#we are about to get into some WEIRD metaphysical worldbuilding

[legobiwan]

I didn't think this would happen, but I am totally writing a chapter of this now-story that is entitled, "From the Journals of E. Gadd," and hoo boi, this is going to be very exciting.

[balioc]

With regard to R. Scott Bakker's Second Apocalypse books:

i'd be very interested in hearing why you both really like that series and also think it would be super alienating/what its target audience is

Yeah. So. OK.

The short version is "these are books for philosophy and history nerds, who love dense complicated worldbuilding, and who are lacking a lot of common social/ideological allergies."

They are fantasy books that take ideas seriously, in a way that will appeal to a lot of the people reading this. They're built on top of some really really cool metaphysical premises, and they explore those to the utmost. They do Big Sweep of History better than most fantasy books purporting to do that thing; the first trilogy in the series is essentially about a crusade, of the real Reclaim the Holy Land style, and it does a bang-up job capturing both the grandeur and the grotesquerie entailed in that kind of endeavor.

They have a lot in common with rationalist fiction, in a "descended from a common intellectual ancestor" kind of way, but they do a lot of important things very differently from capital-R Ratfic in a way that I like. They have a much darker moral and cosmological tone, with the gee-whiz take-us-to-the-stars optimism replaced by a kind of profound historical and cosmological horror. They are also, overall, much more literary and just-plain-weird in style. One of our protagonists is basically a rationalist supergenius raised in isolation who's just now encountering the world and learning to bend it to his will, and...well, the process is cool and maybe even overall good (maybe) (very maybe) but it sure is unsettling in basically every conceivable way.

The worldbuilding is also top-notch, in my opinion, not only in terms of depth but in terms of tone and style. It's a big, sprawling setting that feels like it was created by someone who honest-to-God knows how to channel Tolkeinian numinousness and someone who knows and appreciates pulp fantasy and someone who's actually read a goddamn history book.

But.

...look, I don't even know where to start here. Let me just list a grab-bag of things that are true about these books:

In the first trilogy, we have two major POV characters. One of them is a very sweet, angsty, relatable dude who also understands a lot of key facts about the setting history and the magic system. The other is a ruthless sociopath who engages with literally everyone and everything in a purely manipulative way. Guess which one we get to spend hundreds of pages with first, before meeting the other?

The ultimate bad guys of the setting, the Mordor faction, consists of aliens whose culture is built around the idealization of rape. Their hordes of minions, the orc-analogues, are genetically engineered rape monsters.

...there's a lot of conspicuously offputting sex stuff in general, in fact.

Long stretches of the narrative are basically misery porn, in which we get to see close-up just how grindingly awful it is to be part of a crusading army on the march / to be a prostitute in a city through which a crusade is passing / etc.

The metaphysics, which are the conceptual foundation of the series and also its coolest feature, do not get revealed in significant depth until halfway through the third volume. A friend of mine read the series on my recommendation, and kept asking me questions that amounted to "...are you sure these are the books you keep talking about?"

You do not find out until at least six books in whether our sociopathic rationalist supergenius protagonist is essentially benevolent or not. Despite spending an awful lot of time in his head.

Plus, y'know, there's generally a lot of philosophical jawing.

Plus...even I have to admit that, especially starting with the second trilogy, the series starts making a number of unforced errors. (There's a moment where we go back to the Monastery of Rationalism whence our protagonist dude sprang, and we learn a lot more about what went on there, and...sense-making gets sacrificed for shock horror in a big way.)

In sum: there's something to offend just about everyone, deeply. Old-school fantasy lovers will dislike the constant nasty subversions of classic numinous Cool Fantasy Stuff. Contemporary nu-fantasy types will dislike the extent to which the series is about the powerful wreaking their will upon the powerless, the general (extremely deliberate) sexism of the setting, etc. People who are there for the setting will be annoyed by how much is concealed for a very long time; people who are there for the characters will be annoyed by how unlikeable many of the key characters are. Almost everyone will be wigged out by the sloggy unpleasantness, the sexual grossness, or both.

[vacantgodling]

2, 4, and 10 for tcol worldbuilding?? >:D

- @magic-is-something-we-create

pax beloved thank u 🙏🏾 i’m about to ramble my ASS off

2. We all know about weddings and marriage, but are there any ceremonies that symbolically / legally / magically officialize a different type of relationship in your world’s culture? (Adoption, apprenticeship, friendship, etc.)

generally speaking in terrae marriage isn’t inherently “romantic” (or, doesn’t have to be). several deities in terrae have oracles that preside over different official things, and the god MIRANKA (who is the god of many things but broadly speaking over all relationships and all forms of love) has oracles who perform a variety of different functions. OOMI (short for oracles of MIRANKA; not to be confused with OOM which are oracles of MUINENS) are relationship mediators and counselors, and hold “bonding ceremonies” of all kinds. this can be from a child to a parent or parents (so what we would call adoption), to friends who swear an oath to one another (so found family or blood oaths or qprs or whatever you want to call it), even weapons or pets to wielders or owners—all that matters is there is some sort of love involved. and it isn’t a government handled matter; it’s a matter of the gods. if you are willing to put your relationship (of any sort) in front of the god of relationships then you are essentially bound to uphold whatever you say you will do for that other person. it’s very serious. if you aren’t sure about whoever you want to be bound to i would say just skip the OOMI ceremony lol.

in terms of marriage even that isn’t necessarily a legalized practice, at least not for the working, non-noble class though it does vary by city. the official kingdom decree has pretty much allowed the city states to do as they see fit on this matter however all nobles must be officially registered with the kingdom. so there isn’t a ceremony so much as there’s paperwork that you have to send for approval by the chamber of bonding so.

as an aside though about marriages (bc i’m rambling now), you can have a wedding ceremony and dedicate your love or relationship in front of MIRANKA without actually getting an OOMI involved. an OOMI is more like if you want to create a divinely blessed oath with semi magical benefits, but less powerful priestesses/priests of MIRANKA will lead a celebration ceremony for your special day if you desire. :3

4. Are there any trades or hobbies whose practitioners are stereotyped as weird or extraordinary? (E.g. the “mad hatter” trope.) Why? How true is this perception?

to talk about weird trades, we’re going to get into class squabbles. not the upper class versus the lower class but the official guild classes that an adventurer can be apart of. the biggest class squabble is between alchemists, gunslingers & gunners amongst themselves. all three classes hail from the industrial city of Marthveil where alchemy was first invented and discovered by the god of alchemy (among other things) MARTH (who was actually a terranean venerated to god status but that’s a whole other story). alchemists obviously are the first class created of this tree, and they rely on a form of the magic VIS to transmute one thing into another and use elemental attacks. at the collegiate where you study alchemy officially (The Academy of the Sciences and Metaphysical) you are given a piece of metal to bond with your whole life and as you bond and your magic grows it’s power grows. your final exam at the school is to craft your own personal brachum calces—which is essentially a magical arm gauntlet that you channel all your alchemical magic through. this is all well and good, and alchemy is a very highly revered profession in Marthveil especially but also in guilds. however, as times continue to modernize and invent; the class of gunslingers was invented.

gunslingers, instead of crafting a gauntlet to channel their magic, as their name suggests fashion their bonded metal into a fucking Gun. these guns don’t require physical bullets but can channel an alchemist’s magic into “rounds” that can have differing abilities — usually gunslingers take the elemental route versus the transmutive route while traditional alchemists tend to be the opposite. there was some friction these two classes in the beginning but that’s mostly smoothed out in favor of the final class that has begun to arise out of marthveil: gunners.

gunners use no magic, which is what makes them WILDLY controversial. yet, they use guns—which at this point were only used by gunslingers with magic, using gunpowder and bullets fashioned of yknow. whatever. they, like mba’s (melee bladed artisans or what we call non magic brawlers of any sort) are the class of the everyday man and alchemists and gunslingers HATE that. gunners argue that they have a right to exist because the patron god that i mentioned MARTH is also a god of inventors and innovation. as an author’s aside, i can tell you MARTH himself is delighted by terraneans innovation in creating guns and gunners, however alchemists and gunslingers would argue that they’re tainting the scared craft.

this is actually quite a plot point in part 2 of the main tcol story (because i don’t talk about alchemists all that much until part 2), as one of the main characters helina gallant is a gunner… that used to be an alchemist. but something is keeping her from wanting to use her magic 👀

so that was also ridiculously long but i hope that made sense! there are other things that i could’ve got into but this one is a pretty big one.

10. What’s a fun fact about your world that you as the worldbuilder are dying to share, but nobody ever thinks to ask? 

god so much of tcol holy shit. i think something that won’t get brought up unless i FORCE ITS WAY IN (which idk if i can, but i can dream) is how the minor goddess of wind, gusts and gales came into being? there’s two types of gods in tcol—there are those who just are and come into being and then there are those that are usually venerated from terranean to becoming a god of something. there’s several gods like this—if you remember from A LONG TIME AGO on my old blog The Lady of The Mists excerpt i wrote (which i may post again tbh lol) she, as well as MARTH, KOST, and who i’ll be talking about rn EFFE are those of the latter variety. EFFE was originally a terranean named twilightsorrow idanly and a very fast tl;dr (i can explain in more depth if you’d like LMAO but for now) she was experimented on heavily and is the first “technical” dark hunter that came into being. after meeting a bard in the dungeon she was kept in, she learned how to play music (which is a very powerful form of magic) and longed for her freedom, which she eventually gained. she was then found by the god MIZDARR and he venerated her to be the goddess of wind, gusts and gales. she’s very elusive and powerful, and many say that the howls of the wind at night sound like that for a Reason 👀. the part that probably won’t come up is the fact that she used to be a dark hunter, very very VERY few people know that bc much of that history was destroyed. but, one of the minor characters actually has a name derived from her, her name’s efelia!

[raymossrex5]

The below are some metaphysics and ‘bigger picture’ deets on a worldbuilding project I just started, plus a ‘bestiary’ of god types.

Some background info: this multiverse has a sort of ‘4th wall’ keeping out most creator deities from entering it. the exact mechanics of which are very complicated, aside from allowing infinitesimal portions of a god’s power through. Enough to create universes, because metaphysics is weird and relative; you can make a rock with 100 quintessence in some places and a multiverse with 0.0001 quintessence in others.

So the most they usually do is send tiny pieces of themselves as avatars into the worlds they create. Then one of them decided to shatter Himself into pieces to get around the barrier before fusing the pieces into His own reality, which created ‘true magic’ and also made His reality become supermassive. both physically and existentially, bc while you can’t really tell from the veil ALL creator deities are stupidly op, so Him putting all of Himself into his world made it and its metaphysics ‘dominant’ over everything else.

Note that while the multiverse is HUGE and infinite by some metrics it is nowhere near as massive as it could be: it is hyper saturated with quintessence in comparison to the realities that came before it. Worlds that size were once spun from such little quintessence they hardly existed.

This is also why most beings that aren’t directly produced by creator deities have humanish brains as He had a human mind; whilst any random creator deity is likely to be somewhat eldritch by our standards, humanity’s metaphysical dominance means they kinda have to stay on the ‘fringe’ of most of reality if they can’t make a sufficiently human avatar.

Aspect lords: Aspect lords directly serve one of the metamagical forces underlying how magic itself functions (examples include Chaos, Order, Relativity, and more. They’re somewhere between splintered pieces of the mind of Him and platonic concepts) which basically means they can do anything as long as it doesn’t go too far against their Aspect. They essentially tightrope walk the line between mortal and god.

Creator avatars: creator avatars are kind of like aspect lords but they ‘serve’ an unbroken creator deity. They’re more extensions of the creator deity than actual independent beings. Technically stronger than aspect lords but they’re weaker outside of their own domains, and given that most of reality is currently running on Him.exe without sufficient compatibility they can’t enter most of reality without being booted out of existence.

Aspects: the aspects are the scattered fragments of pieces of Him. Each of them, while weaker than a creator deity, is exponentially more able to affect reality due to being on the ‘existing’ side of the veil. They govern how ‘true magic’ works, (What we might recognise as magic existed before Him’s splintering, it just had wildly different metaphysics from place to place based on the whims of the deity fueling it and also had absolutely no ability to countermand deities because its existential weight was basically 0.) serving less as actual ‘beings’ and more as forces.

Creator deities: the big ones. Creator deities are all (each and every one) infinitely powerful and had a habit of creating worlds to play with; aside from that there’s endless variation; they number in the quadrillions. Fortunately for us only infinitesimally tiny pieces of them can enter reality and aside from the really human ones they can only use their own power, even if they control said power absolutely. Most ‘dislike’ (if they can feel: remember most are eldritch by our standards) the multiverse as it is for a variety of reasons but can’t do much about it. Sufficiently human ones are absolutely vibing though.

[iamthescalesofjustice]

hi hello 2023 time to be incoherent about the locked again lets fucking go

disclaimer until atn comes out i am not taking at face value the presented ideas about the worldspirit blessing john with necromancy. maybe not even trusting the idea that alecto is a true and accurate iteration of the worldspirit idk

i think the gold eyes are bc john was exposed to necro-radiation* from the cryogenic tubes**

when you have something dark change into something shiny and gold it means your nuclear reactor needs better shielding bc stray leakage is transmuting buts of the lead shielding into gold. dark brown eyes into gold eyes, lead into gold. 

insert that poem thats like ‘alchemists you were right, it is magic’. 

side note, alchemy as being historically an inseparable tangle of magic and science and spiritual is relevant here, bc i feel that is very much a thing for this series both vibeswise and very literally in terms of worldbuilding and possibly in the metaphysical underpinnings of the setting as well. 

among gideons weird powers that are mostly glossed-over*** is that she can like, see the energy fields of necromancy. yknow that bit where after the sense-sharing harrow is like griddle wtf and then the story moves on? that. 

anyway why have cool eyes and also cool aura vision and not have the two be correlated at all? and they arent just gideons eyes. so if arent assuming that john was literally divinely blessed and instead consider what happened as part of a superpower manifestation, we are quickly reminded how radiation* and lab experiments are of course iconic elements in a lot of superpower manifestation tales. 

anyway. timeline and cause-effect chain i am proposing here looks loosely like: 

- the cryogenics project produces at least some cases where a cryo-preserved body radiates thanergy in what must be a longer-lasting or more stable flow than what gets naturally produced ‘in the wild’ during normal course of events

- john gets exposed to a lot of thanergy from working at/on/near/around these cryotubes. 

- john ends up developing golden eyes. 

- john ends up being able to see the thanergy. 

- now that the new form of energy was discovered, it was able to be studied and thus the field of necromancy was born. 

- ten thousand years down the line, gideon didnt realize everyone else couldnt see that stuff

okay its by now taking too much effort to even try to spell things so im wrapping it up here. peace and love and magic eyes on planets earth and pluto goodnight

[erdasmcnonsense]

Okay I'm gonna put this under a readmore to spare everyone following either of us that did not sign up to listen to my long ramblings from having to scroll over a miles-long post, but

The original text is a snippet of Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth, the Debate of Finrod and Andreth, which is a draft of... well, a scene, a dialogue, between Finrod, an elven king, and Andreth, a human wisewoman, on the nature of humans and elves and why humans are mortal and... a bunch of other things. I have a catholic (and autistic about catholicism) friend who said something about original sin being relevant? idk my understanding of christianity is very surface-level, i'm not even nominally protestant christian on paper the way most people in Finland are, let alone devout catholic christian the way the author was, so. yeah, idk. Anyway point being, as far as I can tell it's largely a worldbuilding text exploring certain metaphysical aspects of the setting that are relevant but not necessarily explained in detail in the bigger stories.

However the last 1300 or so words of the text are less devoted to philosophical worldbuilding debate, and instead focus on the fact that Andreth was in love with Aegnor, Finrod's brother, and Aegnor was in love with her, and it was just a whole thing. That part is in my opinion easier to translate just because while there's the issue of the archaic language (which, in my opinion, my translation does not sound archaic enough in Finnish, but it's kinda like, so much of that tone comes in the original text from the use of the archaic informal second-person singular pronoun thou, which... well, we both know that sinä is not a particularly archaic word in Finnish, so i'm struggling to find grammatical structures and words in Finnish that would create the same archaic tone, tbh), at least the topic of conversation is fairly straightforward, and the characters' emotions and attitudes and what they're getting at when they're speaking are fairly easy to get.

Meanwhile most of the rest of the text is like... there's just so many meanings and intentions and like, really kind of big and complicated concepts of very fundamental parts of the way the setting works, that I need to first manage to grasp in the first place despite the purposefully archaic language myself, before I can translate it right. Because it does no good translating the words themselves if you're failing to understand the nuances and deeper meanings of it. And then through it all, although this is a fantasy setting, there's that weird undercurrent going on between the lines that I can kinda tell is like, there's some what i suspect to be heavily christian ideas in there, and I feel like there's the possibility that one reason I'm struggling so much to comprehend certain elements is that I don't have a deep understanding of christian mythology and worldview to provide me context to them. So that fact that the topics of conversation in much of the text are very complicated theological-philosophical-metaphysical stuff is what's making it hard to translate.

The author of the original text is J.R.R. Tolkien, so, you know, Hobbit and Lord of the Rings and Silmarillion and all that (i'm a huge Tolkien nerd). Athrabeth is one of the many posthumously published things Tolkien wrote, specifically published with his son Christopher Tolkien's commentary in Morgoth's Ring, the tenth volume of the History of Middle-Earth series (the HoME has never been translated to Finnish, and i don't know whether it's because the Finnish publisher doesn't believe it'd pay itself back well enough, or because they can't or don't want to get anyone to translate the really long stretches of narrative poetry, sometimes in meters difficult to do in Finnish (the Lay of Leithian for example is written in rhyming couplets of iambic pentameter, and iambic meters generally tend to be a pain in the ass to translate to Finnish due to the way Finnish does word stress) that some of the volumes have).

But like, for example here is a small bit from the harder part of the text:

'Nay, I do not believe this,' said Andreth. 'For that would be contempt of the body, and is a thought of the Darkness unnatural in any of the Incarnate whose life uncorrupted is a union of mutual love. But the body is not an inn to keep a traveller warm for a night, ere he goes on his way, and then to receive another. It is a house made for one dweller only, indeed not only house but raiment also; and it is not clear to me that we should in this case speak only of the raiment being fitted to the wearer rather than of the wearer being fitted to the raiment. 'I hold then that it is not to be thought that the severance of these two could be according to the true nature of Men. For were it "natural" for the body to be abandoned and die, but "natural" for the fëa to live on, then there would indeed be a disharmony in Man, and his parts would not be united by love. His body would be a hindrance at best, or a chain. An imposition indeed, not a gift. But there is one who imposes, and who devises chains, and if such were our nature in the beginning, then we should derive it from him - but that you say should not be spoken. 'Alas! Out in the darkness men do say this nonetheless, but not the Atani as thou knowest, not now. I hold that in this we are as ye are, truly Incarnates, and that we do not live in our right being and its fullness save in a union of love and peace between the House and the Dweller. Wherefore death, which divides them, is a disaster to both.'  

and it seems i haven't gotten around to translating that passage yet, so here's a quick and dirty translation (mind you this will not match the earlier in quality even because it was something i did on the spot and haven't really polished):

'Ei, sitä minä en usko', sanoi Andreth. 'Sillä se olisi ruumiin halveksuntaa, ja on ajatus epäluonnollisesta Pimeydestä kaikissa Ruumiillistuneissa, joiden elämä turmelemattomana on molemminpuolisen rakkauden liitto. Mutta ruumis ei ole majatalo, jonka on tarkoitus tarjota lämpöä matkalaiselle yön ajaksi, ennen kuin tämä jatkaa kulkuaan, ja vastaanottaa sitten uusi vieras. Se on talo, joka on tehty vain yhdelle asukkaalle, eikä pelkästään talo vaan myös vaate; eikä minulle ole selvää, että tässä tapauksessa tulisi puhua pelkästä vaatteen sovittamisesta pukijalle, vaan pukijan sovittamisesta vaatteelle. 'Uskon siis, että ei tule kysymykseen, että näiden kahden erottaminen voisi kuulua Ihmisten todelliseen luontoon. Sillä jos olisi "luonnollista" ruumiin tulla hylätyksi ja kuolla, mutta "luonnollista" fëan jatkaa elämää, silloin ei tosiaan Ihminen olisi sopusoinnussa itsensä kanssa, eikä hänen osiaan yhdistäisi rakkaus. Hänen ruumiinsa olisi parhaimmillaankin taakka, tai kahle. Pakote se tosiaan olisi, ei lahja. Mutta on yksi, joka pakottaa ja joka luo kahleita, ja jos sellainen olisi alunalkaen ollut luontomme, silloin meidän täytyisi saada se häneltä - mutta sitä ei sinun mukaasi tule sanoa. 'Voi! Pimeydessä ihmiset sanovat niin kuitenkin, mutta eivät Atani, kuten sinä tiedät, eivät nyt. Uskon, että tässä suhteessa me olemme kuten te olette, todella Ruumiillistuneita, ja että me emme koe todellista olemustamme ja sen täyttymystä paitsi rakkauden ja rauhan liitossa Asumuksen ja Asukkaan välillä. Missä tapauksessa kuolema, joka erottaa ne, on onnettomuus kummallekin.'

I hope you can see what I mean when I say that this is more difficult than the "oh i love him but i'm sad because he loved me but he still rejected me" bit, haha

Lyricstranslate is such a fun website and I wanted to make an account for it but I found out that apparently I have had an account on it for few years already! And I had just completely forgotten that I made it. Well I made a Finnish translation for Where Is Your Rider by The Oh Hellos, if someone wants to check it out. It is probably not the best because the original uses so many odd words and sentences which don't seem to make any sense but I think I managed to translate it at least somewhat nicely :]

Here is the link!

[sixth-light]

Amongst Our Weapons

Yes, it came out three weeks ago; no, I did not read it before today because I knew it would eat my brain (which it did, I sat down to read a chapter before doing some other things and then got up two hours later).

No spoiler take: I enjoyed it! The series has now settled pretty firmly into its new shape as a much more conventional procedural with less worldbuilding weirdness, and it’s doing a good job of keeping the pace on existing plot while having a self-contained story. I think I liked it more than False Value but FV happened at a very specific emotional time in my life so I probably need to re-read it to check whether that’s really true. I am SO stoked that [SPOILER] is back on the scene. I can’t believe Peter is still living in a pre-Brexit world, the lucky bastard.

(full-book spoilers below the cut)

First up, the ending scene: I was vaguely spoiled for this by my dash but I’m neither surprised nor that worried about it? It makes perfect sense for Nightingale to want to retire, he’s been on the job for over a century, and they’re finally at a place where he’s tactically useful but not strategically necessary, as it were. Also, it’s been firmly established that his conception of himself as the last wizard in Britain wasn’t even close to being true. From a Doylistic perspective, this is a great way to ease out of the question of ‘why doesn’t Nightingale save the day’ every time Peter is in trouble. Besides, at the rate the books are going it probably won’t happen for another five or ten anyway. 

Taking down the Folly wards and physically damaging the building feels very Symbolic in terms of where the series is going. 

I liked Danni but I’m not sure I got a strong sense of her as a character - she seems a good foil for Peter and flexible enough to handle the Folly. 

I’m so glad we got to see the twins being born! Fatherhood is something Peter has wanted for a long time. 

Also so glad Peter is in ongoing therapy because Jesus Christ does he need it. 

All of the Lesley stuff fed my addiction to the whole Peter & Lesley BEST NEMESES dynamic perfectly, loved it. She’s smart but Sahra is right: Peter always overestimates her, she’s not as smart as she thinks she is or as Peter has convinced himself she is. I would like her to stick around as a supervillain for ages. Chef’s kiss. 

CAROLINE CAME BACK WITH A BLACKSMITH GIRLFRIEND, A+, NO NOTES. 

I can’t believe the central plot was about the Spanish Inquisition, even given the title & chapter titles I was still not expecting the Spanish Inquisition. Yes, I know that’s the joke. 

There’s something there about the metaphysics of allokosmoi and ghosts and the Mary Engine but I am definitely going to have to read False Value again to get my thoughts on that straight.

The whole sequence with the dead airmen was really beautiful. 

I really want AOW!Peter to time travel back and tell RoL!Peter he’s going to sleep over at Seawoll’s house one day. 

This book leaves the vague impression that at least half of Peter’s friends are queer women. Again, no notes. 

We all saw the line about the coach house being a retreat for “gay young wizards” in the 20s y/y? Lol nice. 

I did spot one minor error re timing - Peter talks about Alistair McKay not having been “me too’d” but that parlance didn’t take off until 2017, whereas Peter is still in early 2016. 

Which leads me to reflect that I am very glad the books are going in the direction of Peter’s relationship-building, especially with Caroline and Grace, because I am more and more uneasy about a series that is going to follow Peter as a police officer through the RL events of the UK 2016-2022 (and counting), because jesus there’s some grim stuff coming up. No matter how good Peter is at institutional juggling and bureaucratese (which is so good it’s catching) he’s not good enough to not be an agent of the system. His fear over killing Francisca in this book is a small reflection of that. It felt...relieving...to know there are other people out there, doing their own things. Not because I don’t like Peter as a character but because between False Value and now I’ve lost any personal belief that the structural problems with the police can be fixed from the inside. 

I realise I haven’t mentioned Bev and that’s because she didn’t really DO a lot except provide light domestic entertainment, but she seems to be living her best life so good for her? 

I remain very amused that Peter, when being questioned about his religious beliefs or lack thereof, did not drop his partner’s divinity on Danni. I guess that’s waiting for a later lesson.  

[seddm]

Since I keep writing Starco stories I know this is going to come up, do we know what actually goes on in the Underworld? Is it a normal place like the rest of Mewni or something else? I assume they don't actually torture souls for eternity since all the other Mewni kingdoms are cool with the Underworld but do we really know this? If they did torture souls I can see there being a lot of angry Earth religions after the Cleave takes place.

Some weird detail I remember: If you look in the map of Mewni you’ll notice "boats" on the Dock of Unending Torment. We also saw in the Curse of the Blood Moon that they enjoy fast food. Tom "tortures" Marco on a wheel in his room but it didn’t look too threatening. We know Tom is full of those tiny rage balls. We’ve seen that demons love blood and dark stuff. They have a nice beach and don’t seem to mind sharing it with others.

In one of the books I think it talks about the Underworld kidnapping lots of Mewmans years ago which makes me assume demons are just a race of human/monster cross breeds.

Actual answer: the lore in most Western cartoons, not just Disney ones, is heavily plagued by lack of detail level planning, probably caused both by the target audience, by the (necessary, given how long it takes) "too many cooks" nature of animation, and by the absolute uncertainty as far as future renewals goes. So the overwhelming majority of times when a detail in worldbuilding doesn't really click it can all be chalked up to... jokes. Or wanting to have something interesting in the episode. And so you end up having Tom using his powers to raise the soul of a Earth born and dead actor because it's fun and because it was a good way to show him making a genuine effort to be Marco's friend, and then they might end up deciding "you know what we can actually expand this lore a little bit" and have mentions of the Underworld in the Book of Spells and so on and sometimes you get clashing info.

But as all old people watching cartoons, we feel the need for all pieces of the jigsaw to neatly fit together, but they always won't, so we have to settle for picking what makes sense, a little bit here, a little bit there.

The Guide to Dimensions mensions- I mean, mentions the "lost souls" tidbit, with a "I think... not totally sure". I choose to believe the Underworld doesn't literally torture the metaphysical essences of the deads, but it's just all for ambience. One of the many esoteric elements in the series. The necromancy in Friendenemies, you ask?

Just some good ol' spirit-magic like we see in many cartoons without having to raise heavy questions such as "is Hell real and is it actually a physical, tangible place in another physical and tangible dimension?". After all ghosts seem to be real in the Star Vs' world (I'm looking at Bon Bon), so for the sake of all religions everywhere let's just assume dead souls do go somewhere unreachable, and that somewhere is not Tom's lounge, but there are ways to contact them with seances, demonism, and all that stuff Janna could probably tell you more about.

Skywynne's chapter in the Book of Spells includes a dead-raising spell and lists the different types of Undeads you might encounter. She mentions them being raised from the Underworld, but after all dimensions weren't even connected until like 400 years before the show, so either we try to be super logical and fit as many elements of worlbduiling together, and the Lucitors had been torturing the departed on Mewni since the dawn of time, and then suddenly in the 16th century they were flooded with a hundred trillions backed up souls from uncountable realities when ob-gyn Glossaryck helped Glossaryck given birth to Hekapoo; or we can just accept it's all mostly for the sake of jokes and ambience, and settle for a reality where dead people have some sort of unspecified afterlife, and all dimensions and traditions have their own beliefs about it, and some type of spells can call them back, but at the end of the day no one knows for sure. Except for Glossaryck, maybe, but he isn't gonna tell anyone.

Now that we (didn't) get this out of the way, going through the other points in your message:

Demons seem to like their beaches and lakes, makes sense for them to have a dock. Less sense for sky and sunrises to be underground, but I heard weirder things from Hollow Earth theories in real life, so...

Everyone enjoys fast food. Hopefully the Universe chose that Roy belongs to Earthni, and not whatever his native dimension might be.

Little of what Tom does looks threatening. Except for his flirting, I guess. I want to see a pear of anguish based duel and how it works.

The tiny balls of rage and Demoncism as a whole were just a cartoonish metaphor for therapy and personal issues, so I guess a full course of demoncism is close to getting a lobotomy. Like Sea Horse. Fun! Mewni leading force in both psychology and psychiatry!

As for the last part, the existence of Dave, Tom, and Celena's supposed half demonic heritage definitely suggest intermingling between Demons and Mewmans following a rocky start. Knowing Mewni it's possible Skywynne vaporized a demon who was just checking on the upstair neighbors.

Ultimately, demons apparently predate Mewmans and Mewman Magic by millennia,

so we can assume they're just one of the many monster species native to the dimension, with their own "supernatural" powers. The Pony Heads fly and shoot lasers, sizeshifters sizeshift, and demons do all the creepy stuff Janna can do as well, plus horns and pastel tinted complexion. Probably nothing religious involved. Probably. Just metaphysical adjacent. Like Glossaryck's bathroom.

[mypunkpansexualtwin]

We Do Not Talk About the Beta Drive Incident (Destiny/Destiny 2) and/or God Won't Let Me Die (Persona 5)? :3 I am very intrigued by the titles!!!

Have I mentioned you're the best? Cause you're the best, honey. I'll give you a bit of both, partly because they're both excellent choices, partly because you're literally the only person who's sent an ask. I'll be posting the snippets under a cut because as always, my writing is a little chunky.

Alright, so We Do Not Talk About The Beta Drive Incident is definitely one of my older pieces, hasn't been touched in close to two years, minimum. (I love Destiny's worldbuilding, but the way 2 has been turned into a live service game that keeps vaulting content, it's hard to be excited for the game itself these days. Anyways.) It's a little bit about one of my Destiny ocs, Ferris-3 and some of her mad-science work in her earlier days as a Cryptarch and Research and Development technician after retiring from field work as a Titan and the Beta Drive was/is her life's work and best attempt at improving life for the Last City. Title comes from the fact that this incident escalated into a constant, centuries-long argument and rivalry between her and one of the canon characters, to the point where all parties aware of the Beta Drive were strictly forbidden from mentioning it by Tower leadership so that she and Asher would stop fighting about it, and they were given restraining orders against each other for the same reason. And that ban lasted for up until just after the start of the vanilla campaign of D2, but that's another story in and of itself.

This one is a lot of me making assumptions about space travel time and limitations that doesn't get elaborated on much in canon and then going from there as an excuse for a character study.

As far as God Won't Let Me Die, that was actually the second Persona fic I started writing, even before I put metaphorical pen to paper on Misguided Wingman. It was another Akechi-centric fic after Biffable Betrayal, kinda focused on my own headcanons on how the metaverse/cognitive world works and how the hell the little bastard could have survived for Royal and that ending. Short version, I started playing with the idea that the cognitive world, being that it borders on being a living thing in and of itself, doesn't like when physical beings die in a metaphysical place, weird shit happens around a death that doesn't dissipate like a shadow, so the cognitive world started learning to spit said people on the cusp of death back out into the physical world. It's not perfect, sometimes it happens with just enough room that the doomed can be saved or even walk away entirely unscathed (ex: Ryuji and Shido's palace). (I will not be getting into how my brain took off with "well but how and why did the other world learn to do that?" and how an oc fic concept got out of hand and I've now got the barest bones concept for a story if I ever get my brain on track enough to run a persona themed ttrpg in Voidheart Symphony, because that's a whole other thing.)

Anyways, short version, he doesn't remember because using That Ability on himself for the first time did funky shit to his memory, but he got spat out and scooped up by someone with a vested interest in him owing them a debt while keeping the fact that The Detective Prince had a bullet wound in his gut quiet because at that point things were circling the drain and neither of them were gonna want media attention. The title comes from him continuing to stare down death fully expecting to not walk away from a situation, and getting dragged back at the last second like the world's most melodramatic yoyo, to be left sitting there with increasing annoyance going "well shit. I'm not dead. ...Now what?"

Send me the name of one of my many many wips, and I'll tell you about it!

We Do Not Talk About The Beta Drive Incident

The ship pulled out of orbit and up into the inky black of open space. After a full night and then half past sunrise, Ferris-3 and Penny had integrated the drive, crunched the numbers, and come up with promising results.

"Alright, moment of truth. Penny, start recording. This is Beta Drive field test one, EX21 Slipper Misfit. Clearest path has been calculated--"

"--and triple checked--" Pendragon added.

"--good, systems are green, inputting coordinates now. We're plotting a course to 100 kilometers above the surface of Pluto from just above the Karman Line on Earth. By my calculations, the Beta Drive should allow us to traverse the distance in 16.8 Earth standard minutes compared to our current warp drive technology, which allows us to make that jump in an average of approximately 1.6 Earth standard hours." Ferris said for the log. "Even if the Beta Drive does not perform to the projected time, any improvement over current capabilities could be game changing for the City and the deployment times for our forces. Plus, if I don't blow up I'll get to rub half the Cryptarchy's faces in it." She cleared her throat. "Uh, go ahead and strike that last bit from the log. Drive is spinning up now, things are looking good—wait. Shit. Shit!"

Something under the control panel sparked and the smell of ozone filled the compartment. The Beta Drive's readout was going berserk and the ship lurched forward harder than the inertial dampeners could compensate for. Ferris-3 was thrown back in her seat and she barely managed to grab Penny out of the air before the Ghost hit the back wall of the cockpit.

"The drive's been overloaded, it's going critical!" Penny said and integrated with Ferris' armor. "I'm getting you out of here before we blow--"

"No! I'm rerouting power to our auxiliary systems! I just need to level it out! I'm not losing this thing without a fight!"

"Just like a damn Titan." Penny grumbled over comms. "Overriding safeties and overclocking shields, doubling life support output and dampener compensation, looks like we're leveling out but not fast enough!"

"I can get this, I just need to discharge the--" Ferris was cut off by an arc of plasma from a nearby panel. "Fuck! Initialize thruster override, now!" The ship lurched again, harder than before, and then leveled back out. "I think... I think we got it."

And then silence enveloped the two of them as they were left drifting through the vacuum of space.

"Uh. Where's the ship?" Penny asked, her voice not quite over comms and not quite directly in Ferris-3's head. Ferris desperately twisted as best as she could, unable to see the ship in any direction.

"Goddammit! Pull up the tracker now."

"Alright. Wow. That thing's moving faster than we anticipated, by a lot." Pendragon said, clearly in awe of whatever her readings said.

"Where is it?"

"It just pinged back in out of warp somewhere past Pluto and then dropped back into warp and disappeared. It's... It's left the solar system."

"Left the..." Rage, despair, disbelief, and bittersweet triumph all roiled in her head and then gave way to nothing. Ferris had gone entirely numb and couldn’t breathe. Not that it mattered to an Exo in the vaccuum of space. "80 years... My life's work... poof."

"It was more of a 'vworp.' I've sent a message out to the City, they're sending someone to come get us."

***

According to Penny's clock, they had floated out in the vacuum of space for 20 minutes before a ship flew by for pickup. 20 agonizing minutes where Ferris had gone over every detail in her head and with Penny, checking and re-checking the recording of the launch for what could have possibly gone wrong before their ride came into view. They both recognized it as their old friend's favorite jumpship.

"Hey there, Fay. I was really hoping to catch you before you got going with that thing." The familiar voice crackled over comms.

"Bradley? Didn't you have a job on Mars?" Pendragon asked.

Ferris was still beyond words and dropped numbly into the passenger seat after her Ghost transmatted them onto his ship.

"I did, but Caribou-13 took care of it instead. Swooped in, kicked ten kinds of ass, and swooped right back out before they knew what hit em.” The Titan bragged on his wife with a smile in his voice that faltered. “Y’know. After she grabbed the jumpship that I said I'd loan you."

"WHAT." Ferris' head snapped up.

"Yeah. You grabbed the wrong ship cause some Warlock parked in my spot, and now he's... he's not happy." Bradley explained. Ferris jumped out of her seat in equal parts triumph and revelation and started pacing in the limited space of the ship.

"That wasn't a spare CX20 coupling in your EX21! The ship was a CX20 Slipper Misfit! That's what happened, the power output was wrong, that's why the drive overloaded like that! It wasn't a fluke in my calculations it was...” She stopped and sat back down slowly, then dropped her head into her hands, “It was... a goddamn rookie mistake, I didn't even check to make sure it was the right fucking ship. I just launched my life's work and some poor shmuck's fancy ship out into the fucking void... because of a rookie mistake."

“I don’t know if I’d say poor, but shmuck is definitely right. You remember that one Awoken Warlock with a hate-on for Titans?” Bradley asked.

“I know like six people who fit that description, big guy. Try specifics. Name? Looks?” Ferris answered dryly. If she’d been depressed before, now she was flat out desolate over one of the dumbest moves she’d made in her life. “You do pretty decent impressions, what’d they sound like?”

Bradley cleared his throat and his voice jumped from its usual baritone timbre to a sharp, staccato, nasally whine, “Hm, one of you obnoxious, thick-headed Titans has clearly stolen my prize ship in an attempt at a juvenile prank! I will have whomever is responsible reported to Osiris himself and I will have their head! I am a genius who has no time for such tomfoolery! Warlocks are the best, rabragragh! I know words with seven syllables and will use them at any given chance because layman’s terms that everyone understands are all beneath me!” Ferris-3 groaned and dropped her head into her hands. If he was as spot-on as he always was, and she had no doubt about it, then she would have preferred Bradley had just left her floating.

“Ughhhhh, not him. Fuckin’ Asher Mir?”

“That’s the one! And yeah, he was going purple in the face when I last saw him. If you’re lucky, you might be able to slip past him cause he passed out from shouting.”

God Won't Let Me Die

Goro Akechi faced death, unafraid. In his last moments he had struck a deal with his greatest rival and only friend; that Masayoshi Shido would pay for his sins and Goro would survive long enough for a rematch with the Phantom Thieves’ illustrious leader, who was somewhere between denial and bargaining in the stages of grief. Anger would suit Joker, Goro mused as he faced down his own mortality, but depression? Certainly not. He wondered how long that glove of his would keep Joker from reaching acceptance.

The cognitive puppet wearing Goro’s face clutched his bleeding side as he leveled his gun at the real detective prince, who returned the gesture in kind. The moment before death brought a strange, slow sort of clarity. The loud banging of Skull’s and Joker’s fists against the other side of the sealed bulkhead stood in stark contrast to the soft creak of Not-Akechi’s leather gloves as his finger tightened on the trigger. That sound, in turn, had synchronized almost perfectly with the twisting of his fake’s face into a mask of agony and pure, seething hatred. The real Goro was faster, but only barely. Watching his imitator disappear into a sizzling of black mist, he felt himself sink into darkness a split second later, dimly aware of the searing pain in his abdomen. He would have regrets, such as not seeing Shido beg for forgiveness, as well as not keeping his end of the deal, but he wasn’t afraid.

Goro Akechi was prepared to die.

He was not prepared to wake up three days later in a back-alley mafia hospital under the name Taro Tanaka, of all names, courtesy of Shido’s personal “cleaner.” Something about solidarity between those that the mastermind himself would see scrubbed out before taking the Prime Minister’s office. It was essentially a favor for a favor, each of them looking the other way while the other disappeared, rather than turning on each other in hopes of currying favor with the captain of a rapidly sinking ship, and if the captain called either of his cleaners to dispose of one another, they’d simply let the call go unanswered.

So Taro Tanaka, the definitely-not-famous-Second-Detective-Prince-Goro-Akechi-as-seen-on-tv, sat quietly for weeks and healed from the gunshot wound; low and sloppy, it would have taken him a while to bleed out after losing consciousness. On and off for days he kept coming back to that and the fact that Shido must have thought so little of the skills he’d taken advantage of for nearly three years. It was a bitter, childish thought that stung only slightly less than the stitched up hole in his abdomen.

He didn’t tell the Phantom Thieves he was alive. After all, Kurusu had let him think he had died, it only seemed fair to return the surprise. When they broadcasted their calling card video across every available screen in Japan, Goro permitted himself the satisfaction of imagining Shido panicking in his office, frantic to stop the change of heart at any cost. He’d likely try to forcibly collapse his Palace, but the Thieves had slipped a tighter noose than that once already. Probably several times by that point, actually. They’d be fine. Surely they’d be fine, and really, why should he care otherwise? Goro considered infiltrating the Palace himself; to tag along unseen like he had so many times before until the final confrontation, then take his pound of flesh from Shido’s shadow alongside the rest of them. That he’d end up warning them of their narrower escape window was only a side effect, and not one worth reopening his wound when it had only just started knitting back together properly.

Days and nameless doctors passed, and a knot of anxiety formed somewhere behind the stitches. Low and sloppy, he thought for the hundredth time that day. Although to be fair, the fake had just been shot himself. Still no news of the Phantom Thieves, still no news of the change of heart. So Goro slept; between the hole in his chest and the things lurking in his subconscious, it wasn’t especially restful, even with a strong cocktail of painkillers in his system.

[lucemferto]

You know, I've been reading a lot of discourse on the Dream SMP's failures and I want to throw some thoughts at a bigger brain than my own to see if they're any good.

I think the SMP's main issue, the fundamental flaw which has caused the downward spiral of narrative quality is not actually anything to do with the narrative - it's that the narrative is suffering from poor world building and conveyance, which is in some way endemic to the medium of minecraft streams.

See, the problem is that unlike some other video-game based story, like Red VS Blue*, the DSMP doesn't have much of an assumed lore that can be taken from the game medium. RvB is essentially a Halo AU, so stuff like the Aliens showing up is explained by the intertextual knowledge the viewer can apply from the Halo games. But that doesn't exist for Minecraft, so the CC's have to put in the work themselves and they didn't.

*I know RVB is very different to DSMP (although I'd argue Quackity's lore streams are getting close to it) but ignore that.

So because there's little to no base lore, and the CCs didn't expand upon the worldbuilding early on, it means HUGE parts of the world have no concrete truth in the Dream SMP. Take Death for example. The idea of permanent death was just... not a thing. Not until Schlatt died. At Tubbo's execution, sure it was shocking, but it wasn't like he'd actually die - there was no understanding it was possible! Same for the independence war, Eret's betrayal, Tommy and Dream's duel, etc. Permanent Death only comes when Schlatt, and subsequently Wilbur, kick the bucket.

So Wilbur and Schlatt are DEAD dead. Okay, that's something that apparently can happen. But then Wilbur goes on reddit and responds to a question about 3 canon lives, says he likes it, and BAM! Now the SMP has an official canon, and death has stakes! But it retroactively gives much more narrative weight that didn't exist and wasn't intended to so many events!

Not to mention, there's still no concrete basis for what makes a death "canon". Why you get three. There's an afterlife and a goddess of death and totems of undying and immortals, not to mention minecraft's default Zombies, Skeletons, and oh what's that? Ghostbur? Cool, what the fuck is this worlds metaphysics anyway. Coherent worldbuilding? Nah, who needs it.

Death is one huge, glaring example. But the DSMP crew hasn't given enough thought to so MANY aspects of the world these characters are in and it kneecaps the narrative. You can't tell a good story in a setting that doesn't have established rules because how do we have anything resembling reasonable cause and effect if the rules of the universe are basically set out on a whim.

We don't understand their economy - businesses exist and presumably generate profit somehow? See: BigInnit Hotel, Tommy monetising Church Prime. But how does this mesh with villagers and stuff?

Countries can exist, sure, but none of them seem to have concrete laws or anything that actually... makes them countries. Your anarchist syndicate doesn't work as a plot line when there's functionally zero difference between "guys being dudes" and a country except what they call themselves. L'manberg had no clear legal system, no currency, no actual mechanism for the president to exert power - the entire reason Wilbur called the election is no one doing what he said!

Which brings me to L'manberg's elections... over 200 thousand people voted. Who are they, canonically? Citizens of L'manberg who have no representation on the server? Are they the fucking mobs? Is the Canon explanation that L'manberg's elections were online and people in a far off continent voted?

I can't wait to see how they handle the End. It will most likely be a train wreck.

My ultimate point is that the narrative would benefit an awful lot if the creators sat down and hashed out the details of their world. It might even let them weave some themes and story elements into the world, which they can later pull from instead of their asses.

Yeah, the problem is that the Dream SMP is kinda at a crossroads in terms of what it wants to be.

Does it want to tell a serious (or, rather, non-farcical) story within this Minecraft-world they created or do they want to do more casual rp? Because with casual rp that does not necessarily care about story consistency or prioritizes the viewing experience over the playing experience a world with consistent rules and traditional storytelling and worldbuilding might seem too restrictive.

Back in Season 1 that wasn't too much of a problem, because - in spite of how well told it all was - they still had a fairly simple story and skewed pretty heavily and obviously towards the casual rp, "this isn't a serious story we're trying to tell"-vibe.

Even Wilbur's descent - probably the darkest part of the story - carried itself with much more grandeur and theatricality when compared to Tommy's exile and Dream's torture.

But the fact of the matter is that Dream SMP-content has attracted a considerable number of fans specifically interested in the storytelling and narrative. People like Quackity, Karl and Dream play to those preferences by dialing up the sincerity of their storytelling, by reducing the metafiction, just generally treating the story more like a story being told to an audience and less like friends having fun.

If they want to push the storytelling of the Dream SMP, I definitely think that heeding what you said would probably be a good call. Because now they're in this weird twilight zone, where it's not casual enough to succeed with wacky improv-bits, but also not consistent and intentional enough to tell a story that matches their aspirations.

[script-a-world]

Submitted via Google Form:

I want to build in a fantasy setting that has lots of mystical energy fueling the world and lots of supernatural objects. There is a lot of religion and gods built up as to the origin of all these things, but I'm not actually putting gods into my story and none of those things are ever proven. Does this make any sense? How does that make religion viewed? Would that make people think that gods don't exist since they never appear, especially if there's multiple contradicting religions and thus believe there must be another explanation? Or would they more believe that there really must are gods, but there must be some incorrect ideas because of the contracting religions and clearly it means the gods are staying away from getting involved.

Feral: There are very few times in life when one can directly and perfectly quote something that was said to them, but one of those perfect quotes for me is from Professor Timothy O’Connor who started a lecture on ontology in his class Metaphysics of Hyperspace with “there has never been a good argument for the existence of God, but that doesn’t stop me from believing in Him.”

I don’t know what your background with religion is; I have a guess I’m pretty confident in based on this ask, but I don’t know, so I will do my best to avoid allowing assumptions to cloud my answer.

There are something like 4,200 religions and spiritual traditions in the world today. In most cases there must be at least some belief in an assumption of truth about the worldview the religion provides. In the real world, there is not any demonstrable evidence universally accepted that any god exists let alone a specific one, and there are plenty of “mystical phenomena” that plenty of people who don’t otherwise believe in a religion believe in. While it’s not quite the same as your ubiquitous “mystical energy” and “supernatural objects” - I’m assuming some kind of magic system with magical relics at play here - it is a good basis for understanding how your situation would play out with humans or humanoids.

Different characters will view your world’s lack of direct divine interaction differently. That’s how you know you’re doing worldbuilding right and not just building a religious version of the Planet of Hats. The “gods are real and interact with the people” trope is very popular in fantasy, but that is not the only way to do it.

We have answered asks before regarding religion:

Holidays and Religion

Creating a Religion that Feels Real

Some fantastical tropes you might want to look into:

Fantasy Pantheon

All Myths are True

Religion is Magic

Magic Versus Science

Physical Religion

Hollywood Voodoo

Fantastic Religious Weirdness

General Religion Tropes

You might also be interested in certain aspects of the history of religion in our world such as:

The History of Religious Tolerance

Religion in the Ancient Roman Empire

The History of Christianity in India

Magic and Religion

Mithraism

Syncretic Religion

[the-fae-folk]

*Quoth* every bit of writing advice ive read talks about having a really good hook. but nothing actually explains what that means or how to do it.

(transcribed and translated from Quoth the Raven) Of course they don’t tell you how. Most people who tell you to do that have no idea how to write a good hook. They’re just parroting advice that they’ve heard. Lets start with what a hook is. A Narrative Hook is just a literary technique that “Hooks” the reader’s attention and keeps them interested enough in your writing to actually want to keep going. So many bits of advice emphasize that your hook has to be the very first sentence. In many cases they are correct. But not always. A hook can also be several paragraphs, or even the first few pages of a novel. Only academic writing needs to place so heavy an emphasis on your first sentence and paragraph because you have to make your point immediately and move on. There’s no time for dallying or dillying in Academia. But even though you have a bit more leeway in other types of writing you’ve still got to be careful. This isn’t just something you can scribble out and move on. A good narrative hook takes some planning. You have to think about WHO your audience is and WHY this particular bit of writing will hook them. What about it will intrigue or interest them enough that they’ll resist other plays for their attention in order to follow those thoughts. And of course not only does your hook need to be for your audience (or audiences if you insist on writing for more than one at a time), but it also needs to be relevant to your story or characters somehow. It should give us a reason to keep reading so that we can see more where that came from, to see how it connects and keeps giving. Even something that touches upon the themes of your book would be good if the writing is clever enough. Dialogue will give insight on the characters, setting, or even signs of the conflict. Let me give you an example. “The skies are always dark when I stop at the McDonald's on my way to work in the morning. Just a breakfast sandwich and a sprite is enough to keep me going. I always see the strangest people when I come out this early. But the strangest of all was when I saw Death herself feeding the starlings with french fries.” In this paragraph I’ve done several things. I purposefully did not put the hook at the beginning of the paragraph. Instead I’ve given you both a general setting for your story (Set in a contemporary world where such things as a McDonald’s exists and people actually want to eat there) and some insight into your character and their life (someone who is unfortunate enough to have to get up for an early morning shift and doesn’t have time for breakfast at home). It tells you about the sorts of things they’ll eat and what the general expectation for this part of their life is like (they see lots of weird people around this time of day because that’s just what happens at McDonald’s around 6am).

Then I drop the bombshell. Disguised as a casual statement that is merely continuing the previous thought I happen to mention that I saw Death doing something as ordinary as feeding starlings her french fries. This sentence, though seemingly tame is quite extraordinary for a number of reasons. It introduces the metaphysical concept of Death as a character who can move about and do person things like eat (or not eat) french fries. It tells us that Death is not just a person...but a HER! How many depictions of Death are female in our contemporary media? A few...but not that many. Even something as mundane seeming as Starlings might have significance. Besides being initially odd (Because usually one might say crows or pigeons when someone is feeding birds), you might have starlings have some greater significance later on, perhaps some kind of symbolism you hint at. Or you might just really like starlings and think that they themselves are odd enough to mention that it might help, either one works just as well. Even though Death is just feeding a bunch of birds some fries we already have so many questions that NEED answering. Why is Death there? What’s her story? Why starlings? And why McDonald’s french fries of all things? We’ve hooked the reader into wanting more. But did you know that you don’t have to begin things with a scene? A question could be a startling and interesting way to start out a piece of writing. Drop straight to the heart of the matter and question the reader themselves. “What is your third favorite reptile?” Is a fun one I’ve heard, especially since you can immediately elaborate on that with your own favorite reptile and why any of this is relevant to whatever your writing is supposed to be about. Really there are lots of ways you can start a story. A declaration that something is so! A significant quote that pulls your reader straight into the middle of a heated conversation. Perhaps an interesting fact or statistic might help you (it can even be entirely made up if your story is set in a fictional world. I once read a book that interspersed the entire story with encyclopedia style clips about places, people, things, and creatures that didn’t exist outside of the story’s world). Even just describing something in great detail is acceptable, whether an enchanted forest, a cold and empty moon, or an apartment filled with half filled cups that your protagonist keeps forgetting to finish and put in the dishwasher. You can even begin with a particularly unique or really well chosen metaphor (or simile) that will set a certain tone or idea for everything that comes after it. (I read a short story where they used a popular spiritual cliche as their first sentence and then spent the entire piece undermining the sentiment.) So many ways to make a hook, and even better, make a good hook. However... You don’t HAVE to use a hook. It’s a literary technique that has become rather popular, but it’s not set down in the rules that you must absolutely use one or your entire piece of writing will burst into flames and die. There are a lot of good stories, essays, and other pieces of writing that don’t use hooks. It does get a lot more difficult if you don’t  use one though. The point of a hook is that initial attention grab. If you decide not to use one you will run the risk of many people not reading past your first few pages. It’s not the end of the world, but its a dangerous game to play. The rest of your work will have to be truly worth the read for you to get away with that sort of thing in this day and age. Well, I hope that answers your question and gives you a good place to start writing hooks for your stories! (or essays). In thanks I request that you go feed some birds (not starlings because they’re so annoying. Always like “look at me! I’m so mateable and majestic even though I’m flying in a swarm of a thousand others who look exactly like me and none of us will shut up for five minutes about who can get it on the best or who can find the best fruit and insects.” Ugh. Stupid little things. They think they’re so pretty. I agree, they’re pretty irritating.) (Notes from the Author of the Blog: One unmentioned form of Narrative Hook is called “In Media Res”. It literally means “in the middle of things” which is fairly on point because the technique is about beginning your story in the middle of the action instead of slogging through all the boring exposition. It’s a little hard to pull off well because it demands that the writer find fluid and subtle ways to introduce all that worldbuilding and essential info to the reader without giving a pages long infodump later on when the reader needs to understand something for plot reasons. Also, a Hook can be found in other types of media besides writing. In music it is a musical phrase or idea that is used to catch the listener’s attention and make the music seem appealing. In film they have something similar that is used to try and grab the viewer’s attention in the first 5-10 minutes. It is a very good tool to know how to use and use well, though it may take a bit of practice to get right. Finally, the Author of the Blog does not share Quoth’s views on Starlings; though maybe still don’t feed them (or any bird) french fries.)

[laughingpinecone]

Trick or Treat 2020 letter!

I am laughingpineapple on AO3  

Hello dear author! I hope you’ll have fun with our match. Feel free to draw from general or fandom-specific likes, past letters, and/or follow your heart.

All requests are art or fic - for art, the stuff I like is the kind that depicts the characters doing something. I’ll always be happier with a very simple drawing of two characters walking together or sharing a cup of coffee than with an ambitious composition that looks like an Avengers poster. I also enjoy seeing them wear different clothes, getting a feel of what their fashion sense is like beyond their canon outfit(s).

Likes: worldbuilding, slice of life (especially if the event the fic focuses on is made up but canon-specific), missing moments, 5+1 and similar formats, bonding and emotional support/intimacy, physical intimacy, lingering touches, loyalty, casefic, surrealism, magical realism, established relationships, future fic, hurt/comfort or just comfort from the ample canon hurt, throwing characters into non-canon environments, banter, functional relationships between dysfunctional individuals, unexplained mysteries, bittersweet moods, journal/epistolary fic, dreams and memories and identities, canon-adjacent tropey plots, outsider POV, UST, resolved UST, exploration of secondary bits of canon, leaning on the uniqueness of the canon setting/mood, found families, characters reuniting after a long and/or harrowing time, friends-to-lovers, road trips, maps, mutual pining, cuddling, wintry moods, the feeling of flannel and other fabrics, ridiculous concepts played straight, sensory details, sickfic, places being haunted, people being haunted, the mystery of the woods, small hopes in bleak worlds, electricity, places that don’t quite add up, mismatched memories, caves and deep places, distant city lights at night, emphasis on non-human traits of non-human characters (gen-wise, but also a hearty yes xeno for applicable ships), emphasis on inhuman traits of characters who were human once and have sort of shed it all behind

Cool with: any tense, any pov, any rating, plotty, not plotty, IF, nerdy canon references, unrequested characters popping up.

DNW: non-canonical rape, non-canonical children, focus on children, unrequested ships (background established canon couples are okay, mentions of parents are okay!), canon retellings, consent issues

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Hurdy

I love the game’s world and all the little stories and legends that fill it. Great atmosphere, great lore, so if you feel like getting a little worldbuildy and indulging in the scenery and its story, please do! A focus on the sense of camaraderie in a caravan would also be great (like people could do on Gamecube.....). Hurdy’s a bit of an odd duck for that theme, but maybe he hitched a ride at some point? With whom? Amidatty or De Nam maybe, among the nominated characters? I love the whole cast so anyone goes. Do they travel together enough for them to cotton onto the weirdness of the whole Gurdy situation? Got any run-in with Lady Mio? Or what’s his status after the miasma is lifted, can he go back to Tipa, can he/they begin to heal? What does healing even look like for him and Gurdy?

Ghost Trick: Cabanela

You know.. him. Dazzlingly OTT, untiring, rock-solid self-esteem, loyal to a fault, following a rhythm of his own, flawless intuition until it fails and it all burns down... him. I just want to see more of him doing stuff! The way he’s chill and open toward new people (like Sissel and Missile in ch15) makes him perfect to throw at most other characters and see how they react to the sparkles... I’d love some focus on how ridiculous his aesthetic is, half Saturday Night Fever half hardboiled detective half bubbly preteen (for a total of 150%) and yet he makes it work. Or how ruthless he can be, possibly for the sake of the people he cares for. The quote “The intimacy of big parties”. Him and Alma in the new timeline bonding over knowing (once Jowd has spilled the beans) but not remembering that terrible timeline. Some tropey scenario on the job. Snark-offs with Pigeon Man, by which I mean PM snarks and it bounces off him like water off a spotless white goose’s back. Dreaming Sissel but he’s strange... and wrong?

Ship-wise it’s only Cabanela/Jowd whenever it’s not infidelity, Cabanela/Alma in what-ifs and Cabanela/Alma/Jowd for me (and Lynne/Memry and Yomiel/fianSissel on the side). There are a bunch of shippy prompts in all my past letters - I would however reiterate here that Jowd. is. the worst tease. always.

Conversely, Cabanela/Lynne and Cabanela/Yomiel are NOTPs especially from Cabanela’s side. So while I appreciate the thick tension of a good Yomiel VS Cabanela confrontation like everyone and their cat, and also really appreciate a roughed-up Cabanela, and I do love Yomiel in his own right... I don’t want Cabanela being into it. Adrenaline junkie he may be but this hurts and his coat’s a mess and there’s no perfect winning scenario so he hates every second of it. (JOWD being into it is another matter altogether and he should probably mind his own business)

Kentucky Route Zero: Carrington, Cate

Act after act, intermission after intermission, I somehow didn’t see the arts rising to such a dominant theme in KRZ and it’s stuck with me since the ending finally hit. It’s great and moving. So! Who better than good ol’ antler man to linger in those feels! Carrington’s playwright adventures or Carrington&anyone you fancy, either way I’d listen to him ramble for a week and I would like to know more about his big dramatic plans. Or maybe him helping someone, more or less accidentally, by offering his unique takes? Overriding my “no canon retellings” DNW for a hot second, did he ever figure out what was going down in the Death of the Hired Man (or Nap of the Hired Man as the case may be) interlude?

For Cate, I’m mostly interested in two things: life on the river and mushrooms. Maybe both! The Echo river ecosystem is intensely fascinating to me as opposed to life on the surface and life on the Zero, and yet all these environments are permeable. So what’s a moment in her daily life that encapsulates the river? Someone they picked up on the Mammoth, a strange island that popped up at some point? Cate&Will bonding extremely welcome, I’m love Will. And then there’s the mushroom hunting. I don’t know much about mushrooms, but I do know that they’re cool. Cate seems to agree, so if you’ve got a story or pic in you about her and them mushrooms, I’d love to see it.

Pyre: Volfred Sandalwood

This is a Volfred solo, Volfred&literally anyone or Volfred/Tariq, /Oralech or /Tariq/Oralech request. If &Manley or &Brighton, I am not interested in more lenient takes on their characters than canon’s. fwiw I also enjoy Jodi/Celeste and Bertrude/Pamitha a lot!

I feel deeply for all of Pyre’s main themes - literacy, degrees of freedom, the fragile time that is the end of a historical cycle, nobodies rising up to the occasion, building a better society, and of course found family, “distance cannot separate our spirits” and all that jazz, and Volfred is squarely rooted at the center of all of them. Just please tell me things about my fave. His relationship to the Scribes (as a historian, a some kind of vision, via *ae or once he’s a star himself)? A ‘forced vacay’ Downside ending where he looks at the Union from afar and keeps living in this strange transformational place? Life in a cramped Blackwagon that was meant for like 5 people tops and is currently eight Nightwings, a herald and an orb? Since he picked him for the job to begin with, does he respect and cherish Hedwyn as he dang well should? What does it feel like to try and Read a herald? Was he ever in danger, in the Commonwealth or in the Downside? Does he puff up as prime minister because he’s nervous, and who can see past his hyper-professionalism and lend a hand? Please roast him big time about the votes he assigns to the various Nightwings in his planner? What’s his attitude toward the flame’s purification (what with being a tree but mostly like, as a general concept. He did nothing wrong!) (well he definitely said some things wrong and sometimes oftentimes the ego jumps out, but his intentions did nothing wrong)? When did his calculating approach fail him? Something with Pamitha along the lines of that edit that goes “Can we talk, one ten to another?"/"I am an eleven, my girl, but continue."? btw that ‘emphatically yes xeno’ from my general likes is only applicable here I guess so: emphatically yes xeno to both shippy interactions at all ratings and to gen explorations of what a Sap is like...

Shenmue: Qiu Hsu, Xianzi Bei

Cormorants... kung fu... cormorant kung fu. They turned out to be my faves in a very likeable cast and I’d love to see either or both of them slice-of-life-ing it up in Niaowu, or anywhere up or down the river. The rest of the cast is welcome to join! Did Ren end up at Liu He Hall for whatever reason, or did Shenhua chat up a cormorant, as she does? Id love to see a spookier mood too! Ghost story time in Liu Jiao shrine maybe?

The Silver Case: Catherine, Kodai Sumio, Kuroyanagi Shinko, Kusabi Tetsugorou, Macalister Edo, Morishima Tokio

I‘m all for the surrealism, big things being introduced and never picked up again, Rashomon’ing it up with six explanations for the same thing where no single one can be true, people dying and then popping up again like nbd...  maybe the thing I like the most is characters transcending their humanity and looming over the dystopian world like ominous avatars. Correctness’ first ending had me swooning, that kind of mood is unparalleled. I have played TSC, FSR and 25W so far and have vague memories of K7. I’m aware of the “everything’s connected” readings but that’s not my main interest in these games. Mainly I see Lospass as a real island but also a metaphysical  place of transformation first and foremost, where strange things happen that don’t make sense elsewhere, but I’m good with anything that works for your story! There are a few & prompts for these fine folks in my Press Start letter [here].

For Catherine, I’d love to see something along the lines of her YAMI appearance, on Lospass on her own or hanging out with another character of your choice (or Tokio again). Sumio leaves me at a loss for words... if you’ve played 25W, maybe an expansion of his [intense ethereal whooshing] moment? He’s a gust away from vanishing from existence altogether... &Sakura and/or &/Tetsu if you want. Or his time in prison or a return to Lospass or whatever’s going on with that one, really. For Shinko I’m itching for different team-ups! Throw her at anyone you like and see what happens! FSR-era Tetsu could be cool, or off-the-grid Tetsu, or Tetsu&anyone... as for Edo, I’d be curious to see his pov on anyone and anything! WAS the Flower Sun and Rain the friends we met along the way? And Tokio... oh Tokio. Something about older Tokio and his gaggle of tulpas (Slash and whatshisface from YUKI who looks suspiciously like YAMI Tokio himself?)? Any...thing...about any part of his life from Lifecut onwards? Any portentous encounters?

[invokingbees]

An Elder Scrolls Question

or, The Time I Nearly Zero-Summed Thinking About Wizards

Elder Scrolls was the series that got me into funky fantasy worldbuilding and lore, because just under the high fantasy surface, under the elves and castles and dragons and magic, the series is a nightmare stew of Gnostic Medieval Science Fantasy, replete with time traveling robots, lucid dreaming super powers and cat-men who climb to the moon using magic cocaine. And that’s why I like it so much, it gives me the best of both worlds: comfy high fantasy dungeon crawling and PhD level arcane metaphysics. I think that’s why many others like it, too, there’s Morrowind weirdness, Oblivion charm and Skyrim memes. Something for everyone.

Now I have actually a purpose to this post, and that purpose is, despite the various levels of eldritch funk, one big question seems completely left unanswered, a question the game never seems to get around to answering: how does the magic work?

Read on if you dare

Now that the weak and unwizardly have been warded off, let me elaborate. Magic in TES isn’t actually left completely unanswered. In TES, the universe is set up (more or less) in three big layers: Aetherius is the realm of magic and various special afterlives, Oblivion is the home of the inscrutable Daedra, and Mundus is the Mortal Realm where the plane(t) Nirn sits, upon which is Tamriel, the continent where all this stupid shit happens. Back in the day, the ancient spirit, or et’Ada, who designed Mundus at the behest of the demiurge-esque cheeky lad Lorkhan, became disgusted by it and left so hard he ripped a hole through Mundus, through Oblivion and into Aetherius, which is the sun. His followers went after him and their exit holes are the stars. It’s through these tears in the veil that magic energy, or magicka, seeps onto Nirn, into the beings living on it, making it positively juicy with raw fucking power. And thus, we get magic.

Only it’s not that simple. We have two parts of the equation, we have the energy source, this raw stuff of creation, magicka, and we have the wizards who sling fireballs and conjured daedra and reanimate the dead, but I ask you,

how

Fellow TES fan and mutual @colonel-killa-bee once gave me a reason, I think, and it was simply that magic is cast with willpower. You train your body and mind to do extraordinary things with extraordinary materials. And that makes sense, but not for everything, not to me. I’m gonna use the Skyrim schools of magic here because it’s been way too long since I’ve played either Morrowind and Oblivion to remember and I’m not doing research for a Tumblr post.

So to an extent, it makes sense. You use the sheer power of your will to take raw creative force and make it a stream of fire, or you take it and make an impenetrable ethereal skin, or you use it to change your make up and become  temporarily transparent. You can channel it into an exaggerated healing factor or a wall of diffusing force to absorb incoming spells. But these are all essentially physical constructs using a material. So the aim of this post is to not just ask questions, no no, it’s about making WILD assumptions armed only with my immensely rusty lore knowledge.

So, the school of Conjuration, is where the willpower thing starts to fall apart for me. The idea of this school, this avenue of practice, is to conjure and commune with spirits, namely the denizens of Oblivion, various daedra of lesser and major power. In Conjuration, you can’t keep such summoned forces over here too long, they usually just vanish back to their home plane(t). But why? Perhaps it is the willpower of the magician keeping them here which is run thin, or perhaps the caster expends a certain amount of energy creating a form for them manifest in which actually just runs out of juice, or the caster cannot keep a portal to Oblivion open for too long either by lack of concentration or some force in the world says no. But that kind of falls apart when you take into account spells that allow one to permanently conjure a daedroth until it is killed. How that works, I just can’t say. Necromancy makes more sense, simply infusing a corpse with energy to make it animate, creating mental connection between it and the caster, so it can follow commands. But soul trapping and soul gems? How is magicka utilized to trap the soul of an enemy? Is some invisible hook thrown out, connected to a soul gem? The gem itself I’m sure is the artifact of beings called the Ideal Masters, ascended necromancer weirdos or some shit, but the act of soul trapping and the transference into a soul gem is just not clear at all.

Scrolls are really weird, aren’t they? They require literally no experience or talent except for aiming, they’re ready made spells for anyone to use, they’re literally just utility in Morrowind in the case of recall and divine intervention. But how does that even work? Who makes these scrolls? My guess is they are themselves infused with enough magicka for the spell to be cast. But how does one cast them? Does just unfurling it work, or are there words to be spoken or gestures made? How can a scroll be created that is so easy to use that even a child could cast firestorm? These things are guns with no safety or magazine to unload. Don’t need actual guns when I can go to a fucking Whiterun general store and buy a scroll of invisibility so I can break into people’s houses and steal shit. SCROLL REGULATION WHEN

Now here’s the real stickler: rituals. Why and how do they work? By what process is the information of a ritual, the purpose of its performance, relayed to the daedra or whatever it’s intended for? This is the one that really throws a cog in the Willpower Machine to me. Ritual magic is highly specific and requires extreme preparation, ritual magic steeped in symbolic mysticism. So why does it work in TES? How does drawing a circle inscribed with strange runes and glyphs, speaking invocations and lighting candles allow one to commune with daedra? How does it bring back the dead? Is ritual and symbolism all merely completely artificial mental devices or focuses? Or do words and glyphs themselves hold power? Are they necessary to transmit contact to a daedroth? Why can’t a wizard of sufficient power simply yell at the night sky that they want to talk with Hermaeus Mora? Perhaps they are devices created and passed down by the daedra themselves, overly complicated ‘phone numbers’ they can take notice of.

This isn’t taking into account shit like Thu’um of Sword-Singing, being able to focus your ‘vital essence’, whatever THAT’S supposed to be, into a command for something to happen, or making a sword out of your own soul and nuking mountains with it. That stuff doesn’t even require magicka, though it’s possible they work through the same ‘willpower’ avenues but how they attain such bullshit level of power is beyond me. I guess the mortal mind is truly the most powerful tool in creation. I suppose this is summed up in CHIM, attainment of enlightenment, actual awareness that you’re a dream, a piece of a mind, pure willpower made manifest, and able to change it all...at will.

I may have just answered myself but I wrote all this and am posting it, I’d very much like to hear if I’m flat out wrong.

[aerialflight]

BTS fic recs (or: a continuation with less magic!aus but there still is some on this list)

It’s been around six months and I’m again sucked into the BTS fandom, mostly because of the BTS World album and game. Seriously, how they manage to spit out so many songs so fast is amazing. And you can thank my dad for getting me back into the fandom cause he is just as obsessed as I am about BTS, which I find hilarious and my mom long-suffering XD.

Anyway, so I’m recommending yet another list that has cumulated over the months, some recommended to me by @onceabluemoonwrites (thank you for the recs and continuing to spur my obsession) and those I stumbled upon and ended up loving. Hope you all enjoy and I apologize that there aren’t as many magic!aus in advance, but there still is some since it wouldn’t complete without it!

-

girls just want to have fun by fitzgarbage

Ship: Suga/J-Hope

“Namjoon told me you’d probably be haunting a corner. I didn’t know what he meant, but I think I get it now.” He’s breathing hard. “I knew you right away. You look really good, by the way.”

(suga is transgender, he's a she in this fic. suga is amazing and the background ships had me invested and oh man, this is one of those fics that steal your heart if you let it.)

Stars Lost in the Sea by smiles

Ship: Jin/Suga

2018 In a desperate attempt to overcome his writer's block, Kim Seokjin rents a cottage by the sea on a remote island in the southern part of Korea for the summer, intent on successfully completing a story.

1933 Min Yoongi spends his nights tending the lighthouse, providing a light on the horizon for lost sailors to navigate safely, all the while feeling lost by himself, a lightkeeper without a guiding light.

There are some people who are meant to cross paths, even if it means time itself must bend to accommodate them.

(editor!Jimin is high strung and gungho and this alone made me fall for this fic for giving me this. this story is the definition of ‘star-crossed lovers’, i was rooting for them so hard. bless.)

rumour has it (but maybe it'd be better to just ask me) by Curionenene 

Ship: Jimin/RM

"Tae! I think Kim Namjoon asked me out on a date?”

That, makes Taehyung look away from his phone for once. “The Kim Namjoon? Sex on walking stilts, Kim Namjoon?”

“No, Kim Namjoon who’s my cousin third removed. Of course, the Kim Namjoon, you walnut.”

“Walnuts are actually really good for brain development.” Taehyung says distractedly before he frowns. “Wait, Kim Namjoon is your cousin?”

-

(Or: Namjoon and Jimin like each other, Taehyung and Hoseok are great friends, Seokjin and Jungkook aren't as great, and Yoongi is paid far too little for this.

Oh, and there are rumours. Supposedly, Namjoon is a sex god. Everyone is saying it, so it must be true.

Spoilers: it's not.)

(you know those fics that has gloriously disasterous characters that makes you feel like you’re less of a mess than they are? this is it. this is your pick up fic. so pick it up please.)

jack i'm flying! by ameliabedelias  

(honestly though, this author has written some of the funniest bts fics i’ve ever read, definitely recommend)

Ship: Jin/Jimin

“Are they okay?” A concerned booze cruise attendant walks by. “They’re not gonna jump, are they?”

“Please, just ignore them,” Hoseok sighs, flopping into one of the deck lounge chairs as Seokjin and Jimin get into position. “They’ve been doing this for three years now. It's kind of their thing.”

//

Or, five times Seokjin and Jimin do the Titanic Pose™.

(this fic is proof that this is the most chaotic pairing i’ve ever seen the sheer chaos man i’m not kidding. this is gold. solid gold.)

you are so gorgeous it makes me so mad by ameliabedelias  

Ship: Jimin/RM

Park Jimin is Instagram famous. Or he was, until Kim Namjoon walked into one of his pictures and stole the spotlight. 

(same author as previously, i just had to people this fic is incredible. jimin is characterized so beautifully here. the title alone should make you want to read it.)

light at the end by fruitily

(you don’t know what you were missing in life until you read their fics)

Ship: Jin/Jungkook

death follows jungkook. death is crashing at his place and not paying rent. death is eating all of his cinnamon toast crunch.

(seokjin is not death. he’s just the guy who’s nice enough to take you to the last stop.)

(i cried tears of laughter enough to fill a lake. jin is a grim reaper. yes. you heard me right. and jungkook has to deal with it. its amazing.)

in all dishonesty by fruitily

Ship: Suga/V

while taehyung is trying to figure out whether or not min yoongi wants to stab him with a fountain pen, they find out they make an excellent team when it comes to board games.

(this gave me so many flashbacks to when i was a kid. they are perfect for each other and my brother laughed so much when i read him a few lines. because he is a cheating cheater who lies and is very impressed by this pair. you'll see what i mean.)

can't get it up without you by Curionenene

(i love their fics. LOVE)

Ship: Jin/Suga

“Actually,” Seokjin speaks up then, because it looks like Yoongi's friends are having a hard time believing him. “I think the most dramatic one was when we literally tried to migrate to escape each other, but our planes went down, and we both drifted to the same deserted island.”

Now even Taehyung looks incredulous. “You're kidding.”

“No. We ended up fucking just so we could hasten the process and go onto the next life. Because the mosquitos there? Worse than death.”

“Wait…” Jimin says slowly. “You mean you actually die?”

~*~

(Or: Yoongi and Seokjin are soulmates. They hate each other.)

(the summary should be enough incentive to be honest, but yeah, if you want to die laughing, please read this. p l e a s e.)

So Collapse, Fall. by Curionenene

Ship: Jungkook/V

“Mmm… but what was it that made you decide to come back?” Seokjin rephrases.

Taehyung glances at Jungkook, and deliberately, his lips twitch up into a smirk, eyes darkening just a little bit. “I’m a human after all. Foolish. Figuring out my intentions shouldn’t be rocket science.”

For a moment, the other three in the room just stare at him. Taehyung doesn’t let the stares unnerve him, only deciding to cock his head to one side, eyebrow raised as the silence drags on. And then finally it breaks when Jimin shakes his head before letting out a true blue giggle, “well. He’s interesting at least.”

-

(or: Jungkook is a god, Taehyung just wants to be his friend. They both end up as something more.)

(i actually usually don't get into this pairing (surprising since this pairing is actually the most popular on ao3), but the worldbuilding and magic pulled me in.)(laugh and point at me for finding another magic fantasy fic. i won't blame you.)(i love v's characterization in this. he's delightfully complicated and straightforward and manipulative in a good way? i know it sounds weird, but you'll know what i mean when you read it.)

you say witch like it's a bad thing by Curionenene

Ship: Suga/Jin

“It's still a lot of work, even if you have magic on your side.” Yoongi glances over at a jug filled with what looks like pieces of pineapple. And then, as both cat and witch stare at the jug, the pieces are suddenly no more, instead replaced entirely by liquid. “Heck. Magic is draining. I’m going to need a nap later.”

“Why do you think I start at 5 am and only open at 11?” Seokjin grumbles, before he sighs, “yeah, okay. I get your point. No tea then. But we gotta think of something to make with avocados.”

“Why the fuck are we doing avocados?” “Because I ordered avocados.”

“Oh. Ok. Let me rephrase that: why the fuck are we doing avocados?”

~*~

(Or: Seokjin is a witch, Yoongi is his familiar. 99% of their life is bickering like this. The other 1%? Well, you'll have to read and see won't you?)

(blue recommended this to me and i read the whole damn thing. and let me tell you, it wasn’t the magic (well, not just the magic since the worldbuilding makes me want to swoon) that made me stay. it was jin. and his goddamn puns. puns galore. puns everywhere. every shade of pun imaginable, it’s all here. suffer with me along with yoongi. it is glorious.)

something tells me we'll be alright by czar (cmajorchords)

Ship: RM/V

“You’re absolutely right. This is a childish, petty feud, and I’m sure Kim Namjoon is an upstanding citizen and exceptional researcher. I’m sure he is a thousand times more of a professional than I am, and isn’t late to work all the time, and probably doesn’t occasionally sneak into the lab after hours so he can touch the pretty little vases with bare hands instead of using gloves –”

“Doesn’t what?”

“- it’s just that I don’t think I can work him. On, like, a moral level. Like an ethical one. An emotional one? Maybe even metaphysically?”

His supervisor sighs loudly. “So what’s the problem exactly?”

Taehyung scrambles for the first thing that comes to his mind. “Once, when we were at a mixer, he ate the last cranberry-chocolate chip muffin and didn’t even offer to split it.”

Six weeks in the desert at an archaeology dig sounds like everything Taehyung had ever dreamed of. Too bad Kim Namjoon's coming, too.

(this is a really cute fic and just, namjoon is this rambling mess and v is so humanely insecure and all of it is just, ugh. ugh i couldn't stop grinning.)

Fixing Christmas by jeoncrocs

Ship: Jungkook/RM

Namjoon is having the Worst Christmas Eve ever, and it's chiefly his own fault. A kind stranger turns it around.

(I COULDN’T STOP LAUGHING THIS WAS SO FUNNY XDD)

Hold Still by Oh_Hey_Tae

(i’ve recommended a fic from them before and there’s a reason for it. all their fics are just, yes.)

Ship: J-Hope/Jungkook

Jungkook’s going to say that he wasn’t scared, but he literally screamed and was about to throw down with a pan so he says instead, “How’d you get in, anyway?”

“Door was unlocked. Didn’t think anyone was home. Be glad I’m not an actual creep.”

And then this amazing thing happens.

It’s small and simple, quick as can be, but it leaves Jungkook stupefied, mind melting, like he’s lost on a wave.

Jung Hoseok winks at him.

Oh, no.

(Or: Jungkook falls in love easily, Hoseok doesn't open up easily, and somehow they manage to meet in the middle.)

(jungkook is precious here. precious. i want to wrap him up and hug him tight. and i really like how they portrayed hoseok here. and also, theres some representation and i connected to this. a lot.)

Words of Power by rkatz

Ship: Suga/J-Hope

All words have power. Some more than others. And none more than a name.

(behold, a magic!au soulmate fic with stellar worldbuilding. seriously, i am crying over how creative this is, i want to pick at this author’s mind and ask how they came up with this. thank you blue for recommending this!)

Law of the Jungle by MmeIrene

Ship: Jin/RM

“You’re an actor,” said Namjoon after a moment, and Seokjin nodded, looking pleased with their progress.

This was decidedly different, Namjoon thought, staring at Kim Seokjin’s bemused expression, than how it went in movies. Which, all things considered, was terribly ironic considering that Namjoon was being told he couldn’t study in his own library so that the aforementioned Kim Seokjin could film there with his movie crew.

Or, Namjoon is a frazzled grad student who just wants to finish his thesis, but somehow ends up getting cast as an extra in a movie instead.

(you know this is good when a character is accidentally in a movie. any student who wrote or is writing a thesis will understand namjoon’s dilemma on a spiritual level. he stole my heart in this fic, he really did. i don’t blame you one bit jin for falling for this boy.)

[tanadrin]

under a cut because long, disorganized, self-indulgent

ok so the Lende Empire isn’t really feudal; I despise feudal stasis in fantasy, like even the shortest timeline puts the Andal invasion at more than 2,000 ybp in Game of Thrones, you really think in all that time everybody on the continent is dumb enough to not invent a better plough? or glass just good enough to grind lenses? or make small improvements in windmill design? and all that shit adds up and BAM before you know it, you've got metallurgy good enough to make a steam engine with, so no matter what BS magical physics you come up with, if things work at the human scale even remotely like they do in our world, your age of knights and castles and dragons not having to contend with antiaircraft guns has a limited shelf-life.

(and that's interesting! And more people--by which i mean people besides Terry Pratchett, who did this wonderfully--should write about high fantasy worlds before they reached Medieval Stasis Mode, and after they left it! I would fukkin kill to read a good high fantasy book that also had, like spaceships in it. Insofar as genre conventions have evolved not according to the internal logic of the worlds they depict but according to how and for what reason they serve as commentaries on specific aspects of our own world and its history, and are aimed at evoking certain emotions, it's understandable why such generic mishsmashes are relatively uncommon. But people also definitely read speculative fiction because they like internally cohesive worlds very different from our own, so it is my fondest hope that this sort of thing becomes more popular going forward)

(you can of course also have fantasy worlds which are *not* very much like our own world at human scale. Greg Egan actually does this in a science fiction mode, but as long as you're positing a world where dimensions of space are hyperbolic like time or where humans change sex every time they have sex because trading a detachable symbiotic penis is part of having an orgasm, whether you call this stuff "different science" or "magic" is really beside the point. I have an idea I've been batting around for a while about a world divided, like Evan Dahm's Overside, or the two parallel worlds in Fringe, except part of the division is not just physical, but metaphysical. Morality itself in each subworld is defective, because each subworld got a different part of a morally and metaphysically unified whole: thus, for reasons nobody can understand, almost every ethical system derived by people resident in only one subworld is deeply defective, and would be horrifying to us--as though, perhaps, our own complex and nuanced moral landscape that we wrestle with was a kind of grand unified theory whose symmetry had been broken, and which was only understood piecemeal, as totally separate concepts. And of course, if you live in one subworld everyone from the other subworld is a horrifying monster whose morality is totally incomprehensible to you, so you reflexively treat them as an enemy.)

History isn't just one thing after another. I mean, okay, it is, but it's *also* the aftereffects of those things, the things that stick around forever and can't be gotten away from. And just like how if you want to understand our own world you need to look at what it was like five years ago, and to understand what it was like five years ago you need to look at what it was like ten years ago, and fifteen, ad nauseam, until you're suddenly back at World War II, or the Holy Roman Empire, or Sumer, or struggling through the ever-increasing fog of a steadily more ambiguous archeological record, well, this is as true for politics and language as it is the material aspects of society. In the same way maps feel insufficient when the artist doesn't think about what's beyond the edge of the page (not to knock on GRRM too much, but if you put all the continents and seas in his world on the same map, you notice they're all really... rectangular. Like he drew them to fit individual pieces of paper. Rivers and island arcs get compressed when they near a margin. Seas are just voids. Nothing ever has to be moved to a little box in a corner to fit. there's no attempt at verisimilitude), I think invented worlds feel insufficient when the writer asks you to take them seriously as a reflection of our own, or an aspect of our own, but neglects to at least suggest their place in a larger whole.

I wanted with the Lende Empire to have something that still let me have a lot of early centuries of sword-and-horse style adventures (because i started writing about Lende when I was thirteen and had just finished the Silmarillion for the second time), and I wanted when writing its history to still be able to take big chunks of story I stole from Norse legends and medieval poetry and dump them almost whole into the setting, but I also wanted the history not to read like a fantasy history--or not just a fantasy history. What I mean is, when you read something like the Silmarillion, or when a character in a fantasy world relates some legend to you, even if it's referred to as an old and ambiguous tale, you still often feel like that's really what happened. Like, for me, one of the chief emotional attractions to something like the tales of the wars of the Goths and Huns, or Beowulf's description of Migration Age Denmark filtered through Anglo-Saxon poetic tropes, or the Icelandic family sagas, is that we really have a hard time knowing how much of it is true, how much of its is plausible embellishment, and how much of it is anachronistic nonsense or pure bullshit. Is the Njala based on a faithfully recounted tradition passed down orally for a few hundred years? Who knows! Not us. We know a guy named Njal got burned in his house around 1000 AD, but much of the mystery and the poignancy of stories like that for me lies in the difficulty of ascertaining their relationship to the truth.

What I want(ed) was something that when you read it made you think "ok, obviously the narrator is trying their best, but even they don't know exactly what the fuck happened; this is probably one third ambiguous tradition, one third solid, one third bullshit." So the Chronicle of Lende has some stuff in it that's intentionally difficult to reconcile. It has weird tonal shifts. The first third owes a lot to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the sagas and the Hildebrantslied; the middle is closer to the Silmarillion, or the history of Rome when told more from the Great Man perspective than the Impersonal Forces one, and the last third starts out that way but goes some weird places and veers off at the end to what is obviously a symbolic and highly abstracted mode of narration which, in relating the destruction of the Empire imitates the way in which its beginning is related (for in-universe Thematic Reasons), *but* while all this is going on, the hope is that the reader is *also* able to glimpse through these ambiguities and stylistic quirks, and incompatibilities, and weird digressions involving talking animals or the spirit world, a society that's undergoing familiar demographic and social and technological transitions: moving from oral culture agrarianism to the beginnings of a real urban civilization, with a centralized state and the written word, and like Western Europe having to figure out a social structure in the absence of any good nearby imperial models (they end up with something more like fraternal warrior societies being deputized to control land rather than feudal lords, but the essential logic is the same); but then moving to a real model of administrative statehood, as infrastructure and technology improve, before industrialization kicks off, the population explodes, social tensions inherent in that begin tearing at the seams of society, and the horrors of industrialized warfare are unleashed.

There are meant to be striking differences, too, of course. Lende history is only about a thousand Earth years long, and it's confined mostly to the western side of a continent split by a huge, Himalayan-like mountain range. Its rapid rise and increase in technological sophistication are due to exogenous factors (genuine divine intervention in some cases), and equally even the True Secret History of the empire's destruction has no real-world parallels, at least not since the Channeled Scablands formed 14,000 years ago. It's also teeeechnically science fiction and not fantasy, though that distinction really rests on tone and not on setting IMO. But I don't think it's possible to tell what feels like a real history of a world without sometimes radically changing genres: our own history goes from dry science (geology, paleontology, archeology) to legend and myth and scripture, to dusty old classical history and books penned by ancients who sometimes have startlingly different notions about what merits mention in a story and how to tell one, to tales of kings and queens and conquerors, before emerging blinking in the sunlight of dry matter of fact narration again. I have always believed conventions, including those of genre and style, should be tools and not straightjackets. The best worldbuilding literature I have read steals from a huge variety of sources (and Pratchett deserves a mention here again, alongside Susanna Clarke, and Ada Palmer, and the people who wrote the Elder Scrolls backstory, and Sofia Samatar, and Angelica Gorodischer).