#I love telling worldbuilding lore teehee teehee

[tadc-harlequin-au]

Hello it's me robot question guy from yesterday. Thanks for asking my question, I love eating worldbuilding so much.

One particular idea in pive been chewing on is related to that one anecdote on the last ragatha post from brydav. The idea of things coming to life through human connection and anthropomorphsizing things.

𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘧𝘢𝘳 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘱𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳 𝘨𝘰?

What if someone loved something so much, it began to love them back?

No problemo mi amigo

I wouldn't say that the objects could actually spring back to life completely and be autonomous like a Puppet, because objects can never really store enough energy to make it susceptible to becoming alive. If that was possible, then by logic, the whole city should be alive and walking like a giant creature at this point.

The DIE Hearts were specifically crafted to be able to house an ENTIRE human being's soul, with the help of the runes inscribed into them. This was an ancient process dating back to ancient times of civilization, when Kings would turn their loyal subjects into sculpted stone guardians in order to protect their treasury, belongings, and lives, and when loved ones used the art of soul artificing to help a loved one cross over and find peace.

HOWEVER...just because it won't come alive and love you back, doesn't mean that it can't make someone feel something, even if they're not like Ragatha who can sense these things casually.

Under the right conditions, normal people can start sensing an energy within a specific item and react to it. Some positive, some negative. In the world of the Harlequin AU, everywhere you go, you leave a part of yourself out to the world and into your surroundings, but just a tiny, tiny bit.

Every step you took, every items you've ever touched, Every breath that is swept away by the wind and every locations visited you are leaving a part of yourself in exchange for memories, giving back to the world bit by bit that brought you here. It's why plants grow on desolate, abandoned cities, it's why nature still thrives when just decades ago.... it felt like the world stood no chance against the poisonous atmosphere of the industry that consumed everything.

It's why... there's a time where you have to leave behind your physical form and ascend to a plane that would welcome you with open arms, because your physical self is on the verge of falling apart, and is no longer suitable to house your equally just as weak of a soul, who've spent decades powering your physical manifestation. You've spent enough time in the physical realm, now it's time to move on, and rejuvenate.

It's why your body, when you have passed, decays then becomes a vital part of ensuring nature lives on, and the ecosystem thrives.

The items you leave behind can hold a part of the real you, and if given enough, treasured enough, someone will be able to feel your presence, and the impact you've left to this world.

It's also why Marionettes are beings devoid of souls. They're machines, created BY machines, controlled by an unnatural presence of power.

They're abominations.

[castaccio]

cas it's been all over my dash, please what is up with incredibox i thought it was just a beat maker how does it have lore????

It was the art post that parodied My Immortal wasn't it. Yeah I'd have questions too

I'm so sorry for the invasion my broski.... but I'm glad you're in it with me now! teehee :3

Alright SO

The main game Incredibox (which you can buy for £4.99 on Google Play, Steam, and the Apple Store) is pretty simple. It has its sounds you assemble, and if you assemble them in the right order you can unlock 3 little cutscenes called Bonuses!

Most of the time they're just really cool mini-music videos that have a cute animation playing to an new spin on the sounds. Coolio visual spectacle. But SOME of them have visuals and lyrics that connect to each other! A little bit of worldbuilding! It built up over time until it culminated in the 8th official version, which has very long bonuses that connect together to form a gorgeous-looking 3 minute short film. Which was, insane! at the time. Especially since the film revealed that one of the guys from an earlier version was not only given extreme Story Importance in these bonuses, but also superpowers.

Yeah it was wild man,,, I wish I could've been in the fandom at the time

The 9th official version is much more lowkey with its storytelling, but it has a bunch of visual cameos and lyrical references that connect it back to the 8th. Its 2 (for now!) bonuses are shorter but jam-packed with gorgeous visuals and just,,, such earworms. (All of the bonuses are on YouTube btw, and all are named as well—that's where we get names for concepts.)

Nonetheless, Incredibox's story focuses on building up visually interesting concepts into a world, and picking one or two characters to drive a story if needed. Being a FNAF fan, I love this kind of implicit storytelling.

Some fan-made Mods of the Official Game take a similar, but more explicit approach. The most iconic one is the Evadare series of mods, which have some of the best fan-made bonuses to date. The last mod in the series, The Void, is also musically better than any official version. Each mod goes for the short-film approach, telling an explicit—if a little wild—story. The music was built first and the story built second, like the official game, but because the story is more explicit, we get some wild turns. We're in space. Then we're in Halloween town. Now we're pirates. Now we're in The Void.

There are many good mods that you can download and add to the official version of the game. But for fans who:

a) don't have the official version,

b) don't know how to program with json,

and/or

c) don't know how to animate with an Adobe Animate sprite sheet,

Scratch is the prime way to mod. Stories are all the rage in the fandom, but it's hard to add bonuses on Scratch. So to tell stories, people instead opt to make lore documents, with each sound having its own (sometimes gruesome) backstory...sometimes at the cost of sounding good. Orin Ayo is the most popular example of this, popular enough to form its own little sub-fandom. People love making OCs in the story, though there are better story-based Scratch mods like the Colorbox or Sepbox series.

As much as Incredibox pervades your dash now, it'll probably be gone in a few months when I move onto the next oingly spoingly...but it's still something I recommend you try out!

[doublegoblin]

Author Ask Tag Game

Well this is a biggin! Thanks for the TAG @gummybugg

I send an invite to @asterhaze (Lol I know gummy tagged ya but nyeh) @angie-j-kay @tailoroffates @tisiphonewolfe @lola-theshowgrl @conkers-theficwriter (that's right I got you and your alt, talk about that fanfic!) @stanrendipity @randomstupidchaos @catchingbigfish

I'll be centering my attention on Rituals and Red Tape because I am nothing if not self-indulgent of my baby.

(1) What is the main lesson of your story (e.g. kindness, diversity, anti-war), and why did you choose it?

Your adversities are with you but do not have to define you Bodies are meant to be used as an expression of ones self Corporations are eldritch entities who no matter how much love they shove up your ass will replace you in a heart beat There are no true transitory spaces with which your actions can be left behind, what you may see as a place to visit is someone else's home. Angry Nihilism is the easiest and most childest response to discovering you are not the main character of a story. and Let others be content in their life, not everyone wants to be out there making a name for themselves.

Why did I choose these? To be completely honest I didn't set out with them in mind. These are what has sprung up as I delved into writing more and more and was finding some elements that were hidden from me while I fiddled with the keys. These are as much lessons for an audience as they are for myself.

(2) What did you use as inspiration for your worldbuilding (like real-life cultures, animals, famous media, websites, etc.)?

So I know the stigma that was (maybe still is) attached to this statement but it comes from my dreams. Wait wait wait let me explain! So for a while I have had (although I haven't for a little bit) an ongoing sort of continuous dream. Not like the same dream over and over but more these dreams take place in the same location and I am always in this same role. I would give my partner "lore updates" every so often because it was something fun. Well on a long car ride (3hr) we spent the time chit chatting and I realized I wanted to make a story out of this. So during the same car ride the basic skeleton of the story started to emerge. Then wham bam thank ya mam fast forward and here we are. A lot of the world building also just kinda spring from my own imagination. Like I'm sure I maybe got the pieces from soooomewhere but can't tell ya, unless they are an obvious reference to something like the Giants on The Farm being "as tall as windmill" being a reference to Don Quixote, just small little nuggets here and there.

(3) What is your MC trying to achieve, and what are you, the writer, trying to achieve with them? Do you want to inspire others, teach forgiveness, help readers grow as a person?

Alex is honestly just trying to get through each assignment with all their limbs still on their body and as little paperwork to do as possible. They just want to have a nice easy life that is comfortably mundane. What I want to do is entertain first and foremost. Like sure my stuff can have lessons and morals and whattheshit but if it isn't entertaining to at least one person I feel I have failed. And also, maybe help someone who needs to work through some stuff do so through Alex or anyone else in the book. I can't say for certain that can or will happen but there is always a chance.

(4) How many chapters is your story going to have?

No idea, as many as it needs to be told in full. I'll know when we get there lol.

(5) Is it fanfiction or original content? Where do you plan to post it?

Teehee time to self promote! This is original content. And I post the first draft chapters on here but I post the more edited and more concrete chapters on my WattPad MaxwellAlabaster I try and have the stuff on here accessible through their own dedicated pages on my blog and up to date.

(6) When and why did you start writing?

I started to write this story about a year ago. It started as a writing only for me kind of thing as I was dealing with some life stuff. But, once I started to write and post my stuff on here I really fell in love with the hobby and putting my things out there for people to hopefully enjoy!

(7) Do you have any words of engagement for fellow writers of Writeblr? What other writers of Tumblr do you follow?

Despite my verboseness I can be quite shy and anxious. So i tend to follow people who follow me first lol. It's not out of a self inflated ego but an uneasy feeling. So far it's worked out well and I've really enjoyed the people I have interacted with! Even if it's just getting little hearts here and there.

Something I adopted early and fully: Write for yourself (but we've all heard that before!) Fine! Write slop. Like just absolute pig pleasing slop. Not everything needs to be the next big seller, the most enjoyable, or "good" piece of literature. Write what makes you happy and what you have fun writing. Go outside your comfort zone and make an absolute mess of it all. You don't have to post everything after all. This is advice for even those of you that rely on writing for an income. When you can, just write the hottest and most fun garbage that you want. It's really refreshing to just go hog wild and look at the word doc or whatever and go "Wow...this is horrible, I love it".

Also don't let people tell you there is only one way to write. Like yeah grammar and stuff is good for being comprehensible, but there is power in each punctuation you use;or leave out~ Get flowery with your language too sometime Steve doesn't cheer; sometimes his voice carries so high the birds grow jealous.

Lastly: you don't need an english degree or whatever to be a writer, look at me, I have a freakin science degree. Did you put words on a page to convey a meaning of feeling? You are a writer. Don't let others take that away from you. You are a writer because you write dam it.

[str4ng3rdanger]

tell me about your favorite oc

OH MAN OH MAN

okay so the issue with my favorite oc is i have several versions of him that i love equally for separate reasons

it's my guy the narrator

so i talked about the second narrator here and he is technically both the same guy and a different character but he counts still for the purpose of favorite oc

in my main oc universe, the moon's repose, the narrator is the second protagonist after the first protagonist like. fuses with this girl and they become him due to a gemstone on their chest. (insert steven universe joke or something idk it wasn't based on that and has a lore reason and isn't common etc etc)

he has like. issues. more issues than the two people that fuse to make him. he also becomes self aware of the narrative and that i exist and write him and project onto him and like angst plots so his suffering is in fact typically for my own entertainment or other form of gain. surprisingly this doesn't affect the plot all too much, more so just tn's character arc.

^^^ only drawing of tn i have on this phone (it's new) but yeah he has that they/he slay. in his universe he is also like the demigod/god of several things but the most relevant is the moon, time, and space. the reason he ends up as tn2 is he is afflicted by a curse than his two halves split to try and fix it but it ended up affecting them too and so they give up their ability to separate and become the reincarnation of tn, the second narrator.

this they/he/it is not pleased by this because he is starting to realize that the narrative won't come to a conclusion because i have attachment issues and where the most recent plot point has sprung up, he decides to abuse his time travel to create a paradox by encountering tn1, and attempts to kill him (something only less mortal beings can do such as gods or celestial beings etc etc worldbuilding whatever) and whether ot not he succeeds i havent decided on yet fully/maybe just don't wanna spoil for now teehee