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Sesquipedalian Today

@open-sketchbook / open-sketchbook.tumblr.com

ERROR: Win98 has stopped functioning. Begin the ritual.

Team Butterfly Forever! (WIP Web Novel)

Okay, now that I'm three chapters into writing it and I've got momentum behind me, I want to properly pitch my WIP writing project to people.

Team Butterfly Forever is a post-magical girl story. In 2004, a young girl named Eve got a magical necklace from a talking cat, transformed into the magnificent Butterfly Ward, met friends like her, fought evil, and defended San Francisco from the sinister Dark Queen. Evil defeated, city saved, happily ever after.

Now it's 2014, and Eve needs to get the Butterfly Knights back together. The only problem is, they're in absolutely no state; it turns out that having to fight evil when you're 14 makes for messed up 24 year olds. Eve will need every scrap of the power of love and (adult) friendship the save the world, and more importantly, save her friends. So cards on the table? This isn't actually Sailor Moon fanfiction, but it's not not Sailor Moon fanfiction. It is very much wearing its inspiration on its sleeve, and the serial numbers have been filed off primarily because I'm looking to do crimes with it.

I'll be up front; it starts in a pretty dark place. This is very much a story about growing up with trauma and what that does to you. But it's also a comedy, a story about healing, and in the finest tradition of magical girls, a story about pressing on anyway because your friends need you.

Also... every single character is queer. So there's that.

I'm currently writing it as fast as I can; there's no set update schedule, but I posted the first segment a month ago and I'm about 1/4th of the way through my projected length. The story has been fully planned ahead of time, so it won't get hung up on where to go next; I'm hoping to have it done around April, but if you start following now you'll be able to see it take shape and speculate along with other readers.

It is being posted on the Sufficient Velocity, an old-school, moderated forum for lovers of sci-fi, fanfic, and interactive fiction. It's a very queer friendly space, and I highly encourage you to check it out. It'll be exclusive there until I have a final print version; I want to add to this community I love instead of spreading this story out across many isolated spaces, and see discussion about it as it happens. You can also follow the story there to be alerted to updates, and there's tons of other fiction being written on the forum all the time!

If you want to see my other work, my forum signature has interactive and traditional fiction I've posted on the site going back to 2017, including first drafts of my previous novels Whispers from the Deep and Lieutenant Fusilier in the Farthest Reaches.

I hope you enjoy!

So many Americans seem to think that there is no society, and morality is literal magic. Like, people don't make choices based on a complex interlocking web of desires and institutions and material conditions. The world is good guys and bad guys. Deviance is a literal magical poison that disrupts the fabric of reality. If enough young women dye their hair blue, the crops will fail.

What suburbanism will do to you after enough time dog

Literally atomized to the point of duotheism. "wokeness" isn't a social phenomena, it's a synthetic evil god invented deep state actors that want custody of your kids.

99% of "mysterious disappearances" esp of people in their 20s who start acting weird for 48 hours and then vanish are not mysterious, thats just when a lot of reality-obliterating mental illness tends to kick in and it's pretty easy to get a short circuit in your brain that makes you go family guy death pose in joshua tree national park. it's not any less tragic, it's just a documented phenomenon and not particularly predictable. its a big reason the medical advice is for people with a family history of schizophrenia to completely avoid weed and psychedelics. "people just go crazy sometimes" is a principle of human health that used to be a lot more accepted prior to the american midcentury and to a certain extent thats a healthier way to conceptualize and prepare for the risk, as opposed to the modern assertion that anyone acting weird is dangerous and broken forever.

you should have a rough outline of a plan for if any of your loved ones experiences psychosis, it really does happen a lot. UTIs can cause psychosis. taking drugs, even safe drugs, or prescription drugs, can cause psychosis. i was once prescribed a heavy regimen of vitamin D because i was deficient, but the doctor never told me to stop taking it, so i moved to california, stopped being deficient, and developed vitamin d toxicity with downstream hyperparathyroidism which triggered significant hypomania that was undetected and uncontrolled for yeeeeeeears. i just slowly got Weird and started making impulsive decisions based on slightly out-of-gamut beliefs. i drove cross country by myself to have a love affair. the love affair was real, the series of decisions leading to burning down my life in pursuit of it were based on not great brain function however. etc. you see what i mean. churchill mentioned depression being the "black dog who stalks us" (one reason for Churchgrim's multi-referential name) but theres another, stealthier dog called Insanity and it's closer to some people than others but man it sneaks up on you. every time i see one of those "guy gets weird and drives into the wilderness forever" missing persons stories i think "yeah i could totally pull that off"

"van gogh cut off his ear what a lunatic" you are 3 nights of bad sleep, getting unexpected upsetting news and taking a substance as benign as coffee at the wrong time away from doing the same hope this helps

i'm about 90% sure that what made my ex go from 'hmm i think she needs to talk to somebody about these new irrational fears' to 'full on talking-to-fairies disconnection from reality' is the fact that she moved into a new apartment and the people living directly below here were getting blazed 24/7

this was a non-smoking building housing cancer patients but her entire apartment reeked of weed, and basically the moment she moved there she started rapidly going downhill

so yeah

actually as long as we're talking about realistic expectations of ageing, the nature of social media decontextualising people's personal posts has absolutely given some of you guys a false and potentially dangerous view of how your body is expected to change over time. I semi frequently see people sharing or repackaging commentary on experiences with disability as if it's an inevitable part of getting older. and like, yes, as you get older you are likely to develop new conditions, injuries or disabilities, but you need to understand your body's baseline well enough to identify those changes and interrogate them.

e.g. if you are seriously having such bad joint or back pain in your 30s that it hampers your day to day activities, you need to take that seriously. that is not 'just ageing', that's potentially an indicator of an underlying condition, unaddressed injury (which is quite common but will get worse if you don't notice and take care of it) or daily habits (poor posture, poor diet, sedentary lifestyle) causing cumulative damage to your body.

I know plenty of 30+ and 40+ year olds who are not especially athletic but who can still climb up and down stairs with ease, sit on the floor and get up again without discomfort, have floor or shower sex, ride a bike, wrestle a dog or a kid, climb a tree, maybe even do a handstand. there is no shame at all in developing pain or mobility issues which limit the kinds of things you can do comfortably, but it doesn't serve anyone to pretend that those changes are bound up with reaching a certain age. even in your 60s and 70s and beyond you should notice if you start feeling a new kind of pain or physical limitation. don't dismiss this shit just because someone told you "yeah that happens when you pass 30"

Got curious

https://neosciencehub.com/man-spends-93-days-under-the-atlantic-sea-becoming-10-years-younger/

For a groundbreaking investigation, retired navy commander Joseph Dituri was required to submerge himself for more than three months. Researchers sought to understand the impact of submerged life in a pressurised environment on the human body. And guess what? After spending more than three months submerged in the Atlantic Ocean, scientists were astounded to discover that Dituri had become “ten years younger” when he emerged from his little pod.

Following diagnostic evaluations, it was discovered that Dituri’s telomeres—the DNA caps at the ends of chromosomes that normally shorten with age—had grown 20% longer than they had three months prior.

In addition, his stem cell count had increased and his general health had undergone a dramatic metamorphosis. Dituri also reported better-quality sleep. His inflammatory indicators decreased by half, and his cholesterol plummeted by 72 points. According to medical professionals, the underwater pressure—which is recognized to have several health benefits—caused these alterations. Dituri subsequently discussed the need for these kinds of encounters.

“One of these locations that are isolated from outside activities is what you need. The British newspaper Daily Mirror cited him as stating, “Send people down here for a two-week vacation, where they can get their feet scrubbed, relax, and experience the benefit of hyperbaric medicine.” He said that his metabolism had also significantly improved.

Rare new form of beneficial pressure discovered

old timey doctors sending you to the seaside for your health were so, so close.

There are many benefits to being a marine biologist.

Ogryn headcanon acquired

Go read The Witch Lives and Suffer Not (The Witch Lives is a sequel to Suffer Not but they can be read independently). Seriously, do it right now.

They are, without exaggeration, the best takes on 40k I've ever seen. They are literally better than canon and made me see the setting in an entirely new way.

Since I put this in my queue, I've now read both of these stories and they are both excellent interpretations of 40k. I particularly loved Erika's version of Space Marines, I don't want to spoil what's so cool about them though. Just know that it's at least as interesting as the above take on Ogryns. I highly recommend the two stories.

i was in Missoula last week and i heard how often people run into Hank Green and i kept being terrified I'd run into him like he was fucking Goro Majima

Hello, fellow internet person

I've recently found you're magical girl art which lead me to your blog, and I'm really interested in Team Butterfly fanfiction.

I gotta ask, does Team Butterfly have any magic or special powers, if so, what are their powers and what do they do with them?

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You can read the story and find out!

But, in short, yeah they have powers, they're magical girls! We haven't seen everyone in action yet, so I don't want to do spoilers, but I had a lot of fun coming up with interesting and multifaceted powers for everyone.

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