cool wizards n stuff

writeblr! she/her 30. Plain reblogs go to: @sapphicwizards-reblogs. Images are mine unless otherwise specified. Trans rights btw.

[sapphicwizards]

I went through the desert on a horse with a name

It was "Good to Get Out of the Rain"

The horse. had a weird and long name

Because they like to give horses weird names

[sapphicwizards]

i was influenced by some of you to read Murderbot. Better not let me down.

[sapphicwizards]

MURDER BOT VERY GOOD

[sapphicwizards]

Would it be frowned upon if I offered a free beta reading service that you have to apply for? It would literally just be a form where you put a link to somewhere I can read an excerpt of your story and if I like it I'll get in touch and we can establish an actual beta reader relationship. I really just want to meet other authors whose work I vibe with and make friends with them.

I'm doing a vibe check because I don't fully understand all the social rules around doing work for free that other people charge for and like what kinds of ways it's ok to engage with feedback. I'm also unsure about having an application process I think some folks might have a problem with that.

I was considering offering paid beta reading services but like?? I am not qualified to do that, I don't need extra income that badly and also I don't want to have to pay freelancer taxes and run my own business because UGH.

[sapphicwizards]

After first contact, we learned that the aliens hadn’t been talking to us because we simply were not very interesting. There were no unique resources on our planet and it turned out humans were very average for an intelligent bipedal lifeform. It was expensive to get all the way out here, so no one had bothered. What finally changed that was a business opportunity.

There’s something that happens on earth every 18 months on average. It’s an astrological event where the moon passes in front of the sun and covers it perfectly. When someone discovered that wealthy beings from all around the galaxy were willing to pay good money to see this, it changed out world forever.

We welcomed the first few scientists and sightseers who told us how special our little planet was and how grateful they were to be here. Over the decades though, more and more aliens showed up every time. Many humans and aliens alike took the opportunity to get rich.

It only took a few decades before we were planning our entire civilization around eclipse tourism. It was good in some ways. If there was going to be an eclipse in your area, you were pretty much guaranteed a job for the entire decade leading up to it. The earth had been in a death spiral with runaway climate change, and the aliens were able to come in and fix it easily with advanced tech. We couldn’t be having natural disasters or unseasonable clouds disrupting vacations willy nilly!

The extra terrestrial entrepreneurs hired locals to build the infrastructure required to sustain the increasing number of visitors. Things like habitats and food production for various lifeforms were spun up. Farmland was paved over and city blocks were replaced with alien hotels and other amenities. Humans were removed from entire neighborhoods just because they were in convenient locations for tourists.

We started with peaceful protest. We linked arms to stop the bulldozers from tearing down forests and paving over savannas. Our own governments shot and tear gassed us to make way for progress. Many of them were profiting from the destruction along with the invaders. There’s always going to be traitors. You probably won’t be surprised to hear what happened to them in the end.

[sapphicwizards]

Would you recognize your own handwriting if you saw it on something you don't remember writing?

Yes

No

Don't know

Voting ended onJun 21, 2025

[reallyreallyreallytrying]

"her warp--" her weft bro

[sapphicwizards]

if you are holding a baby-shaped thing (like a cat or an actual human baby) in your arms do you instinctively start lightly bouncing it?

yes

no but I've seen other people do it

no and I've never seen anyone do this

Voting ended onMay 11, 2025

Collecting data on the human urge to Bounce The Baby

[sapphicwizards]

*sigh* I want to change my url again

[sapphicwizards]

Just because a guy is over 40 doesn't mean he's automatically less athletic than every 20 year old. I have a buddy who was 45 when we got ambushed by some southern alpine hunters and when I got shot in the shoulder the absolute madman knocked out two of them and then carried me to a place where we could stay hidden. But the next day their friends caught up to us further up the mountains and got him in the back. He was an experienced hunter and knew he was going to die from that wound, even though I didn't believe it. I didn't want to believe it. He told me to take the arrow and run but my hands were shaking, so when I pulled, it made a horrible noise and the arrowhead stayed lodged in his shoulder. Then the other archers caught up to us and I had to gtfo but I led them away hoping maybe he would survive. A few days later I'd killed the last 2 archers and was able to circle back. By then it had gotten really really cold and his body was a completely immovable frozen mass in a really inconvenient shape. He wasn't a huge dude but I sure as fuck wasn't strong enough to get his corpse to a better place. Those kids had beaten him up after he had died. It was honestly really horrible to see and sometimes I still have dreams about it. Lucky for me, the dumbasses didn't even think to go through his stuff. Maybe they were scared he was going to come back to life after everything that happened. I would have been. So yea even though I was literally freezing to death, I put together a burial mound for him the way they do in his tribe. I couldn't bring myself to take his tools because he loved them so much but I figured he wouldn't mind if I grabbed his blanket. Gave myself frostbite but it was worth it so next generations who climb that mountain will see the mound and know a great warrior died there.

[sapphicwizards]

i was influenced by some of you to read Murderbot. Better not let me down.

[sapphicwizards]

I almost stepped on a rattlesnake yesterday (like REALLY almost did, VERY close call) and I've been thinking about it a lot from an action writing perspective. Of course I know what it feels like to be in danger. We all do. But as a not particularly outdoorsy type I don't have a ton of experience with the feeling of being in acute immediate danger.

What's interesting is that I did not have time to get scared. When I write characters who nearly get killed, I thought it was necessary to have them react to it emotionally or intellectually, but that isn't what I did in this instance. I noticed the snake on the ground where my foot was about to go, and from there the lizard brain fully took the wheel. When I saw it, there was no reason for me to be afraid because there was nothing for me as a conscious being to do. It wasn't me who ran away from that snake, it was millions of years of evolution. It was all my ancestors, including the fish and stuff, possessing me at once like the avatar state. Then once I was safe, they handed the reins back and I was able to start thinking about the situation--but by then it was all over. By the time I knew I was in danger I was safe.

I've had things happen to me in my life where I do get properly scared, and then I have to calm myself down, so I assumed that's the only type of response to danger. There have been some instances like this one where it's a physical danger that's over quickly, but nothing that I feel should have felt more scary than a damn rattlesnake hissing and rattling at me. Honestly I've gotten more of a terror response from receiving emails. (If I stand very still this email won't find me ass terror) But an actual coiled up ready to bite me extremely venomous snake 2 feet away? Yea my heart rate went up because I needed to run but it didn't feel like fear the way those other things did, and I didn't need to calm myself down or manage my emotional reaction afterwards.

I think... maybe? things are only scary if you aren't actively doing something about it while the danger is present, or you aren't sure that what you're doing is the best course of action. But if every fiber of your being is focused on getting you out of there, and you know that that is the only and best possible thing to be doing? you don't feel afraid.

There was definitely a shot of adrenaline because for one, my allergies immediately stopped and stayed gone for like 10 minutes, but I also felt like I was seeing everything in higher definition. My body was like ok girl we almost just died so we're gonna need to LOOK more carefully. And I guess that's what adrenaline is. It's just a hormone that tells your body it's all hands on deck RED ALERT. And yet the cortisol or whatever (I only pretend to know neurochemistry) didn't register to me as fear.

Is that just me though? Would someone else have panicked after they got away? Is instantly running away what any human would have done? Does anyone panic once they face danger and get to safety? Would I have reacted differently if I were more scared of snakes or if I'd had a traumatic experience with one? (Ok but I am pretty scared of snakes though)

That I don't know, but my perspective on what it feels like to be in danger is different now. Not all danger is scary. Not everything terrifying actually makes you feel terrified.

[sapphicwizards]

The haphazard snowbanks were encroached by spindly ponderosa pines. They stood apart, as if shy, not allowing any of their branches to even get close to each other. It's a strange thing to see a forest filled with trees where the brown, vegetationless ground is not shaded, but is lit almost as brightly as the rocks above.

As we descended the twisting road with its bright yellow stripe, the pines got friendlier. Where the high altitude pines were serious and aloof, the ones further down the mountain had a different character altogether. Their pom pom needles blew in the wind like a band of cheerleaders dancing in time. They swayed and shook on the wild dance floor of the darkening forests.

We hadn't seen any snow for some time when I saw the first cedar on the road. The last cedar I had met face to face had been a ragged windswept thing growing, despite everything, from the fresh granite of the high volcanic desert. This cedar wasn't like that small wizened tree— though they were both western red cedars. It stood primly amongst the firework-shaped pine needles, hanging it's lacy branches over the road. Ponderosa pines are a dusty green, and their trunks are usually gray, so it's easy to spot a lone red cedar among them. Its red bark appears almost feathered, and the leaves are a dark rich green. I always thought these trees had a birdlike quality to them. The cedars you see in cities are usually pruned round and fluffy, like those little egg-laying chickens. This one was sparse and lean, more like the turkey vultures that fly in the valleys.

Not long after that first cedar, I saw more and more of them, and fewer of the ponderosas, then we started to see Douglas firs and the skeletons of deciduous trees still lacking their leaves. Douglas firs are not real firs. In fact they're really their own thing, but the men who came to this place from the east saw them and thought they looked like firs, so that is what we call them now. Unlike the pines, and more like the cedars, they block out a lot of light. Their dark green needles splay out like fingers as if they were feeling around in the darkness.

Despite the lack of light beneath all these trees, the vegetation on the ground started to become more vibrantly green, replacing the brown pine litter. Then there were wildflowers: lupin and California poppies, and soon so many different kinds of plants that I could no longer count them. At this elevation, in contrast to the dull dusty winter of the mountains, it was already spring. Soon all this life would make it's way up the steep rocky hills, even reaching the shy ponderosa pines in their snowbanks.

[sapphicwizards]

I've decided I need to do bad first draft therapy so I'm trying to write 50k of some silly vampire romance by the end up this month. I'm 10k in and having fun with it.

[sapphicwizards]

Are you /back/ back? Are there wizards to be read??

I would like to be, but right now I'm working on a couple of short stories to hopefully submit to journals which means I can't really post much about them here. The wizards are on hold right now sadly.

[sapphicwizards]

GPT3 has made me a better writer. Sometimes I write something and I think "ew this sounds like GPT3" so I re-write it better.

[rainefallfish-deactivated202604]

Why do I even write? I'm not profound. I'm not clever. I'm not good. What arrogance must I have to put my thoughts on paper, cloak them in metaphor, and assume anyone else could get something out of it?

[sapphicwizards]

There's a great Matt Colville rant about this exact thing that single handedly gave me the courage to try writing something. Thanks for reminding me to rewatch it.

[rainefallfish-deactivated202604]

So this video genuinely made me think about some stuff, especially because it's primarily centered on tabletop role-playing games.

See, I love running TTRPGs. I think that my campaigns are great. I think that my players are going to love whatever I put in front of them. I'm completely confident that, no matter what idea I have, it'll be a hit. And I'm usually right. This is not arrogance, or hubris, or whatever. This is confidence built up over nearly a decade of being the central (often only) GM in my playgroup.

I also talk philosophy with a lot of my friends. I have stances that I'm willing to defend and that I think are important for people to hear. This is what I was raised to do, more or less. Find the truth, analyze the facts, and have confidence in anything I say.

But my family was very science-oriented. Even taking philosophy and mathematics courses in college was a bit of a rebellion. Art was never really on the table for me, and it was in 2021 that I decided that I should be an author (and I only later started putting in a lot of work). I'm new, and I know it, and that makes me insecure.

I don't know why my brain constantly translates this into the idea that I don't have anything worthwhile to communicate. I obviously act like I do in other areas.

[talesofacorporatewizard]

Hello WLWs (Wizard Loving Wizards)