels so different to me that it’s really making me doubt that they’re meant to be related? but let’s go through the design’s symbolism and see if Belurat has anything in common with Rykard that might link the design philosophies together:

According to the Spira sorcery of the tower priests, “The spiral is a normalized Crucible current that, one day, will form a column that stretches to the gods.”

Belurat is full of spiral designs… in columns, curtains, art… even the Tower itself is a spiral:

“Sacred seal of soiled amber engraved with a spiral tree design. The majesty of the white tower, stretching to reach the gods, even inspired a secret faith in the invaders, the people of the Erdtree.” (Spiraltree seal)

The Spiral is the central visual motif of the Hornsent’s faith… it represents the energy of the Crucible, which the Hornsent sought to harness with their Tower spiraling into the sky to touch the divine. I bet this spiral current of the Crucible is why the Hornsent revere horn growth: “Horns are sublime artifacts to hornsent, and their presence confirms the belief that they are a chosen people.” (Immunizing Horn Charm +2) …horns grow in spiral formations, and appear on beings that don’t normally have horns due to the influence of the Crucible.

(Golden Horn Tender)

So… does the spiraled Crucible current have anything to do with Rykard, or if he didn’t build the throne room, whoever did? Well, Rykard does have a Crucible knight in his service, which might indicate that Rykard has some kind of allegiance to Crucible concepts… the spiraled columns are really serpentine looking, and I think serpents could also be related to the Crucible because like horns, scales are also evidence of the Crucible’s primal influence:

“A talisman fashioned from a scale that embodies the aspects of various creatures. Said to have grown on the human body long ago. A vestige of the crucible of primordial life. Born partially of devolution, it was considered a signifier of the divine in ancient times, but is now increasingly disdained as an impurity as civilization has advanced.”

so maybe serpent worship is just another way of revering the Crucible, different from how the Hornsent worship the Crucible? (they don’t revere snakes in any way… we don’t see any snakes in Belurat)

Ok but honestly, I don’t really believe that the Volcano Manor columns are so important that they’re meant to represent the Crucible current in the same way that the Hornsent’s entire city is meant to… you only ever see these columns in this room. I think that they’re just supposed to be decorative because Rykard was a fancy guy, and because the spiral motif evokes the Manor’s whole theme of serpent worship.

TL;DR the columns in Belurat explicitly represent the spiraled Crucible current, and the ones in Volcano Manor’s throne room are probably just decorative and totally unrelated

[junkienet]

✱ CANINE ROUTE ？ warrior koba.

fluff ⌇ missing a partner undertone ⸻ ﹙ 𝒜lt ﹒ universe ﹚ established relationships. 𝒻.ᐟreader

EARLIER IN THE MORNING ◞ 06 : 45 o ' clock. ⸻ after a long night of tussle.

when the bonobo awakens, a sunbeam sketches his scarred cheek. it outlines the tumefied and leaden flesh , from his temple , to the cheesy apex of his chaffed lips. koba offers his teeth in a boastful roar , fangs flashing aureus. his snarl slumped in ajar on his entombed trunk , and scratches the hairless region of his scapulae , shooing away a pair of chattering mosquitoes.

he sways unwittingly , milky eye scrutinized. to the right , the silhouette of a knotted mane and bleak sweater is stamped in the distance , at the edge of his hut. he spit a smack of his lips in pique , steepening sideways to thrust himself upward with a strangled hoo. his corporeal weight cascades on his hip—joints , his calfed loin erupts like a porcupine , ambombanding into an oval. his scent of rainy gravel, tart blackberries and hint of mint perfumes the structure of his periphery. he thwacks his nest , bellowing towards the algidity that possessed your grizzly bearskin quilt. the coast of his mouth reclines skyward in a grimace of tribulation , amalgamating his thick chin with impassivity. you had risen early , he misty deduced.

koba panted a grunt. he abhorred losing sight of you and a cold nest.

with a haughty wobble, he bursts from amidst the duvets and shanks with a rocking of taut shoulder—blades and obstinate haunches. his fists crackled the surface beneath his hooves , the morning gale coercing the end of his scorched ear. he sniffs the air that rod's at your braid , grumbling in a wan cadence. his snout strays into the road of your pharynx , between the unevenness of the hood of your olive coat and the throbbing indigo artery. he snuff sequentially. the peak of his canine unpicks the vestige of your pulse , where the stench of rainy gravel, tart blackberries and a hint of mint clusters. the bonobo drinks the bubbling of your saturated skin , and the cloying rattle of your small gasp.

your fingers , languid and gelid , scribble the wrinkles of its elephantine digits , reciprocating his assiduous , foreign greeting. the ape falls on his backside , his knuckles drawing on the hill of your shoulder , in a tottering reminder of his prickling presence. both of you rejoice in the muir woods foliage of gloom and shrubbery from the hut.

SEXY JUTSU LIKE NARUTO ©JUNKIENET ╱ 2024.

[artbyblastweave]

Let’s get some abandoned effortposts on disco Elysium in the list. Liked what analysis on it you had, would be great to see more, or fail to see as the case may be

Here’s one of the last insights on Disco Elysium I care to put to paper for a good long while; I really enjoy the nested futility and self-defeat of the central murder mystery, the way it structured to constantly raise the question of how anyone could possibly benefit from what you’re doing.

I mean off the bat the murder victim is a fascist stormtrooper, so there’s that. I personally maintain that it’s still good in a general sense to investigate murders regardless of the moral standing of the victim, but to get real, it’s a very convenient time for me to embrace universalist rhetoric given how little support the neighborhood receives with problems that don’t involve someone well connected. And then, over the course of the game, you can kill all four people left on the planet to whom the initial victim actually mattered on a personal level. Three in clear-cut self-defense, the fourth as an optional casualty to the same mindless, trusting proceduralism that’s admittedly and unfortunately intertwined with my “ no murder left unsolved” stance.

And then! You finally run down the murderer, and from a public safety perspective it turns out that if you’d just gone home after the mercenary tribunal, nothing would have changed; Dros is on his last legs, the odds he’s gonna kill anyone else are very very low.

The last redoubt is the ideological angle- there could be a narrative here about how you’re crushing the last vestige of the revolution, how the killing and the subsequent investigation was the last theatre of the old war- but I think the narrative resists even this attempt to read meaning into it. From an ideological perspective Dros committed the killing off the clock. It was spite, not praxis- informed in the moment by his misanthropy, his neuroses about women, and his obsession with Klaasje more than it was about striking a blow for communism. He killed Lely while Lely was doing probably the least objectionable thing he ever did. Obviously Dros’s neuroses and living situation were downstream of ideology, of material circumstances, in the way everything else is- but to try and elevate the killing by making it about that feels disingenuous.

And this is great, because Disco Elysium isn’t really about the murder mystery in the same way that Fallout: New Vegas isn’t really about finding the guy who shot you in the head-it’s an injection point, it’s a thread you pull for guidance, but the real meat is all the other stuff and people you encounter while poking around. The killing isn’t unimportant, per se, but the mystery surrounding it kinda is! Given the repeated anti-climax, it’s definitely *less* important than the harm you can cause to people in order to push the investigation forward, or the good you can do for the community by going off-script and helping people out with random bullshit. It’s neat!

[baldurs-gape]

Live, Laugh, Lightning Charge

Being a Chosen of Mystra was everything Gale could have wanted from life. He had a purpose, he had a community, he had a structure to his life. Worship had a comforting rhythm, a predictability which was both reassuring and a welcome repetition. Even better, Gale belonged. Not just that, he was also revered, held power and was admired which was attention he'd always craved. He was special, Mystra's Chosen, her lover, one of the most powerful mages in Faerun. Of course he had to go and ruin it all. Greedy as he was, he wanted to get further, become Mystra's equal, be worshipped as well as continue to worship her because his life without devotion was hollow and empty.

The lost piece of the Weave he'd found ruined everything. No longer one of her Chosen, Gale's status in the eyes of other followers of Mystra fell dramatically. It wasn't like he'd stepped back voluntarily, he had been ousted by Mystra herself, kicked to the curb and lumbered with the fruits of his own folly. Her followers, like sheep, copied her. While Gale wasn't so openly ostracised, people muttered when he went to repent, when he begged silently at the back of the room for forgiveness. It used to be that Gale was up at the front of a congregation, nodding in greeting, shaking hands and smiling as people's gazes followed him in awe. Now, at the back, the most he got were a few dirty glances. He'd lost not just Mystra's favour but the respect of his peers and support of the community he used to be at the heart of.

Isolation was the only way he could escape the shame and humiliation. Mystra's followers had turned their backs on him, his hubris was known to all. There was no hiding it, no denying it, it was embedded in his chest with a hunger that sank its claws deep into his very being and stripped him of so much power.

The plan was to venture into the Underdark, find a deserted corner and let the orb take its course. Unfortunately, the plan didn't go to plan and Gale found himself on a nautiloid instead, a tadpole chewing its way into his brain. Perhaps he'd be useful and blow the whole ship out of existence, then at least he'd be able to do something useful one more time. It wasn't to be. The orb wasn't hungering and the ship crashed. Gale was pulled out of a broken portal and thrust into a group of people who he had no idea how to form an allyship with. Really, Gale didn't think he had much to offer, he had nominal vestiges of magic that in no way backed up his attitude and ego. But he couldn't help it, falling back into old habits of interacting with others meant he was quietly boastful and with a pinch of superiority. Needless to say, it didn't go down too well with the others unlike his stew which made up for some of it.

Learning had always been Gale's passion, he just didn't think he'd have to learn something as basic as connecting with people and making friends. His status as a Chosen of Mystra meant people flocked to him, surrounded him and clamoured for his attention. Talent with the Weave also helped win over those who weren't devouts of Mystra. Those who were drawn to power often sought him out and he basked in the attention without shame. Now though, he had no outstanding talents, no favour of a goddess and Gale was very quickly learning that maybe he wasn't as socially gifted as he'd let himself be led to believe.

The term 'glass cannon' was applied to him more than he thought fair. He wasn't used to the physical aspects of a fight, it wasn't his fault that a few hits were enough to render him weak and in need of help. At least he had no qualms about asking for assistance. Despite the hefty burden that was the cost of healing potions and spells, Gale wasn't left behind and he was immensely grateful for it. When he wasn't sure he wouldn't have left someone in his situation behind before, Gale had to be grateful for the others' compassion. Then again, it wasn't like he was the only one learning how to be himself.

In fact, it seemed like pretty much all of the camp had some learning to do. Shadowheart with her missing memories and slowly wavering belief in Shar, Wyll was barely a young man when he sold his soul to Mizora, Minthara released from the Absolute's hold had to figure out who she was now, Halsin had given up his role as Arch Druid but he seemed to have his shit mostly together while Lae'zel threw herself from one cause into another just so she didn't have to contemplate who she actually was. Then there was Astarion. 200 years of misery and being nothing more than a puppet to a sadistic monster and no memory of what was before that. He was the one Gale was most drawn to, watching him and learning.

"You know, I'd say if you paint a picture it would last longer but-" Astarion shrugged, arms wide open, "-I plan on living my own life for a lot longer than a painting would last."

Averting his gaze, Gale tried not to show how flustered he was at being caught. All he'd wanted to do was watch Astarion and how he behaved around camp when not many of them were around. It seemed though that Astarion had decided that the best way to spend his time was to pester Gale.

"Then again, you could paint me in the nude if you asked nicely. I've been told I'm very easy on the eyes."

"I only paint in words, or have those pointy ears of yours missed how locquacious I tend to be?" Astarion's hand went to his ear as though he had forgotten his ears weren't rounded. Gale's heart broke a little at the thought and he cleared his throat. "Maybe I will actually paint a picture. In whatever state you're comfortable."

"Ruined," Astarion purred, covering up his moment of vulnerability. "Thank you could paint after wrecking me? Watching your come oozing lazily out while I lay where you left me?"

Swallowing, Gale tried to figure out just where all the words in the world had gone because there were none in his brain. He watched as Astarion smiled, tight and careful to hide his teeth, so unlike when he was playing with the owlbear, all pretences forgotten. It was enough to snap Gale out of whatever dick-induced stupor he'd fallen into.

"So you want me to paint your insides, then paint you?" He pretended to think about it, watched Astarion's carefully constructed expression. In all that he'd seen of the others, honesty had been the road to uncovering identity. "I don't think you'd much enjoy that. Other than Mystra in the Weave, I haven't had a lover. Not for lack of offers, mind you."

"Never?" Astarion actually looked surprised before a sultry smile was back on his face. "Well, I'd be more than happy to guide you through your first time. Unless-" he held up a hand, "-you don't want to be ruined for the rest of your life because nobody else will measure up."

Ignoring the second half of that, Gale fixed Astarion with a contemplative stare. "Would I be your first too?"

Spluttering, Astarion laughed but it was a little too high pitched and forced to be genuine amusement.

"Darling, how could I make such boasts without the experience to back it up?"

"That's not quite what I asked. Would I be the first you took to be willingly?"

Snarling, Astarion snapped a sharp "wizards and their weird fetishes" before storming off. So much for honesty then, Gale was going to have to find a better way forward. It didn't stop the bitter panic curling through his gut though. Before, if he'd upset someone it didn't really matter. There were plenty of people fawning for Gale's attention and his position meant most were very willing to forgive all too quickly. Now though, Gale didn't have much to offer and his pool of friends was small. It seemed that it just got smaller.

Much to Gale's absolute surprise, Astarion sat next to him while the rest of the camp ate. At first he just looked at Astarion from the corner of his eye for a couple of glances which were inevitably caught. An eyebrow was raised at him.

"Why are you sitting here?"

"Because I sometimes enjoy partaking in the yapping of this group."

"Yes but, didn't you want to sit somewhere else?" Gale looked at the spot next to Wyll pointedly.

"Why would I?"

Patience running thin, Gale hated the idea that he was being taunted and mocked. Honesty got him into this mess so it was going to put an end to it too.

"Because I upset you? And I have nothing to offer you to make you like me again? I can't even give you blood because of the orb. I literally have nothing for you."

A few long seconds of silence weighed heavily around the campfire.

Astarion drew an audible deep breath.

"And what have I got to offer you, hm? What have any of us have that you want?"

Not having an answer, Gale looked down at the bowl of garlic rothe ribs and apple sauce they'd made. He didn't have a good answer. There was nothing the others had that he actually wanted except their companionship which he felt compelled to buy even if it wasn't an exchange of gold.

"I think you broke Magic Man," Karlach whispered loudly.

Finally, Gale looked up at them. "Friendship. That's all I was hoping for."

"Well, you've already got that." The smile from Wyll was easy and genuine.

"But-" Gale tried again. "But I can't do anything for you. I can't help you make important connections, can't bring Mystra's goodwill to you, can't even do any impressive magic."

"I can't do any of those things either," Halsin cut in. "And I don't want any of that from you."

Clearing her throat, Minthara looked solemn. "My mother, she had a tapestry in the outhouse that was solely for her and her daughters' use. It said 'Live, Laugh, Love' embellished in moon-spun silver threads. We do not know why or what those words meant. But I believe you make take some wisdom from this family secret now."

"Live, laugh, lightning charge more like," Astarion scoffed.

It broke the tension and Gale chuckled softly. The others followed. They still had a long way to go but maybe it wasn't all as awful as Gale had been believing it to be.

[transmutationisms]

came across a post by astriiformes (astriiformes(.)tumblr(.)com/post/742882591316803584/hi-i-just-learned-about-the-scientific-revolution) that objected to Kuhn's theory of scientific revolution on the basis that they felt it leant in to the "great men of history" model. I never understood it this way, but I haven't read the book—I thought it was more about explaining the lag between accumulation of evidence that goes against the current paradigm and full paradigm shift. thoughts?

kuhn's model of 'paradigm shifts' is certainly prone to inviting 'great man' explanations of scientific developments. i would even go further, and say that this is due to a fundamental issue in kuhn's methodology, which is a tendency toward idealist analysis that fails to consider material and sociological factors. astriiformes points out that these days, kuhn is more popular with economists and political scientists than with practicing historians of science; this is true and not a coincidence.

astriiformes also walks through a valuable line of objection to kuhn, which is that the scientists we tend to credit with having made singlehanded discoveries were in fact usually embedded in vibrant scientific communities and ongoing debates, and were influenced by their contemporaries as well as their intellectual forebears. this is all true. another critical angle to interrogate here, and one where the Great Man often pops up again, is in kuhn's version of how scientific ideas are actually adopted: in other words, how he considers a 'paradigm shift' to actually occur, even once we assume the idea in question has already been formulated. let me chuck a few case studies at you because it's easier than talking in generalities.

for much of the 20th century, the 'standard story' of galileo's trial and imprisonment was that, having dared to become a lone voice defending heliocentrism, he was made a martyr to truth by the church, which was threatened on theological grounds. however, in the last several decades historians of science have studied much more seriously the patronage networks of renaissance italy: the structure of funding and epistemological authority whereby a scientist like galileo secured money, university or court positions, and respect by gaining mutually beneficial relationships with various nobles and other wealthy people. galileo had defended heliocentrism prior to the church's crackdown on him and his work; so had certain other astronomers. although it's true the church had theological objections to what galileo was saying, they were pretty much forced to tolerate him as long as he had sufficient patronage protection: wealthy, powerful people using their social clout to defend him. but this fragile truce was shattered when galileo lost the support of certain of his patrons, particularly some jesuits, in the early 1630s and thus became a much more vulnerable target of church censorship. it was only at this point that the church placed him on trial and then eventually under house arrest, and forced to recant.

evolutionary ('transmutationist') ideas were not new by the time darwin published the 'origin' in 1859. most french biologists at this time supported some variant of transmutationist ideas, and even in britain, transmutation of species had long been hotly discussed in the edinburgh medical schools in particular. the challenge for the wealthier london gentleman-naturalist set was that transmutationism had previously been associated with radical, materialist, atheist politics (this was precisely what appealed for many in edinburgh), and although evolutionary ideas had circulated in the wider reading public, these had typically been carefully framed to remain compatible with dominant anglican morals (eg, robert chambers's 'vestiges' of 1844). so, why were charles darwin's ideas accepted where others had been suppressed, ignored, or mired in controversy? a few reasons: again, a strong patronage network and powerful social connections (familial and personal); also, darwin very consciously avoided talking about human descent in 1859 (he did not do so until 1871's 'descent of man', which remains less widely read to this day) and avoided open avowal of materialism or atheism in his published works. furthermore, despite what lay histories may suggest nowadays, darwin's ideas were not embraced immediately or uncritically. they circulated piecemeal, with the help of 'popularisers' like haeckel and th huxley whose teachings often varied pretty widely from what darwin actually said or thought. and, prior to the 'modern synthesis' unifying 'darwinian' evolution with mendelian genetics, one of the most common objections to darwin's ideas was that he had provided proof of no actual mechanism of heredity, which resulted in a retrospectively fascinating period of anglo and french scientific writing between about 1890–1940 that often circulated the claim that darwin had been proven embarrassingly wrong, and it was jean-baptiste lamarck who had instead been vindicated by the biologists of the middle victorian era.

louis pasteur has historically been credited with ushering out the last vestiges of 'miasmatic' and 'environmentalist' theories of disease in france, and replacing them with good solid bacteriology. this is simply a misrepresentation of scientific beliefs among the lay public, technical experts like public health officials, and even working scientists under the third republic. because hygienists and sanitation engineers had spent much of the 19th century creating professional prestige for themselves as managers of the insalubrious environmental factors plaguing particularly the urban poor, you can imagine they were not generally thrilled at the proposition that someone had actually confirmed the existence of a microscopic 'germ' of disease, a foreign entity that could be studied and eradicated by a laboratory scientist with entirely different credentials and training. so, as it became clear that the actual eradication part was still a challenge, and that disease risk did not strike all people or demographics equally, french hygienists by and large simply altered their rhetoric a little. yes, germs existed—in fact, clearly, these were what the hygienists had been protecting people from all along by encouraging cleaner air, open spaces, gymnastic exercise, &c! this is the root of what's now known in the historical literature as the 'sanitary-bacteriological synthesis'—not an overturning of an old 'environmentalist' paradigm for a modern bacteriological one, but rather a melding of the two that enfolded pasteur's and koch's discoveries whilst still shoring up the professional authority of the hygienists and sanitarians.

in all three of these cases you can see how a strictly kuhnian analysis of 'paradigm shifts' over-emphasises the role of the Great Man (here in his guise as Genius Scientist) because it overlooks critical factors like the social and professional networks that actually allow knowledge to spread, and the professional and pecuniary interests that motivate people, consciously or not, when they evaluate new theories or ideas. galileo did not suffer from 'failing' to spark a paradigm shift, any more than darwin singlehandedly succeeded; their ideas circulated, mutated, and provoked on the strength of relationships as much as pure cerebral Theory. pasteur's claims likely could not have achieved the renown they did, had they not been helped along by hygienists who saw in them a change to re-form and reinforce their own profession and authority.

kuhn's work was an important departure from earlier positivist, largely teleological histories of science: the 'paradigm shift' allowed people to talk about massive and notable changes in science without having to accede to a model that assumed constant, linear progress. in this sense, much of today's history of science (still a comparatively immature and evolving field!) belongs to a citational lineage that will eventually pop up with kuhn's name. but, methodologically, kuhn leaves a lot to be desired, because his analysis is generally founded in an intellectual history that configures Science as a world of disembodied ideas unburdened by social, material, and economic considerations and practices.

[socially-awkward-skeleton]

tagged by @imogenkol and @thesingularityseries thank you both <3

Got a few things i'm working on right now, I am all over the place with my WIPs lately. But first some art:

On vacation this week and with the little in preschool I can delve into some major line art with this piece because I have the time and the patience. (saved the weapons for very last because I hate the intricacy of them and the body armour took enough time) Thinking this one will likely stay grey scale rather than color.

And some writing, a little snippet from the end of chapter 1 of "Penumbra" aka the Ladyhawke AU:

Dusk begins to settle, the sun fading through the shivering oak leaves that rustle in the wind. Striations of coral and tangerine blend like watercolours in the sky, dripping into one another as the trees darken into silhouette in the foreground. The last calls of the birds are a witness to the coming night and Price’s hackles begin to rise. He’s on edge, a common occurrence the closer the moon comes to rising. He needs a place to settle, to rest, travel can wait once more for the harsh light of the sun.

“We’ll make camp,” he says offhandedly, over his shoulder to his newest companion, the first one who can actually answer back in years. 

Pulling on the reins he slows Nikolai’s gallop to a saunter as they look for a clearing, and through a thicket of trees, an old serfdom farm comes into view. In the falling darkness it’s hard to tell whether the farm is in a worthwhile state or whether it's worn to nothing but rotted wood, there’s little else around for shelter and the prickle of his nerves down his spine and his clenching knuckles tell Price there’s no point in looking further, time won’t wait any longer for him. The closer they get it's easy to see that the roofs of every structure have caved inwards from the deluge of rain received in the winter, shingles crumbling, walls splintered and bowing under the pressure of standing stable without any upkeep. They’ll make do for one night, carrying on in the morning. Tying Nikolai to the nearest sturdy oak tree, Price unloads the pan and pot for cooking, ordering Garrick to go collect the firewood. 

Alone at camp, he unloads the final saddle bag, pulling the tiny lamb from inside it and cradling it in his strong arms. A calloused finger caresses the underside of the animal’s chin as large eyes stare up at him. Heart squeezing in his chest, his brow furrows as he looks down at the little being in his arms, so totally reliant on him. He wishes he was deserving of the trust she gives him – he knows he’s not. 

Carrying his most prized possession over to the barn, Price places the woolly creature down on the cloak he has draped on the hay for her. A large hand that covers nearly the entire head of the lamb strokes softly, his thumb drifting upwards along the snout against the soft wool between dark mirror-like eyes. “Rest well, my girl,” he whispers in a husk. His armour sits tight on him as muscles begin to expand and shift with the coming night, as the first stars begin to twinkle his chest swells and his back wants to hunch. He hates this in-between stage, where he can feel himself slipping away, losing himself to an instinct that isn’t even his own – everything that makes the man falls by the wayside as the silver light of moonglow threatens to overwhelm the dying sun. Stripping himself of his last vestiges of clothing, folding them neatly, handling them with the pride and respect they deserved, he packs them away. Left bare, the chill of the night settling into the scars on his skin and the patches of hair that start to sprout from him, he looks over at the little lamb resting curled up. He sighs, knowing the time will come where once more he’ll have only a fleeting moment with her. A sight for sore eyes that lasts for a fraction of a second before they are once more separated. It never gets any easier, a constant burden that follows him – Always together, forever apart. 

The sun finally dips down, darkness blanketing the world and crickets begin to chirp as the quiet of night takes the helm, and before him as he reaches out his hand, watching it transform into a massive paw with black sickled claws, stands the woman he’s been aching for every day for the last five years. Unable to touch her, his heart pounds in his chest and he could nearly weep at the sight of her beauty. It’s his fault they’re trapped like this, he’s done this to her, and he could scream at the curse that hangs over their head like the executioner’s axe. She’s his whole reason for living and this is what they’ve been reduced to: a yearning that can never be ended, a lifetime of heartbreak, a loss worse than death.

But the pain relieves itself, because in the blink of an eye he is no longer a man.

tagging: @carlosoliveiraa @strangefable @cassietrn @finding-comfort-in-rain

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