#worldbuilder rambling

[equinoxts2]

Quin rambles about eggs

@coriel-muroz asked in response to my last post: Can I ask how you do the eggs? Is it a mod or a decorative object or what? Well, the answer's a bit rambly to put in a tumblr comment, so here's how it works for coriel-muroz and everyone else who's curious.

In the centre of every community, there's an aether beacon - a little floating glow that is the literal and figurative heart of the village. It's the place where, in my headcanon, these eggs "manifest". In other words, when I roll "egg manifests" as an ROS or just decide I want someone to have a kid, I'll place one or more decorative dragon eggs in the deco dragon nest that sits beneath the beacon. Story-wise, anyone who wants to adopt one can go there and see if an egg resonates with them; if it does, they get to take the egg home and set up a nest of their own.

The next thing I do is use Sim Blender to impregnate the sim who will be the "blood parent" - the one who cares for the egg through a period of bonding, and performs the ritual at the end (me speeding up the rest of the pregnancy) to awaken it. The pregnancy is frozen in the first trimester until the awakening ritual, and there's a very low chance (represented by Alt Pregnancy Controller Lite's miscarriage chance) that the egg will change its mind about who it wants to be its parent. This doesn't prevent it hatching, just means that someone else takes the egg and starts a new bonding period. I have replaced the miscarriage memory text to say "Rejected Resonance."

The second parent - the breath parent - is, effectively, completely random. I roll between all the potential "fathers" in the hood to decide who it is, but their identity is seen as something you don't really need to know. This is where Name the Father comes in, to set the second parent as "no character" or one of the partners of the blood parent.

If there's anything else anyone wants to know more about, please let me know! I love rambling about my worldbuilding. :)

[aethersea]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

however.

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

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

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

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

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

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

[longlivethewildernessyet]

C.S. Lewis: oh and yeah, the stars are actually people who are functionally immortal (unless bitten by a witch who's shapeshifted into a snake) and come down to earth for rest periods wherein they look like normal humans and eat fire-berries until they can go be stars again, but they can be banished too and become magicians—

me: hold on

C.S. Lewis: keep up, there are also sea people (not mermaids) who have entire civilisations underwater, with dark purple hair and ivory skin, and they ride giant seahorses, and are very aggressive—

me: wait a second

C.S. Lewis: aren't you listening, because there is also a world underneath Narnia with many different sections, including one where Father Time sleeps until the end of the world, and a world underneath that called Bism where gems live and can be juiced like fruit—

me: just hang on a minute

C.S. Lewis: so you don't want to hear about how a centaur feeds both stomachs?

[dunmeshistash]

Incomplete/imperfect knowledge in Dungeon Meshi is so good isn't it?

The exposition I usually see in made up worlds tend to the side of being perfect explanations (or at least they eventually get explained to the audience) but in dungeon meshi we get a lot of speculation from in world imperfect understanding of the people living in it, it's so good.

The bad understanding that gets corrected later on it's like "Oh I see why they thought that" but some isn't even given a good answer at all.

Some examples is of course the living armors people assumed were moved by magic but were a monster. But there's also less obvious things, like the understanding about ancient magic, dungeons, the basilisk "which one is the main body", differences between humans and demi-humans etc

Even characters that know more than other characters still have blank spaces in their understanding they fill with misconceptions. Like the canaries not fully understanding the demon even tho they think they do.

This is one of the great parts about the ending 10/10

so what happens now that the world was changed? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[tetrameryxx]

A catalogue of Akkrazaran dog breeds, found inside of a reference bestiary

[gyrovagi]

(nimbly dodging an assortment of hammers that are falling from the sky aimed directly for my head) ok. will contain spoilers for all games at some point but i'll put the avowed ones at the end and mark them for oomfs who haven't finished it yet. Please finish the game so i can tell you about ambrose (i am smiling but you can see me visibly white-knuckling the edge of my desk). anyway

i honestly think this is in large part just the natural conclusion of focusing in on reincarnation as a known, provable, central mechanism of your universe. so this is more scattered 'what's all this then?' thoughts and not, like, an essay with an argument. what IS all this then

because if you know for a fact that reincarnation is real, then birth and death are two sides of the same coin. the god of death has two faces, the god of rebirth/redemption is also the one reaping souls to sow again. which is a concept people on earth are already familiar with, but it's literally true in eora - and what tips it over into something horrific for me is the fact that you don't get a clean slate with the next turn around the wheel. every newborn infant is already a ghost. there's always a chance, however slim, that something from decades, centuries, even millennia ago could come back to haunt you. we don't see people experiencing awakenings and then having a good time! even if aloth comes to accept iselmyr, his awakening was a direct result of the physical abuse he experienced as a child. your fucking soul keeps the score!! and you have no way of escaping samsara other than hoping the god of entropy blasts your souls into bits, a mercy which he fails to extend to some of his most devoted followers in poe1. for his own reasons ❤️

which leads into the Second Fundamental Horror of eora, before we even start thinking about the hollowborn: the wheel of life and death is controlled - was hijacked, even - by gods who are completely unaccountable to the mortals whose lives they play around with. you can dedicate your life to rymrgand and he'll put you back in the game in the exact same position and there's nothing you can do about it. if you're born a godlike, if your child is born a godlike, whatever trials and tribulations arise as a result, a god chose to do that to you. you most likely won't ever get the chance to ask for an explanation, and even if you do, you won't get any answers.

the watcher learns essentially by chance that the ultimate 'function' the godlikes are born for is to act as backup bodies or batteries for the gods. even for the godlike we see that seem more favored by their gods/the people around them, the horror is still there just lurking in the background. a godlike does not exist by chance, they exist as the conscious act of a god who exerts control over their life and death as a matter of course. i feel like i can't put this into words the way i want to - like, it's not an accident, it's not a complication of birth or pregnancy that can just happen and it's nobody's fault. it is someone's fault. without your knowledge or consent a god reached into your womb and forever changed your baby, or a god forever changed you before you were even born. you know this for a fact, and there's nothing you can do about it.

and we still haven't gotten into the fucking hollowborn!!!! which is just right there on the page. what do i need to say about it. a baby that's physically fine - that is, strictly speaking, alive and breathing, with a beating heart, and warmth in its little fingers, but will never be capable of living. fifteen years is a generation. that's a long fucking time for whatever odd percent of babies to just be born... empty. and then woedica in the burned book of law tells you that soul maladies like the hollowborn weren't uncommon before the gods took over the wheel. like. jesus. you have some limited amount of control over trying to make sure an infant's born physically healthy but what can you do to make sure it's born with an intact soul?

[major spoilers for both poe games commence but deadfire is almost 7 years old. if you are oomf who hasn't finished though it's fun to experience it yourself.]

and THEN deadfire leaves eora with the wheel broken - and there's no follow-up of what's developed from that in avowed three years later, most likely to just plain avoid spoiling the game lol/having to refer to any concrete 'worldstate.' but if it didn't immediately result in a new spate of hollowborn births (which it could've! people just might not have put the pieces together on that just yet), eventually like. it's not just that life on eora will die out if kith can't figure something out, it's that 'life' on eora will be soulless. which is if anything more existentially terrifying.

and the gods. the fucking gods. their unnatural, engineered birth directly demanded mass death on an inconceivable level. not just the deaths of willing engwithans, but the unwilling ones, too. not just the end of one civilization, but the devastation of the huana who were left completely in the dark about thaos' intent. how could you possibly expect gods who came into being like that to assign any value to mortal life? the gods were born from death; they are, in fact, still actively parasites latched onto the cycle of death and rebirth, which they twisted from its natural existence and bent and hammered to serve their purpose. they were born horrific and unnatural and then they made all birth horrific and unnatural.

[AVOWED SPOILERS FROM HERE ON]

this is why this one avowed note text makes me so crazy like. go make a bloody birth of them. the goddess who presides over childbirth, who came into being from the deaths of thousands of peoples, says: these people are soulless heretics worshipping a false (true) god. Go make a bloody birth of them. (She was a bloody birth!!!) Kill them so they'll be reborn under our control. The Engwithans had to die for our (unnatural) birth; the Ekidans have to die to pay for their god's (natural) birth.

what avowed ends up bringing to the table is the idea that a 'naturally-born god' is, arguably, no less horrific. sapadal, as far as we know, just coalesced into being from essence in the living lands over time. no mass murder required. but whatever horror they were spared in the nature of their creation, they're instead horrific by nature of being something with the power of a god but all the emotional intelligence and self-control of a child. they didn't choose to be born, they didn't have any control over the circumstances. they're innocent, but that doesn't make them any less dangerous. it was terrifying for the engwithans to realize they could find no gods, but it's also terrifying to think that something that powerful could just be born out of nowhere and wreak destruction without understanding any of it. and of course that if you let them they are just as capable of overriding the autonomy and identity of the godlike they created (by accident) (honestly no less horrific than the godlike the other gods made on purpose)

They were real for this.

[incorporeal-entity]

Here is why You should ship Vigilance x Diamond (Diamance)

(art by @aeg3an + permission to use)

1. Toxic Yuri

These two are at war with each other so naturally they hate each other but both are drawn to each other since they both know the stresses of being a queen. This is what drew them together plus the begrudging respect on how both of them are able to one up each other in war. When one side gains the upper hand the other comes up with a strategy to turn the tides back in their favor. This builds respect but also anger and resentment since they are losing dragons.

2. The Drama

Since they are at war with each other how will they grapple with the fact they have feelings for their enemy? They would have to keep their feelings a secret between them or else a massive Royal scandal will occur. They will kill any dragon including advisors if they even think they are starting to grow suspicious. So they send letters mad at the loss of advisors or dragons fallen in war and how their army will reach their kingdom and tear it down but beneath the anger is a sense of longing and how they will be the one to deal the final blow to other and how the winner will hold the loser and look them in the eyes as the life fades form their eyes.

3. How will it end?

How will they end up? Will one finally manage to kill the other leaving nothing behind a feeling of triumph overshadowed by loss and longing? Will they both kill each other in battle with both of them finally being able to embrace each other as their lives come to an end? Will it be an enemies to lovers story to do what Arctic and Foeslayer couldn't? Or will it end like it did in canon the Nighwings leaving and both Queens feeling and immense longing and rage at the fact they weren't able to finish the job? Idk and honestly that is up to you to explore.

In conclusion

The sheer amount of potential this ship has is massive in the ways how the characters will react to their feelings, how they express them or if they try to hide it how their facade falters, and how their story will end. The possibilities and scenarios these ships have is immense and it's why you should ship Diamond x Vigilance.

[theangrycomet]

I think Optimus Served Time for Manslaughter in TFA...

tfa is both is a little dodgy and specific about when the archa 7 incident occurred.

like we know it's at least 1000 stellar cycles from Blackarachnia but it's kind of implied that Sentinel is like that with Bumblebee and Bulkhead and the other trainees in Autoboot Camp because he's lashing out over recent events. (we need to have more things pointing out Sentinel and Optimus' dismissiveness towards BB after they loss their friend who was also black and yellow but that's a different post)

But then we get Optimus who's punishment for and seemingly right after Blackarachnia's "death" is being assigned a repair duty with his crew WITH B&B and Ratchet, who is clearly used to their antics indicating the three have been working together for a while.

So, where was Optimus during the time gap?

I think a good explanation that fills the gap is that Optimus served some time in prison. Not overly long, but long enough for Ultra Magnus to pull some strings to allow him to keep his title. After all OP didn't do anything treasonous- he just let someone die. However frowned upon, that is not a crime in itself.

So I'm guessing he got the equivalent of a few months in a cell, got released, and basically slapped on the wrist with indefinite community service/exile with Space Bridge Repair.

[tsukii0002]

What if Nightbringer were a version of Barbatos? If these two at some point were the same entity that separated based on the ideals pursued by each? Because Barbatos was born out of chaos, he was in this world from the beginning, and if once that chaos separated into the three realms, was Barbatod/Nightbringer's goal to return to that chaos? And if the goal is to find the key to return to that chaos?

What if this primordial demon, being able to see different futures, dissociated into different personalities according to the future that these personalities would choose? Barbatos chose Solomon as the key to return to chaos, but over time he changed his mind, his ambition changed and he looked for a new objective, he no longer wanted to return to chaos, so he swore loyalty to Diavolo. And Nightbringer chose Mc, that's why they also approached Solomon as a piece that would assure them to reach the human in the future, a piece to use and throw away, that's why Solomon hates them so much. Everything Nightbringer does is with the objective of giving Mc enough power to fulfill their desire, to return to chaos, to make the human unbeatable so that no one can stop them. And what if before Mc, Nightbringer chose Eve, but realized that she was not the right key. That's why Adam was “locked up” by it.

What if that's why in the story the events overlap Barbatos and Nightbringer. What if they were not yet completely separated when they met Solomon?

And what if this primordial demon, ends up in a third personality that chose the angels as the key to chaos and was defeated by Michael, so that he assimilated in a certain part the powers of moving in time? That's why he is able to talk to Mc in the past while being aware of the future?

.

.

I'm re-reading the first 2 seasons of Nightbringer and this is the doubt that torments me the most, the identity of the demon that takes us to the past. What is their objective? What is their relationship with Solomon? What does they gain by making us stronger? What is their relationship with Barbatos? Because honestly, the most plausible option is that Nightbringuer is Barbatos, but I don't like that at all, it would be too obvious :( and without substance.

What are your theories? I'd love to read them.

.

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[translunaryanimus]

Hey all! I'm currently back at college and I have a pretty big workload! Unfortunately I won't be able to post as much as I'd like because of this so there will likely either be big gaps between posts, or more small/sloppier doodles that I make in my very limited free time. Have a couple doodles in the meantime!

[equinoxts2]

Building epiphany aside, I want to ramble about my sim world's calendar while my game is loading. This is the main reason I started replacing text strings in the first place!

In the world of Juvash, sims count their ages not in years, but in starbands - the equivalent of months, and also the length of a rotation. A starband is usually about 120 days long, and it takes twelve of them (a twelveband) for a full cycle of seasons to complete. Every third twelveband is actually a thirband - a thirteen-starband year, with the leap band (Tidesband) occuring at the beginning of the seasonal cycle. To do this, I add an extra rotation's worth of days to the first season using simnopke's Seasons and Weather controller.

In order, the twelve bands of a standard year are: Birdsband, Blueband, Dreamband (spring); Wandsband, Goldband, Makersband (summer); Stormband, Pinkband, Trailband (autumn); Ghostband, Silverband, Boneband (winter). Blue, Gold, Pink and Silver are the four traditions of mages on Juvash, and each type is empowered during the band named for it.

The starbands are not actually based on moon phases - Juvash is a plane of existence, but it's not a planet, and its suns and moons literally rise and set from the oceans rather than orbiting it. An obvious follow-on from this: the moons don't have phases! One of my many recent forays into changing text strings involved adapting smonaff's Period Hack to say "Dragon Tide" instead of period or moon cycle. (The Electria Dragons, in my sim world, are gods of the eight elements. There's a myth that claims there was once a ninth Dragon, whose element was blood, and who was the only god to adopt a gender identity. She, supposedly, was shattered in the first age of Juvash, and every woman now carries part of her essence. Hence, dragon tides.)

Anyway. Days of the week. Again, Seasons and Weather Controller comes into play here, because any band that is not named for a magical tradition only has six days per week. Seven-day weeks occur in Blueband, Goldband, Pinkband and Silverband, with the added day again being named for the tides of chaos Juvash was born from: Tidesday. The days of the week are, in order from the Monday-equivalent: Risingday, Brightday, Tradesday, Tidesday, Hearthday, Starday, Fallingday.

Rather than having a weekend, Juvash has a midweek for the same purpose. Tradesday and Hearthday are the days everyone gets off work and school (thanks to a couple of BCON edits I made) - in seven-day weeks, Tidesday is also part of the midweek. Tradesday is usually a market day, where communities gather to exchange the goods they've produced. Hearthday is a family day, usually observed at home.

Seasons are renamed like this: Spring = First Turning; Summer = Suns' Gaze; Autumn = Shadows' Harvest; Winter = Moons' Tears. The last one, Moons' Tears, is effectively the mating season for most species of Juvash, and the only season ACR autonomy is enabled.

Finally, the zodiac signs (star tribes) have nothing to do with time of birth on Juvash - they're actually based on twelve mythical archetypes that appear in the legends of many cultures, and rites of adulthood tend to involve deciding which of these archetypes you choose to emulate. It is entirely possible to change paths later! They are: Joker, Nurturer, Guide, Scholar, Mystic, Companion, Defender, Innocent, Teacher, Maker, Artist and Wanderer.

And... that's about it. Have a sticker if you read all this rambling! My game has loaded; time to build.

[pyroexcape]

i like to imagine that Lugia’s title of the ‘silver’ pokemon would come from how it appears underwater.

i think it’d be cool if it’s feathers are hydrophobic in nature and act as a waterproof barrier, reflecting light to give it a metallic appearance. like how aerogel powder acts on skin

[specialagentartemis]

worldbuilding idea I wanna see so bad: an alternate history where Neanderthals, Denisovans, and Floresiensis never went extinct. Humans share the world with several other human species and have forever. I understand why you'd have to be soooo delicate and deliberate not to do Scientific Racism Real Actually about it but. I would love to see it

[starmocha]

So there is this old manga series (Loveless by Yun Kouga) involving...cat people (have both cat and human ears). In this world, people lose their cat features (ears and tail) when they lose their virginity.

...

Are you guys picking up what I'm putting down? 😌

Yes. A world where losing your cat features means that you've just lost your virginity. That's it. That's the concept. Do with this idea as you will.

If anyone does anything with this, pls tag me, I will devour your fic/scenario/headcanon/art in a heartbeat 💖💖💖

[corishadowfang]

...Do you mind if I ramble about hypothetical worldbuilding around Keyblades in these trying times.

Keyblades are semi-living weapons.  They’re forged from a piece of a person’s heart, and so act as an extension of the individual.  They have ‘personalities,’ in a way; some are mischievous and won’t always come when called, others are almost battle-hungry, others are gentle and may be harder to get to use offensive magic.  These personalities are all reflections of their wielders, in some way—though they might reflect parts of them they aren’t aware of at all.  Wielders are responsible for listening to their weapons and becoming more in-tune with them so that they can use the blades properly.

Keyblades all of their own ‘voices,’ too—a collection of sounds and impressions that vary in intensity depending on the situation.  (ex. A Starlight Keyblade might have a “voice” that sounds like crackling fire and crickets chirping and a cool night breeze.)  Most wielders would describe these voices as “singing” or “humming,” even if that’s not exactly what it’s like.

Becoming a wielder and becoming more in-tune with your Keyblade can be very daunting, which is why most young wielders are started off with training blades.  These blades are crafted by Keyblade Masters who’ve had years of experience both with wielding the actual weapon and with forging items.  The training blades aren’t “alive” in the same way that true Keyblades are, but they still have many of the same functions as one, allowing wielders to begin getting used to wielding one before they officially summon their own.

Wielders generally first summon their “true” Keyblade in their final year of training, before they take their Mark of Mastery exam.  This gives the apprentices a chance to learn some of the finer details of being a wielder under the watchful eyes of their Masters.

“Living” Keyblades tend to hum with energy, and even people who aren’t wielders can sometimes catch the sound of their voice.  “Dead” Keyblades are almost eerily silent.

A Keyblade may “live” longer than its owner, though the length of time varies.  Essentially, the Keyblade retains a piece of its wielder—memories, an impression of the wielders heart—which will slowly deteriorate.  These memories may occasionally manifest as “ghosts.”

Occasionally, a wielder may inherit an existing Keyblade, rather than summon their own.  Generally, this only occurs with very old Keyblades with a lot of symbolic meaning, which have been kept alive generation after generation by bonding to new wielders.  (As such, these Keyblades have also continued to grow in power, as they continue to collect pieces of the new wielders they bond to.)  Usually these wielders are meant to take up positions of power, and the Keyblade is bequeathed to them in a special ceremony.  Their own Keyblades will often (though not always) remain dormant because of this.

(On even rarer occasions, wielders will pick up the still-living Keyblades of recently deceased loved ones and claim them as their own.  The effects are not always positive.)

[bumblingbabooshka]

Thinking about my personal headcanons for Tuvok and Spock. We don't actually know where precisely Tuvok lives but when fake T'Pel says he's "home" it shows him a landscape which seems quite barren and he's very closely associated with Vulcan religion. That, and the fact that the Vulcan Insitute he worked at was located in Gol, makes me headcanon that he's from the area. He also took on a 'Rite of Tal'oth' which no other Vulcan seems to have talked about. It appears to be a more hardcore version of the Kahs Wan ritual where you have to survive four months with a ritual blade instead of ten days. Maybe it's a cultural practice? But Gol, known for its harsh conditions and holy sites, seems like a good place for it. Also, I forgot to draw anything for it but I headcanon that Spock was unused to talking to girls/women until he went to the academy while Tuvok's social circle has always been mainly female.