#your worldbuilding is bland
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ok so i was thinking about the trope of being sorted into different groups and stuff in media, (those dystopia books, fantasy based on element stuff, the owl house, guilds/classes in games, harry potter) and⌠what the hell do the houses in harry potter do except draw the line between good and bad?? putting a kid not doing so well with a bunch of other kids that are bullies or not doing so well IS A BAD IDEA
you know what would have been way more interesting?
HOUSES BASED ON THE WAND CORES
unicorn, dragon, pheonix (common, uncommon, rare). but that is only 3, so maybe add in kraken scales (id add that between uncommon and rare) or something so itâs four.
SO harry can still be special boy, phoenix core, but there should be drawbacks and different pros and cons of the cores so itâs not super unbalanced.
Unicorn cores maybe have a better time with aim and control, and as such is good with spells that are ranged or need precision. However the precision means powerful spells are more difficult to cast and requires more practice. Maybe they take an extra class about how to learn and practice spells specifically for unicorn cores.
Dragon cores are more powerful in short bursts, like explosions and such, so prolonged spells are more difficult so require more attention and endurance. The short explosions of energy means they are better for straight combat. The easiest to get used to, despite being the second most common. They have a class for practicing spell endurance.
Kraken cores work best when manipulating large physical objects and mass. Levitation, moving things around, and manipulating shape is easiest. Manipulating anything organic is much more difficult to learn, but ultimately easier. Manipulating the mind is just as hard as usual. Has an extra class about healing, as they are the best healers.
Phoenix cores are incredibly difficult to use, not just skill-wise but mentally. The core stores magic the best but humans are squishy and canât take that magic very well. It is more powerful but, if used too much, can seriously damage the brain with concussion-like symptoms. It is easiest to loose control with this core and hurt people, so they have a few extra classes on how to control this. Phoenix core spell casters must see a doctor and therapist once a month, and again if there is any incident.
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I have a big google doc thing where I keep track of media and stuff (putting everything in loosely ranked categories), which is mostly just for my own reference so I know what tv shows I've already seen before, etc. and I never really look back through it, typically just a quick "okay, watched two movie in the past 8 months, need to quickly slap them somewhere in the lists. okay. done. save document. exit". But today I was actually reading through some of the old notes and there are like... MULTIPLE places where my comment is basically "It would have been good if it were about elves" or "I wish there was a fantasy show made in this same style" or "It's well made, but I just keep thinking about how I would like it more if everyone was an elf or was in old 1700s costumes" or etc like...... lol.... Most biased media ranking system on earth blatantly made by someone with an extremely hyperspecific range of narrow interests. It'd be like if a food reviewer only had 5 foods they actually liked, so they'd just go to a pizza place and be like "eh, the pizza was okay, but I just think it would be better if it was cereal instead. :/ ...2 out of 10"
#Which.. I mean... I am allowed to be biased because literally it's just for my own personal reference (or occasionall#y to send to friends or something if we're discussing the topic) so like.. nowhere am I saying 'I am the god of perfect taste and these#rankings are objectively the absolute truth and everyone should have my same opinion' or anything#BUT still.. it's funny to me sometimes#'Succession would be 100x better if it had the same cast/character quirks and shaky camera style and#acting choices/weird dialogue and general concept etc. EXCEPT it takes place within an elven noble family or something#managing the family business and everyone is in fantasy costumes now'' like.....okay...... but it's NOT that way..soo... thats not the show#''I like the acting style/general tone of Fleabag but i don't care for any of the characters or any of the subject matter and I wish it was#set in the 1800s and had vampires and was about magic instead'' okay..... again... you are making up an entirely new show in that case lol#OR my other beloved typical complaint ''The concept is good but theres too much plot and action and not enough people just sitting#around doing nothing and exposition dumping world and character lore'' ''this needs more goofy sideplots and filler episodes''#''this Drama was too dramatic I think it should be more lighthearted & people need to sit around doing nothing just being weird more often'#''the Action Movie was ok except for the action scenes - which I skipped through all of- but I liked the costumes and worldbuilding'' etc.#ERM sorry your plot has too much plot. also elves have to be included somehow. bye#BUT SERIOUSLY!!!!!! I literally genuinely believe that any show I like (or even dislike) could ALWAYS be improved greatly by#putting people in fantasy or historical costume/setting/etc... why the FUNK would I want to see bland jeans and cars and cell phones#when I could see elaborate velvet cloaks and fantastical landscapes and interior design and innovative takes on historical or#magical technology or etc. etc. etc. I LIVE in the modern day. I see it all the time!!! BORING! stinky!! boo!!!#ANYWAY... another social divide for me.. People love to bond by discussing media. which is hard when I'm like#'I literally will not watch something at all unless it fits into one of these 10 extremely specific categories which are all i care about i#the entire world''.. I say this and yet I still dislike most fantasy or historical things I've watched lol. ok TWO main criteria then!!#it must 1. be in a different world or time period. 2. be goofy silly. Nothing ever has BOTH. It's always overly serious boring drama action#fantasy/history stuff OR it's comedic lighthearted but with modern day characters... WHY.. anguish and woe and so on..#ANYWAY jhjnk... at least I can make that divide. Some people seem to project their own personal preferences and get really emotionally#defensive if you say you didn't like something - as if the fact that they DO like it is some Objective Truth or something rather than just#opinion/preference based. I can still easily say ''this is well made/well written/acted/good in a technical sense/has a lot of#points of appeal that most people would be drawn to/etc'' and admit that it's a GOOD show probably. I just PERSONALLY think its#bad because my tastes are very narrow. Some things ARE actually made badly but. things are not bad INHERENTLY just bc they dont suit ME lol#Better to recognize/accept whats odd about you and be peacefully aware of it than just being mad at everyone all the time for not fully#agreeing with you even when you're the one with the Weird opinion in that case lol.. I am right though :3 but.. lol... still. i get it
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still thinking abt fairy tail like idk if i can actually articulte why i wouldnt recommend it to anyone despite liking it so much? like its a generic shounen story but i did in fact enjoy it (until the end but thats like a staple to the genre at this point i think) but gun to my head i wouldnt be able to tell you what abt it i would change to make it better
#i am admittedly not a very creative person in the first place#i think as like a starter anime its a good one to like ease you into it? bc again its very generic and also no one dies lmao and its not par#particulrly deep and is like the face of the power of friendship solving all your problems#i guess maybe more worldbuilding?? which is insane consider how much worldbuilding there is?#or like#maybe expanded worldbuilding#a more interconnected storyline mayhaps bc everything kinda happens in blocks#like having very visible indicators between arcs isnt bad but again they barely flow#its plot moved rather than character moved#so perhaps more character moved#i think what it is is that its all very BLAND and generic#but it was like one of the first animes i watched so it has a very special place in my heart#and also the more i find out abt op the more im like oh yeah this is so obviously influenced by it đ#i think ft problem is that it was obvs made to be long running#so new plots were conceived to just elongate the overarching story#is the impression i get which is possibly why it feels so unconnected#its like ok this thing happened now moving on to another thing and its just like that all the time#wish the character relationships got fleshed out more :(#wish LUCY FUCKING HEARTFILIA got to have more chances to shine god damn#*clenched fist* i will NOT rewatch ft i wont i refuse#michi tag
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me reminding dd players that so much of the worldbuilding and lore is inferred from npc dialogue and their routines and that you really should be paying attention to what anyone and everyone has to say because the series design intentionally wants you to look out for these things rather than just drop it on your lap and that's not necessarily a design flaw that's just their way of storytelling to line up with the game's thesis
#like obviously its ok if you're someone who prefers to read the summaries of it through wiki pages or from lore posts by others#not everyone has time to go through every piece of dialogue#but if u play the game and only stick to the main quest and then complain that there's no worldbuilding that's on you!#i keep reading stuff about how the world was poorly fleshed out and no!!! it wasn't!!!#game plot is mid yes but you gotta read item descs and listen/observe the world around u THAT WAS THE POINT OF THE FIRST GAME#i'd even argue that the plot itself isn't actually that bad narratively but it was just PRESENTED gameplay wise in a very bland way#the thesis of dd is that you need to pay attention to the world because it's your home! and as uncaring as it is there are inhabitants of i#already in dd2 gameplay vids there's massive new lore from item descs and there are certain npcs who introduce new things#dragon's dogma#dd2#dragon's dogma 2
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I have two more wips that I do not have time for rotating in my brain like a chicken
One is a modern au (im sorry but I love those) where lu ten is still alive and its pretty stereotypical but its how i want it to be and yeah
One is an au where ozai makes an attempt to be a good father (hes not perfect and actually royally fucks up zuko and azula still but he does care about them and love them and stuff)
Anywho you guys should tell me which of these you'd be more interested in
#theyre both pretty simple concepts and arent actually going to strain by brain nearly as much as cots is#so cots might take a while because its really complex and i actually want it to be good because i love the concept and worldbuilding#and relationship dynamics#and everything about it but its hard#and im struggling with it lmao#and ihiap is going to be the death of me#new chapter will probably be out in a few days (fingers crossed)#but these next two chapters are so bland theyre killing me#i might just scrap them idk how important they are#but i need them for the sake of pacing#and theres something thats going to happen in the chapter after this next one where if i include it in this chapter the (again)#pacing will be off#anywho the second au is a little more difficuly#and I really want to put out a new thing soon#one that doesnt make my brain want to explode#so im leaning towards the modern au#but i also really want to do the other one#idk give me your thoughts#plz and thank you <3#max thinks shes relevant#golden cage au#<thats the second one#atla modern au#<idk the title for that one yet
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In the past fifty years, fantasyâs greatest sin might be its creation of a bland, invariant, faux-Medieval European backdrop. The problem isnât that every fantasy novel is set in the same place: pick a given book, and it probably deviates somehow. The problem is that the texture of this place gets everywhere.
Whatâs texture, specifically? Exactly what Elliot says: material culture. Social space. The textiles people use, the jobs they perform, the crops they harvest, the seasons they expect, even the way they construct their names. Fantasy writing doesnât usually care much about these details, because it doesnât usually care much about the little people â laborers, full-time mothers, sharecroppers, so on. (The last two books of Earthsea represent LeGuinâs remarkable attack on this tendency in her own writing.) So the fantasy writer defaults â fills in the tough details with the easiest available solution, and moves back to the world-saving, vengeance-seeking, intrigue-knotting narrative. Availability heuristics kick in, and we get another world of feudal serfs hunting deer and eating grains, of Western name constructions and Western social assumptions. (Husband and wife is not the universal historical norm for family structure, for instance.)
Defaulting is the root of a great many evils. Defaulting happens when we donât think too much about something we write â a character description, a gender dynamic, a textile on display, the weave of the rug. Absent much thought, automaticity, the brainâs subsconscious autopilot, invokes the easiest available prototype â in the case of a gender dynamic, dad will read the paper, and mom will cut the protagonistâs hair. Or, in the case of worldbuilding, we default to the bland fantasy backdrop we know, and thereby reinforce it. Itâs not done out of malice, but itâs still done.
The only way to fight this is by thinking about the little stuff. So: I was quite wrong. You do need to worldbuild pretty hard. Worldbuild against the grain, and worldbuild to challenge. Think about the little stuff. You donât need to position every rain shadow and align every tectonic plate before you start your short story. But you do need to build a base of historical information that disrupts and overturns your implicit assumptions about how societies âordinarilyâ work, what they âordinarilyâ eat, who they âordinarilyâ sleep with. Remember that your slice of life experience is deeply atypical and selective, filtered through a particular culture with particular norms. If you stick to your easy automatic tendencies, youâll produce sexist, racist writing â because our culture still has sexist, racist tendencies, tendencies we internalize, tendencies we can now even measure and quantify in a laboratory. And youâll produce narrow writing, writing that generalizes a particular historical moment, its flavors and tongues, to a fantasy world that should be much broader and more varied. Donât assume that the world you see around you, its structures and systems, is inevitable.
We... need worldbuilding by Seth Dickinson
#seth dickinson#worldbuilding#writing#ten.txt#if you're reading this go read the traitor baru cormorant#neowwww
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Tired of stories where the author worldbuilds a whole religion only to chicken out at the last moment by making the main character a skeptic. You mean to tell me that thereâs all this richness in lore and culture, but youâve trapped me with the one person in this society who doesnât care about it? So bland. I could meet an agnostic easily enough by walking down the street, but your story is my one chance to hear the perspective of someone who follows whatever religion youâve contrived. You made this whole world; convince me that your character really is from there.
#looking at you#t. kingfisher#i wanted to know about gallacian sermons but easton just tuned the whole thing out
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I'm procrastinating fuck
#the only reason I'd even think about interacting with someone who has an ov/erh/aul pfp#please enlighten me with your I'm sure glorious takes#I'm sure you have so much to add to this conversation#yeah yeah fictional morales don't equate real morals but he is#you know.#a child abuser- like an unapologetic child abuser#he sees nothing wrong with the way he turned a little girl into a bioweapon for his incredibly hypocritical cause#in terms of devotion and obsession with his boss I could almost see it#but didn't the syndicate LITERALLY tell him 'no that's not what I want' and he just kept going like 'anything you say boss'#so the guy wasn't even doing it for his boss he was just using his boss as a cover#smh#he's just a guy who wants to write y/n yakuza wattpad fanfic#despite being routinely and constantly told by his boss that his actions weren't acceptable or reflective of the claims he made for them#or at least told a couple times#it's been a while since I read and I would never pick it back up any time soon#but I remember thinking the boss wasn't a bad guy#maybe not the kind that would be horrified upon learning his deciple is a child abuser#but at least the sort of person who didn't actually want to return to a hollow past#the worldbuilding in that series left a lot to be desired#but ov/erh/aul was just a bland character#I'M STILL PROCRASTINATING FUCK
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Last year I listened to a worldbuilding podcast that was very queercore hopepunk (2/3 of the hosts were straight...) and I have kind of come to detest the ideology, as well as all these nitty little microgenres. the podcast itself was not bad per say, but it was so utterly bland and the kind of writing advice that almost seems to discourage people from making challenging or transgressive art via prioritization of escapism as the ultimate goal for a fantasy work + the repeated adage that "realism is no excuse". You can set out to make a cozy, fluffy, fantasy world where people never behave in evil ways, are ever selfish or cruel, and never fight over resources and ideology, but if your love for human beings is conditional on human behavior only ever being perfect and good all the time then idk if you actually have much love for human beings at all. it's the kind of advice that encourages easily digestible fluff over all, and if you actually internalize it your never going to get out of it the power to write something like The Dispossessed, Left Hand of Darkness, or Parable of the Sower. is all.
#i listened to 80 eps of a podcast i did not remotely like and thats why i switched to audiobooks i couldnt keep living like this#talking#there arent really any good podcasts on worldbuilding that arent kiddypool shit...
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https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/769955412784119808/i-was-reading-a-fic-and-encountered-this?source=share
Hate to break it to you, but this kind of thing is a tell for AI.
Gramatically correct, the words follow naturally and the phrases themselves make sense, but the whole sentence is redundant or contradicts itself. That's the kind of mistake an AI actually makes.
It isn't a sure tell, tons of humans make that same kind of mistake. And since this particular fic has good worldbuilding it's more likely that this one is a case of the author gettig sloppy on a proofreading pass than anything else.
AI can do grammar, sentence structure, and even some basic storytelling, but what it can't do is cohesion. It can't worldbuild in a way that makes sense, and it can't spot redundancy and contradictions.
An AI is just using an incredibly complex algorithm is predict which word comes next, like a fancy version of how your phone suggests "am" after you type "I". It doesn't know that "and with her death, she dies" is silly. All it knows is that it should follow up "And with her death" with a description of an accident, and that a description of an accident should be followed with a statement of a death of injury.
The actual tells for AI aren't weird grammar and misspellings, those are tells for humans. The tells for AI are redundancy, contradictions, generic bland voice, and lack of cohesion within gramatically correct paragraphs.
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My demands for the next big thinly veiled british history ripoff high fantasy tv show that gets popular after hotd inevitably ends:
Some sort of wales equivalent and some sort of ireland equivalent in the worldbuilding. I'm sick of worldbuilding where the main country is Just England and maybe some hint of scotland if the authors are feeling goofy... if you're going to make me sit through your world which is obviously just mediaeval britain with the labels filed off I am NOT also watching you pretend like england is the only place the exists again, especially since acting like british history would be even kinda the same without wales or ireland is ridiculous
More accent diversity. once again, there are other places that are not england that exist in the world. and more language diversity I'm not having the whole everyone ever speaks ~common~ shite again
More racial and religious diversity. put black people in there. if the sole significant religion is some sort of bland protestant xianity with catholic aesthetics again I'm killing the hostages
Codpieces
Those slut breeches they wore in like the 1500s that were like the puffier version of short shorts
Lesbian sex onscreen to make up for the fact that I don't think we're getting it in hotd
Ok that's it actually I can't think of anything else
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You are so right about Malenia fans. They constantly mischaracterize Radahn and when you say anything good about him they come down on you like a rabid dog.They have a discord dedicated to Malenia and they act collectively on Twitter, No Radahn fan acts this crazy.
What makes me even more bitter is that I am a fan of Malenia too! Both of the twins, actually, but her more! Don't let that surprise you, there is a multitude of reasons why I do not openly post about my blorbos 24/7 like normal fans of anything or anyone do, and instead look like I am ONLY after story/worldbuilding in general xD
Not being able to socialise with "my" type of fans is kind of hard (ok that's a lie, I became severely asocial since spring 2024 anyway). And yes, it is something I see particularly about female characters or yuri ships! I like this female character? I like this yuri ship? So do these lovely people who constantly post hate, spread toxicity, throw buzzwords such as "media illiterate" or "misogyny" every time they have to hear anything even slightly different from their preferred puddle deep girlboss/cottagecore vision, take adding nuance to a male character involved in their story as a personal attack and generally act elitist and take PRIDE in making fellow fans uncomfortable and discouraged should they be deemed "weirdos". And don't forget how self-vindicating they act should someone speak against this behavior! Why fans of male characters don't act like this? Why fans of yaoi or male x female ships don't act like this? Miquella is absolutely unprecedented case of a male character causing this behaviour too, on the virtue of both being "just a baby" and being involved with Malenia, of course!
The girlboss cottagecore tragic sapphics squad is just bad. When they get bored of making a scene about "fighting misogyny" by making the fandom a worse place, they start eating their OWN. There is that lesbian who likes Finlenia who posted multiple vents about how upset they were that fellow fans of this ship treated not shipping it as lesbophobia. There is my ex mutual, also a lesbian and a huuuge Malenia fan, who admitted feeling UNSAFE about NOT shipping Finlenia. *shakes u* UNSAFE!! UNSAFE about shipping preference! Do you UNDERSTAND how insane it is??? UNSAFE!!! Bullying Radahn fans who demand that he is treated with nuance and attention just like other characters instead of being written out like "sexist redditors mascon", is not enough. When they do manage to discourage his fans out of their "proper and media literate circles". They start. EATING. THEIR. OWN. đ¤Śââď¸
Anyways get bad faith bland Radahn "portrayals" out of your system and read this incredibly based mini-essay by @heraldofcrow about Radahn instead ( x )
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I do a lot of Dungeons & Dragons, and I have fairly regularly used the conceit that various cultures draw from various real-world historical cultures and languages.
There is a species in D&D called "dragonborn". I decided that Sumerian would be a reasonable source for this species (especially given some of the lore associated with this group as having had a major empire in the deep past), e.g. I use names from the Sumerian king list for dragonborn characters. (Dragonborn are humanoids who were created by or descended long ago from real dragons.)
But "dragonborn" is incredibly bland and generic and of course would not reflect their own name for themselves. So I found a Sumerian vocabulary list (transliterated not cuneiform), and found "ushu, ushud" for dragon, and a word for "slave", or "servant" or something like that, which seemed to be interpretable as "lower class born", with a -tud element in the last place. I was way out on a limb here, but I combined the two to make "ushutud", which is at least a lot more interesting than "dragonborn".
So the question is: What would you suggest for a Sumerian noun that has similar meanings and connotations as "dragonborn"?
Thanks!
Hello! I'm not sure what wordlist you're using but it's slightly off - the word I know for "dragon" is ushum or ushumgal ("great ushum"). (Ushu means "caterpillar" or "sunset, eveningtime" depending how it's written, and ushud would mean something like "prayer pasture").
Tud is a verb meaning "to be born" (along with other meanings), and it is used at the end of a few words meaning "born as..." - for example, an amaatud (or emedu) was a slave born (tud) to an enslaved mother (ama), in contrast to someone enslaved at a later point; while an urtud was a type of domestic slave or indentured servant, perhaps one who was born in debt (ur) and would work until the debt was paid off. I could see it being used for "born of...", but my first thought on seeing ushumtud would be that it's a "person enslaved due to having a dragon for a parent".
Instead, the more neutral (and frequently-used) way I'd express this uses dumu, the word for "child" or "descendant", as the root noun. My translation would be dumu-ushuma or dumu-ushumgala "descendant of dragon(s)".
Or a worldbuilding thought - dumu-ushumgala could work as the neutral-to-positive general term ("dragonborn"), while ushumtud can coexist as a derogatory term ("dragonspawn"?) Thanks for your question, and let me know if that works for you!
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Long Post: Why I Donât Like The Drow
Iâve been ranting about this to a friend on discord (a lot of points I make will come from him) but Iâve finally figured out what my issue with the drow is outside of inherently evil groups being dumb.
The drow are boring. Drow lore is less of a dive into a unique culture and more of a list of fucked up things they do. Like, I cannot name a single interesting aspect of typical drow society that does not directly involve murder, sexism, or slavery, or Lolth. And even then, most of those things are written about in an incredibly bland fashion with them.
The Drow donât really have much depth to them, and are just kind of evil for evilâs sake (or âbecause Lolth said soâ). They do slavery, but the only real purpose of doing slavery for them is âbecause Lolth said soâ. It isnât for cheap labor, itâs to be more evil. They betray each other purely because thatâs what evil people do. Theyâre misandrist, not for any real societal reason, but because Lolth hates men. Thereâs none of what would make slavery an interesting topic or story element, no justification for why they should be allowed to commit one of the worst injustices possible, no real economic reason for it. They just do it because Lolth says they should, and from a writing perspective it hammers home the fact that theyâre evil. They arenât evil because they enslave and murder, they enslave and murder because theyâre evil, if that makes any sense.
Them being written as comically evil as they are also hurts them from a worldbuilding perspective. Theyâre so reliant on slaves for menial labor that the lower class of their society struggle to get jobs. Drow culture so obsessed with betrayal and dumbass house wars that even when actively under attack from the outside they sabotage each other. Theyâre so decadent that their buildings are held up with magic and semi regularly collapse when a spell fails. To put it bluntly, drow society feels like one that should have collapsed in a few centuries, which, funnily enough, is way longer than D&D elves live.
Their culture being so monolithic also makes writing anything about them difficult. Every drow antagonist is going to have near identical motivations, methods, and ideologies as every other drow antagonist. Every drow protagonist is going to ultimately feel very similar to Drizzt, because leaving their fucked up society to become a do-gooder is such a common backstory element that they added a whole extra god just for doing that. In fact, you can divide 90% of drow characters from any official materials into these categories:
Manservant
Ambitious male, usually a wizard (5 bucks says he has long hair and a widowâs peak)
Dommy Mommy Warcrime Woman
Drizzt DoâUrden or one of his many duplicates
Self-loathing and/or resentful Drider
And finally, their existence almost purely to be humanoid enemies you can fight at nearly any levels is just kind of lazy. This is a problem that I have with the âevil racesâ of a lot of fantasy but having a group thatâs evil by birth just feels like an excuse to not have to write actual motivations for your antagonists. Itâs the difference between âgo attack this camp of soldiers because theyâre part of the SkullMurder army and their general wants to use our land to build a dread fortressâ vs âgo attack this camp of soldiers specifically because theyâre drow/goblins/orcs/the dreaded peepee-poopoo folkâ. Using stuff like this just feels like an excuse to not have to write an actual antagonist since it comes pre-written in the groupâs lore. This has the side effect of whenever such a group is the antagonist of the plot, the players or audience know near exactly what to expect. The orc is here to conquer, the goblin is here to steal, and the drow is here to enslave or do some dark ritual.
Iâve legitimately heard people say âwell if XYZ canât be inherently evil anymore, who will we use as bad guys?â Itâs very simple: whoever the fuck we want. Write an evil queen, or a scheming wizard, or an underground slave trade network. For Godâs sake, anyone can be evil, you donât need to tie that to a specific ethnic group and write it as âtheyâre just like thatâ. Write an actual character for your antagonist.
#dnd#dnd lore#rant post#itâs also incredibly funny to me that the duergar are a near exact copy of the drow (but with dwarves)#and they somehow manage to be more interesting than the drow
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Sorry I did not mean for this to be this long.
I have two, both relating to the worldbuilding. This one is about how the visual aspect fails and the other is the written aspect, but they boil down to this: The Boiling Isles is the most bland, boring ass âdarkâ fantasy world Iâve ever seen.
First off, even in the background it never really feels like fantasy world, maybe just a historic district with Halloween decorations.
The woods are just regular woods in autumn, Bonesborough is just a standard medieval/renaissance town with some eye and teeth iconography. The only time I felt we were in actual fantasy world was that brief scene in Latissa, the buildings look like theyâre made of flesh, thereâs pustules acting as street lights, the overview shots are far more natural and feel like they belong in the environment. The colors are dark yet vibrant, and it gives off a spooky, kind of Halloween-Town feel. I love that!
But we literally spend 98% of the time in Bonesborough, whose colors are predominantly shades of muted blues, grays and whites, and overall it feels too empty and tidy, like itâs not really a place where people have lived and worked for centuries at the very least. Yeah it has doors with eyes on them or roof races in the shape of teeth, but imho, they showed that one shot in the first episode and never lived up to it again, only harking back on it slightly for occasional âcharacter observing the areaâ shots.
Honestly I thought the Collector-controlled Isles were far prettier and more fantastical. Part of this I think is due to the artstyle, especially with the character design, bold, vibrant colors work better. And a lot of scenes just have such cold, impersonalable backgrounds. They donât even have to be some eye-bleeding color explosion, justâŚnot gray. There are some cartoons that have gray and muted backgrounds but they work with their art style.
And the woods arenât much better. We seemingly only get âoh right, dangerous fantasy world would have scary woodsâ when itâs plot convenient, but otherwise? Itâs just more muted colors in a honestly pretty sparse forest. They apparently originally wanted far darker colors but it melted together too much so they opted for âbloody redâ. Iâm sorry but go look at the woods and tell me in what world is that a crimson color?
I know thereâs a lot of crap that goes on behind the scenes and that with backgrounds and environments itâs especially difficult because you donât want to muddy it up or distract the audience but I think that Latissa is a good example of how to do it right, itâs simple yet feels like itâs itâs own place with history and environment. Just a few bolder colors, make it more cramped and claustrophobic, that kind of thing.
The other thing with the environmental storytelling part of it is Dana took inspiration from Heirymonous Boschâs paintings of Hell and illuminated manuscripts, and I just donât get the feeling at all with the Isles we see for the majority of the show.
The second of far more agregous in my mind.
Itâs seemingly stuck in the middle of wanting to be âlike Earth but with magicâ and âooh look at how different and inhospitable it is!â For a world thatâs supposed to be filled with monsters that will kill you for breathing and just stepping outside is risky to your life, the characters seem able to galavant about both civilization and wilderness without a care.
We get all these little asides in the first season about how they have boiling rain, skin-eating fairies, etc, but pretty much never factor into the story, and when they do, itâs either easily brushed off or used in the stupidest way. *coughBelossdeathcough* We have characters mock Luz and say sheâs not strong enough to handle it, and even ignoring any Mary-Sue claims Camilla seemed to have no trouble with the more dangerous Collector Isles when she had nothing but a bat. When taking Luzâs OPness with sticky-note magic, it really neuters the dangers of the Isles, because it seems that half of the problems can be solved by being physically strong or clever with no magic required.
I am more forgiving of this, but the magic, especially near the end, went kinda off the rails in some aspects in power scaling, but also didnât really stuck to the cooler concepts of that.
Abominations went from just creating and controlling golems to being able to craft anything with the material, yet we donât get to see anything really big or flashy or even practical, Dariusâs goo-form appears twice, making weapons or shields only happens a handful of times and itâs very quick and forgotten about(imagine if Amity went full on Mecha with abomination goo in the finale).
Bard magic can do completely OP things like control someoneâs body like a puppet or change the molecular structure of something(put a pin in that) yet in the finale Raine just keeps flicking their bow across the strings to send out energy blasts and doesnât use it to try and control things and sabotage Belos.
Illusion magic is able to dip into Oracle magic a bit and see memories, we even get a shot of Gus seeing Belosâs entire backstory yet this is never used or mentioned outside of Gus knowing Hunters a grimwalker. Even without that we see Gus can craft gigantic, in-depth illusions that can confuse and pyschologucally harm people, yet he never does this after Labyrinth Runners.
Plant magic, which in a fantasy world like the Isles would mean a number of poisons, toxins, and man-eating plants are at your disposal, and Willowâs only move isâŚvines. Granted, vines that seem indestructible and are able to take down things that likely wouldnât be vulnerable to vines, but stillâŚvines. (Which are also green despite the plant color of the Isles being red and it could e been a cool little aside for both Luz and the audience having to get used to seeing red for plants but oh well)
And the othersâŚwe donât care about. The closet one is potions that seem to cover a wide variety of magic types(scrying potion-Oracle, Edaâs potions-Healing)and donât need magic to do but whatever, why have Eda use her Potions upbringing to supplement her lack of magic when she can turn into a harpy and fly and..thatâs kinda it.
Magic also supplements as variety of things, such as technology, and honestly? Not the biggest fan of how that was used just to give our quirky teen protagonists phones and computers-that they donât even use that often so I donât get why they were necessary except for âhaha that Instagram right? Sooo relatable!â Itâs there just for asides and making the world confusing. Like how we can seen scrolls being used in Thems the Breaks, 30 years prior. Yet they seem to be only used for Penstagram, which also apparently only got updated to 2.0 during the second season, so what were they being used for before? And why is Penstagram so established if itâs that new and scrolls were used for other things before? I mean, as background jokes they used searching up disinformation and conspiracy theories and had characters not recognize any media site or conspiracy theories when using the Internet, so it might be a case of wanting their cake and eating it too.
Which is another issue that I canât stand in isekai/other world type media. Regular human/person growing up itâs a regular human is able to reconfirm e the fantasy version of something, yet their mythical friends canât understand that a car is like their horseless carriage.
Luz can catch on to the fact that scrolls and crystal balls are just our phones, computers and televisions but from a Halloween display, yet the witches canât even tell what a shoe is (when they are 99% humans with pointy ears), or when one was made of mud. They refuse to accept animals or concepts that have the most basic information and dismiss Luz, like seriously, how hard is it to figure out what a paper clip is? Or that opposum are real when you know that animals like raccoons exist? Or the most annoying, there is a thing called a crow phone. We hear them call them âcrow phonesâ several times. But when Amity went to Willow for help about Luz? âI donât know what thisâŚpho-oo-on is?â
Itâs done only for jokes and yeah itâs not supposed to be taken seriously but all it does is make the witches and demons seem incredibly stupid. Seriously Belos probably didnât have to put that much effort into his campaign because apparently the residents of the Boiling Isles will accept literally anything at face value(didnât even use that to make a point on propaganda smh).
This extends beyond the witchesâ mental capacity and into âwhat exactly is this world?â They donât have technology above some steampunk blimps and automata, except for when they do because how else do they have modern western clothes like t-shirts and sweats? You canât even say âoh it came in through a trash slugâ because Eda can literally customize and order t-shirts. In the literally the same episode, we see witches referring to the âfour humors of the Titanâ, which many people took as an idea that they have very limited medical and scientific knowledge, like no further than the 1600âsâŚonly for Raine to be like âI changed its molecular structure!â And itâs like what? How do you know what molecules are, or how to use your magic to change them in a way that just improves taste? You guys canât figure out what a cheese grater is but you know about molecular properties?
Honestly Iâd rather have a fantasy world just have phones and cars but they run on magic than this, because at least I donât have to wonder how they know all these common modern ideas yet canât figure out an umbrella even when someone tells them point blank.
Yeah, maybe itâll be harder to explain an umbrella, but itâs not like the world tries to make any sense with he boiling rain thing. In fact, pretty much everything in the natural world in the show doesnât make any sense because right when you can excuse it as âtotal fantasy, rule of coolâ it throws in something that kinda ruins it. In the case of the boiling rain, thatâs not how boiling water works at all. I saw someone suggest it just being âstomach acidâ from all the titansâ giblets leaking into the sea, but even if we do that âitâs magicâ explanation of clouds heating the water up before it rains, it still has the thing of âif this is such a common thing, than why is anything vulnerable to it?â Like the flora evolved and grew from the Titan, yet it doesnât have natural protections against the rain? That leaf that Eda, Raine and King use in the finale seems to hold up fine so why isnât all flora like this, or at least have it be part of their life cycle? On further note, why isnât every building infused with a rain protection spell? Why isnât there building material made to be rain resistant? Why does Eda have that magic barrier umbrella when weâre first introduced to it and never see it again. In fact, why isnât that a thing? They have mass-produced clothing merch and stress toys yet they canât make a push-to-activate protection spell for commercial use? It wouldâve been cool to see how witches adapted and changed to the hostile environment, and far better than âlol like our smartphonesâ.
The âbecause magicâ excuse is also lame because it doesnât even go that far or use it for crazy environments. Like the Titan is the size of Vermont, which is huge for a living being, but it is so tiny in the show. Apparently the Titan is based off of âthe Earth is a corpseâ motif in several real mythologies but those corpses are far, far bigger, so big you canât even recognize that it is a body. Yet several times characters get across the isles in minimal time, covering distances that shouldnât be possible-not just in air, but on foot too. How did King and Steve get around the entire Titan in a motorcycle(even though the most advanced vehicles were steampunk airships) on dirt and cobblestone roads? How can something the size of Vermont(for reference, thatâs about the size of Sardinia and Sicily and twice the size of Jamaica)be viewed in its entirety from a birdâs eye view and close enough off-shore that individual buildings can be seen? Or that itâs big enough to sustain several different biomes that are alluded to(but never seen)including a desert?
Then in the finale itâs big enough to reach into space from a prone positionâŚyet we also see that the world is a globe. So these creatures, who were numerous and loved food, lived on a planet that was so small compared to them that they could reach into space by laying g flat and extending their arms straight up. This wouldâve been a great spot for pure âbecause magicâ, like the entire realm is a giant flat plane that eventually just falls off into nothingness and above the sky is like celestial heavens, but apparently not!
Also despite the fact that earlier it was stated that all landmass is made up of Titan carcasses there apparently was regular land just off shore, so close that the Titan is nearly touching it. Which from how much of the isles can be seen from just off-shore makes you wonder how nobody ever noticed that land or went over there.
Thereâs a lot of other things, like how abominations was said to be a good career path yet we donât see evidence of that outside of Blight Industries which seems to be very exclusive, or that the âauthoritarianâ government is completely laughable, but overall the isles feel like a bunch of people say around, said âhey wouldnât it be cool if?â And then added it in without any thought. But then both the show and fandom act like every aspect is some never-before-seen, not-like-other-shows star when it canât even decide on its tone for the main setting.
You know, I was talking about this issue with a friend not too long ago. The Demon Realm loses its 'edge'. When it's introduced, they wanted to make it out like it's a dangerous place to live. There are vicious monsters around every corner, vegetables run away from being eaten, people have no qualms with harming or even killing children. Bump doesn't step in to stop Boscha from bullying Luz because it 'wasn't fatal' or something. So they clearly want to set this place up as a 'survival of the fittest' World.
But then, if they kept it this way, it would interfere with the story. You see, the Demon Realm is supposed to be a world worth saving, and the way it was initially presented isn't really that. If they kept everyone how it was, would the Day of Unity really have been THAT bad? "Hmm, is it really that bad that a bunch of bloodthirsty psychopaths are going to die?"
To achieve this, they had to really 'neuter' the Isles. Now, later in the series, a lot of the danger is just gone. Characters walk around willy-nilly with no threats around them. Where's the Witch-eating furniture? Where's the Boiling Rain? The monsters? Painbows? Gorenados? Where did they all go? Having your cake and eating it! This show's mantra!
Amphibia does a better job selling a dangerous world IMHO! There's a monster around every corner and the world is quite inhospitable, but the people are resilient and make due.
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Ugh, yep! This is a world with 'magic technology', but the characters are still stupefied by our normal tech. This would have made sense if the Demon Realm were a low-tech medieval world, but it isn't. They want the characters to have magic phones, but still go "durr, what is this 'phone' you speak of?" It really does make the Witches look stupid if anything!
Owl House has plenty of issues with its worldbuilding! We could be here all day discussing them!
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Is there a pokemon you haven't reviewed that you're really itching to? Maybe one that bothers you a lot? I'd love to hear about some of your least favorites
(I'm pretty sure I've reviewed all of the Pokemon that I don't care for already, and it's not that big of a list to begin with. That said, I'm doing the Grimer line for this one because I don't care for the originals that much, even if I love the Alolan forms.)
Grimer... is kind of boring, if I'm being honest. Slime monsters are a classic in fantasy and RPGs, and you can see a lot of different takes on them across the board. The beauty of a slime monster is that they don't have a solid body, so you can do whatever you want with the design.
Not only do we already have a slime monster in Gen 1 in the form of Ditto, but Grimer is pretty standard. It's a blob with arms, a wide open mouth, and big eyes. Color-wise, it's pure purple to represent its poison type with no details on its body. (For the record, I thought this line had stripes for years, which would've made them a bit more interesting, but the 3D models confirm that the stripes are shading.)
What I do like about Grimer is that A) the expression is kind of fun, especially in the earlier sprites, and B) it does have some great lore. I love details like how it dies if there's not enough trash and filth for it to eat, and how this has caused them to slowly become endangered because the Pokemon world has been cleaning up its pollution. It's good world building, and adds some much needed interest to the line.
Ultimately, while I find Grimer pretty bland, Muk is really what kills the line for me. There are so many things you can do with a pile of slime, and all the line does is... get bigger. It does change its eyes, gain a strand of slime over its mouth, and loose an arm (or rather, the other arm is merged with its body). The shape of it is kind of nice, and I like the mouth even if the eye is a bit of a downgrade, but overall it's about as uninteresting as an evo as you could get.
All that said, while the Kantonian version of these Pokemon don't do a lot for me, the Alolan regionals knock it out of the park. My main complaint was that the original line felt very standard, so Alolan Grimer imminently works on fixing this by making the body green (also clever as it's another toxic color, as well as a standard slime color) and giving it a blue tongue with a bright yellow mouth outline and two small teeth (actually crystals). Some black accents around the eyes help them pop a bit as well. This instantly makes it stand out a lot more.
The reason for this change is that the line now feeds primarily on chemical waste instead of regular waste, having been introduced to Alola to deal with their trash problems. Once again, great worldbuilding!
And if Alolan Grimer wasn't enough, Alolan Muk improves on the line even further by massively changing the design. What was one yellow line around the mouth is now four different colors, (yellow, green, blue, and pink), which are incredibly bright. Under normal circumstances they'd look clashy and garish, but they work perfectly when used to represent chemical poisons and the like. It's also nice that the line actually has stripes after all these years, and they ripple in its animations, which is even cooler! (The blue stripes don't move, which is odd, but I digress.)
And in addition to that, Alolan Muk expands on A. Grimer's little "teeth" by including more crystalized poisons all over its body, giving it a jaw full of jagged, uneven "teeth" and "claws". The line went from being way too similar and fairly standard to incredibly distinct and unique. It's basically a perfect example of how regionals can be used to improve on older, plainer designs.
Overall, the original line is harmless but pretty par for the course. The Alolan versions are a big improvement all-around and a much appreciated addition to the line.
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