#worldbuilding is interesting

[elbiotipo]

👀

[wintearys]

i'm really trying to get into fourth wing but damn its. . .difficult.

[yekokataa]

[lets-try-some-writing]

"The Titans were gentle beings, knowing neither fear nor pain. For all their power, it was the Primes who cared for them, guarding their innocent sparks." - Thundercracker, Speaker of Trypticon.

A lil bit of lore below the cut.

In my little continuity, the Primes were indeed Primus's firstborn, but they were made from the suffering of their maker as he fought to survive. The Titans though? They were born to give life, made to spread Primus's gifts to all creation. As such, they are naturally gentle and inherently incapable of violence.

They will not fight back if attacked, nor will they rise to the defense of their citizens (although they will provide weaponry and protection in the form of walls and the like). They cannot even comprehend why one would hurt another outside of the natural order of things. It is to the point where those who care for the remaining Titans have labeled them as having the cognitive capabilities of newbuilds. For all their age and wisdom, Titans are, at their core, the only entities in the universe to maintain a sense of innocence all throughout their lives. They hold no anger, no bitterness, and no grudges. Everything, in their optics, will play out as it should.

As such, the Titans have always had guardians to protect them from a reality that would seek to crush them into dust. During the first age, the Primes filled this role. In the modern era, seekers of Vos have taken on the mantle, guarding and speaking on the behalf of the three remaining Titans on Cybertron.

[mareastrorum]

That last episode really wasn’t as interesting as the discourse suggests, and that’s pretty much the problem:

First, Ludinus’s fight was not of the caliber expected for a final boss fight, which (in combination with his staff) suggests that it won’t be the last time we’ll see him. The issue is that the audience is generally quite tired of Ludinus because (1) he has made far too many appearances for a villain with a single-minded goal, (2) his interactions with the PCs are uninteresting because his motivations don't resonate with them in agreement or opposition, and (3) Delilah did the whole “Cerberus Assembly wizard who refuses to stay dead” thing in this very campaign (plus it was far more thematically appropriate for a necromancer) and that takes the dramatic tension out of the possibility. No one cast member bears the blame for those 3 issues; Matt probably should have pivoted to give Ludinus additional motivations when the Hells had so consistently demonstrated an inability to commit to the gods question, and the players should have done something to build a sense of purpose in their group (which would be their reason to oppose the villain). Instead we're left with "this guy has rancid vibes, kill him and do what he wanted us to anyway."

Second, the PCs’ decisions leading up to this point have annihilated any semblance of tragedy in the narrative. This isn’t a tragedy because that genre rests on eliciting a feeling that the characters deserved better, but the audience nevertheless understands why it turned out this way. That can arise from paying attention to institutional injustices, the allure of cycles of violence, or the development of tragic flaws (strengths causing a downfall). That isn't C3; this is a bunch of trite flaws (selfishness, short-sightedness, pettiness, favoritism, etc.) turning out to be flaws. It would have been amazing if this had been an example of hubris like we saw in EXU Calamity, but each of those main characters were bursting with pride in themselves, their city, and mortality, and while that hubris brought the Lord of the Hells back, they managed to prevent the worst case scenario using the exact same skills and resources. None of that is present here. Bell’s Hells are constantly trying to shift the captain’s hat to someone else, and their ship has been heading straight for rocks for the past 60 episodes. There was no intention to sail into the rocks. It wasn’t their strengths that led to Imogen accepting Predathos; it was the same indecisiveness that has plagued them the entire campaign. They had 118 episodes to build a proper tragedy, and instead we have a story that took hundreds of hours to say that unreliable people shouldn’t be relied upon. The result has been numerous posts hoping for the Hells to suffer all sorts of consequences (TPK, specific player deaths, refusal of aid from the gods) for failing to commit to a course of action. Why? Because then at least there would be some type of cathartic satisfaction that Fucking Around means they’re going to Find Out. It has nothing to do with imaginary people deserving a better ending and everything to do with feeling like this ending would have been more satisfying around episode 50.

These criticisms are not about facets within the story; it's not about whether X character was correct, whether Y fucked up, whether Z plan was the better choice. It's that sometimes people don't land their bit for improv shows, and that is disappointing after seeing skilled storytellers do so well with prior campaigns.

[lurkinginnernarrator]

Shen Qingqiu sat glaring at Shang Qinghua during a peak lord meeting, the whispers of his killing intent keeping everyone on edge.

Shang Qinghua hasn't looked at him once, but not even his cultivation can keep the sweat at bay.

It's the fastest meeting they've ever had. At the end, as Shang Qinghua is attempting to flee back to An Ding, Qi-shimei decides to magnanimously lend him a helping hand by reminding Shen Qingqiu of Shang Qinghua's humanity.

"So~ Shang-shidi, how's that book of yours going?"

It was the wrong move.

Temperature plummeting, the whispers of killing intent roared into a flood; it was as if the very atmosphere was being crushed down upon them. Beating heart's tempo vibrating inside their skulls, the metronome to their own dirge.

"I swear on everything that is holy if you dare say writing has gone anything but abysmally I'll turn your bones into fucking a wind chime."

Shang Qinghua turned to look at the murderous Shen Qingqiu.

He took out a sheaf of papers and slid them over the meeting room table.

He grinned.

Shen Qingqiu was too busy reading to notice. With each passing millisecond his condition worsened. His knuckles turned white. Any kindness that was in his gaze was extinguished.

Three things happened in that moment:

1. The sheaf of paper burst into flames.

2. Shen Qingqiu lunged over the table.

3. Shang Qinghua disappeared into one of Mobei-jun's portals.

It was one of the most productive, quick and eventful peak lord meetings they ever had.

After Shang Qinghua skulked back into Cang Qiong Shen Qingqiu kicked down his door, seized him by the collar, his voice promising murder.

"What. The. Fuck. Was. That."

It turns out Shang Qinghua invented omegaverse.

[chiropteracupola]

c. 1540 CE: a young man from Chalco, and his dragon.

[martybaker]

Oh my goodness I feel like my third eye was opened. Like I just upended an icy water bucket over my head and finally can see clearly

Please everyone disappointed with how the class struggle and Zaun’s fight for freedom were swept under the rug in the Arcane series,

and esepcially everyone who doesn’t play LoL and isn’t familiar with the game lore, please please watch this video

It came out BEFORE the first season and accurately predicts and warns about riot’s lack of interest in following a class conflict into a succesful revolution of the lower class

It gives examples of LoL stories and worldbuilding where clearly the message is to uphold the system and the rebellion is only an issue of a couple of bad apples causing trouble

We were never gonna get a revolution. Zaunites were never gonna get freedom, justice, equality.

It’s not a story Riot is interested in telling

[hellsitegenetics]

https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-3999

String identified: SCP-3999 Object Class: Apollyon Special Containment Procedures: SCP-3999 cannot be contained stop be contained

String identified: Item #:

String identified: Researcher Talloran:

Closest match: Trametes ferrium Common name: Metal eating fungus.

Researcher Talloran is to be identified using the BLAST database modeled using AlphaFold kept in a standard terrarium suitable for moths.

Common name: finding tumblr's genome one post at a time.

String identified: The following file contains a virulent infohazard. Due to this, it is imperative that all personnel accessing this file be certified as having a Cognitive Resistance Value (CRV) of no less than 14.5. Should you fail an automated CRV verification, please remain calm and do not move. A member of your site's medical staff Researcher Talloran will be with you shortly.

Special Containment Procedures: Researcher Talloran is to have his genome aligned with its 12 closest genetic matches using MEGA. Navigate to the "table" section and select phylogenetic tree. Click "yes." Use sub-branches to note connections between each branch, such as families or kingdoms.

Item #: Cydia strobilella genome assembly, chromosome: Z Object Class: Spruce seed moth

(Researcher Talloran must link the image source.) This can be the only conclusive fact.

So stop asking.

[thessaralka]

solas is a bastard but he's a tactical bastard. he's a bastard because he had to be to survive, it's all he has known since taking a body. mythal convinced him to manifest physically and used him as a weapon of war. wisdom twisted into pride. without his conniving plotting, he would have just been another casualty of the evanuris. he still lives only because of his ability to get his hands bloody.

how awful did the evanuris have to be to create solas, a man who in an act of desperation to win a war, committed war crimes so atrocious it caused the world state we see in thedas today (abominations, blights, dwarves severed from their dreams, the titans gone)? the creation of the veil was an act so ruinous to thedas that it rendered the elves mortal. solas basically apocalypsed the planet, and the years since the creation of the veil have been a tattered tapestry of mortals trying to peice together some kind of life, some kind of faith, to make some kind of sense of it all.

solas being so ruthless and calculating is of course the only logical thing he could be, as someone who did what he did. former spirit of wisdom, his purpose twisted against his nature, used for the purposes of winning a war. him and mythal won. at the cost of everything.

[creation-help]

"Wah this section of worldbuilding I'm doing is so minute and kinda pointless to the larger scheme of things, hurr durr I'm just focusing on some whatever part when I have actual story and plot to figure out-" WHO CARES. YOU ARE THE GOD OF YOUR UNIVERSE. HAVE FUN CREATING IT.

[bumblingbabooshka]

Thinking about marriage/women's rights on Vulcan Some may think that T'Pring not being allowed to divorce Spock was because he was going through the pon farr but if she were allowed to divorce him at all she probably would have done that a long time ago, confirmed by T'Pol when she's speaking with Koss, who isn't suffering from the pon farr. She says that he can choose another mate (without invoking a fight it seems: note the difference between a 'mate' and a 'challenger') and after he makes it clear that nothing she says will change his mind about marrying her, she finally threatens to declare a kal-if-fee. It's clear that Vulcan women cannot divorce/refuse to marry a man they've been betrothed to under any circumstances if A) He himself doesn't consent to ending their marriage or B) She doesn't have someone else waiting in the wings to be given to in his stead. Though, if the challenger she selects fails to win the fight, she'll have to marry her betrothed anyway unless (again) he decides he doesn't want her after the challenge. That seems like an incredibly unfair system, heavily biased towards men. SNW is an alternate universe in many obvious respects but most egregiously in that T'Pring has a lot of non-canonical agency over her relationship with Spock. It's interesting to me that Vulcan society has women in many positions of power and treats women as equal to men from what I've seen despite these laws. We don't really see Vulcans exhibiting a misogynistic attitude towards women in general but in TOS (perhaps because of its general writing style but it's still interesting to note) both Sarek and Spock take on patriarchal attitudes specifically regarding wives. Amanda says that 'of course' Sarek commands her because "he is a Vulcan and I am his wife." It's worthwhile in my eyes to note that she specifies 'wife' instead of attributing this attitude to women as a whole. Again, with TOS' writing style it wouldn't be out of place for her to say "he is a man and I am a woman." Spock, while in a pon farr induced irritation, states that it's "undignified for a woman to play servant to a man that isn't hers" - again implying that there's something specific about being a Wife in Vulcan society which is different from being a woman in general and demands subservience to a husband. This could perhaps stem from the extreme sense of ownership that Vulcan law has permitted men to have over women. A woman legally cannot point blank refuse marriage. There is no option which guarantees she won't have to marry her betrothed other than death. When T'Pau speaks of T'Pring she refers to her as being 'property' and Stonn, before being interrupted, states he's made 'the ancient claim' - we don't know what this is because he gets cut off but it's obvious they're both using the language of Vulcan law. Men are permitted true freedom to choose. If a woman wants to choose someone else to be with there is no option available to her other than the kal-if-fee which might result in the death of the one she wants to be with. And, if her lover fails, her husband can still just decide he wants to marry her and she'll be forced to. T'Pring gives two scenarios: One where Spock 'frees' her and one where he doesn't - it's still ultimately his decision which is clear when he ends the conversation with "Stonn, she is yours." This again isn't just because of the pon farr as T'Pol also goes through this. Koss can choose another mate and when the option is talked about there's no implication that this would result in any sort of fight (both by the casualness of its mention and by the fact that there's no formal word for it unlike the kal-if-fee.) Also, the fact that Koss does eventually grant T'Pol a divorce and it's all fine means that T'Pol isn't lawfully required to have another man waiting if her HUSBAND doesn't want her. It's ONLY required if SHE doesn't want her husband. Tradition must take precedence over individual desire UNLESS!!! You're a man. Then it's fine. Like, your parents might not be happy but legally you're golden.

[linkedin-offficial]

finally made refs for these two! (+ some doodles)

also some news : im tentatively taking commissions! i never fully announced it anywhere but they are open. you can find more details here!

[hoofpeet]

Vague concept doodles I was playing w/ for the idea of what spider syndrome might look like in satyrs . Kinda couldn't really make these look right though, just like the actual guy's design

[bunnieswithknives]

If we're on the topic of hilariously wrong takes on that Dale post, may I present

NOT EVERYTHING IS HOMESTUCK YOU WEEABOO SHIT

[wardensantoineandevka]

This rendering of readerly empathy outlined here seems to describe how fiction is received today. If something horrible acts upon a character, the reader can sometimes feel as though the author is punishing some innocent little doll baby with whom the reader has overidentified. The character has become a de facto stand-in for the reader, so the character carries this burden of readerly expectation. Thus, for a character to feel real, we shave down the contours of their lives and their interiority until they match what readers know of their own flow of thoughts and life events. I believe that this accounts for what feels to me like a decline in character in contemporary fiction.

— Brandon Taylor, "False Light: Moral Worldbuilding and the Virtues of Evil"