concept: which member of the fellowship are you personality quiz, except there’s only one question and its “what do you think about pippin”. answers range from “bastard man, naughty boy” to “my son whom shall be cherished”
and then there’s Masego’s relationship with asexuality, which is also absolutely fucking brilliant if you ask me. In no way is it linked by anyone to his autistic traits; the contexts in which it comes up are
– “ugh my agents can’t seduce him he just doesn’t seem interested in anyone why is infiltration so difficult” (not an accurate quote)
– ”undressing in front of Masego was like baring my ass to a potted plant: there was no real interest on either side” (a very accurate quote)
– “Catherine. Is this a sex thing I don’t know about. Explain to me if this is a sex thing I don’t know about so that I will know if you are making fun of me right now” (she was, in fact, making fun of him)
– the very awkward and incredibly sweet discussion of Indrani’s crush on him and what can or can not come out of it :3
(in his POV segments it does not come up in any way at all, which I find deeply relatable and true to life, but he does miss Indrani when she’s not there :3 )
You know what fantasy writing needs? Working class wizards.
A crew of enchanters maintaining the perpetual flames that run the turbines that generate electricity, covered in ash and grime and stinking of hot chilies and rare mushrooms used for the enchantments
A wizard specializing in construction, casting feather fall on every worker, and enchanting every hammer to drive nails in straight, animating the living clay that makes up the core of the crane
An elderly wizard and her apprentice who transmute fragile broken objects. From furniture, to rotten wood beams, to delicate jewelry
A battle magician, trained with only a few rudimentary spells to solve a shortage of trained wizards on the front who uses his healing spells to help folks around town
Wizarding shops where cheery little mages enchant wooden blocks to be hammered into the sides of homes. Hammer this into the attic and it will scare off termites, toss this in the fire and clean your chimney, throw this in the air and all dust in the room gets sucked up
Wizard loggers who transmute cut trees into solid, square beams, reducing waste, and casting spells to speed up regrowth. The forest, they know, will not be too harsh on them if the lost tree’s children may grow in its place
Wizard farmers who grow their crops in arcane sigils to increase yield, or produce healthier fruit
Factory wizards who control a dozen little constructs that keep machines cleaned and operational, who cast armor to protect the hands of workers, and who, when the factory strikes for better wages, freeze the machines in place to ensure their bosses can’t bring anyone new in.
Anyway, think about it.
Construction wizards to turn back time to root out wood worm and strengthen old buildings.
A wizard tailors who transmutes cloth into fully made clothes without seems and leaving behind no scraps
A wizard who works in public transit, timing out teleports with detailed schedules, time magic, and enchanted communications, sending dozens of people to far away cities for a day or work or leisure
A team of wizard gardeners tend to trees grown far outside their native range, and ideal climate, encircled with runes and fed potions to grow none the less
A wizard sits in their office in the aqueduct, re-casting the spells that allow its precious water to flow to the city uphill
A wizard fisher casts water repelling spells on the sailors and the stairs, keeps the hoist on the anchor from rusting, casts balls of heat that keep everyone warm below decks. Their real job is to herd fish together so they can be caught in single huge nets, and keep them cold as the boat returns to land.
There are so many possibilities outside of “stodgy academic who wears ugly robes” and “Very good holy man who helps everyone and the fact they’ve never had a job is never brought up” and “evil wizard toiling away on great evils in his evil tower in the evil country.”
Wizards who come out and ward your home for you, like the magical equivalent of a home security system.
I adore this.
Necromancers that work as forensic agents to help find justice for loved ones.
Enchanters that specialize in music boxes that lull children to sleep.
Wizards that divine their way through the stock market or become business analysts.
EVERY SINGLE STORY IN THE HISTORY OF EVER THAT HAS THESE – AND THERE ARE A LOT OF THEM ACTUALLY – IS MY ETERNAL FAVORITE INSTANTLY
yes even Dominic Deegan no matter how far to shit it went
also “A battle magician, trained with only a few rudimentary spells to solve a shortage of trained wizards on the front who uses his healing spells to help folks around town“ GUIDE DOES THAT RANK AND FILE MAGES TRAINED WITH EXACTLY TWO SPELLS: FIREBALL AND HEALING
*releases pack of dads into home depot* go……be free
invasive species encroach on lesbian territory
This is a common misconception because they’re such similar environments, but you should be aware that dads are native to Home Depot, while lesbians are actually native to Lowe’s. At this point, however, both dads and lesbians have made themselves at home in both Home Depot and Lowe’s to the point that trying to separate them back into their original ranges would probably do more harm than good to the delicate ecosystem of large chain hardware stores.
A properly raised and socialized Dad will be perfectly comfortable cohabiting with Lesbians. Its not really “encroaching on another’s territory”. You wouldn’t say that about foxes in a forest that also homes bobcats, would you? No. It’s just two different species that have both evolved to live in similar/the same environment. As long as they recognize each other as equals, Dads and Lesbians are more than capable of cohabitation.
Now, if you were to release a pack of Lumberjacks into a Lowes or Home Depot, that’s where chaos will reign. Being adapted to a far harsher and more demanding environment, the Lumberjacks would simply push Dads and Lesbians both out and also consume far more than a sustainable amount of resources. It would be like releasing bears at a country club.
As a former timber-harvester… I feel this is potentially accurate in theory. But highly improbable in actuality.
Lumberjacks, like most megafauna species generally require more space than the average hardware store, even a big box store could provide. The misconception is that Lumberjacks are a social species because of how they often work and live together.
This is a matter of necessity, not preference, and a survival technique for thriving under the LogBoss.
A “pack” of Lumberjacks, if not under the environmental pressure of a LogBoss will naturally disperse until they each have a wide territory.
Lumberjacks rarely fight for territory.
One on one, a Lumberjack could drive out a Dad or Lesbian, however the latter tend to travel in social packs.
Lumberjacks will passively retreat on the presence of large numbers of people. Kind of like Sasquatch.
Getting a “pack” of Lumberjacks assembled would be hard enough unless they were forced into a Hardware Store by a LogBoss. In that case, they would already be in a heightened and potentially agitated state far above their natural behavior. This artificial scenario can be likened to a circus animal running amok. If it had been in the wild, the incident would not have occurred.
Free-roaming Lumberjacks are the cryptids of the Hardware ecosystem. They are surprisingly quiet and unobtrusive.
Please stop labeling Lumberjacks as dangerous roving social predators. They are intermediate level omnivores and remarkably peaceful unless threatened.
This is true for purebred lumberjacks, sure, but in some areas there has been extensive interbreeding, resulting in dad/lumberjack and lesbian/lumberjack hybrids that exhibit traits from both parent species and are often behaviorally unpredictable. Some hardware ecologists are concerned about the potential for these hybrids to outcompete true wild type species.
that my favorite PGTE couple is not only pan/aroace solidarity, it’s also adhd/autistic solidarity
which is the very basis on which they bonded to begin with
and like there aren’t words for it in-universe but at some point of being utterly true to life you just gotta accept that the writer knows EXACTLY what he’s doing
part one of two! this is kind of a filler but even so it took me forever… anyway, hence the uber scribble (and yes that is the same bg as in Arm Restling call me out on it see if I care)
