#I love worldbuilding with my characters :3

[deergravity]

Seeing as my internal rewards system has moved on to 'trans fiction' from 'queer horror audio drama podcast' I thought I should do a little roundup of everything I listened to the part few months.

A rough ranking:

Malevolent. Just squeaking into the top spot here based on 1) technical prowess (iykyk) 2) compelling characters and story and 3) they are my blorbos your honor!!! Mind boggling that Harlan Guthrie has so much chemistry with himself.

The Silt Verses. Only topped by Malevolent bc season 1 is not as polished, but it really doesn't matter. Top tier characters, amazing worldbuilding, intricate plotting and it had something to SAY about the casual violence of systems, the nature of hope, the complexity of being human in a world that tries to make us inhuman. Also, it doesn't rely on some thin recording contrivance (a framing device that has it's place) and instead truly takes the mantle of audio drama without apology.

The White Vault. On the topic of framing devices, TWV has a very cool take on found footage recordings. A group of [researchers/archeologists] are sent to investigate a remote site in [Svalbard/Patagonia] and the podcast is structured as a documentarian presenting the notes, recordings and diary entries in a reconstructed timeline. My favorite element is that many of the characters don't make their notes in English, so the segments will often open with the VA speaking German, Spanish, Mandarin, Icelandic, Russian, etc etc before fading into the translation. There are miniseries between the seasons available on their patreon and they were so worth the $10 I paid to access them for a month. Reveals are slow, but worthwhile, and the mythology built for the show is highly original and intriguing.

Deviser. A one season contained story from Harlan Guthrie of Malevolent. Scifi, psychological, lots of wet awful body horror. If you're a fan of Harlan wimpering into a mic, you'll love this one.

WOE.BEGONE. Long, ongoing, and so so so far from the original premise it's hilarious, I'm ranking this higher than it maybe deserves for two factors 1) the creator and the VAs are clearly having a blast and 2) it's riding the line of taking itself serious despite a premise that invites irony poisoning without becoming too wrapped up in itself. It's fun, I think, that keeps w.bg strong.

The Magnus Archives. Should this be one up? Probably. But everyone bloody well knows tma by this point, it's good, great even! Beyoncé of horror podcasts.

I Am In Eskew. Only knocked down due to the actually godawful sound quality. Truly unsettling stories though (the one with the building architect haunts me) and a surprisingly realistic conclusion. You can see the bones of The Silt Verses here, from the same creative team.

The Magnus Protocol. Everything above this is there due to originality. As a sequel series, TMAGP will always suffer in that measure. However, I like our new cast and I do love an alternate reality. Curious to see where season 2 takes us. I'd like to kill Mr Bonzo in a fire.

The Inexplicables. Another one season story, this time from Rusty Quill, with really fun, flawed characters and no recording framing device!

Wolf 359. Storywise, great! Characters, excellent! Kicking it way to the bottom bc they just would NOT STOP referencing H***y P****r. Yes, Doug's characterization hangs on excessive reference humor, but that was one well I wish they'd left alone.

Red Valley. Knocked for HP references too (come ON british podcasters, do better) but more importantly for veering WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY too close to real life in season 3 onward. I was here for a horror sci fi story about cryogenics, not to listen to my worst climate disaster fears brought to life via hearing rich old sods try to buy their way out of consequences while the world burns and eco terrorism escalates. Too real. Not bad storytelling, just very much not fulfilling my escapism needs.

It's kinda crazy to me that anytime I mention this genre to normies in my life they say, "oh, like true crime podcasts?" And then I die inside. No dude, like radio drama. Like War of the Worlds.

Anyway, I'm off to get even less relatable by reading a zillion niche trans novels (hello Welcome to Dorley Hall, aka, what if there really was a 'trans cult' force femming dudes to undermine their masculinity? It's amazing how much yarn we can make by subverting the cis gaze.)

[bogcreacher]

ive been looking at all your horst art again recently (totally not working on fanart) and i have so many questions about your ocs!! like

1. how did haunted lose stygian and do they ever end up reunited? does it have to do with the weird nightwing school-cult thing?

2. i just noticed that nacre has very similar barbels to porpoise, who used to be the seawing queen, even though rorqual is the regent queen--is that on purpose? (haha. on porpoise. anyway i also have a lesbian seawing oc named porpoise so ?!?! what a world)

3. does astral have the same butterfly-looking wings that you draw all of your other nightwings with (i forget the word for them sorry) and if not, why?

4. what was the reason for the seawing revolution that mako was a part of in the first place?

thank you so much if you decide to answer these, i love your worldbuilding and your art ❤️❤️❤️❤️

Thank you for the quastions I am eating well!!

1.It does have to do with the cult! This is mildly spoilery but the fact that Stygian disappears at all is a spoiler, so: Stygian was taken away partly because he had a prophetic vision and partly to thwart the escape plan he and Haunted had been working on. On the same night a guard (Wistful) took the chaos and Haunted’s resistance as an excuse to kill Haunted, which, yknow, failed because Haunted goes on to meet Fennec. As to whether or not Haunted and Stygian reunite, we will have to see! :) 

2. That wasn’t on purpose I’m afraid, I just tend to fall into patterns when making my characters lol. Porpoise is actually the ancestor of Rorqual! Hence why they both have Cetacean names (Rorqual’s mother was named Costero and her sister is Vaquita!). Also hell yes gay Porpoises!!! 

3. She does! If I’ve drawn her otherwise that’s a mistake :,) Ironically I’ve done a lot of retconning regarding Astral’s wings lately 

4. A group of workers died due to the negligence of a noble family. When the royal court dismissed any demands for justice and basically just thoughts-and-prayers’d them, dragons started saying ‘’hey what the fuck’’, got subsequently locked up for standing up to the court, leading to more dragons saying “HEY WHAT THE FUCK” (this is an oversimplification of a very topical political circumstance but I’m sure you get the gist). Apparently when you try to sweep the lives of people’s loved ones under the rug they get mad???? Crazy huh!

thank you so much!! I’m so glad you like my silly horses :)

[nezu-spiketown]

Fame Headcanon:

Nezu in concert style is basically akin to Lestat from Queen of the Damned, but outside of concert he’s much more relaxed. He has a strong sex appeal in live shows that is harder to deny, but is contrasted by his off-stage introverted nature that surprises many.

He is standoffish with media and unsolicited interviews or harassment by paparazzi, but when the interviews are scheduled and agreed upon, he’s generally polite and cooperative, but still very much is notably reserved, and borderline anxious as highlighted by fidgeting with his collar charm.

He adores his fans and is very grateful to them, but does not appreciate being mobbed by groups. He prefers small group settings in quiet locations, even allowing this to be done as a VIP backstage event.

Nezu has never charged a fan for an autograph, and does not believe in exploiting them in such a manner. To him, that would be disrespecting their support for him and his music, and that would not sit well with him.

[ruvviks]

// wip day.

i'm working on a new project that is (for once) not connected to any of my bigger original universes, so i thought i'd share some of the writing i have for it! taglist down below, feel free to take this opportunity to share your own wips (in a separate post of course) if you have any!! the first part is a sort of introduction to the story, from the perspective of main character marshall! the second part is a snippet from a scene much further into the story, to kind of paint a picture (for both you and myself lol) of what the setting and the tone of the story is gonna be like. it's a bit different writing than what you're used to from me so please take a moment to read the warnings first!! warnings >> blood, cult, death, implied cannibalism, gore, religion, violence

God won't speak to me.

He spoke to my sister when we were eleven, her howls echoing through the backyard of our childhood home as the venom of a wasp spread quickly through her veins.

He spoke to my mother the day we buried her oldest son, the hem of her alcohol-stained dress torn where it had caught on the thorns of a blackberry bush she had blankly passed through.

He spoke to my father the day he put the barrel of a .44 in his mouth, reenacting what he had classified a sin for all the wrong reasons, his trembling finger on the trigger strong enough to rip apart the last tendon holding our family together yet not to finish the job.

I was eighteen, when I was found on the river bank near Overture, Louisiana, the sharp end of a jagged knife plunged deep within my side and my bloodied hands clutching the cross necklace of my brother, my breathing akin to the ice cold shallow water grazing at my ankles as I stared up at the star-spotted sky with glazed over eyes, blue chapped lips shaped in the final hum of a prayer.

A black abyss stared back, a strained vacuum without comfort, leaving me with a plea unheard and the metallic taste of blood in my mouth.

And God did not answer.

'Gotta dig… Just gotta dig. Gotta get 'em out of there… Gotta take 'em home…'

The physical distance between Marshall and the grave did not muffle the continuous mumbling, the shaky voice of the young priest clear as day like a whisper directly in his ear as the eerie silence looming over the church's cemetery left him with not much else to focus on. He knew he should turn around and leave, at that hour of the night— get back in his car and return to Posey in the motel, get some sleep while he still could— yet curiosity held him tight within its grasp, and each step he took pushed him closer into the wrong direction.

'Just the bones… Just the bones…'

The man was hunched over, back turned towards Marshall and partially obscured by the few last rows of gravestones stood between the two of them. His neck twitched— a sudden and unexpected movement at an angle Marshall did not hold for possible, yet it had happened entirely too fast for him to clearly see.

'Hey, is everything alright?' he called out; well against his better judgment, hairs on his forearms standing up straight as his feet carried him another few inches closer to the priest.

And the closer he got, the more he wished he had listened to himself.

If he had just turned away, he wouldn't have had to notice the unusual and unplaceable noises bubbling up from the priest's direction. He wouldn't have had to realize the priest was sat next to a coffin, yet to be lowered into an undug grave. (A curious practice, but Marshall was not one to judge— Overture'd had to endure a rather tiresome series of curiosities as of late, and an unburied corpse in the middle of bumfuck Louisiana in the midst of a yet to be explained power cut would be the least of its problems.)

'Just the bones…. Gotta dig… Gotta bring 'em home.'

'Do you need help?' Marshall persistently asked, his voice muffled by the thrumming of his own heart in his eardrums while his eyes trailed over the coffin— splintered and shattered at the lid, the glimmer of the distant church lights barely enough to reveal the outline of an axe resting on the dirt at the priest's ankles.

'Have to do it, there's no other way. Gotta dig, gotta dig, gotta dig—'

'Hey!'

Marshall should have never stayed in town.

He realized that now, as the priest's obsessive muttering came to a sudden stop forcing Marshall to hold still too— yet he had already approached too closely, and realized that no dirt had been dug in at all, and realized that the priest's hands were instead stuck inside the coffin repeatedly plunging deeper and deeper into the rotting remains of the corpse inside, once white vestment covered in blood and gore and he stared up at Marshall with a faint glow in two milky white eyes and with a wide grin exposing bloodied and shattered teeth, much akin to a predator looking at its next prey.

'Just the bones,' he repeated, the nodding of his head nearly belittling— as if to convince Marshall this was how it was supposed to be, as if to convince him the Word of God was not to be neglected and his fate as a sinner was a gift to the Divine Light and as if to convince him as long as he would not struggle it would all be over soon.

'Gotta dig.'

Marshall could not move, lamb to the slaughter as the priest rose to his feet with the axe in his hand.

'Just the bones! Gotta take 'em home.'

taglist (opt in/out)

@velocitic, @deadrlngers, @euryalex, @ordinarymaine, @gurathins;

@mojaves, @shellibisshe, @dickytwister, @mnwlk, @rindemption;

@ncytiri, @calenhads, @noirapocalypto, @florbelles, @radioactiveshitstorm;

@strafethesesinners, @fashionablyfyrdraaca, @aemondtargeryen, @radioactive-synth, @katsigian;

@estevnys, @elgaravel

[dragonji]

guys I cant keep lying by omission I do Have to say . it's not that I dont ship qyz with anyone its literally just that I do Nawt like seeing him with yy to be so honest with you

[lacependragon]

You know, the longer I think about it, the more I realize that it actually makes perfect sense that an online company so incredibly pro-military and pro-veteran (RoosterTeeth) would write the worst black-and-white, unbelievable, morally bland, and utterly boring and worldbuilding breaking anti-military story I've ever seen.

It's like they thought if they even slightly tried to make it realistic, even slightly tried to make it believable, we'd all realize how similar it was to the US military and go "you hate veterans!"

But instead we got a military that makes no sense. A story that relies on you not paying any attention to the worldbuilding. And a bunch of dead people who didn't mean anything because by the end they were just fucking caricatures. James is the evil general. Clover is the too-loyal right hand. Vine is the self-sacrificial meditative type. And they aren't anything else.

All of Atlas is flat and cardboard and cartoon-y and bad. And I genuinely think so much of it is the inability of these fuckers to stop sucking off the US military long enough to understand something called nuance. Because they fired so completely in the opposite direction to their on-camera shit (we love veterans! we love soldiers! fight the bad guys!) as opposed to RWBY (all military evil there is no nuance no middle ground nope just evil! James is as bad as SALEM!) that they lost every discussion and every interesting detail in the sprint between the two podiums.

This isn't the real world! We can have discussions about stuff we wouldn't approve of in real life but make interesting stories! We can have discussions about redemption and revenge and making choices!

But nah let's just have them all be evil evil people and then save Winter (maiden, sure), and Elm, Harriet, and Marrow (and I'm not going to lie here. I genuinely think the reason Harriet lives instead of Vine is because RT was TERRIFIED of another Sienna Khan backlash.)

Atlas was bad.

It was rushed. It was sloppy. It broke characters. It broke worldbuilding. It broke the internal logic of the universe.

And we still learned fucking nothing about its people, its culture, or its history. Just like in Mistral.

Setpieces. Empty destructible setpieces. Only this time there was nothing else to prop up the building facades.

Truly, the only good thing Atlas gave us was Penny.

And look how that turned out.

[arolesbianism]

I wish So Bad that I could confidently recommend lob corp and library of ruina to people because they're both genuinely rly good games and I also need ppl I know to understand the insanity that is project moon but like godddd they are a fucking Investment. Both in time and in brainpower. I generally think ppl exaggerate how hard lob corp is but it's certainly not easy and when it does get hard it gets HARD. Also it literally requires at least one day 1 reset (basically a new game+) to fully beat the game and at this point I've done at least 10. And for lor I'm not nearly as far in and I'm just scratching the surface of the real game but it's a beast of its own. Also 100+ hours and also hard as hell. Like this game does not fuck around with its difficulty spikes it will make you use your brain and it will give you a damn headache in the process. It's also one of my favorite card combat games I've ever played with mechanics that just so beautifully complement each other to create a dynamic and interesting battle system that gives it a completely different vibe and feeling than any other deck builder games I've played to the point where it almost feels wrong to me to categorize them together. But also I am not even slightly joking abt the headache thing every time I play this damn game I close it with a horrible headache and have to take a multi day break. I think everyone should experience this with me <3

[namazunomegami]

"But I can't know God's intentions... How could it depend on my decision... Who made me a judge of who shall live and who shall not?" - Crime and Punishment

[galacticsabc]

Group meeting! underneath Colbalt's hair...

[ghost-cwunch]

Wenti in his big form :3

Wenti is my main DnD character. He's a changeling druid that can't manifest a beautiful/well structured appearance, so he chooses to manifest a simple mask on his face instead. The mask is part of his face, and can convey simple emotions. This wasn't always what he looked like tho. More info next post :3

[44-mr-midnight-44]

The struggle is real you guys

The struggle: I want to think of cute age regression/Soul babying Heart and Mind affectionately scenarios but they keep reminding me of age play and making me uncomfortable

[oatmealdaydreams]

Do you want to talk more about the monarchies of Radonulia???

Also tell me about Lea!

-g

Okay, so, this is probably gonna be long again. I love rambling about Radonulia :D

Firstly: the monarchy system had been decided by the people of Radonulia to try to avoid a dictatorship and have a more balanced political system. The monarchs are generally referred to as the Three Supreme Rulers of Radonulia or as the Three Monarchs. Radonulia is separated into three different sectors. One monarch for each sector. The other monarchs will help out if available or there's a need to, but they generally stick to ruling over their sector of Radonulia. One of the monarchs has tyrannical tendencies, but the other two help balance them out. None of them are related by any means. Oh, yeah, and the reason the Radonulians chose a different political system (post-Great Explosion) is because pre-Great Explosion, there was a dictatorship/tyranny that inevitably led to the Great Explosion in the first place.

I have more notes for Kilulian culture & such, but this is so long already.

Anyway: Lea! Lea is a Kilulian youngling (child) who has three parents* named Basie, Maria, and Kolten. Kolten will go by Kol sometimes. She's pretty adventurous, impulsive, and overly curious. She can be kind of a punk sometimes, but she has a kind heart at the core of her personality. Very talkative and cannot sit still unless in survival mode during dangerous situations. She's rather smart with mechanics and devices; she just needs things explained a different way to understand them.

(*It's a part of Kilulian culture to have more than 2 people to act as parental guardians, often resulting in polycules or an entire neighborhood looking after the same kids together. Polyamory is so normalized that it's almost expected in society.)

Uh, anyway, I have so many notes! Some about Lea, some about Radonulia in general, and a bunch about Kilulian culture.

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

The Republic of Salt

book two in The Mirror Realm Cycle, historical fantasy set in an alternate Inquisition era Spain

in the human world, Toba and Asmel are on the run, pursued by the Courser and demons

Naftaly, Barsilay, Elena, and the old woman are traveling across the Mazik realm until they reach Zayit - which will soon be under siege by the Cacador due to its trade in salt, which poisons Maziks - and must find a way to save the city and stop the conquest of both worlds

[thedevils7thstring]

I have a multiverse that a bunch of my stories take place in, and in this multiverse I have a group of bad guys that I love. To badly describe them now:

• the physical manifestation of capitalism

• the c r e e c h e r

• hot galaxy woman

• steam powered autism

• Frankenstein, the doctor and the monster

And finally…

• She is beauty, she is grace, holy shit, is that a mace?

I love them so much

[lyrelyrepantsonfiree]

drawing my ocs makes me happy in like a getting stabbed by a knife kinda way <3

[gaygirldoodles]

I already made a post about the ocs themselves, so heres more about the worldbuilding

The mages are basically just normal humans but they have an organ that secreats magic juice into their bloodstream that sits by their heart (i stole this from the owl house)

While normal folk, or homo sapiens tend to be better at more crafty things, mages, or homo facundus, tend to focus on magic and the arts. This is not the end all be all in any way, but yeah.

Mages and normal folk interact all the time and even have kids together. There aren't as many mages as there are normal folk, and there are certain communities that are mostly mages

Most mages do not see normal folk as beneath them for not being able to do magic. Obviously there would be at least one, but its not really an issue and they tend to respect eachother a lot

Homo sapien means wise man, while homo facundus means fluent man. This is because of the mages connection to language and its connection to their magic

Sometimes, when a mage and normal folk have kids, that kid will be able to do magic

As the generations go by, there are still traces of magic in the descendants blood, but the further back the most common mage ancestor is, the less they can do. If someone's grandmother was a mage, but none of their parents were, they wouldn't be able to do magic, but would have a significant resistance to it

Most of the time is a common person is cursed or hexed by a mage, the effects don't linger if it is reversed properly. If the person has a mage ancestor, in very extreme cases, they may have permanent effects from the curse

My character Lily, retains some crow traits that only get more severe over time after being turned into a crow by Delilah's mother (more on that on the previous post which i will try to link)

There are certain laws that were created specifically because of magic. There are doctors who work specifically with mages or descendants of them

There are also doctors who specialize in those who have lingering effects from some kind of curse

While the two species to interact a whole lot, most communities consist of mostly one of them. While there are communities that are more heavily mixed, they aren't as many as the former.