#i dont really have the energy to tag things

[show-us-kaidenshenandoah]

my tags wasn't enough, i had more than 30 tags worth of things to say about worldbuilding and food (feel free to read said tags in past reblog, aka it's this post's "previous tags" which hopefully you know the process to get to that) but i will restrain myself of truly babbling as much as i really want — for instead the following:

i will repeat that worldbuilding = culture, and culture = food, what are meals here, how many meals are here, where do the ingredients come from, how does seasons impact what you can eat, what do they eat for birthdays, etc + clothes, what silhouettes and types of fashion are here, where do they get these outfits' materials (livestock? plants? dyes?), what special occasion outfits are there or is there any regalia to occupation/type of dancing/age/etc, how do outfits change with seasons + so on and so forth

here is a great youtuber who has a playlist analyzing world-building, and it can include things like food. my favorite video from this playlist is for the show "Ascendance of a Bookworm" (yes, the playlist is linked as part of this video btw) which does specifically go into food (as do other videos within said 10-video-long playlist. another video within the playlist is "Dungeon Meshi" which is very much about food). please watch as much of the playlist as you like! another video of his about worldbuilding, that is not in this playlist, is about "Castle In The Sky"'s worldbuilding as shown in that intro-instrumental bit of the film specifically (a movie my brain farted and called "Nausicaä: Valley Of The Wind" in my tags before, iGNORE THAT)

and here is another great youtuber. his entire channel is largely about "how to write" and various aspects of worldbuilding. but i do want to mention that this conversation is biased towards Hard Worldbuilding, evidentally, and he has some videos that are in support of softer worldbuilding too (which, my memory could be off, but i dont think he gets into food often? but an example of Soft Worldbuilding and food would be how idk how the fuck Chihiro/the spirits has access to food in "Spirited Away", they just kind of begin and end with a vague ✨️magic food✨️ vibe about how these are meals for the dead, but the soft worldbuilding there not including how they source this food is not bad worldbuilding at all). it's best, in terms of mind-set, to have different types of worldbuilding for different projects in my opinion

In Defense of Soft Magic Systems

Hard Worldbuilding vs. Soft Worldbuilding | A Study of Studio Ghibli

and this is in regards to stories outside of fantasy period-pieces as well. like, "Coraline" for example is VERY fascinating to analyze in respects to food. both what Coraline eats, what the Other Mother eats (or rather doesn't eat), what the Other Father eats (he is starving, always), what foods are available to who and when; and that is a story that takes place in modern-day and has some pretty restrained fantasty elements as part of the Other Mother's powers and whatnot

but even things like "this character never cooks, only orders out or eats other people's homemade food or eats leftovers" can say a lot about the individual (doesn't take good care of themself, or doesn't have the time or energy to, may have been neglected as a child from learning this life-skill, could be a lot of reasons why they can't cook), even if the character themself is from a culture that has a rich history with food

i will admit some cultures have a more restrained history with food, like Indigenous Americans' intertribal culture (which, hi, hello, i am one such Indigenous American) has a semi-strained, semi-loving relationship with frybread. bc it's not a "cultural"-food, it's a survival food. it's a food that was invented bc people were starving, forced into bottlenecks of limited, unfamiliar ingredients due to us being forced into reservations and militant forces not allowing us access to trade for other ingredients on these lands that yielded poor crops and limited to no livestock. as a result, frybread is super unhealthy. (though some Indigenous American chefs have worked to make healthier varieties now) but also frybread is a cheap, easy food to make that celebrates that we survived a time when people tried to kill us via starvation, but it also is a symbol of said starvation attempt as it was a food that was only created to help its people survive rather than as an expression of culture. hence, a relationship with a piece of food that is semi-strained, semi-loving. so that is an irl example of how food can be a cultural yet not-cultural yet also a history-informing item

so, if you want to read me praising the fuck out of Hard Worldbuilding including meals and how the implications even of something as simple as "this culture eats lots of beef" can be unfolded, read my past reblog's notes. but also, Studio Ghibli does really Soft Worldbuilding masterfully, and also mentions food here and there throughout their films, while not always explaining where it comes from (i think "Howl's Moving Castle" is one such example, as Sophie goes to a market to buy food for said moving castle's residents at one point. but, again, where the spirits import food (besides pigs, i guess) into the bathhouse for its workers, guests, and Chihiro to eat is beyond me). and neither worldbuilding method is superior than the other, i just have more to say about the One That Inherently Requires More Self-Questioning than the other, evidently. but food is an excellent way to show, not only culture (or survival) within said worldbuilding, but an individual's personality (eg. the Can't Cook aforementioned example), relationships (eg. aforementioned "Coraline" example), or emotional state (eg. in "Spirited Away", when Chihiro cries while eating her food because it's the first moment she has been able to safely process what has been happening to her, and the food tastes so good and was a kind gift, and she us just so overwhelmed and sad), and so much more

i think, overall, it is best to have stuff match. as in, if you have a hard magic-system, then you probably should map out and source your food in similar levels of detail for your own reference, even if it may never show in the narrative, just so you can be consistent. and then, if you have a soft magic-system, it'd be wise to have a similarly soft worldbuilding relationship with food. your audience expects hard worldbuilding with hard magic-system, and soft worldbuilding with soft magic-systems. i cant think off the top of my head of any examples where we get a juxtaposition of hard/soft that ends up with a well-polished story audiences love. and if you dont have a magic-system for the worldbuilding to reflect, then have the worldbuilding reflect similarly to what your story does examine. like, "Pulp Fiction" is soft towards what is in the suitcase, and similarly has a soft worldbuilding and explatory attitude towards its cast of characters, and it's also pretty soft about what the characters eat and drink being sourced from where (the most famous is probably the coffee lol), which fits as it's in contemporary LA and you assume most food there comes from similar places as your food does irl but no one knows for sure, but there's still an interesting relationship to food to follow within this film and whatnot

edit: i finally thought of a story that does a mix of Hard as well as Soft Worldbuilding, and luckily enough the example includes food in its story and that would be "Over The Garden Wall" (spoilers ahead). it has a ridiculously heavy amount of research put into it, from the fashion and architecture to the very doorknobs, and it does both explain and not explain its world as the Unknown is both real and not as it was a type of limbo of "Dante's Inferno" that Greg and Wirt experienced when they were almost drowned to death. it is the only story i can think of where arguably what happened within it was "just a dream" yet that ending doesn't make people unhappy this time around; i think because there is a real feeling of "they could've died if they didn't escape the Unknown, so the stakes were real, they had an arc, this story still matters". and, to me, i think the Hard Worldbuilding is the reality within the world— like the fashions, doorknobs, Wirt and Greg's hometown, as we later see evidence of characters in the Unknown having tombstones and the like in the Wirt and Greg's hometown, there is pieces of reality that carried over beyond death and into the Unknown— whereas the Soft Worldbuilding was the fantastical elements, like the anthromorphic animals, Adelaide's magic, the bluejay curse, the Beast, the pumpkins and skeletons, the lantern, and so on that do not have a real-life equivalent. and one thing that does have a real life equivalent is food, almost all the food in this show is real, even if i wouldnt personally wish potatoes and molasses on my worst enemy. i'll sooner slurp a turtle, like the dog and Auntie Whispers. but also Endicott's food and the tavern food looks so good. but, yeah, we really don't know anything about where these real-life meals are sourced other than that they are real foods you could theoretically make yourself (like Endicott is not eating mashed potatoes, gravy, peas, and some kind of sliced meat like ham), but the one fantasy meal that is those turtles has soooo much mystery surrounding them that it is nigh-infamous how much the creator dodges questions about those lil turts lol so!! if you do want to mix Hard and Soft Worldbuilding, just do so thoughtfully and have there be a consistent and clear line. for OTGW, that's putting a ton of hard-research into real-life, historic equivalents within the Unknown to Wirt and Greg's hometown juxtaposed with extremely soft fantasy elements of the Unknown unexplained as there is no magical equivalent in Wirt and Greg's hometown. consistency, consistency, indeed lol

anyway, hope the free resources help ✌️ thanks for letting me yap about why you should let your characters eat and also maybe pay attention to what they eat lol

Is this anything

[novasolstarr]

5:25 AM

My meds are keeping me wide awake

Cyanide-Cafe puts on the animated Witcher movie and we have plans for the animated series too

Thoughts formed with my current hyperfixation and this growing one

So anyways I started Sketching

Yeah I'm trying to brainstorm design ideas for a Witched version of this fuckass to fuel my horrible hyperfixations

Anyways extra info down below for anyone who's actually curious

- More desaturated colors than Pressure Seb

- Covered in various scars from swords, knives, wild animals, and monsters alike. Lots of scratches, bites, and deep cuts / punctures

- Less shark based in the tail, almost nothing besides the texture is reminiscent

- Carries a rusted knife on hand should he need it [rarely uses it]

- An incredibly resilient stomach, he can even eat undead such as Drowner¹ with only a mild stomach ache

- Bacteria filled bite, prevents blood clotting and will lead to nasty infection if not cleaned soon

- Very avoidant of humans for very clear reasons of They Would Fucking Kill Him™️

- Surprisingly enough, despite their reputation as Monster Killers, he'd be more willing to approach Witchers, cautiously though of course.

- Lost his arm after a particularly nasty fight with a Water Hag², though it was kinda intact, it was so mangled that he was better off cutting his losses without the proper needs to medicate and care for it

- He's a little feral guy

[deoidesign]

For my birthday... read my webcomic! It's literally free! (Unless you want books. Those are not free)

It's beautiful, it's gentle, it's funny, they're canonically t4t and gay... And it's about time traveling vampires solving supernatural mysteries!

I've spent thousands of hours writing and drawing it, and it's really good! I'm not biased!

It's on hiatus right now and coming back in 2 months, so it's the perfect time to get caught up

[bacchuschucklefuck]

pygmalion and galatea for aroace people

you should tell your friends what I look like, riz gukgak.

[yikes-ajax]

I dont have a clever and witty sarcastic comment tonight, I just think she's cute

[luck-of-the-drawings]

"I think this is the most inhuman; and human, that I've ever felt.." MUCH CAN HAPPEN IN A YEAR. IN FIVE YEARS. A DECADE. imagine how much can happen in a century. just ONE (1). How will you grow? what phases do you find? even in 5 years, you will find patterns.

[asexualbookbird]

subjecting yall to my journal spread this month

[moeblob]

Rice. From my plot that's literally just a game of chess. (he's a rook)

[eggskie]

lined and coloured @themetalvirus rouge sketch!! I've been wanting to practice lineart so this was really fun to do :]

[the-deadlock-south]

we lost the game but i won in looking cracked in front of strangers so did we (i) really lose (yes)

[crimeronan]

the more loved i am and the more i love people on purpose, the more comfortable i get with who i am. i think this is a natural product of getting older as well, you kinda settle into your skin and figure out what you want and how to go after it. the funny part about doing this for me is that like.... i don't feel things like other people do. i just don't. i have a pathological need for attention and i don't form attachments the same way that others do and i break connections very easily and i don't feel guilty about stuff. i do recognize when i'm WRONG and i change my behavior and/or my viewpoints when they're harmful and i actively work to combat my most maladaptive bullshit, so sometimes it's like.

i dunno. the whole stereotype of the self-aggrandizing sociopath who thinks they're above everything is boring, but sometimes it feels like there's something to it. like i'll see sensationalized explanations of 'narcissism' and 'sociopathy' that are like "these people can just choose not to care about stuff," and i'm like....

....yeah??

So The Fuck Can You.

in fact, you do. CONSTANTLY. by telling yourself that the real life living breathing human being asking for change on the street is a scammer, or a predator, or unpleasant, or too sick, or too strung-out, or otherwise too Other and inhuman to help. you only reserve your so-called "intrinsic empathy" for people that you relate to, and you turn it off when it gets uncomfortable.

i know exactly where i'm spending my emotional energy and who i'm spending it on. when i don't spend my emotional energy on someone, it's not because they're an unperson to me. it's because i simply don't wanna put my emotional energy there.

you guys could learn a thing or two about doing this. like. i know why i am how i am. what the fuck is YOUR excuse????

[b0nelessdoodles]

You alive man?

Just wanted to check as it's been bout a month or so since your last post

no i'm dead but don't worry about it. tis the season and all that shit ya know?

(all that shit includes, but is not limited to, seasonal depression, art block, retail and food service worker hell, the election, 5 stress induced nightmares in the space of a week, managing a new relationship [first time], living in a capitalist nightmare, etc.)

[more rambles in the tags, as i am often to do]

[bittsandpieces]

-

[eightspringdays]

every time I see someone saying they see [two characters that literally just grew up together] as brothers and therefore is disgusting shipping them I feel the unhinged feeling to commit something I'd have been lobotomized for in the 1940's.

[murmurmurl]

a modern human au where nothing bad ever happenned to them and they got to grow up together. I am making myself cry with this chat

[toytulini]

if you draw enough monster ocs, when you go back to drawing a human character, it feels like "sameface syndrome" everytime, by virtue of their face being. human.