#the worldbuilding is crunchy

[moinsbienquekaworu]

Everyone go read Under the Aegis NOW go do it just GO

[brewerssupplies]

looking at a new fantasy world

ask the creator if it's hard or soft

they don't understand

I pull out an illustrated diagram explaining what is hard and what is soft

they laugh and say "it's a good fantasy world ma'am"

it's soft

[transingthoseformers]

Opinion but I think rid15 would've been better if it was it's own continuity and not a sequel to tfp

[rottingraisins]

Happy meriris canon day

IM STILL NOT QUITE OVER IT wikidot user RosySaturniidae i owe you my life. ITS EVEN ON THE RESURRECTION HUB PAGE

Girls when they are still very firmly under the foundations thumb but at least they arent bearing the brunt of it on their own anymore!!

[mearchy]

Have I mentioned how much I love the neon holoadvertisements and signs in Star Wars!! They're shown on lots of city planets but my favorite is Nar Shadaa. Here are some mid-game screenshots I took in TOR, I love you outer space las vegas

[mekanikaltrifle]

in my off time I'm coming up with new stuff for my vamp hunter story, and I honestly want to have something in the title/Proper-Noun-for-the-Protags-Team to do with stalking as in the hunter sense... knowing full well it gives them a creepier air than simply being called a Hunter. But yknow, I want to lean into how offputting their behaviour would seem to an outsider-- they are outsiders, following seemingly normal, if furtive, people into dark places and destroying them...

it's a serial about beast-stalkers, and the world seeped through with malice that they tread behind the cover of the mundane.

Normal shit, right?

No gods, no masters, and no messengers or heralds either-- but a lot of blood. A lot of fire and death and cruelty, of seeing the worst in people and the best in each other and then flipping it over all over again.

There's something that empowered these hunters, and it stands in direct opposition to the vampires and beastmen and spectres that are suffused with the world's unkindness... waiting on the other side.

[pinnithin-writes]

Some of the big-box stores (Trauma Depot, Orchard Hardware, and Experiential Supplies) sell gallon jugs (or even big, industrial five gallon drums) of homogenized life experience. Don't use that stuff. You have to home brew. Seriously. It's a pain, but you have to do it. It's tempting to go for a premade mix of standardized ingredients, for a couple of reasons: You know people have a taste for it, and, in terms of sheer volume, it's nice to not have to cook up so much of your own raw material. You can just imagine how quick and easy and good it must feel to buy a few gallons, unscrew the caps, and glug the stuff into your universe tank, two bottles at a time, filling it up really fast.

But what goes for pastries goes for universes, too. (Note: I don't know anything about pastries.) What you get out can only be as good as what you put in. So use your own stuff. You'll know it best: its idiosyncrasies, its material properties, its little quirks of how it changes under heat and pressure.

On the Synthesis of Minor but Noteworthy Universes by Charles Yu

[unravelingwires]

Crunchies

Kali hummed lazily as she brought the oat bars out of the oven. They were a little extravagant, but it was good to keep treats around a hospital for the younger patients.

[gffa]

Final result of Padawan's Pride is that I, tumblr user gffa, loved it! I loved the plot, the characters, the voice acting, the moments of humor, the moments of gravitas, the moments of aching hurt, the moments of love, all of it was an absolute ride that I had a good time with.

I went in with fairly low expectations, where the reviews I'd read ahead of time gave me the idea that it would be a fairly light, airy story without a lot of weight and I knew that Obi-Wan and Anakin were separated about a quarter of the way into what's probably a 30k word story or so. I was wary it would be like Brotherhood where it was billed as a story about the relationship between the characters, but then just really... wasn't.

But instead the relationship between the characters was never far from the plot of the story, there were so many moments of Obi-Wan and Anakin's psychic connection with each other, where even separated by being on opposite sides of the planet, they still felt the other and were aware of their emotional state.

I can't even quote them (not without it being a two thousand word long post) to show the connection, because it was just always there and the author really used that to great effect--these are PSYCHIC SPACE WIZARDS, they're constantly feeling motivations and feelings, in a low-key way that you might not notice until you're looking for it. But they're always there. Always connected to everything around them. And most importantly to each other--well, most of the time. And that one time they're not connected is an incredible character moment.

For a shorter story, it packed in a lot of emotional punches (including an ending that made me want to lay on the floor and cry because it hit me right in the feelings place) and had a lot of great character insight and Jedi philosophy and culture woven into everything. It felt like a story where the author really cared about the worldbuilding, but it wasn't a story about that, it was just there in the background, which delighted me.

Yes, the main storyline is a light, breezy story, but it was a genuinely fun one that was packed full of all the character moments I could have asked for, it had some crunchy edges to the characters and their interactions, they're still early-ish on in their relationship and often don't fully understand each other or take things in bad faith or have trouble really trusting in each other--but they get there in the end. And it's not a story about anyone being the bad guy, it's a story about two characters who don't always see eye to eye but still try to work towards each other and, in this moment, it works out for them because there's no evil space wizard dripping poison in anyone's ear. As always, I can't guarantee anyone else will enjoy it, only that I had a great time with it and wound up quoting almost five thousand words for my citations project and made almost 30 posts about liveblogging it, so that's my stamp of approval.

If anyone else has listened to it, PLEASE COME YELL WITH ME ABOUT IT.

[megidoreyn]

Hey there, samurai! Have you been holding off on playing SMT IV? Do you want to experience SMT IV in higher resolution to better appreciate the wonderful art and intricate + detailed worldbuilding within this game? Well, look no further! The SMT IV HD Textures Mod is in the works!🎉 ◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️ 【⭐What is the SMT IV HD Textures Mod?⭐】

This is a mod made for the sole purpose of completely "remastering" SMT IV's in-game textures by hand, which includes: the UI + text, backgrounds, character portraits and other visual assets by manually recreating them in higher resolution.

By applying this mod, anybody can experience the stunning HQ detail originally present within the game that was forever lost within the game's original stunted 244p quality. 【⭐How do you manually recreate smaller detailed assets like the Character Portraits?⭐】

In contrast to other HD Mods or Remakes out there using impractical methods to "upscale" character images, our team is dedicated to redrawing the original crunchy ~300px Character Portrait sprites within the game into higher resolution by hand ourselves (using the ~7000px Key Art as a base). And sometimes, we have to redraw certain sprites entirely from scratch!

➡️As one of the artists part of the team, I'm very passionate about getting those iconic "Doi style" elements that are present throughout his SMTIV art. Personally speaking, it's an honor and a learning experience to be a part of this project in being able to faithfully recreate his work with as much respect and care as possible. That being said: We're all basically doing the work that an entire dedicated team within a company would usually do, out of love for this game! And because we want to provide something meaningful for the megaten fandom, too. If you're interested, stay tuned for more information! And don't hesitate to spread the word, too! ◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️ 【Feel free to follow the staff linked below for any updates on twitter!】 Please give lots of love to the staff! Your interest and commentary means a lot to our humble team + helps motivate us to keep going!💪 ⭐HD UI Redesign, HD Demon Scans and more⭐: 👾Vesk ⭐HD Character Portrait + HD Sprite Redraw Artists⭐: 👾Lamprey 👾Reyn - PS: I'll be posting some of my progress here on tumblr too! ➡️Twitter log of sprites I've finished so far + Works in Progress ◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️ 【Project promotional banner above and character portrait art credit within this entire post + the banner goes to myself (@megidoreyn on twitter and here on tumblr!)】

[alatariel-galadriel]

Me on my hands and knees with every MCU installment (in vain):

also the way the blip was used exclusively for comedy in ffh makes me CRAZY. peter and may had to find a new apartment while the world reconstructed itself. peter still has all his old tshirts which means that after he died either tony or happy went to their old apartment and packed up all their belongings and kept them in storage for 5 years for no real reason at all since there was no hope of return at that point. ned and mj both dusted but we don't get to hear about their families?? did they have little siblings who are older than them now too??? ffh plays it off as "very goofy how we're all legally 21 but in reality we've been frozen at 16 years old for the past 5 years and have to find out where we fit in this new reality. lol!" NOT LOL. HORRIFYING.

[txttletale]

Wtf is Lancer and why is it shit (serious question)

lancer is a tabletop roleplaying game made by the guy who drew kill six billion demons and another guy. i wouldn't call it 'shit', necessarily--it's good in a lot of the ways that matter. it's first and foremost a tactical mech combat game and on that level it's incredible. its ruleset is finely tuned, provides great amounts of GM support to make running what might otherwise be overwhelmingly crunchy combat easier, and has a truly stunning and cool level of character customization available. so as a game, i think it's great fun to play and run, genuinely innovative, and a huge step forward for battlemap tactical wargame type TTRPGs in general.

the lore though, kind of sucks. i think it has two clear and overlapping core problems. problem #1 is that it is a utopia as envisioned by a social democrat. it's a world which the text describes as 'post-capitalist' (but there are still evil megacorporations with private armies who own slaves) and 'post-scarcity' (but only in the developed 'core' systems, so. y'know. there's scarcity). at many points in the text they say that Union (the game's main faction) is utopian, throwing around that exact word a bunch of times as well as 'mutual aid' and 'direct action' and the like. but what they describe is just kind of an imperialist Space Sweden with several distinct forms of slavery that constantly expands and uses its Benevolent Imperial Power to intervene on the Backwards Violent Worlds on its outer border but its good because its just trying to bring them UBI.

to show what i mean, here's one of the game's writers¹ talking about how it would be morally wrong for Union to, say, appropriate the property of a private military corporation that also operates as a fascist nation-state:

it's 'revolution' as imagined by the limpest of social democrats. and of course this would honestly be fine, whatever, most sci-fi settings are fundamentally achingly liberal, but the game goes so out of its way to signpost how Radical it is and how Hopeful and Liberationist you're meant to see the setting as

the other core problem is closely related--it feels like the lancer guys put every cool sci-fi idea they had into lancer even when it completely clashes with the core ideas behind it. like, AIs in this settings are callled 'NHPs' (non-human persons) and they're eldritch god-like beings from another dimension who have be kept 'shackled' (lancer's words, not mine!) to keep them as pliant and obedient AI assistants instead of hostile eldritch abominations. this is obviously horrifying and dystopian but it rules, it would be sick fucking worldbuilding for something with the tone of 40k or a one-off doctor who or star trek episode--but as a fundamental technology foundational to what we are supposed to believe is a post-revolutionary society founded on mutual aid and solidarity and blah blah blah it's glaringly dissonant.

bear in mind this is all just going off the rulebook. lancer fans have told me that the supplements and campaign modules fix some of this or contextualise it. but on the other hand communists have told me that they make it worse and i trust the communists more. i leave you with this incredible passage from the game's foreword:

[transingthoseformers]

No because now I'm thinking about how many times Vos, Helex, and Tesarus might've been mantles traded down from one mech to another

Kaon was probably the only bot named Kaon, and we know in canon same with Tarn. Because yeah they knew each other before the war as Glitch and Amp and all that. We know Vos has been replaced at least once.

[cactusspatz]

May recs

So May turned into my biennial swing through Naruto fandom (have I ever seen a single episode? nope), during which I managed to fall down the Madara/Tobirama rabbit hole - which is a very fun time if you enjoy extreme competency and enemies-to-lovers! Also I've got some Kakashi/Iruka fic, and a couple of Guardian fics for Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan. More recs at Pinboard as well!

NARUTO - FOUNDERS ERA

As Is the Sea Marvelous by blackkat

Tobirama is willing to give absolutely anything for Hashirama and his dream.

AKA the fic that started me down this rabbit hole. Blackkat is so dangerous with the gateway drug fics like that - this is a great canon AU aimed directly at my id where Tobirama surrenders to the Uchiha in hopes of stopping an escalation of the war after he wounds Izuna.

and all the fire's at your fingertips by pandaflower

Tobirama is elbow deep in a stealth mission in Wind Country when he runs into a shinobi squad toting a stolen Uchiha child. Tobirama disapproves.

Charming gen competence porn/kidfic adventure.

With Enemies Like These by sarkasticfics

After a serious and devastating attack, the Uchiha are in desperate need of a sealmaster. Unfortunately for them, the best candidate happens to be from the Senju clan. Fortunately for them, he doesn't seem all that inclined to act like an enemy. Which is lucky because, as it turns out, there are plenty of other adversaries making moves in Fire Country - both the clans will need to make new friends to survive. Madara would have been content if his new husband tolerated him and helped his clan stay safe. He doesn't quite know what to do with the fact that his husband doesn't stop there.

Jam-packed with competence and tropes, just the way I like it - and there's some incredibly lovely moments as they reconcile with their clans' bloody pasts.

Count Your Blessings by madmothmadame

The war is over. Tobirama ended it when he put his sword through Izuna's center mass. But where war had united the Senju behind their leader, peace threatened to tear them apart. And who better for the warmongers to look to as a leader than the greatest killer of Uchiha they had ever seen? There were only two problems with that plan. One, Tobirama would never, ever, betray his elder brother. Two, he may or may not have a surprisingly not dead Uchiha Izuna in a coma in his guest room, hiding the secret of resurrection that Tobirama needs with everything he is. Now if only he would wake.

Deliciously epic. The inciting incident is very hand-wavey (having been inspired by another fic), but the follow-through in worldbuilding around Konoha's founding, the metric truckload of feels, and the twisty political intrigue makes for a great read. Be warned, there's like 250K of hurt before it gets to any sort of comfort, so maybe save it for a long rainy day if you don't want to suffer (like me). Also, the ship is pretty background, so don't expect much romance - but the gen relationships are fantastic and crunchy.

NARUTO - CANON ERA

for the record by ohwickedsoul

Asuma looks from Anko, who is laser-focused in a way rarely seen outside missions, and Iruka’s bewildered face. “Holy shit,” he says. “You’ve seen Kakashi’s face.”

The ending is TRUE ROMANCE, OKAY. And hilarious!

It's Amazing Who You Stumble Into (along the road of life) by vulcanhighblood

Hatake Kakashi and Umino Iruka have been part of each other's lives for a long time. A lot longer than Iruka realizes, anyway. Kakashi recognizes this is something of a problem, but only once it's too late to do anything about it. OR How To Make Your Secret Identity Friend Your Real-Life Boyfriend: A Shinobi's Guide To How Not To Romance

In which they keep running into each other over the years, complicated by Kakashi being ANBU for the first half of it. I loved the varied assortment of meetings, and the way they kept trading off on helping each other (physically, medically, emotionally).

GUARDIAN

Breaking Point by musicalluna & nightwalker

Zhao Yunlan is having a really terrible week, and it just gets worse when he starts to think Shen Wei has gotten tired of his bullshit.

Fantastic post-canon piece where the boys really need to communicate, and the universe/work is not helping. Excellent characterization and some brutally good relationship fights - but they figure it out in the end.

However deep the Lake by elenothar

Zhao Yunlan finds out a lot earlier that the Envoy isn't as invulnerable as he seems.

Classic h/c story where they're taken captive together in Episode 4.

[maydaymadier]

I never actually went back and included the reading guide here we go

Thrice Cards are a method of divination from the theocracy of Sfânt. A deck has twenty total cards. In reading, a diviner can pull three cards at a time, until there are no more sets of three available. Even-numbered cards are destinations, meant to reflect where you are in the present. Odd-numbered cards are landmarks, meant to show forks in the road, of where the future is leading. The orientation of the cards when pulled also determines meaning, a reversed/upside-down card has an inverted meaning from the upright card.

[cadere-art]

What’s one food/drink in your world that sounds amazing

Do they have any musical instruments, if so is it based off of any really world stuff?

Tahen cultures have all sorts of taboo around fire. This is taken to an extreme in Ranai, where open fires are completely forbidden and one must own a special permit to tend a cooking fire. As a result, Ranai cuisine is renowned for it's wealth of raw, pickled, and otherwise marinated foods. Bcause Ranai's territory is an archipelago where fish and seafood is the main source of protein, makwa, acid-cooked fish akin to our world's ceviche, is a staple. Real-life ceviche being delicious, it is only logical that fictional ceviche would also be*.

Bird-fish makwa is an ancient traditional meal of the archipelago. It has three main ingredients: gruel of uciwici, an oat-like, distinctively purple grain rich in anthocyanins, dried and salted kelp, and shrimp and crustacean meat marinated in sumac vinegar. Eggs, herbs, and tart fruits are sometimes added as toppings. Bird-fish makwa most salient tastes are tartness from the sumac vinegar with salt and umami from the seafood and kelp, on a base note of mild and nutty sweetness reminiscient of brown rice from the mashed uciwici. The name of this recipe is a mistranslation of the meal's name from Wetki to Ranaite Tahen.

Jimeleu makwa is a classic ceviche which puportedly originates from the town of Jimeleu, where the soils and climate are conducive to the growth of citrus trees. Jimeleu ceviche consists of diced white fish acid-cooked in lime juice with horseradish, white beans, and cold-cooked uciwici grains. The marinade is usually clear, with a green tinge from the lime and horseradish. Common variants add cold fish broth or cream of green peas to water the ceviche into a soup. Jimeleu makwa is sour and spicy, and variants with cream of green peas have a distinctive sweetness.

Cici-Uli makwa is reminiscient of tataki or carpaccio. A large, white-meat fish is cut into filets which are marinated in a mixture of sumac vinegar, oil, and seasonings (including, but not limited to, salt, horseradish, and tart fruits akin to pincherries). The marinated filet is then cut into very thin slices and served with crunchy seeds and sliced sweet onion. Only the external edge of the fish has cooked: the main flavor of Cici-Uli makwa is that of the raw fish itself. This type of makwa requires very fresh fish.

*Note that I have not tried to make these The Most Palatable Possible - especially the first one!

---

The answer to the second question is a bit less interesting. In short: yes, they do have music instruments! However, I am profoundly not musically inclined and this (as well as sports) is a thing where I show my biases as an individual: I have done roughly 0 musical worldbuilding, and it is unlikely that I will ever do more than the bare minimum (when I remember that the world should, to feel alive, have some music). About Ranaites, I can say that they have a variety of instruments, especially winds and percussions. Bamboo is an important material for their woodwinds and percussion instruments. A large shell is used as a traditional wind instrument. I imagine they have some sort of relatively simple string instrument, and a slightly more complex one with better acoustic imported by members of the Oumdashen diaspora. Ranaites have inherited a taste for passive music such as windchimes from the archipelago's original inhabitants, the Wetki. Shell windchimes are a popular fixture of gardens throughout the archipelago.