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Sandman Casting News—Apparently, we have Loki

Source: https://x.com/redanianintel/status/1779210566713680022?s=12

What does everyone think?

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In retrospect, I think my fascination with villains wanting heroes to become their consorts began when, as a youngster, I watched Legend in confusion and wonder as the Lord of Darkness fell in love with Princess Lily and tried to seduce her with jewels, and a navel plunging black dress that hypnotized her into dancing with it.

It was really all the way downhill from there.

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LEGEND (1985) dir. RIDLEY SCOTT

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Hush, child, darkness will rise from the deep and carry you down into sleep, child Darkness will rise from the deep and carry you down into sleep

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Islands, Duque yvan

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A lot of my embroideries have been circulating tumblr without credit so hoping posting them here myself will help people find my silly art!

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Clouds creeping up the mountains - Tour de Monte Rosa, July 2021

photo by: nature-hiking

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james marsters deliberately playing spike in a more sympathetic way to avoid his character being killed off after season 2 so he could keep his job is so funny. guy was literally scheming his way into job security by turning a throwaway villain into emo boy audience bait and it WORKED. gotta say i respect the grind

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I’ve been reading some craft books and online posts about the world building because my story is an urban fantasy set in present day US, in a fictional town, and theres not a secondary world where the fantasy happens, it’s all in the real world, except the magic is a secret that only certain people know about, but all of the resources I find about world building only talk about fantastical worlds that exist by themselves and not the kind of more subtle world building that I’d have to do. Do you have any tips?

Guide: Creating a Fictional Town in the Real World

Step 1 - Choose Your Location - There are two ways to go about choosing a location for your fictional town. One is to go the "Springfield U.S.A." route, ala The Simpsons, and be vague about the specific location (borough, parish, district, county, region, state, or province) and instead give a broader geographic region... "the East Coast," "the Pacific Northwest," "Central Canada," Northern Scotland," etc. The other option is to go ahead and put your fictional town in a specific location. Just figure out where (for example, somewhere outside of Des Moines, Iowa) and go to Google Maps, click on satellite view, then start zooming in on big empty areas. Choose a place big enough to fit a town. Yes, in reality it's probably farm fields, pasture, or someone's property, but that doesn't matter. You don't have to actually show it on a map. It's just a plausible spot to build your town. Now you can measure how far it is to other places, you know what highways to take to get to it. You can even do street view to get the lay of the land, see what the landscape looks like and try to envision the buildings there. You can also use what's there to create parks, popular recreational areas, and anything else your town needs.

Step 2 - Choose Your Inspiration - Even when you're creating a fictional town, it's still a good idea to use a real town (or two, or three) from that general area as inspiration for your town. For a fictional town in Des Moines, I would zoom in on the map to find a nearby town of similar size... like Elkhart, then I can take a look around to see what it's like. Just looking at the map, I can see they have a couple of churches, a couple baseball fields, a very small main street/downtown area with a couple shops and restaurants, a post office, a few different neighborhoods, and a cemetery. This would be a great model for a small fictional town outside of Des Moines. And, as I said, you could look at a couple other sand combine them. Once you have your inspiration town/s, you can walk around on Google Maps street view, go to the town's web site, watch a tour on YouTube (if one exists), or look up pictures in Google Image search.

Step 3 - Start Planning - This is the really fun part! First, you might want to draw a basic map of your fictional town using your inspiration town/s as a guide. This doesn't have to be a pretty map... just a basic line drawing to help you envision where everything is. Think about some of the basic things this town might have, like the ones I listed in step two, and any other things you might want your town to have, like maybe a library, a hospital, a city hall, school, and maybe a movie theater. It might even be helpful and fun to put together a collage of pictures to represent your town so you've got something in mind as you write about it. You can even choose representatives for specific locations in your story, like your MC's house, school, and their favorite hangout.

Step 4 - Naming Your Town - Start by looking at the kinds of town names that surround your town. Look for common naming conventions... suffixes like -ton, -ville, -dale, -burg, -wood, -field, etc. Words in a particular language, like a lot of French-inspired town names, or towns with geographical terms (lake, hill, valley, river, canyon, gap, etc.) My guide to Naming Locations has additional tips.

Step 5 - Populate Your Town and Give it a History - Last but not least, make up a little history for your town, again, using surrounding towns as inspiration. Who founded it? When was it founded? What's the town's main industry? What are the people like in this town? What jobs do they have? What do they do for fun?

Here are some other posts that might help:

Five Things to Help You Describe Fictional Locations Setting Your Story in an Unfamiliar Place WQA’s Guide to Internet Research Happy writing!

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

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love it when a nondog baby animal is called a pup anyway

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among the tulips🥀

✦ find me on instagram @the.flightless.artist ✦

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costume appreciation: Mei’s wardrobe from House of Flying Daggers [2/5] (costume by Emi Wada)

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what is your heart's desire

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Me: So I'm just going to smile with my mouth closed from now on.

The mother: Don't do that; it'll give you a weak Mona Lisa smile.

Me: Yeah, well, da Vinci and all those painters had the right idea, not having anyone actually smile in their paintings.

The mother: Show me how you smiled in the photos?

Me: *demonstrates the smile*

The mother: ...it's obvious that it's being forced.

Me: Well, what the hell am I supposed to do with my mouth, then?

The mother: Practise with selfies, like other young people.

Me: ack

Me, blinking incessantly thanks to the under-eye concealer that I liberally applied for the complimentary staff photo shoot: It's getting into the corners of my eyessssss

Co-worker who wears eye makeup more regularly: Yeah, I've just trained myself not to touch my eyes at all.

Me, a prolific eye toucher: say what

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TODA MARIKO and JOHN BLACKTHORNE SHŌGUN — 1x09: “Crimson Sky” (2024)