#sense: it makes none

[themeadowscene]

[ID: Stills from <em>New Moon</em> which have been edited to show Jacob picking up the phone at Bella's house and saying "He's not here, he's arranging a funeral." Edward says "Whose funeral?" and Jacob responds "Oh uh Harry Clearwater's." Edward says "Aw well pass along my condolences to him." Final black screen says "Directed by Christ Weitz." End ID]

[aethersea]

another thing fantasy writers should keep track of is how much of their worldbuilding is aesthetic-based. it's not unlike the sci-fi hardness scale, which measures how closely a story holds to known, real principles of science. The Martian is extremely hard sci-fi, with nearly every detail being grounded in realistic fact as we know it; Star Trek is extremely soft sci-fi, with a vaguely plausible "space travel and no resource scarcity" premise used as a foundation for the wildest ideas the writers' room could come up with. and much as Star Trek fuckin rules, there's nothing wrong with aesthetic-based fantasy worldbuilding!

(sidenote we're not calling this 'soft fantasy' bc there's already a hard/soft divide in fantasy: hard magic follows consistent rules, like "earthbenders can always and only bend earth", and soft magic follows vague rules that often just ~feel right~, like the Force. this frankly kinda maps, but I'm not talking about just the magic, I'm talking about the worldbuilding as a whole.

actually for the purposes of this post we're calling it grounded vs airy fantasy, bc that's succinct and sounds cool.)

a great example of grounded fantasy is Dungeon Meshi: the dungeon ecosystem is meticulously thought out, the plot is driven by the very realistic need to eat well while adventuring, the story touches on both social and psychological effects of the whole 'no one dies forever down here' situation, the list goes on. the worldbuilding wants to be engaged with on a mechanical level and it rewards that engagement.

deliberately airy fantasy is less common, because in a funny way it's much harder to do. people tend to like explanations. it takes skill to pull off "the world is this way because I said so." Narnia manages: these kids fall into a magic world through the back of a wardrobe, befriend talking beavers who drink tea, get weapons from Santa Claus, dance with Bacchus and his maenads, and sail to the edge of the world, without ever breaking suspension of disbelief. it works because every new thing that happens fits the vibes. it's all just vibes! engaging with the worldbuilding on a mechanical level wouldn't just be futile, it'd be missing the point entirely.

the reason I started off calling this aesthetic-based is that an airy story will usually lean hard on an existing aesthetic, ideally one that's widely known by the target audience. Lewis was drawing on fables, fairy tales, myths, children's stories, and the vague idea of ~medieval europe~ that is to this day our most generic fantasy setting. when a prince falls in love with a fallen star, when there are giants who welcome lost children warmly and fatten them up for the feast, it all fits because these are things we'd expect to find in this story. none of this jars against what we've already seen.

and the point of it is to be wondrous and whimsical, to set the tone for the story Lewis wants to tell. and it does a great job! the airy worldbuilding serves the purposes of the story, and it's no less elegant than Ryōko Kui's elaborately grounded dungeon. neither kind of worldbuilding is better than the other.

however.

you do have to know which one you're doing.

the whole reason I'm writing this is that I saw yet another long, entertaining post dragging GRRM for absolute filth. asoiaf is a fun one because on some axes it's pretty grounded (political fuck-around-and-find-out, rumors spread farther than fact, fastest way to lose a war is to let your people starve, etc), but on others it's entirely airy (some people have magic Just Cause, the various peoples are each based on an aesthetic/stereotype/cliché with no real thought to how they influence each other as neighbors, the super-long seasons have no effect on ecology, etc).

and again! none of this is actually bad! (well ok some of those stereotypes are quite bigoted. but other than that this isn't bad.) there's nothing wrong with the season thing being there to highlight how the nobles are focused on short-sighted wars for power instead of storing up resources for the extremely dangerous and inevitable winter, that's a nice allegory, and the looming threat of many harsh years set the narrative tone. and you can always mix and match airy and grounded worldbuilding – everyone does it, frankly it's a necessity, because sooner or later the answer to every worldbuilding question is "because the author wanted it to be that way." the only completely grounded writing is nonfiction.

the problem is when you pretend that your entirely airy worldbuilding is actually super duper grounded. like, for instance, claiming that your vibes-based depiction of Medieval Europe (Gritty Edition) is completely historical, and then never even showing anyone spinning. or sniffing dismissively at Tolkien for not detailing Aragorn's tax policy, and then never addressing how a pre-industrial grain-based agricultural society is going years without harvesting any crops. (stored grain goes bad! you can't even mouse-proof your silos, how are you going to deal with mold?) and the list goes on.

the man went up on national television and invited us to engage with his worldbuilding mechanically, and then if you actually do that, it shatters like spun sugar under the pressure. doesn't he realize that's not the part of the story that's load-bearing! he should've directed our focus to the political machinations and extensive trope deconstruction, not the handwavey bit.

point is, as a fantasy writer there will always be some amount of your worldbuilding that boils down to 'because I said so,' and there's nothing wrong with that. nor is there anything wrong with making that your whole thing – airy worldbuilding can be beautiful and inspiring. but you have to be aware of what you're doing, because if you ask your readers to engage with the worldbuilding in gritty mechanical detail, you had better have some actual mechanics to show them.

[sei-bark-bork]

My take on a scene in “Stir the heart” by @weatheredlaw. We love some good old Regency yearning!

[loumandivorce]

the way this episode is an inversion of the books is sooooo.... the recontextualization of the entire 1970s interview, louis' angry insults against lestat that are a lie even in the original books but now set against s1 come off as even more of a clutching desperation to rewrite the truth... armand asking louis if he wants lestat to find the book in a store and hunt him down just like what happened in the original chronicles, this time told to his burnt out body and empty eyes, a childish fantasy that might never come to fruition. the book line about how lestat likes to hunt young boys, so louis hunts young boys, so armand hunts young boys. lestat lestat lestat lestat claudia lestat lestat. it functions as an analysis of the novel itself: louis skirting around the truth, unable to reconcile with the part of him that loved lestat, maker and nothing more. this episode masterfully bridged the gap between the show and the books in a way i don't think has ever been done better

[hinamie]

someone asked if i had ever drawn gojo with his scars, now i have :>

[letswonderspirit]

Doodles

[talisthighs]

I’m crying at the idea of Viktor just storming up to Jayce with his “visions.” Girl You Need Help. You Require Medical Attention

This is literally how Jayvik is talking to each other in the lab

[andsewingishalfthebattle]

Novice sewing pattern: Cut out shapes. Line up the little triangles on the edges. Stitch edges together. We've also included step-by-step assembly instructions with illustrations.

Novice knitting pattern: yOU MUSt uNDerstANd thE SECret cOdE CO67 (73, 87, 93) BO44 (63, 76, 90) 28 (32, 34) slip first pw repeat 7x K to end *kl (pl) 42 * until 13" (13, 13, 15) join new at 30 pl for 17 rows ssk 27 k2tog mattress lengthwise BO and sacrifice a goat to the knitting gods. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU WANT "INSTRUCTIONS," I JUST GAVE THEM TO YOU

[gcballet]

Doctor Who as tweets/textposts pt.4

<- | DW | ->

[potato-lord-but-not]

read United yesterday and it hasn’t left my brain since. It’s just full of these idiots and their pisspoor communication and excruciating pining for each other what’s not to love

[sootnuki]

sam & max (ft. hatsune miku)

[isbergillustration]

We Love You

[emi-talitha]

the thing I love about the Solavellan Veilguard ending is that it is so perfectly the happy ending that Lavellan deserves

Here you have this Dalish woman who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and it just uprooted her entire life. She dealt with being accused of a crime she didn’t commit and still having to use her new power to save the very people calling her a criminal, and then with this power– a power that she is the ONLY person in the world who has it– she suddenly becomes the chosen one of a religion SHE DOESN’T EVEN FOLLOW (depending on how you roleplay your Inquisitor obviously but the average Dalish elf isn’t going to be Andrastian). And now she’s getting this religion thrown in her face constantly whether she likes it or not, and she’s barely allowed to talk about her Dalish beliefs because she has to be The Herald of Andraste. She’s met with racism EVERYWHERE SHE GOES. No one in this world believes in her because she’s just an elf, how could she be the herald? Yet she has to be even when they don’t want her to because if she doesn’t save the world no one else can, so it’s not like she can just walk away or she’ll eventually die too. So she keeps fighting for a world that has continuously treated her like shit and even when she finally earns their respect and admiration, she’s not a person to any of them, she’s some mythological figure. She’s The Inquisitor, the Herald of Andraste come to save us all, and no one outside of her own inner circle cares about her feelings or her thoughts or her needs. She’s a means of saving the world, that’s it. This world doesn’t care about her. It never has. When she finally does save it they are grateful, but even that barely lasts before she’s being pulled every which way because the world is afraid of her and the power she’s accumulated, and she smiles and bows and does what she has to do to appease everyone who’s dissatisfied but nothing is enough, and then! Surprise! Here come the qunari and the world needs saving again! And if that’s not already enough Oh!! Her arm is finally getting too unstable, it’s going to kill her!! And depending on your dialogue choices she has a much deserved little breakdown about it and then she’s right back to work. And she does it, the saves the world again, but there’s no such thing as rest, because now Solas is a threat, and if she doesn’t stop him, the world’s going to end, AGAIN, and she has worked and struggled and fought and suffered and sacrificed nonstop for the past two years, for a world that still doesn’t appreciate her, and she can’t stop, because even the people who see her still have expectations, the world still has to be saved, and this is who she is now. She’s the Inquisitor. She’s the one who saves the world.

But after everything, she lets herself make ONE selfish decision, because despite everything, she loves Solas. Solas who saw her when no one else did, who understood her, who taught her about the world and her history. Solas, whose soul spoke to hers. And if Solas can be saved instead of destroyed, she’s going to let herself have that.

And after ten years. Ten years!!! An entire decade since this all began!! He’s finally in front of her, and together they’ve all finally gotten through to him, so at last, the world is finally saved again. And no doubt there’s another threat down the line, but there’s also another hero here ready to step up and do something, a hero hand picked by Varric who she knows will get the job done. She can leave the world behind and know she’s leaving it in good hands.

And finally, after ten years of this exhausting and unfair existence of fighting for a world that barely tolerated her, of never being treated like a person, of losing her clan and her home and her innocence, finally, after all of it,

Lavellan gets to stop. She doesn’t have to fight anymore. And yes, there will be work to do in the Fade with Solas, they’re going there to calm the Blight, after all, but this time, she got to CHOOSE. And this time she’s doing it with Solas at her side, after ten years of loving him, eight years of searching for him, and all that time waiting. And it may or may not be what Solas deserves, I know that’s a matter of debate, but is it what Lavellan deserves? Without question, yes.

Because she gets to choose what she wants for HERSELF for the first time in ten years, and she can finally release the burden she’s carried for all this time.

I just love Lavellan so much, and yeah, she deserves to be treated better than how Solas did, but she WANTS Solas, and after so long of doing what she HAD to do, I just think she deserves to get what she wants for once.

That ending makes me so happy for so many reasons. But it makes me happy for her more than anything.

[greenheartart]

Day 15 - Mysterious

*why do i care about this?

[eddiesgmcsierra1500denali]

the thing frequently cited as eddie’s Mistake in s5 is “quitting his job without talking to chris” which i really struggle to understand because on one level i don’t think a parent is obligated to talk to their 10 year old child about a career decision and i also don’t think a 10 year old child can be expected to provide reasonable insight on the best approach to their own trauma. and on another level i think this implies that if eddie had talked to chris then he would have Known he didn’t Have to quit his job and could have never been miserable at dispatch … but like. eddie was not fit for active duty. he was right to quit his job! there was a reason bobby didn’t let him come back. his Mistake was using christopher’s supposed needs as his motivation and as an easy excuse to continue repressing his trauma and burgeoning anxieties and to continue marching forward without closely examining what he was trying to get away from. there is a world in which eddie quitting firefighting and being miserable at dispatch for the rest of his days COULD have been the answer and a genuine sacrifice he chose to make as a parent, but that’s not what he was doing—he was convincing himself he was making a genuine sacrifice when what he was actually doing was trying to keep a lid on all the boxes holding his issues.

i also struggle with the idea that the mistake eddie is making Now is “moving to el paso without talking to chris” for similar reasons. like, i don’t think a 14 year old is equipped to make decisions like that, even if they’re for his own sake, or for dealing with his own trauma. there is a world in which eddie packs up and moves to el paso because genuinely, it is better for chris, it’s where chris is thriving, and he’d be well within his right to do so even if it theoretically blocks chris from returning to life in LA—it’s not a mistake for eddie to make the unequivocal decision about where they live lol. the actual problem is that he’s once again using chris thriving in a different environment as an excuse to repress the fact that the reason he’s taking this drastic decision he doesn’t want to take is because he doesn’t trust himself. probably chris IS having a good time in texas. but eddie doesn’t want to think about the wounds that lead him to believe he can’t give chris what he needs, or that lead him to actually hurt chris, so instead he is making another ingenuine sacrifice to avoid feeling things he thinks he doesn’t deserve to feel, or shouldn’t be feeling. of course we know that LA is his home and staying in el paso isn’t going to end up being the right decision, but it’s not the wrong decision because they shouldn’t move away ever or should never be sad ever and eddie should know that, it’s the wrong decision because he’s not being honest with himself about why he’s making it… which was also the case in s5.

[limeartichoke]

set post-never let me go (fic)

(forgot to mention but masky is using ASL here, the exposed hand was originally intended to be drawn doing a "wasn't me" sign (or the closest translation) but i forgot completely until posting this)