cjs-writing-blog

[cjs-writing-blog]

Actually, the pokemon combat-type system (fire, ground, rock, dark, etc.), the pokemon egg groups (monster, humanlike, mineral, etc.), the contest system (cool, cute, smart, etc.), are all a drop in the bucket compared to the sheer number of categorising systems that exist in the pokemon world.

For instance:

There’s a system for how Pokémon taste (for instance, slowpoke is a bland/tingly Pokémon, while litleo is a spicy/rich pokemon, and oddish is a crunchy/bitter pokemon)

not to be confused with the food group system (vanillite is sweets/dairies-based, whereas miltank is pure meat-based, and, though you wouldn’t think so, exeggcute is actually a vegetable-based pokemon)

which is also different from the nutritional value system (alakazam meat is rich in proteins and hallucinogenics, while drinking a ditto replenishes whatever Vital Nutrient your body is most lacking, and a tropius’ fruit is usually an excellent source of potassium)

of course, these are all separate from edibility (ranging from non-edible to completely edible — though it is important to note that partially edible and contextually edible mean completely different things, and don’t even think about asking a professional chef how they feel about the idea of officially adding the category of transcendentally edible to the list. Just don’t.)

And all of the above are just for food!

There’s also the poke-phylum diagram you’re given in poke-high school, detailing the ways that various Pokémon are related to one another, which lists squirtle as reptilia, charmander as draconia, and bulbasaur as an amphibia-chlorophyta symbiotic unit.

Then there’s the comfortable-zones that pokerangers use when seeking a suitable place to re-home abandoned or lost pokemon (minior prefers an environment with little to no air or atmospheric pressure, meaning it will typically have to be sent back to Space, while the poliwag family is comfortable anywhere there’s shallow water, marsh plants, and other members of its line, making it a swamp-forest-lake pokemon)

Really, the only reason your average ten-to-sixteen year old only knows a maybe three systems, at most, is because it’s not really worth the effort to memorise and distinguish hundreds of conflicting type charts if you’re not, like, incredibly fixated on rattata, specifically, and want to know that it’s a normal-type, field-egg group, relatively tough, bland/bitter type-not that you would want to eat one, it’s body is surprisingly rich in toxins and heavy metals for a technically-edible meat-based pokemon, it’s only long-term requirements are a source of food, roaming space, and a temperament climate, making it a fields-plains-urban areas pokemon, and so on, and so forth, ad nauseam.

Which if you knew, you wouldn’t be arguing that capsakid has to be a fire type just because it’s a spicy-tingly Pokémon! I’ll grant that it’s unusual for a veg-based, but if you people keep judging Pokémon’s other aspects through solely a battling lens then I swear-

*post has reached length limit. Trim down to continue.*

Fuck’s sake.

[cjs-writing-blog]

your dark fantasy novel doesn't need a logic-based magic system it needs a bear with a human face

[cjs-writing-blog]

Another worldbuilding application of the "two layer rule": To create a culture while avoiding The Planet Of Hats (the thing where a people only have one thing going for them, like "everyone wears a silly hat"): You only need two hats.

Try picking two random flat culture ideas and combine them, see how they interact. Let's say taking the Proud Warrior Race - people who are all about glory in battle and feats of strength, whose songs and ballads are about heroes in battle and whose education consists of combat and military tactics. Throw in another element: Living in diaspora. Suddenly you've got a whole more interesting dynamic going on - how did a people like this end up cast out of their old native land? How do they feel about it? How do they make a living now - as guards, mercenaries? How do their non-combatants live? Were they always warrior people, or did they become fighters out of necessity to fend for themselves in the lands of strangers? How do the peoples of these lands regard them?

Like I'm not shitting, it's literally that easy. You can avoid writing an one-dimensional culture just by adding another equally flat element, and the third dimension appears on its own just like that. And while one of the features can be location/climate, you can also combine two of those with each other.

Let's take a pretty standard Fantasy Race Biome: The forest people. Their job is the forest. They live there, hunt there, forage there, they have an obnoxious amount of sayings that somehow refer to trees, woods, or forests. Very high chance of being elves. And then a second common stock Fantasy Biome People: The Grim Cold North. Everything is bleak and grim up there. People are hardy and harsh, "frostbite because the climate hates you" and "being stabbed because your neighbour hates you" are the most common causes of death. People are either completely humourless or have a horrifyingly dark, morbid sense of humour. They might find it funny that you genuinely can't tell which one.

Now combine them: Grim Cold Bleak Forest People. The summer lasts about 15 minutes and these people know every single type of berry, mushroom and herb that's edible in any fathomable way. You're not sure if they're joking about occasionally resorting to eating tree bark to survive the long dark winter. Not a warrior people, but very skilled in disappearing into the forest and picking off would-be invaders one by one. Once they fuck off into the woods you won't find them unless they want to be found.

You know, Finland.

[cjs-writing-blog]

a scene can start wherever you want it to

writing isn't real life. You don't need to set up a character walking into a room or two characters greeting each other and talking about the weather or what-have-you in order to lead into the conversation you actually want them to have. just start at the conversation.

hell, start in the middle of the conversation. you could even start at the end and then have one of them leave and the other one left behind to reflect back on what just happened.

writing gets easier when you open yourself up to writing the parts that are interesting, to starting where it's easy instead of where you think you should start.

if it ends up not working? that's okay. you tried it, and sometimes just getting something out of your head is a necessary first step to getting the words right

[cjs-writing-blog]

Two Scholars

I’m not sure what to say here.

His response answers many of the questions I had, but raises several new ones.

“How does that work here?”

My first thought is a book series I read as a child, written by someone I thought was completely unaware of true magic.

“Is there some kind of…magic sport I’m not aware of?”

He gives me an odd look, like he’s never considered this as a concept.

“What? No, it’s rugby.

“You know, it’s like football, but Australian?”

This makes less sense to me than the most advanced chronodynamics lecture I’ve listened to.

“Who do you even compete against? Aren’t normal institutions forbidden from knowing our school exists?”

“Dude, you do know there are other Magic Schools, right?”

Somehow, for the first time in a full year of education into the unkowable, my mind goes completely blank.

All I can manage is the word:

“Huh?”

“You know, there’s Saint Ivan’s, Merlin’s, Balthazar’s, that one really creepy one that doesn’t technically have a name…”

My mind feels as though it’s under more strain than that time I fucked up trying to use a borrowed knowledge spell to cheat on a test.

“And they all play… rugby?”

I’ve never heard the term in my life, or that there were all these wizardry schools other than this one.

“Some version of or another, but essentially yeah.

“I can't believe you didn’t know, we had a playoff against those creepy necromancer guys just yesterday.

“Why did you think I was in the healers office with a severed arm stuck around my neck?”

I haven’t fully been giving the incident he refers to much thought, given the infirmary at the time had a student next to him whose head had been transfigured into a live chicken.

Or the fact that I’d been in there a week before with a sprained shadow.

Not to mention the sentient ecosystem in there right now receiving an earthworm transfusion.

“Well, can you say you know the finer details of what happened to the girl in the bed across from you?”

“The statue? Are you saying that was, like, a real person?”

“Well yeah, she was getting de-petrified…”

It takes a second to fully process what he said.

Once I did, it took me aback in a new way.

“…wait, did you think they had a normal, non-magical statue taking up a bed in the healer's office for some reason?”

“Well, you never know, do you? Maybe it was a prank, or got teleported somehow, or something.”

I have to bite my tongue on that not being how teleportation works.

“That’s what I mean! You never know what’s happened to someone, do you? Maybe the hand was yours somehow, or a spatial mishap, or a creature that only looks like a human arm, or…”

“Touche.

“For the record, one of the rival players ripped off his arm and brought it to life so he could strangle me with it.

“It got me sent to the healers office, but I heard the guy who did it got disqualified, so I can’t complain.”

I’m glad that that’s a disqualifying offence, if anything.

“They have a rule for this? Has it happened before, or…”

I trail off, not sure how to finish the sentence.

“Well, technically, they just ruled it as unsanctioned contact of a non-player by throwing an animated object not technically enrolled on either team across the field, but it’s still a disqualification.”

“How is the animated arm not a player?

It sounds like what it did was meant to be to their team's advantage.”

“Then their side would have had one too many players, so their captain declared the severed arm to be unaffiliated with the team.”

“...right.”

"How did YOU get accepted by the wizard's college!?" "Athletic scholarship."