#i love these maps of imaginary places

[cantsayidont]

September 1983. Although not credited in the digest on whose cover this version was published (BEST OF DC #40, SUPERMAN: THE FABULOUS WORLD OF KRYPTON), this map of Krypton was drawn by Albert de Guzman and originally appeared in THE KRYPTON CHRONICLES #2 (October 1981). Many of the locales shown on the map had appeared in previous Superman stories, in particular the Scarlet Jungle.

A different map of Krypton, drawn by Howard Bender and Joe DelBeato, appeared in the Krypton entry in WHO'S WHO about three years later:

This version of the map is broadly similar to the De Guzman map above, although the captions for Kandor and Argo City seem to have been transposed: The vignette identified as Kandor appears to be Argo City — Argo had an environmental dome (which is how it survived the destruction of Krypton), while Kandor did not — and the vignette identified as Argo City looks a lot more like Kandor. My guess that someone switched the captions during production, seeing the dome over Argo and mistakenly assuming someone had mislabeled Kandor (which of course is best known as the Bottle City of Kandor).

#comics #best of dc blue ribbon digest #the fabulous world of krypton #albert de guzman #maps #krypton #kandor #kryptonopolis #argo city #superman #i love these maps of imaginary places #who's who also has maps of thanagar and rann #there was a more detailed map of rann in amazing world of dc comics in the '70s #which unfortunately is rife with errors #when compared to the stories it references

[pika-ace]

Disney Knowledge Yuu: Masquerade Edition Part 2 (aka Yuu gets Fucking Mad)

Holy shit, things went from 0 to 100 REAL QUICK! Anyway, SPOILERS AHOY!

Rollo: (covers his mouth with a starry handkerchief that looks like Esmerelda's scarf)

Yuu: Oh HEEEEEELL NO, I ain't trusting this kid for a SECOND!

Silver: Why not?

Yuu: Call it a feeling >:/

-----------------

Rollo: There's a festival being held today and you're all welcome to attend... (softly) Ugh, I hate the festival...

Yuu: Oooh, Topsy-Turvy Day!

Rollo: How did you know that was the name??

Yuu: Lucky guess...(softly) and I got my eye on you >8/

-------------------

Noble Bell College: (taking about how Frollo was a Righteous Judge and did nothing wrong)

Yuu: …I hope this place doesn’t believe in God cause I’m about to go FULL HERETIC ON THEIR ASSES

Riddle: Wait STOP-

—————————

Azul: I-I swear the gargoyle just moved!

Yuu: (gets up close) *whispers* Victor...? Are you alive...? :0c

---------------------

Epel: Aww look at these alphabet blocks; A for Apple, B for baby, F for festival

Yuu: *snorts*

Rollo: Evidently the words used to be more complicated; a shame, really

Yuu: (sarcastically) Damn, what a shame that kids can no longer learn the classic alphabet of Abomination, Blasphemy, Contrition, Damnation, and Eternal damnation

Rollo: O_O’

Deuce: …Are you okay…?

—————————

Shopkeeper: (holds up dreamcatcher necklace) It is said when you hold this, the city is yours

Yuu: (rolls eyes) Actually, it’s ‘When you wear this woven band, you hold the city in your hand’

Team Azul: …

Yuu: (sighs) It’s a map of the city -_-

Team Azul: Oooooooh! :0

--------------------

Rollo: These handkerchiefs are smoke bombs; children use them for pranks

Silver: I'll take one for Lilia :)

Yuu: Me too; if Esmerelda could make use of these then I can too

Idia: Huh...?

—————————

Trein: They used these underground river ways to hide people

Riddle: Ah yes, they called it The Palace

Yuu: *coughs* Court of Miracles...

Sebek: What was that?

---------------------

Rollo: This is a town goat; they wander the city

Sebek: DO NOT APPROACH MASTER MALLEUS, GOAT!!

Yuu: Don't yell at Jolly! >:O

---------------------

Jamil: Apparently these curly wooden shavings are the classic hairstyle of this city

Yuu: *thinks for a moment* Oh wow, that's a REALLY obscure easter egg, even I barely remember the Gargoyle song O_O

Malleus: Gargoyle WHAT?

---------------------

Rollo: Don't you hate magic? Isn't it the worst? You understand right?

Yuu: ...If you tell me to choose between you or the fire, I'm gonna throw up >:(

—————————

Festival leader: The Kind Bell Ringer was adopted by the Righteous Judge who saw past his deformities and loved him as his son. Their bond was strong and special and the Bell Ringer used his teacher's lessons to save the city

Yuu: ...(starts towards the stage)

Silver: Where are you going??

Yuu: (rolling up their sleeves) To commit a HATE CRIME >8(

Trein: YUU-

Yuu: THAT IS NOT HOW THE STORY GOES AND I WILL NOT STAND FOR IT!!! >8(

Ruggie: Holy shit-

---------------------

Rollo: (absorbing the magic with flowers and ready to kill literally everyone)

Yuu: So I was wrong about the racism and the lust, but the genocide was spot on. …Small victories, I guess

-----------------------

((Drama Bonus))

(Yuu spends the whole trip trying to convince the others that Rollo is not to be trusted but no one believes them, and then when shit goes down, Yuu is standing back in no danger while everyone else is fighting)

Deuce: Yuu, help us! We're getting attacked by the flowers!

Yuu: Hmm, okay Deuce. But first, a deep sip from a very tall glass of 'I TOLD YOU SO' >:/ (starts slowly drinking an imaginary glass)

Riddle: YUU!!!!

((This event isn't done yet, so we'll see if I can get more out of it ;3))

#glorious masquerade #twst glorious masquerade #twisted wonderland #twst #yuu #twst yuu #twst mc #yuu twisted wonderland #the hunchback of notre dame #judge frollo #disney knowledge yuu #malleus draconia #rollo twisted wonderland #twst rollo

[the-badger-mole]

AU Bot Plots: Wild Card!!!!

Okay, this isn't strictly a thing, but this account is no longer accepting suggestions on Twitter, so I'm going rogue. And for this topic, I choose....MERMAID AU!!!!

Katara is the daughter of water loving parents who taught her and her brother how to scuba dive before they learned how to ride bikes. Soon, Katara is in the water more often than she's on land, and she spends hours playing with an imaginary friends- a young merboy named Zuko. Years later, she is a world renown cave diver. She explores unmapped cave systems all over the world, contributing to ecological discoveries, geological studies, and of course, mapping new parts of the ocean. Because of her small size, she can get into places that few cave divers can get into. One day, on an exploratory mission in a new cave system disaster strikes. Katara gets stuck in a space that is tighter than she calculated, and there's no way anyone on her team can get her out. She had just resigned herself to her fate, when suddenly, she is pulled free. When she turns to face her savior, she is shocked to find a man with no scuba gear glaring at her, as if annoyed that he had to take time to free her. But Katara is almost 400 feet under water and in a cave. No human could free dive that far. Then the man swims away, and she sees he doesn't have legs.

Thinking she must be suffering nitrogen narcosis, she makes her way back through the cave to her team, and then back to the surface. She thinks back on her ordeal later on, figuring that she managed to wriggle herself out, and hallucinated the man who helped her, but she can't shake how familiar he looked. As she's falling asleep, she recalls her imaginary diving buddy, and the fact that the man she saw looked like an older version of the merboy convinces her that she was hallucinating. She does wonder how she managed to dream up such vivid golden eyes, or why her subconscious gave the merboy- well, merman now- such an angry looking scar on his face.

A few weeks later, she's going for a solo dive for fun at a nearby reef. She's not going very deep. Certainly not deep enough for nitrogen narcosis to be a real concern. At least she's not worried until she sees the merman again...

#atla #zutara #au bot plots #wild card: mermaids #THE YEAR OF CONTENT!!!!

[justanotherbirdbrain-blog]

may i receive your rant on why every videogame ever chooses to have columnar basalt in places basalt should not be, like in unsuspecting caves or just dotting beaches with no volcano in sight... because god, that gets me going.

Let me preface this rant by saying, I love when videogames at least try, like I can look at a rock and actually say, "hey that's columnar basalt and not *generic rock texture*" (Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's texture shortened my lifespan). So generally speaking, if I can tell at least vaguely that someone googled photos of rocks when creating a game I am more happy than not, but!

My GOODNESS! I think I could extend this rant to just videogame cave systems in general! Like, caves are only formed in limestones and marbles (And some limey sandstones and salt deposits), BUT for some reason we are mining and finding Rubies? Emeralds? Metals? These caves they are depicting are clearly just supposed to be these natural caves and not abandoned mines, which would give them some leeway to put whatever desirable gemstone or ore they wanted in the game, but they don't choose that for some reason, and it is beyond me why!

And can we talk about how all of these caves got there in the first place? Like limestone only forms in marine environments! Are you telling me that the entire continent you designed was underwater to the extent to have a spiraling cave system forming at least every ten miles of trail explored (Skyrim I am looking at you)? And how acidic is your rain? Are we experiencing an industrial evolution? I CANNOT, also in what situation are these random massive quartz crystals in otherwise fine-grained material forming? Like one, Who would actually leave that laying there? No one. And two, how is this forming? Like are you trying to say this formed after the cave was created or what? If that's the case the more likely mineral would be calcite or gypsum.

My little bird brain can't wrap my head around what they are trying to do here! (The second image is from ESO and I give it a lot of lenience and to be fair they are trying to depict these are geodes that are surrounded by a massive basalt but they are also showing stalactites and stalagmites which aren't in basalts so it still gets points docked).

But yes! Seeing inaccurate geology, columnar basalts included can take you out of a game so fast, same with the imaginary ores that are kind of based off real metals. I think I would be more ok with completely fake names, because then at least I wouldn't have anything to associate it with.

That being said! I will end this rant by pointing out videogames that when either I was playing or my fiancé was playing I was pleasantly surprised by the geology/accurate textures.

ESO- elder scrolls online, I know I just docked it points above, but genuinely they do an amazing job depicting different rock types to the point that on their islands they have limestones. with. fossils. I nearly cried. Of course they still have random metal seems everywhere but it is an MMO and resources are necessary so I can ignore that as long as they keep making accurate landscapes.

Titanfall- I will just add an image because it will speak volumes

like does that shale/siltstone have ripple marks in the middle right hand side? beautiful. amazing. perfect. chief's kiss. (Apex also does a decent job which is a battle royale game that takes place after the Titanfall games, the textures aren't as good obviously but you can definitely tell what kind of rocks are at each map)

3. Horizon Zero Dawn- the graphics in this game are just genuinely impeccable and it takes place in the US but after the collapse of civilization. In a lot of ways, I think it made it a bit easier for the designers, but they still did an amazing job depicting the rocks accurately! I believe there is a Youtube video which compares the actual locations to the videogame locations.

some obviously tilted sedimentary rocks

sandstone arches

@cosmic-tuna please add more games if you know any!

#geology #rocks #videogame lore

[bird-inacage]

1 YEAR WITH PRAPAISKY / FORTPEAT

My first post about Love in the Air was published on 1 September 2022, where I started speculating on what the Prapaisky storyline may have in store. But it was really when I shared my first meta 'Love in the Air: Sky’s Desire to be Loved' that I realised just how many others were invested in the Sky/Prapai story.

LITA was the first thai BL series that was on my radar before it aired, that I avidly followed during it's weekly release, and then far beyond. In those very early days, there were probably less than a dozen of us posting about Prapaisky here. And once LITA finally did start, it quickly dawned on us that the Prapaisky episodes wouldn't begin until the second half. The sound of crickets and the occasional sighting of tumbleweed would continue before we got some substantial content to feast over. Let me tell you, the wait was trying. Fast forward to just over a year later, and it's absolutely incredible to see how much this show and pairing has blown up since then.

I'm extremely grateful for how much joy both my mutuals and followers have brought me throughout this fandom. Even if this blog does shift to other shows or pairings, this couple will always have a particularly special place in my heart.

How did I come across LITA, was it love at first sight?

I happened upon the trailer, and these two immediately caught my attention. Sky entranced me with his big doe eyes, much like how Prapai was drawn to him that fateful night at the race track. I swiftly fell in the love and the rest is history.

What do I love about Prapaisky?

There's something I find very compelling but also comforting about the Prapaisky relationship. A story is more likely to stick with me when there is really poignant character development - something that can be found in both Sky and Prapai. Their relationship is a healthy union that makes them both better people. Prapai is humbled by Sky's love, and Sky is empowered by Prapai's.

(ABOVE: My full video edit "this is how you fall in love" is on youtube HERE)

Favourite Prapaisky scene?

I think the episodes I have rewatched the most are probably Episode 10 and Episode 13. But just to mention some of the scenes which I find most memorable: Sky holding back tears after his one night stand, Prapai coaxing a feverish Sky during a nightmare, Sky falling asleep in Prapai's arms during Last Cheer, Prapai's imaginary kiss whilst Sky is sleepy, Prapai's utter devastation when Sky breaks up with him over the phone, Sky's affectionate back hug when Prapai comes to him, Prapai begging Sky to cry, Sky wiping away Prapai's tears.

What do I love about Fortpeat?

My favourite aspect of this partnership is Fort being a hugely affectionate and clingy person, whilst Peat is smothered by his love. Peat tends to be the more quiet and measured one within the LITA foursome (probably due to being the oldest) but Fort brings out his inner child. I still can't get over the fact Fort calls him 'baby' because he acts like one when he's with him. You wouldn't have known this in the early days when Peat was considerably more reserved. Fort comes across as an unfiltered, energetic, massive softie. Peat is the grounded, silent assassin of a tease who is unapologetically himself.

The future of Fortpeat?

I desperately hope these two get a new series as a couple. LITA really put them both on the map, and I'd be incredibly shocked if they don't get cast in something new, considering their enormous popularity now. But please, please give them a decent script. We know what they're capable of and I want to see their talent given the material it deserves.

#LITA #love in the air #love in the air series #prapaisky #paisky #fortpeat #peat wasuthorn #fort thitipong #I'll love them forever #how has time gone so quickly?? #my sweet precious babies #a prapaisky anniversary #where my chronic insanity started

[moumouton4]

Nsfw of Viktor Licht from Fire Force?? With like.. a medical kink or an inspection kink 👀

Medical And Inspection Kink Hc || Victor Licht x fem!reader

A/n : Hiiii anon I hope you'll like it ! This was the first time I wrote for something like that so I hope it's great ! Also I chose to go with a fem!reader since I didn't know which one you wanted

Warnings : NSFW, medical kink, inspection kink, fingering, mention of breeding, cum, 18+ READERS ONLY and wrap it before you tap it

Masterlist ⚜

I don’t give permission to repost my work, if you want to share it just reblogue it

Words count : 763

This kink came in such an unexpected way for him

As you were his first girlfriend, he was a little self-conscious about his ability to make you feel good

So he used his scientific skills to gauge your reactions and place them on an imaginary scale in his mind to find out whether you liked the ministrations he was performing on your body more or less

He wanted to learn everything from you, and in the end it quickly became a kink

When he passes by you at certain key moments of the day - with clean hands - he pulls you aside and swipes his finger on your folds or sticks a finger in your pussy if he's eager, to see if you're more or less wet as the day goes on. And then he goes and writes it all down in a notebook hidden in his office, pleased

He does lots of tests to find out what turns you on the most. He kisses you on the neck or gives you a languorous kiss with a firm grip on your ass. And then he'll lift your shirt to see if your nipples are getting hard or put his hand in your panties to see if you're wet.

As I said he just wants to know everything about you, and speaking of which

Once he laid you down on a bed and while looking at a map he started to move his fingers inside you. He was looking for the different points that stimulated you the most. Your squirms and moans were a good indication that he was on the right track

He loves to test how much you can orgasm, whether it's with his fingers, his mouth or his cock. His record, easy, 9 on a row

And then again when he discovered that you can squirt when you're over-stimulated. This time he was able to record a figure of 4 ( he still thinks he can do better )

He loves to feed you different foods to see how they affect the taste of your cum.

that's how he found that pineapple gave you a sweet taste.

He stayed for an hour between your legs as if it were a sweet treat

He puts his hand on your carotid artery to feel your pulse when you're cumming, and once he even brought a stethoscope. He won't say it, but it was your jerky heartbeat that made him cum

One day he even put electrodes on your head to see how your brain reacted throughout your sexual intercourse

One day he even tried to see if he could reach your g-spot with his tongue in your cunt The test wasn't conclusive, and in the end he finished you off with his dick ( well, he doesn't have Orochimaru's tongue after all )

You should know that sometimes he doesn't necessarily want to cum, he just wants to get new information. When he has enough free time, he'll pull you aside and do his little tests

On the other hand, he makes it a real personal goal to make you come every time

He's always trying to scientifically establish a reason why you look so beautiful in your afterglow

Of course, all this information are hidden in a hidden drawer on his desk ( like Light Yagami but it's a Sex Note this time )

No part of your body remains untouched by her skilled hands

And seriously, don't worry about anyone finding this notebook, Victor made sure to write all its contents in a Mayan dialect

It doesn't bother you, unless when he's shining a light in your eyes to see your pupils dilate when you're aroused or getting fucked

Once he nearly poked your eye out with the force of his thrust, ooops

One of his future goal is to see how fast he can get you pregnant

In fact, as long as it doesn't turn into obsession, it's a good enough excuse for hi and you to push your limits even further

Besides, not all your fucks are like that. There are days when he just slam himself inside of you looking for this sweet release and that moment of ecstasy for both of you. In those moments, the idea of noting how many times you clench around him or the force with which you dig your nails in his back doesn't occur to him at all

But he must be aware that you might as well develop this kink. And then we'll see if he can handle them

~

~

A/n : I hope you guys liked it ! 🍱🍗 Again my requests are open 🥗🧀

Taglist : @foxxymunson, @cl0vr, @ilovemanypeople, @glossy1pearl, @jane57sstuff

#fire force #fire force smut #fire force imagine #fire force fics #victor licht #victor licht x reader #victor licht smut #victor licht x reader smut #smut #request #miri-writes #victor licht imagine

[xwhitenoise]

obsessed with how richard siken has recycled some lines from older works and given them new life later on.

like

"I float too much to wander, like you, in the real world. I envy it but that’s the dealio—you’re a train and I’m a trainstation and when I try to guess your trajectory I end up telling my own story." ("The Long and Short of It," 2002)

vs.

"All day the snow falls down, all night the snow. I try to guess your trajectory and end up telling my own story. We left footprints in the slush of ourselves, getting out of there." ("Landscape with Black Coats in Snow," 2015)

--

"Here is a place for it to happen. A place where I can love you. The letter delivered, the year decembered, the river swum." ("The Long and Short of It," 2002)

vs.

"I'll give you my heart to make a place for it to happen, evidence of a love that transcends hunger." ("Snow and Dirty Rain," 2005)

--

(more tucked away under the cut because boy oh boy!)

"He could build a city, has a certain capacity, makes a little bird and then they say it's not a bird and he says Okay, it's not a bird and he and the bird just laugh. I could be talking about anyone." ("Ornithopter," 2001)

vs.

"He could build a city. Has a certain capacity. There’s a niche in his chest where a heart would fit perfectly and he thinks if he could just maneuver one into place — well then, game over." ("Road Music," 2005)

--

"History repeats itself. Somebody says this. History throws its shadow over the beginning, over the desktop, over the sock drawer with its socks, its hidden letters, its bottle of gin. History is blue. History is a little man in a brown suit trying to describe a room he is outside of. History says So, we meet again. History says Let me tell you just a few things, maybe. I know history. There are many names in history but none of them are ours." ("Ornithopter," 2001)

vs.

"History repeats itself. Somebody says this. History throws its shadow over the beginning, over the desktop, over the sock drawer with its socks, its hidden letters. History is a little man in a brown suit trying to define a room he is outside of. I know history. There are many names in history but none of them are ours." ("Little Beast," 2005)

--

"Like Hansel, we'd like a map, some landmarks, a trail away from doom, more knots in the rope, a ratchet that catches and holds so we don't have to start from scratch each time we want to rise from the floor." ("Ornithopter," 2001)

vs.

"Drew and I are still Hansels lost in the woods, looking for maps, looking for a trail away from doom, but we did what we could for as long as we could." ("Six Point Goodbye," 2007)

vs.

"Together we trace out the trail away from doom. There isn’t hope, there is a trail. I follow you." ("War of the Foxes," 2015)

--

"There are so many things I'm not allowed to tell you. I touch myself, I dream." ("Dirty Valentine," 2005)

vs.

"There are so many things I’m not allowed to tell you. That’s another reason I’m a liar. And a poet. And very good at my job." ("The Ethics of the Taxonomy," 2006)

--

"Another friend says the local body is a fallacy. Yet another friend says Aw sweetie, you have your own body so you can do what you want without me." ("Love from a Distance," 2001)

vs.

"His insides and his outsides kept apart with an imaginary line— thick and rude and imaginary because there is no separation, fallacy of the local body, paint on paint. I have my body and you have yours. Believe it if you can. Negative space is silly." ("The Way the Light Reflects," 2005)

--

"Why make a map? Why do anything at all? Not how, because hows are easy, series or sequence, one foot after the other, but existentially why bother, what does it solve?" ("The Definitive Version," 2006)

vs.

"Why paint a bird? Why do anything at all? Not how, because hows are easy—series or sequence, one foot after the other—but existentially why bother, what does it solve?" ("The Language of Birds," 2015)

--

"Fact is, the world is full of things that are trying to kill you. We do not walk through a passive landscape and sometimes you need a map to find the food, the hiding places." ("The Definitive Version," 2006)

vs.

"Can we love nature for what it really is: predatory? We do not walk through a passive landscape. The paint dries eventually." ("Landscape with Fruit Rot and Millipede," 2015)

--

"If we wanted to tell you everything, we would leave more footprints in the snow or kiss you harder." ("You Are Jeff," 2006)

vs.

"So here’s the open window where we pranced around and did our tricks and left these footprints in the snow, performing in this puppet show." ("Close Parenthesis," 2007)

--

"There are two birds in your head, raven and crow, and only one of them is yours." ("Black Telephone," 2001)

vs.

"A man had two birds in his head—not in his throat, not in his chest—and the birds would sing all day never stopping. The man thought to himself, One of these birds is not my bird. The birds agreed." ("The Language of Birds," 2015)

#richard siken #if you were wondering no i don't have hobbies

[nanistar]

I love the concept art for your Sol au!

I was wondering, is this set in the Sonoran desert like SBC? Also what are the different clan’s territories like?

HIII yes so it was originally set in the mojave/sonoran desert area that SBC is in now, an imaginary place where the deserts touch so that i could have saguaro and joshua trees in the same place.

the clan's territories were going to be pretty similar to how i have SBC laid out now: shadowclan and thunderclan would share a saguaro "forest", with shadowclan having more undergrowth, and thunderclan more towards a rocky quary with a mix of saguaro and joshua trees. windclan would have their open plains, and riverclan would have a dried riverbed and control a swath of dry washes, areas that flood in the rain. skyclan was far away in a red canyon. admittedly, i didn't put much thought into wind or riverclan at the time since most of the map took place in thunder/shadow.

i don't have much territory concept art other than this, which was quite literally carried over into SBC, though they call it the Great Izote tree now and it's not in such a big dry wash.

instead of the tunnels under windclan/thunderclan, sol (and Holly) were going to be exiled to the mines that towered over the clans. this shows thunder territory, but imagine it with more rocks and elevation.

i never finished it, cuz around here i was like "hold on a sec, i'm on to something here. i'm making my own clans" but heres some unfinished concept art of the sorta half-quarry that TC would have been in.

(sol lying about saving molepaw and cherrypaw, hollyleaf showing herself to say fuck off)

after the beginning of the MAP which introduced sol while on trial in SkyClan and then running away, he finds himself in shadowclan and quickly seduces blackstar. led by hollypaw, tiger, dawn, jay and lion all reveal him publicly to be a faker and a liar and blackstar casts him out. he runs to the tunnels. later he emerges right after molepaw and cherrypaw, claiming that he was the one who guided them out of the tunnels, but hollyleaf follows behind him to once again call him out. he is escorted off TC territory by hollyleaf and lion, and he returns to the tunnels, finds his way to windclan, and encourages them to fight TC. hollyleaf catches wind of his plan when she spots him sulking around one of the mineshafts, and once again stops his plans. theres a battle, she has the opportunity to kill him, but relents, and releases him, but this time he cant escape to the tunnels. he runs into the open desert never to return again. so basically follows canon for the most part, with some stuff trimmed out for time.

my favorite part of the whole au was that hollyleaf was meant to directly mirror Sol and be his foil, even down to her design. i used the same sketch for both of them so they had similar bodies, and both Sol and Hollyleaf were going to have large wide eyes with small dot pupils.

something something sol rejected by everyone, hollyleaf rejected by starclan and destiny. you know how it is

i am not sad about cancelling this AU. i like what it became (:

#warrior cats #mine #sol warrior cats #hollyleaf #mojave sol au

[trivialbob]

Sometimes one of you Tumblrs mentions a restaurant you dined at. Or maybe you post something about some small town I’ve not heard of.

I go to Google Maps to see the place. Street View show me what the sidewalk in front of the restaurant looks like. I like getting a sense of the neighborhood. Or, for towns, I click on the “restaurants” button to see local dining establishments and choose one that sounds interesting to me.

Then I read the menu like I’m actually sitting in the restaurant.

Appetizers -- I’m a big fan of French onion, lobster bisque, and other soups. Sometimes when a server says, “Our soup of the day is...” I interrupt and say, “I’ll take a cup of it, right now!”

Main dishes -- A French dip sandwich is always a front-runner. For Italian places I need to Google the various pasta and sauce types because often the names are unfamiliar to me. I like to see what is the most expensive cut of beef on the menu, as well as anything unusual. I ask my imaginary waiter: What’s better, the 84 ounce, 45 day dry-aged porterhouse, or the Spotted Owl Benedict?

Cocktails and beers -- I don’t have enough money or time on Earth to try all I want to. Rarely to I desire wine in a restaurant.

Desserts -- Nope. Not since I was a child have I wanted to order dessert in a restaurant. Bob, as a kid: Mom! Dad! I need pie! Parent: Not this time. As an adult: I can order literally whatever I want on this menu, there’s nothing stopping me, but dessert doesn’t interest me at all.

Coffee -- I love an after dinner espresso.

Best of all, when I’m done at this restaurant there’s no bill to pay. Sadly though, I’m probably more hungry than I was when I opened the menu.

#I enjoy dining out #Even if it's in my head

[aeide-thea]

sigh

up in the middle of the night (or, really, rounding the corner of it now) rereading old fic (from a fandom i was never actually in, about a canon i never actually read, because if we're gonna go full Deep Internet we might as well go all the way, i guess) about a, hm, partially queerplatonic polycule and also somebody being nonbinary in a way that somewhat maps onto the way i'm nonbinary—

(or, i don't know, i stopped feeling confident about claiming that language for myself sometime around the time i first saw theyfab discourse happening in the distance and no one in my social vicinity deigning to acknowledge it even long enough to push back at it, so like, these days i mostly just feel like no language assigned or aspired-to is really mine to use, honestly, but i guess 'genderqueer' feels like a modest enough assertion i can probably safely make it: genderqueer, agender, what even is a gender anyway—)

but it really is just like. i wish i could have the experience you're supposed to have in your, like, early- to mid-twenties really, where you live with a bunch of people you have, like, ambiguously queerplatonic relationships with and get to be casually nakeder than conventional norms allow and be, like, a shirtless genderless person around other people and get that reinforced for myself. but of course instead it's like. i missed the boat on the possibility of that experience just like i missed the boat on the rest of life, and i live with my father which is—a grab bag of nice/comfortable/mediocre/stifling but mainly for the purposes of the current conversation just not a plausible environment in which to push nudity taboos and attempt to reframe bodily meanings; and so what i get instead is to flop around in the middle of the night like an unevolved magikarp feeling crazy and melancholy and reading fic where imaginary people make unconventional impossibilities possible for one another because they love each other and it's, like, an updated version of that pathetically tragic anecdote abt the woman calling the gay bars just to listen down the phone and know they were out there…

like honestly i probably would want top surgery really, or at least, to like. wave a wand and have—no tits? smaller tits? something, anyway, sometimes—but i also want people's perception of my self not to depend on my making that happen? i don't know. it's like. my ugly little tits are ugly and i never wanted to sprout them in the first place but it's also like. sux that all roads to social gender acceptance/affirmation regardless of direction involve active cosmetic modification of my own body. like actually that was a major part of the concept/constraint i wanted to get out from under.

i don't know. the things i want seem unreasonable and impossible no matter what camp you ask and i feel gadfly-maddened and oversensitive and despairing about the whole tangle of it (never mind any other aspect of my (non-)life). like it's no fucking wonder i spend so much time as a disembodied word-utterer on the disembodied internet. language my truest tongue of my truest body. heart-sea and heart's ease and heart's blood-without-blood. (found myself thinking here abt heaney's ban-hus (blood-holt, dream-bower) and went to look it up and was poured right back into the problem and then back out of it again. (woman-)body as wordless geography, limned and unlimbed by words.)

gender of the day: poiesis. (ἡ ποίησις, of course—the feminine article, which transcribed becomes he: a meaningless homograph, to be sure, but then so too am i a queerly-drawn thing; and anyway even a wildly-strung cat's cradle is still a cradle, the dots of it connected to hold a meaning like any other constellation…)

#honestly i could riff like this all day but. time to put it—& myself—to bed. #feelingsblogging #what is gender we just don't know #the psyche

[mzannthropy]

I was intrigued by this film from when I first heard about it.

the film follows a woman called Cass (Scott) who has resigned herself to a life of emotional invulnerability. However, she meets a cartographer named Virgil (Harington), who creates maps to imaginary places, and works with his partner Malcolm (Irons) to try and travel back in time and awaken Cass's ability to love again.

This really sounds interesting, except it seems there is confusing info on who plays Malcolm. Some sources say Jeremy Irons, some Simon Callow. IMDb shows Simon Callow. It's... weird...? Jeremy Irons is the reason why I even know about the movie. It was when I was looking for news about him last summer bc I wanted to confirm whether he really plays abbe Faria in The Count of Monte Cristo series (he does) that I stumbled upon this. Anyway, something about it just speaks to me.

Also this is the second time in a few days that I've posted about Kit Harington lol.

#eternal return #kit harington #naomi scott #seems to be a period drama #if you can recognise the era enlighten me pls #jeremy irons #simon callow #whichever one of them it will be #maybe they changed the casting at the last minute for whatever reason? #films #mypost

[dreamycinnamongirl]

The Long and Short of It

You have been watched from a distance for some time now and now you are being watched from even farther away. Anyway, you’d like to believe it’s true. Who wouldn’t? Just because a thing’s invisible doesn’t mean it don’t exist, you think to yourself, but still, there is no valid way to test it. And then one day you fall asleep on the train on the way home but you get home anyway. You close your eyes and nothing happens. You close your eyes every now and then, just to test the waters, and find you’re still moving, being moved, walking through the tunnel with your eyes closed, held up and carried along by the crowd. Not love or joy in any traditional sense, but a gentle kind of peaceful rocking that gathers together the single flowers to make a garland.

The lights flicker and the wheels clack. No one on the train can tell who’s driving, so you let go of the imaginary wheel. You lean back in your plastic seat and let your shoulders relax. In the seat across from you, a man is reading a newspaper. His ears look familiar. And the woman standing by the automatic doors—her wrists, how she moves her wrists strikes a chord deep inside you. Look at the teeth in the mouth of that little boy in the parka! You know those teeth! You’ve seen those teeth in somebody else’s mouth! All these parts trying to assemble themselves in front of you, as if to say Let me in, I’m still here, hello hello, you know me, you know…

Here I am in a rabbit run, here I am in a valley of pine, waiting for you to find me. I could pretend I’m speaking to everyone—assume a middle distance and transcend myself—but I’m taking to you and you know it.

There was one time, we were on the subway then, and I had just gone somewhere inside my head—Where did you just go? you said—and I had come here (buzz buzz) and didn’t need no static offa you. It doesn’t always matter where we are but here I am and I say hello, sitting next to you this time, just pretend I’m sitting next to you this time. You would like it here. Maybe you would like it here. I think that maybe you would like it here.

I work my jobs, I take my pills. Knot the tie and go to work, unknot the tie and go to sleep. I sleep. I dream. I wake. I sing. I get out the hammer and start knocking in the wooden pegs that affix the meaning to the landscape, the inner life to the body, the names to the things. I float too much to wander, like you, in the real world. I envy it but that’s the dealio—you’re a train and I’m a trainstation and when I try to guess your trajectory I end up telling my own story.

But you are my nomad and I love you sideways daily. Sideways because I have to beam my love in all directions, hoping it bounces off something and eventually finds you. You and all the other secret agents carooming underneath the radar, sending your documents back to Mission Control—which is me, I guess, because I have a permanent address.

I’ve been rereading your story. I think it’s about me in a way that might not be flattering, but that’s okay. We dream and dream of being seen as we really are and then finally someone looks at us and sees us truly and we fail to measure up. Anyway: story received, story included. You looked at me long enough to see something mysterios under all the gruff and bluster. Thanks. Sometimes you get so close to someone you end up on the other side of them.

So here we are again: me being here and you being off the map and me sending it out across the wires and being overheard. You’re making me work for this—the whisper system—and that’s okay, too. I was shooting my mouth off and you called me on it and yes, it’s been the plan all along, my great invention, a place for all these voices to land, the airport of someone else’s listening.

The question for this issue was Do you have a human soul and can you prove it? And, of course, there was no definitive answer. A robot can do the math. A robot can spit out an answer. People, they make it up as they go along. They find connections between things where there aren’t any. They get moody, they refuse things, they take it deep inside themselves and fold it into something unrecognizable and then they set it down on the table.

I had a tape recorder. I poked and prodded. I said your reports on my desk now, moles. I give you permission, I give you immunity. I give you these freedoms—even if freedom means animal spirit guides and probation officers. I wound them up and broke their mainsprings. There are limit-ations and there are protocols and I’ve been warned that I’m not supposed to threaten or beg for pieces of someone’s soul. Theme issues are creepy anyway. Drew said pick something easier, so we ended up going with long poems and short short stories.

You said if people wanted to change the world, they would. You said most people like it this way. Too bad for them, I say. I want something else. But you know how I am. I push too hard. I get ahead of myself. I keep ruining everything I touch by turning it into gold. But I’m learning how to be gentle. Even to the vampires, poor little things. Save me save me love me love me there’s a hole in my bucket etcetera. They don’t know what they want but I give it to them anyway because why the hell not? Love, love, go ahead and have another plate of it, it doesn’t run out.

Of course, I wonder if they love me back, which is, really, besides the point. I don’t do it to be adored, I do it because my love keeps getting bigger and that’s what happens.

So here we are again, words on a page, the voice that wants to be a hand, the bridge with no opposite side. Of all the people reading this, are you one of them? I have to believe you are. Sure, we invent each other. We agreed to that a long time ago. Train and trainstation, force and field. We do what we do and what I do is put the pies on the windowsill.

So here you are, reading this, expecting something. A story perhaps, or someone singing themselves to sleep. You’re ready and I’m ready too. Have you been waiting long? I’ve frankensteined it for you, bundled it all up, because it’s nice to put pictures inside people’s heads, like frogs and ronin and Cleveland and Deloreses. Here is a place for it to happen. A place where I can love you. The letter delivered, the year decembered, the river swum.

-Richard Siken

#poetry #poem #richard siken #words #melancholy

[limpfisted]

@moonlitdelirium [ REGARDING FATHERS, LOVERS, CONQUESTS, PRIDE. I love my gay son and the worm in his head / that keeps the vampire and the tentacles out of his bed. ]

It's strange, sharing a space with your Father and someone you consider a.... lover is much too generous considering you haven't touched except to dance. A fancy, perhaps. A mutual crush. A fling, if you're kind and flippant about it. They could always, always be more, and yet, there's such an abundance and yet a lack of space and boundaries between them that could only ever end in "yes but"---"no ands and no us."

But the affection Wyll feels for Astarion is so real. So overwhelming. If not for his fear for his Father's life, he may have done something terrible, something awful, something drastic and evil he felt so much bloody care and affection strung high and loaded low in his chest.

He almost told Astarion he loved him.

It was just so heroic. So beautiful, to Wyll. So brave. To take responsibility for all those spawn. To be better than his.... Father? Wyll's not quite sure what they were to each other really, only that they were a family the same way the House of Healing were reputable surgeons.

It made Wyll so grateful. To see Astarion grow like that. Far beyond Wyll's reach, really. How could he hope to compare? He'd never faced such hardship. He had hoped, once, and honestly believed---that no one in Baldur's Gate ever had to.

Wyll had bought flowers with his Father here, to place on his Mother's grave here, and the wishing tree where Wyll now will forever dream of taking Astarion was here, and the fishing spot he snuck away to between lessons was here, and he stole a peach here, and he LOVED watching Dribbles the clown here, and he played swords and magic against imaginary goblins here, and he had gotten in trouble in the Flophouse here for loitering around and trying to peek inside a place Astarion had spent hundreds of years in, countless thousands of nights. Fuck.

When would their paths have crossed on the map, if not for the tadpoles? Could Wyll have saved him, pulled him from Cazador like he pulled him from out of the ritual so he could stay his Father to death? He was only a boy, when he left. How old was Astarion, when he died the first time, but no, never the last.

The Duke looks at them funny. Looks at Wyll with his sad, soft eyes towards his... Something or Other... and half-cringes, half-sighs, and then looks away. And when he keeps looking... He just. Well he looks at them funny.

Not with hate. Wyll knows that look. Its burned in his retina, hotter than the Hellfire in his veins.

But one of confusion. Judgment.

That one, Wyll is used to. But it has never felt... good.

How can he explain? To Astarion, to his Father?

Why does everything have to be so much more complicated than fighting goblins for the adoration of the common folk?

Wyll isn't sure----isn't sure if Astarion heard it the first time. Or if he notices.... all The Duke's looks, when Wyll looks at him.

"I don't know if you heard it the first time. A lot was happening. You must have been.... overwhelmed. But I'm proud of you, for making the choice that you made."

And I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry this happened to you. I'm sorry no one protected you, and no one loved you, and no one stopped it. I'm sorry bad things happen in the world and there are monsters and villains and people who hurt people. You didn't deserve it. You never deserved it. Not after the first spawn, or the second. Not after the hundredth spawn. If you had gone through with it---I would've understood. Its too much to bear, and I wish. I wish I could help you bear it. I can't give you the world, I can't give you safety, I can't even give you my love without scaring you away. But please don't think---because of my Father---that I don't---that I won't try to understand you---after everything we've been through together.

"I... honestly don't know what choice I would have made, if I was in your shoes."

Thank Gods he wasn't. Hopefully no one ever will be again. If Astarion's pain is a solitary sin, a blight against the world's goodness, a testament to the power of evil and wrong---then let his healing be its greatest triumph, proof that good things can happen, to those who deserve it most.

#a note for the viewer wyll is a flawed character and i am eriting from his.... overly optimistiv and romantic imagination #ic =/= ooc etc #i hope this is okay! i know we suggested shipping so i just kind of ran with it LOL #moonlitdelirium #act 3 spoilers #spoilers #abuse tw #grooming tw #astarion truama tw

[telleroftime]

Okay I have an idea in terms of the geography of Bowser's domain so bare with me - this will either make a lot of sense or none at all but it'll definitely give off sleep-deprived, neurodivergent vibes,,,

So, the Mario world has never been consistent, especially not in regards to what goes where. The Koopa Kingdom isn't exactly the same thing as the Darklands even though Bowser as the King of the Koopas surely would be the ruler of the Koopa Kingdom. But, the two are separated to my understanding. Not only that, Bowser's Kingdom is yet another thing that is theorised to no longer be under Bowser's rule. I think? Maybe?

Anyways, for the sake of me having fun I propose a headcanon backed by some science but not really.

The Darklands are a defined location within the Koopa Kingdom.

Now for those saying that the Darklands are an area within the Mushroom Kingdom. Shhh. Not in my head they aren't. Not in this headcanon. The Mario Bros Movie map begs to differ and I'm grounding this headcanon in that.

The Darklands are permanently dark. I imagine them exactly how the movie depicted it. Dry, black soil. Cracked ground giving way to lava. Fog and smoke everwhere. Dead trees. That lot. Perpetual darkness.

And I love to headcanon that that's the place most people know about. The Toads that explain the lay of the land describe it like the Darklands. Nothing before and nothing after. Maybe the Darklands are the closest area to the Mushroom Kingdom. To get to the rest of the Koopa Kingdom you need to pass by it, and once you do it's not that dark anymore. But what Toad would ever get past that Hellscape? Who would be brave enough to travel deeper in? All the other kingdoms see is just the Darklands.

Now I have an explanation for that darkness.

Simply put, smoke. Smoke and ash.

"Oh but Julia, why are only the Darklands dark? Wouldn't the entire kingdom be dark with all the volcanoes?"

Good question imaginary voice in my head. Orange maybe, but not dark. Not in this headcanon anyways. See, wind movements are decided by the air pressure. Like everything, it likes moving from a higher to lower pressure.

High temperature means higher pressure. Low temperature means lower pressure.

High air density means higher pressure. Low air density means lower pressure.

So on and so forth.

What does that mean for this headcanon?

We can imagine that Bowser's domain would be filled with lava and volcanoes that spew smoke and ash into the air. They're hot, and though one wouldn't necessarily be enough to outright change the average temperature of the kingdom, if there's just a surplus of lava it would have. Meaning that wherever those volanoes are centred would have the original excess of smoke and ash.

And that smoke and ash would diffuse. It would fall and set.

And with my assumption being that Bowser built his castle around active volcanoes, judging by the constant falling ash in the Bowser's Castle track in Mario Kart, we can assume that's where the volcanoes are. Somewhere central. No the Darklands. The Darklands don't look like they'd have volcanoes.

I mean they would, but only the flat ones.

So, where does that smoke cloud end up reaching? The Darklands.

"Oh but Julia, that smoke would stay above-" No it wouldn't. They have magic. Do you think Bowser wouldn't want to cover io the sky when he's swooning over some princess? No. He'd have them pushed away. How? Magic. Cartoon logic. Kamek would sort it out.

And to set that temperature idea in place, large eruptions that send out a vast amounts of ash in the air tend to kill vegetation not because "oh no look out the lava is coming", but instead from them blocking out the sun.

And what would blocking out the sun do? Make it colder. So any forming winds would move from higher to lower temp, from higher to lower air pressure, and they'd bring all the dark doom clouds over to a specific location in the Koopa Kingdom that has been dubbed as the Darklands.

Oh, and actually - speaking of air preasure again. Air density is affected by things like humidity too. Errupting volcanoes spew out moisture into the air meaning it'd be rather humid too, so amplify that using magic and the fact this is about Mario and thoses games don't follow logic anyways nor make me wanna fact check my fact checking, it checks out.

Once again, I don't know if any of this makes sense. I don't know where I was going with this either. I started this with an idea and then zoned out when writing this and tmnow we're here. Not my usual posting stuff I don't think. I'll pretty this all up when I don't feel like I'm gonna pass out if I close my eyes for longer than three seconds. Also, if you caught any spelling errors, no you didn't.

All this felt like a fever dream when typing. All its missing is a "sent from Outlook for Android." That'd pull all of this together nicely.

And yes, I'll make this into an actual pretty post when I make a proper study of the Koopa Kingdom. I promise it will make sense then.

#toonce offtopic #bowser #koopa kingdom #super mario #darklands #something something #I'll wake up on the morning and read this and realise I probably should have read over it at least once #I won't because it's 1am and I'm exhausted

[cursedalthoughts]

PR6 PREDICTIONS - Northern Parliament

Honestly, I am surprised it took us until PR5 to get any Northern Parliament PR. Wargaming does love their imaginary Soviet warships, and they notoriously love shoving them all around the place; so I genuinely expected them to arrive at AL earlier. But no, the first one was Chkalov.

They have a lot of choices, some of them redundant, some of them would make some of their existing ships redundant, and some of them original. I am not going to speculate on which ones could be PR or DR because it's always a 50/50 chance with these.

As always: I would not bet on any of these. These are just the ones I believe to be likely to be added, if we ever get another Northern Parliament PR.

Borodino

A fast battlecruiser with a surprisingly shitty main armament arrangement, and even more awful secondary gun layout.

Borodino has 2 triple 406mm turrets that are almost identical to those found on the Soyuz. She also has 2 dual 180mm turrets on the back. That's it. She's weak when it comes to firepower.

However, where Borodino excells is at bow-tanking (this will be a theme for all Soviet battleships btw). With some clever island cover and angling, you can tank pretty much all damage thrown at you.

Lenin

Borodino, but better, and funnier.

Her turrets (and her rifles) aren't as advanced as Soyuz, they are Vladivostok-type, meaning they are less accurate and the shells are slower. And her side armor is good on paper, but bad on practice.

With her 3 triple 406mm on the front, however (and the middle one being able to rotate 360º), she can fire her 9 very hard hitting shells in a very tight grouping (meaning, with very little dispersion).

Slava

A larger Soyuz with a ludicrous main gun range and an even more insane almost laser-accurate dispersion.

This thing is a sniper. She puts Champagne or Yamato to shame, in my opinion only Satsuma (a Superbattleship variant of the Yamato) is better.

Unlike Kremlin, she has 406mm, but that hardly matters when these guns hit 90% of the time compared to 60% of the time Kremlin fires.

Kremlin

The less accurate half-sister of Slava.

However, she has 457mm guns instead of 406mm. That's more considerable.

Petropavlovsk

A large cruiser notorious for having 220mm guns that hit as hard as Bismarck's 380mm guns (because she is Very Balanced, yes. Balansk). Petropavlovsk is a fast large cruiser with turrets that can all rotate 360º, with radar and hydroacoustic search, that can and will fuck you up if she fires at you.

Oh, btw, get ready for a lot of Soviet supercruisers.

Sevastopol

"But we already got Sebastopol?"

Yeah. Maybe they could add her with a different name, but now she's Sevastopol.

A half-sister of the Kronshtdadt that replaces her 305mm guns with actual, legit German dual 380mm guns. And funnily enough, this ship is more historically accurate than Kronshtdadt (at least from what I've seen). Honestly, I don't know if we could get her as a PR; maybe a gacha UR with a different name due to how historically accurate she is, but I would love a PR version of her due to her gimmick.

She's a zombie ship. She can heal around 50% of all the damage she takes.

Normally, only damage caused by HE can be mostly healed in WoWs, with AP damage being more severe and permanent. Sevastopol works differently, she can heal almost all damage of all types; but her heal ability is very contrived and has to be utilized properly lest it gets wasted, as she only has 2 charges and the heal lasts, like, a minute or two (can't remember). Normal heals last 30, maybe 40 seconds.

Stalingrad

The Ultimate Cruiser Spanker.

The Stalingrad is yet another large cruiser. This one is also surprisingly historically accurate.

She excells at removing enemy cruisers from the map. Her AP hits incredibly hard and has flat shell arcs, meaning it can find the citadel of close-range ships very easily (something American ships don't tend to have).

She has the usual suite of radar + hydro + good AA.

Ochakov

An HE spamming light cruiser that isn't very good at HE spamming.

She has 4 dual 152mm turrets. Her shells are nice and she reloads somewhat quickly, but she only has 8 cannons. Mainz has 12 and takes less than one more second to reload (and has more range). The only good thing about her is the usual Soviet combo of radar + hydro, but honestly, she's irremarkable. Even if I love her.

She would be somewhat similar to Chapayev, but better.

Grozovoi

A sneaky Soviet destroyer oriented towards smokescreens, hiding and setting fires.

I don't play destroyers. I don't know what to say, but I would love her in AL.

#azur lane #world of warships #northern parliament #priority research

[fictionadventurer]

If I were to adapt Cardinal's Map into a Real Life Book, it would potentially be a way to discuss All the Themes.

For a refresher, here's the summary of the Imaginary Book:

Miranda Zimmer, a nihilistic grad student, gets a summer job serving as secretary for John Cardinal, a reclusive old man who has not left his New York estate in decades. Miranda helps Cardinal to compile his magnum opus, an elaborate portal fantasy about a man's quest to save a kingdom and find his long-lost love. Miranda becomes enchanted by the story--especially the intricate map of the world that Cardinal has been drawing for years-- and the man, whose zeal for the world gives her a new appreciation for life. Yet Miranda starts to suspect that for Cardinal, this book is not fiction--it's memory. Whether it's madness or metaphor, Cardinal is writing this tale as the chronicle of his life, the map meant to help him reconnect with the woman he once lost. Is Cardinal mourning his wife or planning a rescue? Can Miranda keep him grounded in the here-and-now, or is he doomed to be lost in the wilderness of his past?

My Lenten reading has included Lewis, Tolkien, Peter Kreeft, Elizabeth Goudge and Wendell Berry, and it's all stewing together to create a rock-solid conviction that one must believe in something outside of the ordinary world to find true hope and meaning in life. Which is extremely relevant to an Imaginary Book that's all about a portal fantasy world that may or may not be real. Applying these themes to that Imaginary Book are making me think it could be possible to reverse-engineer a book that hits most of the points in the summary.

A key point of the imaginary book is that it's ambiguous as to whether Cardinal's fantasy world is real or not. When it comes to Cardinal's book, there are three options: lord, liar or lunatic.

Lord: Cardinal's portal fantasy is a non-fiction account of his travels through a fantasy universe that really exists outside of our reality, and Miranda's journey is coming to believe in the truth of it despite logical objections.

Liar: Cardinal's portal fantasy is a fictional work that he's using to process certain events of his past. Like all good fantasies, it sparks the imagination to new possibilities, and opens Miranda's mind to truths that Cardinal's experience can teach her.

Lunatic: Cardinal wrongly believes that the fantasy world he made up is a real account of his past, and Miranda has to keep him from letting his delusions put him in danger.

When applied to the themes I discussed above, only the first two options are satisfactory possibilities. (There is a bit of room for Cardinal's story to have started out as an imagination-firing fantasy full of truth, but that his mind gets muddled as he starts declining into dementia or something.) A story that maintained the ambiguity would probably present itself as the Liar option--a tribute to how good fantasy can lead us to real-life truths--while using some language that, depending on whether one interpreted the words literally or metaphorically, could mean that Cardinal's world is a real place.

But this is all thematic. Where's the story? Continuing the deductions, I've got some thoughts on that.

It would be a very small story. Not a terribly long book. A lot of intricate character studies and descriptive passages that's perhaps in the same lines as an Elizabeth Goudge book. It's mostly about these two people and how they affect each other.

Miranda is, as the summary states, a nihilistic grad student. She never had a great home life and isn't close to her family. She especially never knew a grandfather. Her relationship with Cardinal helps to fill this gap. She's been steeped in all the soulless humanistic discourse of the modern university system (and I've got just enough experience in that environment to draw inspiration from), but Cardinal's map seizes her imagination and opens her mind to the possibilities of beauty and hope in the world.

Saying that Cardinal hasn't left his estate in decades is probably overkill. More likely that he was traveling for a long time, no one much knows his true history, and he's spent the last several years holed up writing his book.

It's possible that Cardinal has family that does believe he's crazy, and has incentive to get him declared so. Miranda's interactions with them serve as temptations to return to a cynical, worldly worldview, but also help strengthen her convictions that, crazy or not, Cardinal is right.

Miranda actually liking Cardinal's book probably means a lot to him. He's not used to people seeing this as anything other than an old man's folly.

"Can she keep him grounded in the here-and-now or is she doomed to lose him to the wilderness of his past?" This line suggests that Miranda has as much to teach Cardinal as he has to teach her. Cardinal has spent a long time developing his world and his worldview, and can teach Miranda a lot of useful theory, but in developing that theory, he's neglected the real world and real relationships. Miranda has to help him put that theory into real-world practice by reaching out to the world around him--teach him to stop wallowing in his past and start looking to the future. It's a way for me to weave in Theology of the Body, and that Chestertonian conviction that the point of fantasy isn't to stay there, but to come back with a greater appreciation for the world around us.

This might be too simplistic of a story. It feels like it's been told a million times before. But is it possible to make it into something unique based on how one presents the details?

#imaginary book recs #cardinal's map #adventures in writing #feedback welcome #i don't know if this will ever become anything more than theory but i need to know if it's decent theory or not