the one place in the dream smp that will NEVER fail to give me the chills is pogtopia
don't get me wrong, logsted is eerie enough, with the buildings blown up and the one-block tower; but that is largely because we know of the horrors that happened there, of what ctommy had to go through. without the context, it might pass off as some sort of relic, like ruins from the past.
pogtopia instead is just unsettling on its own: starting from the fact that it was build in a cave, hidden from the main hub so that others couldn't find it. then you get to the decorations and the things built by its inhabitants: the small rooms that would make most claustrophobic, the precarious stairs and bridges (for lack of better wording lol) that ran across the place, the hastily built pit where cbedrock bros fought (which, for all we know, could still have some remnants from that fight in-universe).
then you have the dim lighting, the buttons all around and the multiple passageways that ctommy and the others created to travel from one place to another: all of this already made it somewhat unsettling when the characters still lived there, but now that it's been abandoned for so long pogtopia has become downright ominous.
time has only turned that cave more frightening, and even if a newcomer didn't know the history behind it, they would 100% get the feeling that something is clearly wrong with that place.
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slimeriana gem time \o/ just to clarify again these are nothing to do with the gemcyt au going around i am doing my own thing lol 👍
slime is a nephrite, mariana is a jasper that came out a bit wrong (he’s a little overcooked) and their fusion is bloodstone! bloodstone is shockingly stable all things considered but he does tend to fall apart pretty easily outside of combat situations jhsbjd
i haven’t thought of a weapon for slime yet but mariana’s is a battle axe! i’ll figure out bloodstones after i work out slimes lol
and here’s a link to tazercrafts designs !
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I am finally starting to see the light on just how robust all of the companion origin romances are (i.e. romances within the party outside of tav). While larian obvs had to work with sudden, abrupt story changes and losses, somehow they still managed to make all of their stories so intertwined that all possible romances are good.
Take Karlach for example:
• Wyll: Their stories are literal parallels; They both were following someone with power and influence, yearning to serve them and others to the best of their abilities—and were both discarded after being tricked into (literal) hell. together they provide for each other what was taken without denying themselves what has changed them (more devilish? so be it, i am stronger for it). She will guard what he loves without question—all he's ever tried to do—and he will stand against the forces that served to get them here, all she's ever wanted. They have both been forever changed to be more devilish (scarred, marked, horned, dehorned) but still yearn to thrive amongst their peers to no avail. He will always be a human with fangs and horns, and she will always be a tiefling with no horn(s), no heart. They are each other's only peers, the hunter and the prey.
• Shadowheart: One young girl is torn from the people she loves, her home, the authority figure she serves. She is marred by this person. Her parents are lost to her—she will never get to say goodbye, never get to hug them again. Her peers shun her, believe her dead or worse. Her only friends are lost to her (or so she thinks). She is a half-elf forcibly blinded to the ways of the world, sent on a suicide mission to secure her master's authority. She is a tiefling who has forgotten the joys of the world, escaping a suicide mission meant to secure her master's authority. They were both taught to selfishly strike out against the world to just survive. Together they find something alien to both of them—self prioritization without selfishness (I am not made to serve, i was made to be here. with you).
• Astarion: He is empty of life, cold and buried; She is being consumed by her life, toiling and burned. They were both, for lack of better words, Baldurian hot-shots in their youths. A learned magistrate and the head guard of an up-and-coming Baneite. They were both likely very corrupt. Astarion is obvious—his attack by the Gur was prob in response to prejudiced rulings. But Karlach was working for fucking Gortash. She's not an idiot, and while she certainly has a soft spot for the community, she had to have had a hand in his nefarious doings. Regardless, both of them are still furious about what happened to them, rightfully so—and neither is willing to accept (yet) that the version of them they left behind was not what they want now. They both want revenge, to kill the fucks that stole them away. And they both get it, only to find that they need to make a life after this, not to mourn the life before this.
• Lae'zel: This, like all Lae'zel romances, is a tale of two cities. Lae'zel wants to serve someone so badly, else she cannot prove to others (and herself) that she is worth the air she is breathing. Her culture demands it, history commands it, and she was born for it. But she can't do it. Not blindly. Karlach was a rough and tumble child on the streets of Baldur's Gate looking to eke out her livelihood without serving authority. But she couldn't avoid it, nothing she's good at could make money or earn respect except for serving as a guard, as a soldier. At first meeting, they both immediately respect and pity each other. Karlach likes seeing someone so proud of who they choose to serve, but innately understands that it is not a choice. Lae'zel likes seeing someone strong enough to command respect, but knows that she "should" want to serve someone too. They see themselves in the other. Neither understands, but they will. Karlach will see why Lae'zel is so desperate to belong, to serve—Lae'zel will see why she is too scared to submit.
• Gale: We both have a bomb in our chests. A divine being, omnipotent in all but name, placed it within you and quelled its fire so long as you obey and worship. The most obscene devil, queen of the Hells, ripped me from my home and gave me this, its flame fanned by servitude and snuffed by disobedience. Gale has lost himself to depression, Karlach to rage. He pours through books searching for the answer he will never find, but that's how he got here in the first place. Karlach smashes her way through everything, making ragtag enemies and allies along the way, but that's how she got here. Before anyone says some bullshit about Karlach being too "dumb" or Gale being too "pretentious;" Karlach is not dumb, she is naïve (which lends itself to dumb decisions) but wise. She's led an experience-rich life (encountered through misplaced trust and naivety) and has learned lessons from every single one, something she learns to temper within Gale as well. Gale has done many things but actually learned from very few of them, which is one of the reasons why he's immediately eager for the Crown. But he's also not an idiot, he's just vulnerable. Together, they balance each other emotionally and pedagogically.
Obviously this is focusing on the narrative aspects of these relationships—not the personal intricacies. But the majesty of this writing is that these are all characters written by separate people, forging separate stories with thousands of paths each. It's just unheard of.
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one of the most infuriating things that happens in discussions about trans people is like, when a transphobe talks about how its just SOOOO easy to access gender affirming care, it's so easy to get on hrt or get referred for surgery etc... some of you dense motherfuckers respond to this by saying "no!!! it's not easy!!!! its so hard!!!" & listen. i KNOW that it IS HARD for many of us. and in many places it's getting harder. but tell me this: isn't the goal, eventually, to make it easy? not just easier than right now, but genuinely easy for a transgender person to access the care they need on whatever timeline they want, no matter how fast or slow? so if you spend all your time right now combating transphobia by insisting that transition is difficult and taxing and traumatizing, what are you going to do if and when it's none of those things? if there is no endless suffering and million hoops?
when someone says "it's too easy to transition" in order to justify their own transphobia, and you say "no it's not", you're also saying "if it were, your feelings would be justified". which is already kind of a terrible implication without taking into consideration that what most of these people mean by "too easy" is "possible". they mean that you can transition and they don't want you to. point blank. when you say it's difficult, they think "good. it should be harder". it will never be difficult enough to not be easy to them.
i am literally so sick & tired of all of us throwing each other under the bus in order to advocate for a future that is fucking miserable and awful. when someone tells you their nightmare scenario is transgender people being happy, you should not be responding to that by reassuring them that actually, transgender people are miserable and always have been and always will. when someone complains about how easy transition is you should say "good". we are never getting out of this fucking crab bucket if we're not only pulling each other down but also telling other people that pushing us back in would be fine if we were a little closer to the top.
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hey jesties
here’s a little intro post since there’s a few hundred more of u now than there were the last time i did one!
hi it’s me i’m ken!! bigender, bisexual, and bioluminescent if u get me in the right light. hobbies include history in all it’s beautiful disgusting forms, old web + beginner level coding (check out my webbed site!), clowns/jesters/fools of all sorts, and a fourth spot that operates like a rotating special guest for my ever-shifting hyperfixations. she/him, emphasis on the him if you please. japed and whimsy-pilled. if you ever saw a viral tweet about jesters that was probably me. i’m a card carrying clown and would love to help you get over your coulrophobia.
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