#eco writes

[ecoeclipselion]

A scene drawing to my Dribble I made here: THE LINK FEATURE ISN’T WORKING AGAIN SO TAKE THIS INSTEAD—

Inspired by To the Sky by Owl City

This may or may not be canon to story of Horror Horizon if Canon this happens WAY INTO THE FUTURE lol

But I couldn’t help but write this down as GenderLess and I was brainstorming together about Holly and Ruka. So here a ya go. A glimpse into their friendship~

[ghostbsuter]

He'd moved to metropolis on a whim.

The city was big, he's earning good money via commissioned things (most people come to him for cosplay actually, who knew that knowing how to build a sci-fi gun that doesn't even work would be this wanted??) and he's got a nice apartment!

Superman and Supergirl were the active heroes, he didn't need to involve himself anymore with the world of heroes, he would continue as a civilian. It was better this way.

So how come LexLuthor, of all people, what is his luck?, sends him an invitation to LexCorp AND once declined, seemed to have created some sort of energy absorbing weapon that directly zoomed in on his immediate whenever around?

Civilian life is one thing.

Being rescued via Super for the 9th time is another.

"Hey Danny." Supergirl grins, they're floating to the side as Superman deals with Lex.

"Hey, Supergirl." Danny replies with a sigh, holding his bag.

[notasapleasure]

If a character of mine, comparing two medieval ideas, produces a third, more modern, idea, he is doing exactly what culture did; and if nobody has ever written what he says, someone, however confusedly, should surely have begun to think it (perhaps without saying it, blocked by countless fears and by shame).

Umberto Eco, The Historical Novel, from his Postscript to The Name of the Rose, trans. by William Weaver

[aftg-random-fun]

Kevin, Neil, and Andrew are told by the girls to dress up as the Hex Girls for Halloween, but all fight over who gets to be who in the arrangement. In the end Neil is Thorn, Kevin is Dusk, and Andrew is Luna. Mind you because Neil is a little shit (affectionate) he buys real instruments for their costumes. After they get asked to play multiple times they ruin everyone’s ears with their tone deaf playing.

[thirdity]

The librarian (if not overworked or neurotic) is happy when he can demonstrate two things: the quality of his memory and erudition and the richness of his library, especially if it is small. The more isolated and disregarded the library, the more the librarian is consumed with sorrow for its underestimation. A person who asks for help makes the librarian happy.

Umberto Eco, How to Write a Thesis

[daftpatience]

did you guys know I made an Instagram reel about yhis I'm trying so hard to use instagram even though it's my least viewed platform lol

✒️preorder here!💌

[zedecksiew]

TO PUT AWAY A SWORD

David Blandy + Daniel Locke's post-apocalyptic hopepunk TTRPG ECO MOFOS is back from the printers. Meaning it will soon be in our hands.

Am fairly hyped for it, because I wrote an adventure!

To Put Away A Sword is about the woes of building a home on poisoned earth. The terrible powers that hurtled us to the end of the world continue to bear bitter fruit in your garden.

You are villagers living under the shadow of a fallen giant mecha. Its reactors and warheads leak into your groundwater, poison your goats. What will you do about it? What can you do?

+

Mechanically it is a pointcrawl around your local valley. Not super complex, design-wise; but I was pleased with my gimmick solution for mapping both the adventure's dungeons:

Grab a mecha figure, pose it, place it on the game table; each part of the figure corresponds to a location in the dungeon key. Solves for stuff like relative orientation.

Easy!

+

To Put Away A Sword is me making a mecha adventure.

Disclaimer: I am not a mecha nerd. I am unfamiliar with most of the genre. Anything I know about Gundam I've absorbed by osmosis.

I was mainly into giant robots in childhood. Receiving a Macross figure for my birthday. Pouring over the manual for The Crescent Hawks' Revenge, which my brother left behind:

While I was not much a fan of mecha, I was very much a fan of Evangelion. I spent my middle teens obsessed with it. The biomechanical, pseudo-mystical stuff; the teen angst. I wanted to be Shinji. I thought trauma was so cool.

So cringe. Anyway:

One of the inspirations for To Put Away A Sword is the survivors-rebuilding-a-town-and-planting-rice sequence in Thrice Upon A Time; probably my favourite part of the whole franchise, now.

The joy and difficulties of trying to build your paradise in the weird ruins of the old world:

Yeah, the adventure has a lot of Evangelion in it. There's a Nerv HQ analogue to explore. There's a content warning for child soldiers.

+

The other inspiration for To Put Away A Sword is this piece of box art, an accessory set for Macross's iconic Stonewell Bellcom VF-1 Variable Fighter:

I don't know what this kind of arrange-your-missiles-in-front-of-your-fighter-jet photo is technically called. Hardware porn parade?

You see it often enough. Here's a real-life photo of the Lockheed Martin F35 Joint Strike Fighter:

Fairly or not, in my head I associate mecha with seeing copies of Jane's Defence in airport magazine racks. The genre feels like such a natural way to riff on the hyper-charged corpo-military-industrial complex.

After the brush war ends, and the natural resources extracted, and the ethnic cleansing concluded, and the profits announced, who gets to clean up after a Raytheon missile?

In To Put Away A Sword---you do.

+

Ultimately, as always, I am writing and designing from my lived experiences.

See that? The gas flare from the Hengyuan Refining Company? It is about 200 metres from my living room.

That gas flare surfaces constantly in the stuff I make. As I write this post I am breathing its acrid chemical smell. My nose itches. I was asthmatic as a child; I seriously worry about cancer, nowadays.

At night it lights up the sky like Barad-dur.

The plant obviously and continuously flaunts regulations. We've tried lodging complaints: with its corporate management; with the Department of Environment. Nothing has worked so far.

"A home on poisoned earth" is a visceral fact of my life.

+

To Put Away A Sword is wish-fulfilment, I guess? In the world of the adventure, at least, the forces that are poisoning your home are post-peak oil.

It is nice to imagine a reality where a kind of survival and flourishing is still possible. My partner Sharon and I talk a lot about imagining hope.

Last month she bought this small mecha-looking thing. A wireless camera! She built a little hut for it on our garden wall. It is trained, 24-7, at the gas flare.

Environmental activists we've met say video evidence of emissions is important. We'll see. We imagine it helping.

+

Anyway. David just sent me this photo of my adventure, in print:

Looking good. I hope folks play it and enjoy it.

Preorder ECO MOFOS and its adventure bundle >>>HERE<<<

[etgulock]

Hello! I’m a horror & dark whimsy writer/content creator, and I was just published for the first time a couple months ago with my environmental horror short story “HAUSTORIUM.” It’d mean a lot if folks checked it out! Keep an eye on this space, more to come 👀👻🌲

[radioactivepeasant]

Free Day Thursday

(Per the poll) Eldritch Dad versus Jak versus Cultists

(Featuring characters from The Disowned Game 😅)

For context: the antagonists are trying to unlock an ancient seal to conjure the patron of dark eco, to basically turn the whole population into dark eco warlocks.

Their sage insists that they must spill the blood of a prism channeler to "appease the gods."

"You don't know what you're doing!" Phoenix shouted, straining against Skyheed's soldiers. He managed to get a good kick in, but there were too many to take in one fight. "Skyheed, stop!"

Keira lunged for the ceremonial dagger, a snarl on her lips.

"You so much as scratch him, and the gods will be the least of your worries!"

The blade slammed into the altar as Keira cracked the priest's arm against the stones. He cried out in pain, releasing the knife.

"The madness of the Light will not save the hero!" he gasped, struggling in vain against an enraged sage-in-training.

Jak strained his fingers towards the knife, just out of reach of the triple shackles. So close. He was so close! But he was going to need help.

"Keira! You have to cut me!"

"Are you nuts?!"

"No no, I recognize that glyph! It's gonna be fine!"

The glyph was familiar. Studying with Sister Merci at the temple, Keira had come across many pictograms older than the writing she and Jak and Daxter had employed as children. She could read one or two, but most still mystified her. This one's meaning escaped her memory, but she was certain she had seen it before. Which meant that unfortunately, Jak probably knew what he was talking about.

Reluctantly, Keira pressed the tip of the blade to Jak’s finger. Two small drops of blood slid down into the channels carved into the stone as Phoenix cried out in horror.

"Keira, no! What have you done?!"

Darkness took them.

Out of the blackness, the sounds of scuttling filled the room. Hundreds, thousands of tiny legs across metal and stone. Spiders began to creep down the walls, congregating on the twelve iron cuffs. Thousands of tiny, hairy, bodies pushed between metal and flesh, heedless of the crush until Jak could slide his wrists and one of his ankles out.

"Phoenix! Get everybody out!" he warned, "We don't have a lot of time before-"

"Who is misusing my gift?"

a voice like dry leaves, like the creak of timbers, like bells, filled the chamber.

The darkness drew close, twisting and writhing around itself to form the shape of a woman so tall her masses of curls brushed the ceiling. She took in the prostrated forms of the cultists below her with glowing eyes and curled her lip.

"And what, pray tell, is this?"

The question seemed to shock the onlookers out of their stupor.

"Oh great lady of darkness!" Skyheed bowed from the waist. "We, your humble devotees, come before you to ask your blessing on-"

The woman turned her head to see Jak still struggling to free himself. He'd taken hold of the obsidian dagger to pry off the ankle bands.

"Agh-! Mi'jo, no!"

the goddess snatched the blade from his hands in an instant.

"That's a knife!"

It was as if she hadn't even seen the cultists. Micteca held the hilt between thumb and forefinger, scowling.

"Foul thing. Ugh! How did you even- Nevermind. I'm calling your father."

Jak cringed. "No-! It's not even that bad!"

He and Keira broke the last shackle together as he continued to babble protests.

"He-! He's busy! You don't need to tell him, i can handle this-"

"DAMAS! LOOK WHAT YOUR SON GOT INTO!"

the shout shook the room, sending curtains of dust raining down on them.

"Dude, your mom's a snitch," Daxter snickered.

There was a clap of thunder, and the chamber filled with a blinding light. A biting chill curled around them, contrasting sharply with the warm voice emanating from the center of the light.

"Why is it always "my son" when he's gotten into something he shouldn't?"

Jak groaned. "Guys, I'm right here."

That wouldn't help him and he knew it. But he had to save a little face in front of Daxter and Keira.

Incrementally, a face appeared in the light, then a muscular body, held aloft between wings more like an anemone's tentacles, formed of living sand. Stars wheeled across dark skin like a piece of the sky had come to personally judge them all. The giant gazed down at Jak and narrowed his eyes.

"Hello, son."

He sounded amused.

Ignoring the choked off curses and whispered questions around him, Jak dropped his face into his palm.

"Hello, Father."

"Got yourself into a Situation again, haven't you?"

"It wasn't my fault this time!" Jak protested. He pointed at Skyheed, and decided that whatever followed was on the duke's own head. "That guy made Dark Warriors out of his whole city! He was going to sacrifice me so he could control them all!"

"Ohhhh crap." Keira cringed.

Micteca's eyes flashed. In a much too calm voice she said,

"Kids, would you step outside for a second?"

"Yep! No problem!" Daxter said hastily, leaping off the altar, "No problem at all!"

Keira ducked the priest and Skyheed to grab Phoenix by the sleeve. "Let’s go, let's go! Trust me, you don't want to be anywhere near this room."

"Uh....maybe...don't kill all of them?" Jak offered, pausing at the door.

"The pale ones didn't choose this."

"Jakkkk-"

Micteca frowned.

Jak glanced at the bewildered soldiers, all completely disoriented by the mass influx of dark eco.

"Mamá, please?"

"...you're as bad as your father."

Burning eyes narrowed down at Jak, and long black talons drummed impatiently on the goddess's folded arms.

Damas left off prodding at a smaller Dark Warrior to smirk.

"I think that's the nicest thing you've said about me all year!"

"Oh don't you start-! Alright! We'll see."

Micteca glared at both Jak and Damas.

"The things I do for you two troublemakers..."

"Appreciated, my love."

Damas -- or Deimos or Xenodamas, the monks could never agree on whether his name ought to be more "formal" now -- tucked a lock of hair behind Micteca's ear and began idly braiding it.

"There. That ought to keep the blood out of it."

Jak met Klout's flummoxed and slightly horrified gaze. He, unfortunately, could relate.

"Ugh. There's a time and a place, Father," he muttered under his breath.

A nearly prehensile wing tip snaked out to cuff Jak across the back of the head.

"Be glad your mother has more restraint than I usually do. Relocate, offspring."

Jak shoved the wing away and grinned. "Yeah yeah. Thanks, Ma! Okay, eviscerate away!"

"OUT."

The great stone doors slammed into place behind Jak, and he rolled his eyes at his honorary siblings' unimpressed expressions.

"Well did you want to wade through pureed soldier bits?" he asked indignantly.

Phoenix stared straight ahead, wide eyes focused on nothing.

"What," he finally choked, "just happened?"

[distortedsense]

]art for my fantasy novel THE DAY MY DREAM DIED

• new chapters available completely free on my website starting Friday MARCH_21//march 21st

[ecoeclipselion]

Chapter 12 is Here!

⚠️TW: Character Death⚠️

For some reason AO3 wouldn’t let me put this Chapter Art in so here is was Saros looks like in this chapter—

[ahb-writes]

Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions (Ecological Challenges and Environmental Disasters)

Ecological Challenges and Environmental Disasters Worldbuilding Questions:

What are the unique or different ecosystems in this world (e.g., terrestrial or aquatic systems). Which are stable, and which (if any) are under pressure and why?

What was the last major environmental catastrophe (e.g., a major fire, tremors, flood)? What happened?

Who is concerned about the environment’s well-being, and why?

Who is skeptical about environmental threats or dangers, and why?

Where is the environment most robust, and where are the greatest threats to stability, life, the land’s well-being?

Where would people seek refuge in the event of a disaster and why?

When do seasonal or periodic climate or other ecological changes occur, and why?

When major events affecting the environment occurred, and what are dominant attitudes towards it? Do they differ between inhabitants?

Why are certain environmental challenges predominant?

Why do inhabitants of this world value or exploit the natural world, and how?

❯ ❯ ❯ Read other writing masterposts in this series: Worldbuilding Questions for Deeper Settings

[gor3sigil]

My eco anxiety isn’t curable. You can’t medicate my primal fear of my habitat burning, drowning, bursting open like a ripe fruit. No amount of therapy will ever ease the nausea I feel reading the news, seeing how far gone we are. I’m a trapped animal searching desperately for somewhere safe and realising it doesn’t exist anymore. My brain is only fight or flight, and I, alone, can’t fight against the elements, and since there’s no runing away, it wants to self destruct. To chose my own proper death instead of waiting for the guillotine to fall down on my neck. I wish to fly to the moon. I wish to escape the impending doom that’s coming. My spirituality tells me that I will be born again, and this thought, once comforting, now makes me crawl at the belief that each life I live will be worse. My country has adviced to pack up an emergency bag in case we need to leave urgently, and I want to bash my head against a concrete wall. I look at kids and I’m so sorry. I pet my cats and I’m so sorry. I breathe the air and I’m so sorry. I kiss the ground and I scream so hard I drool, I wipe it off the dirt, and I’m so sorry.

Stuck in between living in the moment and wanting to just vanish into thin air. But when I picture myself dying, I see a cloud of black smoke leaving a sticky trace in previously clean water. I see powder out of a smoking gun. I see tar on a smoker’s lungs.

I wish that I was never born on a carnal level. My family tree’s roots are rotten and leaking poison into the earth. I want to pull them out and drink the sap, burn my throat with their corrupt syrup if I could throw up a clean seed to burry. Leave my body for rodents and birds to feed and let my bones turn to ash. Let the human compost rightfully give back what it took.

[fat-sad-cat]

Where else? I belong to a lost generation and am comfortable only in the company of others who are lost and lonely.

Umberto Eco

[stheresya]

It is necessary to create constraints, in order to invent freely. […] In fiction, the surrounding world provides the constraint. This has nothing to do with realism (even if it explains also realism). A completely unreal world can be constructed, in which asses fly and princesses are restored to life by a kiss; but that world, purely possible and unrealistic, must exist according to structures defined at the outset (we have to know whether it is a world where a princess can be restored to life only by the kiss of a prince, or also by that of a witch, and whether the princess’s kiss transforms only frogs into princes or also, for example, armadillos). … The constructed world will then tell us how the story must proceed. […] And it must not be thought that this is an “idealistic” position, as if I were saying that the characters have an autonomous life and the author, in a kind of trance, makes them behave as they themselves direct him. That kind of nonsense belongs in term papers. The fact is that the characters are obliged to act according to the laws of the world in which they live. In other words, the narrator is the prisoner of his own premises.

(Umberto Eco, Postscript to The Name of the Rose. Trans. by William Weaver)

[earlgraytay]

Just finished THE NAME OF THE ROSE.

Man... that was a ride. If you like the medieval period and you haven't read it yet, you owe it to yourself to pick it up.

If you want to write speculative fiction, stick around for Eco's afterword, too.