#i like me some worldbuilding

[elodieunderglass]

Horror isekai where Perceiving the Weird Eldritch Thing gets you catapulted into a nightmare labyrinth of puzzle-solving.

I.e Those Who Perceive The Hunt of the Goblin King Must Partake In The Labyrinth and Can Only Be Freed If They Complete It In One Day and One Night. By Fae Law. For Reasons.

But the definition of “perception” clearly needs to be updated because some normal guy simply films the Hunt of the Goblin King Behind Arby’s, and puts it on Facebook -

No, not instagram or TikTok, it’s important that it be Facebook -

Because the rules are pretty clear, “the rules are the rules” as is carved ominously in elvish runes above the grim gate, and the Contract is Sealed. and so therefore the guy and 25 of their most random real-life acquaintances must run the gauntlet together. It’s Some Guy, their immediate neighbors, their first partner’s mom, their friends from hobby Facebook groups (oh this poor guy and their hobbies; the elderly birdwatchers from Facebook and the young up-and-coming drag king community), their random teen kid niece, college friends, a dog who also watched the video, a couple consisting of a woman who is the guy’s Facebook friend and showed her husband the video, and the husband doesn’t even know Some Guy, so he’s in the labyrinth and absolutely furious about being forced to be involved, and they proceed to break up over the course of the puzzle.

It’s important that the narrative keeps trying to be a sexy dark horror isekai! but within this the comedic reality of Catherine, 52, the guy’s horse-riding instructor, being passionately involved in escape-room-style puzzle solving and grappling with minor goblins. They are in fact speedrunning the gauntlet.

The Goblin King finally has to say: all right, actually, I only really set all this up to fuck with one (1) guy at a time, thanks for your willingness to participate, but I think all 25 of you can consider the gauntlet fully run.

And the group would be quite hurt by that. The rules are the rules. We have a contract, actually. Let Catherine cook.

[jvlianbashir]

"the creator said in a reddit thread -" "the official twitter account posted that -" "the actors confirmed in a livestream that -"

i don't care and that's not real to me. put it in the text.

[icewindandboringhorror]

I made a few new wax seal stamps out of clay (like the ones I did for my worldbuilding stuff forever ago), this time just of random symbols that I thought might look good done in the style of painting over the raised part of the wax or etc. :0c Some of them aren't carved deep enough to really show up that well, but overall they worked okay for being clay lol

[rocketbirdie]

taking matters into my own hands and giving us the gongaga we deserved

[sk-yay-sk]

I've gotta say I'm not a huge fan of putting Dragonese into the HTTYD movie franchise. The concept of a full-on dragon language they all share, that can just easily be translated into English, just really doesn't fit imo

I imagine they're a lot more like Orcas

There are universal ways to communicate with strangers of different species, like it's pretty easy to signal things like "i want to fight you" "i want you to leave" "it's dangerous here" "i'm in pain" etc. by just body language and vocalizations- but ways to communicate more complex ideas have to be developed and learned as unique dialects by different groups, especially flocks of dragons consisting of different species.

I imagine a terrible terror flock or a group of Speed Stingers have a lot of an easier time communicating with each other than a Thunderdrum and a whispering death do.

Dragons with their own dialects, cultures, and habits depending on location and group is really cool- I just don't think it should be a direct translation of how humans do these things, such as straight up language or mythologies or such.

[da-janela-lateral]

Get 'em, Mob!

[thunderboltfire]

I have a lot of complicated feelings when it comes to what Neflix has done with the Witcher, but my probably least favourite is the line of argumentation that originated during shitstorms related to the first and second season that I was unlucky to witness.

It boils down to "Netflix's reinterpretation and vision is valid, because the Witcher books are not written to be slavic. The overwhelming Slavic aestetic is CDPR's interpretation, and the setting in the original books is universally European, as there are references to Arthurian mythos and celtic languages" And I'm not sure where this argument originated and whether it's parroting Sapkowski's own words or a common stance of people who haven't considered the underlying themes of the books series. Because while it's true that there are a lot of western european influences in the Witcher, it's still Central/Eastern European to the bone, and at its core, the lack of understanding of this topic is what makes the Netflix series inauthentic in my eyes.

The slavicness of the Witcher goes deeper than the aestetics, mannerisms, vodka and sour cucumbers. Deeper than Zoltan wrapping his sword with leopard pelt, like he was a hussar. Deeper than the Redanian queen Hedvig and her white eagle on the red field.

What Witcher is actually about? It's a story about destiny, sure. It's a sword-and-sorcery style, antiheroic deconstruction of a fairy tale, too, and it's a weird mix of many culture's influences.

But it's also a story about mundane evil and mundane good. If You think about most dark, gritty problems the world of Witcher faces, it's xenophobia and discrimination, insularism and superstition. Deep-seated fear of the unknown, the powerlessness of common people in the face of danger, war, poverty and hunger. It's what makes people spit over their left shoulder when they see a witcher, it's what makes them distrust their neighbor, clinging to anything they deem safe and known. It's their misfortune and pent-up anger that make them seek scapegoats and be mindlessly, mundanely cruel to the ones weaker than themselves.

There are of course evil wizards, complicated conspiracies and crowned heads, yes. But much of the destruction and depravity is rooted in everyday mundane cycle of violence and misery. The worst monsters in the series are not those killed with a silver sword, but with steel. it's hard to explain but it's the same sort of motiveless, mundane evil that still persist in our poorer regions, born out of generations-long poverty and misery. The behaviour of peasants in Witcher, and the distrust towards authority including kings and monarchs didn't come from nowhere.

On the other hand, among those same, desperately poor people, there is always someone who will share their meal with a traveller, who will risk their safety pulling a wounded stranger off the road into safety. Inconditional kindness among inconditional hate. Most of Geralt's friends try to be decent people in the horrible world. This sort of contrasting mentalities in the recently war-ridden world is intimately familiar to Eastern and Cetral Europe.

But it doesn't end here. Nilfgaard is also a uniquely Central/Eastern European threat. It's a combination of the Third Reich in its aestetics and its sense of superiority and the Stalinist USSR with its personality cult, vast territory and huge army, and as such it's instantly recognisable by anybody whose country was unlucky enough to be caught in-between those two forces. Nilfgaard implements total war and looks upon the northerners with contempt, conscripts the conquered people forcibly, denying them the right of their own identity. It may seem familiar and relevant to many opressed people, but it's in its essence the processing of the trauma of the WW2 and subsequent occupation.

My favourite case are the nonhumans, because their treatment is in a sense a reminder of our worst traits and the worst sins in our history - the regional antisemitism and/or xenophobia, violence, local pogroms. But at the very same time, the dilemma of Scoia'Tael, their impossible choice between maintaining their identity, a small semblance of freedom and their survival, them hiding in the forests, even the fact that they are generally deemed bandits, it all touches the very traumatic parts of specifically Polish history, such as January Uprising, Warsaw Uprising, Ghetto Uprising, the underground resistance in WW2 and the subsequent complicated problem of the Cursed Soldiers all at once. They are the 'other' to the general population, but their underlying struggle is also intimately known to us.

The slavic monsters are an aestetic choice, yes, but I think they are also a reflection of our local, private sins. These are our own, insular boogeymen, fears made flesh. They reproduce due to horrors of the war or they are an unprovoked misfortune that descends from nowhere and whose appearance amplifies the local injustices.

I'm not talking about many, many tiny references that exist in the books, these are just the most blatant examples that come to mind. Anyway, the thing is, whether Sapkowski has intended it or not, Witcher is slavic and it's Polish because it contains social commentary. Many aspects of its worldbuilding reflect our traumas and our national sins. It's not exclusively Polish in its influences and philosophical motifs of course, but it's obvious it doesn't exist in a vacuum.

And it seems to me that the inherently Eastern European aspects of Witcher are what was immediately rewritten in the series. It seems to me that the subtler underlying conflicts were reshaped to be centered around servitude, class and gender disparity, and Nilfgaard is more of a fanatic terrorist state than an imposing, totalitarian empire. A lot of complexity seems to be abandoned in lieu of usual high-fantasy wordbuilding. It's especially weird to me because it was completely unnecessary. The Witcher books didn't need to be adjusted to speak about relevant problems - they already did it! The problem of acceptance and discrimination is a very prevalent theme throughout the story! They are many strong female characters too, and they are well written. Honestly I don't know if I should find it insulting towards their viewers that they thought it won't be understood as it was and has to be somehow reshaped to fit the american perpective, because the current problems are very much discussed in there and Sapkowski is not subtle in showing that genocide and discrimination is evil. Heck, anyone who has read the ending knows how tragic it makes the whole story.

It also seems quite disrespectful, because they've basically taken a well-established piece of our domestic literature and popular culture and decided that the social commentary in it is not relevant. It is as if all it referenced was just not important enough and they decided to use it as an opportunity to talk about the problems they consider important. And don't get me wrong, I'm not forcing anyone to write about Central European problems and traumas, I'm just confused that they've taken the piece of art already containing such a perspective on the popular and relevant problem and they just... disregarded it, because it wasn't their exact perspective on said problem.

And I think this homogenisation, maybe even from a certain point of view you could say it's worldview sanitisation is a problem, because it's really ironic, isn't it? To talk about inclusivity in a story which among other problems is about being different, and in the same time to get rid of motifs, themes and references because they are foreign? Because if something presents a different perspective it suddenly is less desirable?

There was a lot of talking about the showrunners travelling to Poland to understand the Witcher's slavic spirit and how to convey it. I don't think they really meant it beyond the most superficial, paper-thin facade.

[lucalicatteart]

 sculpted a strange shimmery two headed snail, speckled with wild flowers on it's shell~

[faislittlewhiteraven]

Been having some ISaT tech level and timeline (as in 'when backstory things happened') thoughts and want to ramble a bit:

Tech

ISaT's setting is based on your classic sword and sorcery fantasy JRPG so its easy to assume that tech wise everything is 'fantasy medieval' and call it a day but consider:

Body Craft is at bare minimum is magic sex changing surgery (earliest known equivent in our world dating to 1930) that any old person can learn to do safely on themselves in only a few months, and more likely has many many broader applications like regular old surgery, the 'combat healing' Mira and Sif use, etc.

Cameras and photos are rare enough that Odile comments on it (namely she's happy the group get a photo in the House due to them being 'so rare') yet are also common enough that everyone in the party knows about them and doesn't question the existence of a camera beyond being surprised that the mirror was one. (In our world cameras date back to the 19th century, with the earliest manufacturing of them being in 1839). 

Printing presses and ways to make plenty of paper to feed those presses given absolutely everyone in this game can read, expects everyone else to know how to, and both mass produced book series and newspapers are a thing. (Note: Printing presses have existed since waaaay back but it's the mass paper manufacturing that makes newspapers and The Cursing of Chateu Castle possible that really has my eyebrows raised here, especially since neither Siffrin or Odile find either odd in any way, indicating such things are common everywhere, and while newspapers have been around since 1604 in our world, mass produced fantasy books didn't really take off until the start of the 20th century).

Food production and storage: despite being in the middle of a national disaster that almost certainly cut off trade networks and access to most suppliers for literal months now, Bonnie, a small child, is able to easily get their hands on fresh Pineapple, curry ingredients (for samosa), potatoes, plantains etc with no issues or anyone commenting on this being unusual or lucky. Oh and the only character who even brings up the concept of potential starvation is the Fishing One, and only in a sort of 'we're not at risk now but sooner or later...' kinda way due to noticing that the fish they fish up for fun are disappearing and likely being frozen. So yeah, that heavily implies Vaugarde has very good food storage tech/Craft (possibly better than ours), and likely also good food production and harvesting tech/skills also.

The Island's incredible knowledge of the stars: while the oldest known orrery in our world is dated from around 205 to 87 BC (ancient Greek, earth centric model), the fact Sif -who would've learnt this as a child/teen- is so very certain that stars are big balls of fire made up of gas is interesting as that's something our world couldn't prove the theory of until around the 1900s (note: it'd been theorized a LONG time but Sif talks like its complete facts to them . Additionally the earliest existing record of a telescope in our world dates to a 1608 patent and we see one of those in game.

Post posting EDIT: A wonderful user qds-place pointed out that Mirabelle has anti-anxiety medication in her room. This is in both ISaT and SAaP and though we're not sure what form the medication takes (pills? Valium? Megitech esc Craft boosters???) the fact they specifically have 'anti anxiety' medication at all (as opposed to idk dragging Mira off and drugging her through the gills) is kind of impressive and if it IS modern anti anxiety pills those could be as recent in creation as the 1950s! So um. Some high levels of tech implied in chemistry there <3

So... yeah. All this, plus the fact that the highest tech implied area, The Island, literally specialised in the study/Craft of turning wishes into reality (for a long enough time period that Wish Craft is culturally so ingrained in the King and Sif that they do it without thinking and it seems intertwined with their nation's religion) has been completely erased from memory to the point anything heavily associated with them has been forgotten, and also we only ever see Dormont aka a little village well away from the cities, it's not hard to conclude that you can basically justify giving the ISaT world any level of tech you want, so long as you lock any of the truly 'setting breaking' stuff like planes and rockets behind The Island's forgetting curse (I would've said trains too but thinking about it trains were invented in 1802 so it's honestly easy to imagine that they totally exist in the ISaT setting/Vaugarde but aren't ever on screen because rail is way too dangerous to consider using while the Curse is active and potentially time freezing things on the tracks).

Side note: We know absolutely nothing about Vaugarde's transport system but as a fan of fantasy RPGs it is honestly a travesty I have yet to see a fic that has flying dragons/wyverns or other fantasy mounts in setting. Like, ok yes, the party would probably have wanted to use those but maybe they don't like the Curse and fled? Maybe the King's Curse targeted them first? Maybe all their handlers dropped the heroes off in Dormont and said 'Well Saviors it's been fun, but well me and Scales here are off to Poteria until things wrap up so best of luck to you' before buggering off?

This isn't really a serious complaint just. Me reminding myself/potentially other fanwork writers out there that there's a lot about the setting we just don't know about and limiting all travel to walking, horse drawn carriage and boat is not actually required. (Also please mix up travelling to the Island. Boats are a wonderful classic and have great thematic vibes for Sif's original leaving of the Island but like. Imagine the sheer in-universe wtf of the memories of The Island suddenly coming back and people on the north coast suddenly realising there's a massive bridge, subway or underwater tunnel leading there that everyone just forgot about - potentially filled with all kinds of Sadnesses that need taking down. Or Warp Panels in a House of Change, idk XD).

Timeline

Canon notes first:

Bonnie is a preteen (8 to 12), Mira and Isa are in their early to mid 20s (with Isa slightly older), Sif is late 20s to 30, and Odile is 40+ Nille is stated to be around 18 to 20.

Siffrin ran away from home when they were a teenager (13 to 17? 18?) and this is heavily implied to be when the Island was Forgotten.

Bonnie (in ISaT specifically*) says that Nille told them that when it happened all the adults were talking about it, hence why they think The Island is close to their village. *In Start Again a Prologue, Bonnie says that they themself remember the adults talking about the Island disappearing, which er. Is a bit impossible given they likely weren't even born yet when that happened but that can be explained away by AU differences, InsertDisc5 still finalising details between SAaP and ISaT, and/or OG Siffrin having been in the loops so long they weren't actually listening when Bonnie was talking and just 'scripted' in their head something 'close enough' to what Bonnie was saying to get the idea (note: mentioned that idea before in my post here on the differences between the House and King in Start Again vs In Stars and Time for anyone curious so er please feel free to give that a read if you haven't already).

Odile mentions remembering 'when it happened' as well and has been 'travelling for years'.

The King 'appeared out of nowhere' sometime in his adulthood, and lived in the city of Corbeaux for a few years before he became the King.

The King became the King as was freezing people in time long enough before his attack on the House of Dormont that everyone inside knew he was coming, there were a wall's worth of newspaper articles about him, and everyone was expecting Euphrasie to defeat him.

Mirabelle's quest began 'almost a year ago' and Sif lost their eye 'recently'.

Thoughts on the above:

Calculating when The Island was forgotten:

Sif being mid 20s to 30 and having run away from home as a teen means that The Island has to have been forgotten somewhere between 9 to 17 years ago with nine only possible if he ran away at age 17 and is only age 26 now, and seventeen being the far opposite if he ran at age 13 and is currently 30.

To narrow down the timeline: Given Sif ran away from home because he 'didn't want to eat his veggies' and 'just wanted to scare [his] parents a little bit' it's probably safe to assume Siffrin was likely on the younger end of the teen spectrum (teens run off all the time sure but with loving parents and over veggies? That screams 'kid who has not yet learned that freaking out the parents will get their ass grounded and/or yelled at a LOT and is therefore best saved for doing fun forbidden stuff that ideally the parents will never find out about' XD) Additionally given Siffrin can't remember his age/birthday etc but Isabeau outright says near the beginning of the game "But you're older than most of the people here?" meaning Sif must be visibly older than Isa or Mira, so he's probably closer to 30 than not.

Those alone would imply the Island likely disappeared closer to the '17 years ago' side of things BUT Nille (tops 20 years old) told Bonnie that "[the Island's disappearance] was all the adults would talk about for ages" and kids usually can't remember anything prior to 4 years of age so with that in mind...

I'd say The Island most likely disappeared between 13 to 16 years ago.

Nille stuff:

This is more a general mention but. Nille is tops 20 years old. Bonnie is between 8 and 12 and doesn't remember their parents at all.

This means Nille ran away with Bonnie and gained emancipation and custody of Bonnie (if Vaugarde has formalised that kind of legal stuff) while she was at most 12 years old herself and could have in theory been as young as 6..!

Regardless, it's very likely the original home situation was that bad, Nille deserves a ton of credit for raising Bonnie as well as she has and I'd say it's very VERY likely she had a lot of help from villagers in Bambosche and/or the local House of Change in doing so. ...But also Bonnie is very adamantly 'my sister and village' and not 'my sister and [specific names who live with us]' so there's clearly by the time Bonnie was 4 or so they were living in their own place so... Yeah. Lotta drive for independence there too it seems (so the party might have more trouble adopting Nille into their group post ISaT than Bonnie might expect).

King stuff:

Already an adult 13 to 16 years ago so at bare minimum 33. Given his vibe probably much older though.

Newspapers get printed pretty quick though for there to be so much speculation and research done into his background so quick, either Vaugarde has some form of fast messaging system (something like a Chappe telegraph on top of the Houses of Change? Odile I think does mention that they'll have a message sent to let Nille know they'll be returning Bonnie...) or the King was freezing stuff for IDK around a month or two before reaching Dormont? Alas can't find out how long it takes to walk across all of France out very easily (I'm sure the numbers are out there but my brain is pudding rn) but if we had those numbers we could probably make some guesstimates based off the rough sketched map of Vaugarde InsertDisk5 did... Which I would link but apparently the tumblr post I had it linked on has been deleted???? 'wails at this very unhappy development'

Mira's journey and Sif's eye:

We really don't know a lot but almost a year ago gives us somewhere around 9 to 11 months to spread the journey out along and after eye removal surgery the patient can out and about as soon as 2 to 6 weeks after, maybe sooner with magic healing (though full recovery/growing used to the changed spacial awareness -which Sif clearly does not have- probably can't be sped up and takes around 3 to 6 months) so um. I'd guestimate Sif's eye injury is really recent; like two months ago tops recent. ...Which sorta explains a lot of why Bonnie is not dealing with it right now and also why the others might be trying to avoid bringing it up (since Sif clearly loves avoiding the issue but they haven't yet realised that maybe they really should bring it up even if it annoys them anyway?)

Odile with some Ka Bue speculation:

When it comes to The Island, how did Odile, presumably living in Ka Bue at the time, remember 'when it happened'? Was the Island well known enough even on the other side of the world that it's disappearance made waves? Or was Odile herself or someone she's close to paying attention to the region? (Like maybe her dad or a friend is/was into politics or trade, keeping up with overseas news and got concerned it could happen to Ka Bue? I'd say 'I remember when it happened' line implies it was more immediate knowledge than being informed by a messenger much later though...)

As for Odile's 'years of travel' I have to wonder, what's left behind for her in Ka Bue? She brings up going back there quite a bit, might just miss home and possibly her father if he's still alive, but given it took her years to get here for something so personal rather than idk 'materially rewarding' I think Odile might have some kinda family estate or something back in Ka Bue... Something she wasn't worried about potentially losing while far away, but solid enough to want to return to, beyond her father who she'd definitely want to see again if he's still around. (...But given how open she is to chilling about Vaugarde a few more months with the others, I really don't think he is alive, since well, given their respective ages and travel between Vaugarde and Ka Bue apparently taking years, there'd definitely an uncomfortably high chance of him passing away while she's gone and that seems like the thing that'd stress Odile out so... Yeah. Probably got an estate in Ka Bue she'd like to take the Family to visit/possibly sell off if she decides she'd like to live with them in Vaugarde so... Just my off the cuff headcanoning here and hoping that gives others ideas or something).

---

Anyway that's all the ramble I've got in me so... yeah! Hope this was interesting and useful for those needing a bit of a 'possible tech'/timeline calcs breakdown for the Island + a few more vague things and um. Probably will post a long winding ramble about my attempt at a ISaT Selkie AU fic I've been working on next <3 (Not to be confused with looped-140-and-counting's already existing and quite wonderful Selkie Siffrin AU which already has a completed oneshot fic, a snippet of sequel, two snippets of prequel/Sif flashbacking and I believe a comic too, all of which I highly recommend <3)

[ribbononline]

Howdy just wanted to let you know how much I love your fantasy AI and how cute the designs are!

Assuming you meant Fantasy AU haha- Thank you! Ive admittedly been playing with their design a little in the background (And it hink I posted some sketches before? though im unsure if I tagged them) since some of them looked. a little too human ((sorry archie i LOVE selkies but untransformed it truly is just a fur coat. which. isnt great for a more tropical setting)) but the core of it has never changed lol I love modern fantasy

The designs are half inspired by Pokémon now, though not tooooo intensly.

Max is still mosty faun, but leant a little more into full furry for him I guess. Cope old man.

Archie has been changed from selkie which HORTS but alas i lacked the skills to draw him cool. He's just a general mercreature now. He has legs but he's half fish in design he can breathe underwater. You get it

Others I've had thoughts on:

May gets to be torchic in harpy form. She's a rare case, as she can naturally do some magic! She can Breathe Fire. Very fun for her parents. She can't fly, but she can kind of flutter- which is great for parkouring around! Active kid. Due to lacking arms/hands she uses her legs/talons for most things instead

I want Courtney to be Meowstic inspired, probably with some/devil/demon inspo for the monster part? But I admittedly haven't thought of a design Im happy with yet. She also has some natural magic! Again, not supposed to be very common. She can levitate stuff and throw around psychic shockwaves if she's mad. She tried studying to be a witch for a little while, but she didn't really like it.

Lisia is Mostly Just Regular Lisia except the cloud fluff on her outfit is part of her lol. She's a combination of Swablu inspired and a full on wind spirit. She looks normal most of the time but if a strong wind catches on her physical form literally temporarily blows away into clouds. She can control the condensation in the air around her- which is almost entirely useless, except she can use it to create rainbows behind her. Great idol trick

Zinnia gets some fun dragon traits, and also lives up to her Lorekeeper title. While there's plenty of common spells written down and going around, Zinnia has access to and protects a lot of more powerfull forgotten stuff. Most imporantly Delta Magic, which... Functions via Totally Not Mega Stones, and allows the user unlimited access to type magic for as long as it's active. It's pretty draining, but it's the only time that actual world changing magic can be made to happen, rather then more mundane or minor stuff

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

The Maid and The Crocodile

standalone YA high fantasy romance, set in the world of Raybearer (10 years later)

a girl ages out of her orphanage and searches for a job as a maid - but before she’s hired, she accidentally gets bound to the Crocodile - a god thought to steal girls through his shrines throughout the cities

she wants nothing to do with him or his curse, and gets herself a job as a Curse Eater at an inn, consuming the spiritual residue of their past mistakes and regrets

but her past and her connection to the Crocodile won’t go away, and she gets caught up in his revolutionary ambitions

disabled MC (vitiligo, cane user)

[chiropteracupola]

A May morning.

[bragganhyl]

*clears throat* The Watcher is a really good protagonist character.

Like honestly, when you think about it, it's really astounding that this series has the same blank slate character throughout the series and yet you can flesh them out thoroughly and give them an arc that effectively and dynamically arches over multiple installments. There aren't a lot of game series' out there that manage to pull this off this well

[silverskye13]

(Forgot what the name of the order/church Helsknight is a part of) but being part of that while AFAB must be absolutely wild every month. I can just imagine a knight lying on the floor in absolute agony with a hot watter bottle over their stomach like "hels yeah, my sain't must love me right now"

Alakjsjdjfjf

"Saint of Blood and Steel," they pray miserably, laying face down on the floor, curled around a hot pad, "if I dedicate this next 5-10 day period to you, could you pretty please make the cramps stop? I am literally actually begging--"

[evelynpr]

Why the fuck are there roller skates, dubstep, stage lighting, an LED screen, and all kinds of modern technology in Xilonen's trailer??? I thought Fontaine had the most advanced technology next to Schneznaya and arguably Sumeru, and every instance of high-end technology we have seen leaned more towards machinations with gears, magic, alchemy, essentially fantasy styled sci-fi???

The disrespect towards Native American and African cultures is enough to piss me off already, but it even goes against Genshin's own consistency with its fantastical world design..and for what? Just so you can have this...pop and gamer aesthetic???

Just look at these two bubbly and optimistic characters for me okay

Yoimiya's design isn't the most respectful and accurate representation of a Japanese firework craftsman, but at least you can damn tell she is Japanese. The large ribbons, hair accessories, tassels, leg covering, tattoo design, shoe style, and fabric patterns all allude to this (I apologize for not knowing the exact terminologies for these, this needs further research).

Then there's Mualani who has...what? Please do correct me if I am wrong here, but her character must be inspired by the real Mualani, a Hawaiian Chiefess. Additionally, her tribe's specialty is in tourism and vacationing, which further leads into the idea that she and her tribe are based off of Hawaii despite the known issues regarding Hawaii and tourism (if there are any good sources that summarize the issue, please do lmk).

I am not too familiar with Hawaiian culture, but there really is nothing about her design that reads as Hawaiian, or even just traditional, to me. What about a 2 piece swimsuit with bows and tails, a bow + braids + ponytail hair style, combat gloves (?), and an entire neon shark, is Hawaiian???

The characters, their designs, and their trailers, are just so culturally disconnected from their real life counterpart that it's even disconnected to Genshin's own world building and design. How the fuck is the fashion trend in Natlan denim pants. I feel like the only parts of Natlan that feel like Genshin Impact and culturally inspired are the in-game music and landscapes (God bless Hoyo-mix and the world designers).

[psychomusic]

i had a vague idea last night on chiss space-traveling system. it's really just an idea and maybe it breaks the existing lore so. if there's any chiss expert here PLEASE tell me if it's something that could exist because i wanna know if i can put it to use in my story

i know they use force sensitives with that third sight power, but like. idk. i understand that they are trained and sometimes they fail but like that's SO complex. you're traveling faster than light - you can have jedi like reflexes and shit but that's still hard af.

so i was imagining (because lately I've been trying to better understand chiss lore, which i LOVEEE) wouldn't it be easier if there were like some stations in between planets, especially important colonies, to allow the force sensitives to have to navigate between smaller points, and not completely in the dark?

idk if any of you know sky: children of the light's trial of fire, so here's the link (skip the intro part). now imagine that instead of the checkpoints with rocks and candles you have little artifical moons/planets/asteroids (depending on how important that station is), and force sensitives are supposed to reach that and then re orientate etc.

BUT to make it cooler and most importantly, easier to sense for the force sensitives, imagine that those artificial ecosystem are made to be inhabited by different creatures that can't stay on their planet of origin (like. maybe because the environment changed and they are endangered, or they're too dangerous so they like. put them there). so they're full of life. they'd be like lit candles in the dark, literally.

THIS CAME TO ME BECAUSE TWO WEEKS AGO I SAW SUCH A COOL VIDEO (a 12 hour analysis of the phantom menace that's like. so fucking well-researched??? considering its length it's impressive really, so here's the link) that spoke (at 1:19:22) about that Boss Nass's phrase about going through Naboo's planet core. But to synthetize: basically in the lore, Naboo is supposed to lack a molten core, and at the center of the planet, plasma is being emitted, and it creates infinite tunnels that can connect even theed and otho gunga. but besides other worldbuilding problems that this rather absurd idea would create - that i won't recap here - in the video, there are some ideas on how to make it make sense (like. "going through the planet core" is simply a figure of speech and not what actually happened), BUT between those, there is one in particular that struck me: at 1:30:40, he proposed Naboo could be a constructed planet - like a planet-aquarium.

then, the video explains why it can't be the case for naboo but. GUYS!! if there's a species that could pull off something like that it's the chiss, with their sense of order, their need for knowledge, and organization abilities.

the maintenance of these stations with particular ecosystems could then be left at the nearest colony of csilla (kinda like the romans delegated the maintenance of their streets to each town it crossed and benefitted off of it), and be used as a "lighthouse" for new sky-walkers to train their third sight. researchers would benefit from keeping these animals alive + they could be kept in various different scenarios depending on how the specific station is made. if it's big enough, those creatures wouldn't be even captive, in a certain sense. especially since these stations need to be big enough (and full of life) to be perceived by the force sensitives, they'd just become replicas of the planet, where researchers, even in the creation of such stations, can really have a boost on their understanding of those ecosystems, through the feedbacks and experiments on the stations.

i have made a few sketches to visualize the idea

(ugly quality and poor rendition ops. in my defense it was late)

i know i wrote A LOT and prob not many will read this BUT if you've come this far, what do you think?