Today's Card Is: I Aim To Please, But My Aim Ain't That Good!

I understand why a lot of fantasy settings with Ambiguously Catholic organised religions go the old "the Church officially forbids magic while practising it in secret in order to monopolise its power" route, but it's almost a shame because the reality of the situation was much funnier.

Like, yes, a lot of Catholic clergy during the Middle Ages did practice magic in secret, but they weren't keeping it secret as some sort of sinister top-down conspiracy to deny magic to the Common People: they were mostly keeping it secret from their own superiors. It wasn't one of those "well, it's okay when we do it" deals: the Church very much did not want its local priests doing wizard shit. We have official records of local priests being disciplined for getting caught doing wizard shit. And the preponderance of evidence is that most of them would take their lumps, promise to stop doing wizard shit, then go right back to doing wizard shit.

It turns out that if you give a bunch of dudes education, literacy, and a lot of time on their hands, some non-zero percentage of them are going to decide to be wizards, no matter how hard you try to stop them from being wizards.

do you ever hear people talking about something and you’re like. fuck. let me be real for a second. i’m too much of a commie to have this conversation

I’ve started doing research for an urban fantasy story and I think I’ve stumbled on a universal truth. Every culture has a fried dough, filled dough, and some kind of vampire.

I don’t know what this says about human nature but it’s certainly saying something.

girl what the fuck is even the theme of a midsummer night’s dream. is there even a lesson to be learned. is it just vibes or what

personifying fire is nothing new we've been doing it forever. but fire IS a living thing to me.

been thinking about fantasy/scifi rule systems and free will

Apayauq Reitan, the first trans women to run Iditarod, finishes last and wins the “Committed Through the Last Mile” award. The award, given by Lynden, honors Apayauq for her perseverance and commitment to finish the race through unexpected challenges. The last half of the pack of those running Iditarod faced sudden and extreme weather that caused many competitors to have to scratch and be rescued by race officials.

Apayauq had seven dogs in harness at the time of her finish and although this was not her rookie Iditarod, this was her first one she ran out and proud as an Indigenous trans women.

the twitter art meme 🛸🐉