#NW worldbuilding

[fountainpenguin]

One very specific thing I find funny is that prior Hermitcraft Season 10, I'd drafted some worldbuilding for a Life series fanfic where there's a mail system based on phantoms (who are fast, and as a nod to Impulse's phantom sanctuary from Season 8 because I thought it was cute).

But the mail system was regularly disrupted by Etho because he was on Red life. He'd just torture and kill phantoms for their membranes because it's useful material, but mostly because he hated people checking up on him after he cut them off. He HATED mail.

So it's funny to see him play postman in Hermitcraft... Redeemed.

Also, here are some images of Impulse's phantom sanctuary because it's a fun / inspiring build to me:

He worked hard to catch those guys, did the job while they screamed at him, and redesigned the roof three times so they could see outside without burning in the sun. Not only that, but it's a decent size enclosure for a mob display (compared to Grian's magical menagerie, which is a pet shop so it's a different vibe).

The sanctuary is one of my main inspirations when I think about worldbuilding for mobs in 'fic, just because I think it's cute to have a big, pretty building for something so violent. It makes me laugh that Impulse tried to give the tour while being "hugged" and screamed at by the phantoms.

Looking forward to Scar's zoo in Season 10. I'm sure he'll build many lovely enclosures! <- Me, who is also a Planet Zoo watcher and loves seeing animals thrive in an environment designed for them :)

[moonkssd]

The Lake of Rage

Or why dragon tamers had a bad reputation for about two hundred years before modern times changed that perception

A long time ago, there had been a great dragon tamer who lived in Johto. His might was so great that he boasted himself to be higher than the imperial family who still ruled at the time. And, at some point, greater than the will of the gods. This tamer bullied the people of Johto into following his will, threatening destruction by his dragons; it wasn't surprising he became a warlord at some point, conquering the territories of others.

He said his might allowed him to do as he pleased and he demanded the daughter of the daimyo ruling Mahogany Town. She was a princess of untold beauty who raised Magikarp in her back garden, with a gentle heart who loved her people more than anything. However her dear Magikarp were her treasures, and she treated them all as if they were more precious than gold. They were her friends and dear companions and they also loves her dearly.

If she refused the dragon tamer would cause untold damage to the town and its people. So of course the princess agreed to marry him, under the promise she could take her Magikarp with her. The dragon tamer agreed to this and they were quickly married, the celebration a mess of a reception of debauchery. Yet the princess remained polite and faithful to her husband, bearing through the events with grace.

However despite getting what he wanted, he wanted more, more, more as he felt entitled to everything, falling to what the locals called 'dragon sickness', for when a greed knew no mortal bounds and got out of hand.

The princess was soon ignored, replaced quickly by more wives, more concubines, more women than anyone could count. All to date his endless greed for all the extravagances in the world. She was left with her Magikarp who kept her company and kept her spirits up.

One day one of his men wished for the princess, having listed after her for some time. The dragon tamer agreed, saying he had no need of her, having forgotten even her name. The princess was dishonored in this way and, as a result, could no longer withstand the shame that had come into her life and ended herself right in front of her husband.

This action caused her Magikarp to become enraged, becoming powerful beings all at once. In their rage and fury to get revenge upon the dragon tamer who ruined their beloved princess, they became dragons in their own right and killed the dragon tamer. It is said in their anger they caused a crater to appear, which soon filled with their tears and the resulting rain that fell afterwards.

They lived in the lake afterwards, propagating, allowing their descendants to inherit their nobility and fury. To this day, there isn't a Magikarp born in the Lake of Rage that hasn't inherited the memories of those who passed before, since the first generation raised by the princess.

Meanwhile the dragon tamer had aired many children who started families of their own, one of which began a bloodline in Johto. The princess had other siblings, one of which married into the Tsuchiya clan at one point, resulting in the bloodline that leads to Yuri's family today.

[bivicennial]

One of the little bits of worldbuilding lore I really appreciate in the NW is how both vampires and witches have very distinct cultures around raising children.

Like, Thea and Blaise lose their parents and are immediately taken in by an increasingly long list of relatives, because witches (especially Harman witches) do not let their children be abandoned. It's a very village-centric society. Everybody pitches in to make sure the kids are looked after and cared for, all 90s matriarchal commune style. Even when Blaise is actively causing like, mayhem and destruction, the Crone of All Witches decides to take her granddaughters on full time despite being ninety years old and running half the goddamn Night World.

Comparatively, the vampires have a very... aloof style of parenting. It's quite business-like, and focused mostly on monetary support rather than emotional care. Vampire kids are expected to teach themselves most of their survival skills basically on the streets. Darwinist, y'know? Because vampire children are given a lot of what humans (and witches, it seems) would consider very adult freedoms, and are treated as functional members of Night World society quite young. It seems to be expected that most vampire kids who aren't kept in an enclave will learn how to defend themselves or they'll get fucked up. And if they can't defend themselves, well. Weakness gets culled, and all that.

There's a lot of examples of it, too. Vampiric parenting is pretty consistent across the books. James's parents support him financially, but he lives in an apartment by himself at the age of, what, sixteen? Probably younger, considering he was living there for a while by the time Secret Vampire starts. And Ash doesn't seem to have any consistency in his life, but he does spend all his time partying in Las Vegas, while it's implied both his parents are living on the east coast in an enclave. He goes to fetch his sisters when his father tells him to, but he never gives the impression that he especially likes his father, and in fact suggests that if Quinn hadn't been around when his father called, he might have ignored him. There doesn't seem to be much love lost there. And we don't even have to get into Delos's relationship with his father, the guy who treats him like a living weapon at best.

Actually, the closest thing to a loving, functional parental vampire relationship seems to be Jez and Bracken, and they only have like one scene together. Even then, he let her run around San Francisco without supervision from the age of five onward, and that's never treated as being especially outside of the norm. He makes sure she has a place to stay and goes to school, but he doesn't seem to keep track of her daily activities at all, or he does and doesn't care what she gets into so long as he doesn't personally have to deal with it.

And unlike the witches, there doesn't seem to be as big of a push to take on extra kids. That's Morgead's whole thing, that he's got a bone to pick with all the elder vampires that just ignored him when he was abandoned by his mom. Even if they do take in the kids without parents (like Bracken does), vampire parents don't provide much attention anyway. With Thea, she sees a whole future surrounded by other witches and continuing her education under the tutelage of her family. She was eighteen and would have continued to be monitored and cared for for years. Whereas Ash got attacked at the age of twelve, killed a much bigger vampire, and every single person who could have watched out for him was like "yep he's good give him a credit card and let him go do whatever" and he just does.

Honestly, I could talk about each of the characters' childhoods in depth individually, but maybe I'll have to save that for later. Or fanfics or something.

[olderthannetfic]

Could you shout out a couple of your favourite m/m authors or books, please? (nw if you don’t like reccing things tho, I find it stressful myself.)

I also find the one ship per book in a series not my cup of tea tbh. I find it too jarring to switch over to other characters I’m not as emotionally invested in within a world.

--

I don't mind side stories that wrap up supporting characters' romances, but I tend to like a main series that's about the same characters/ship most of the time.

I recced a few in response to another ask. That should be posting... some time. (You can tell how well I keep track of my queue.)

Who haven't I mentioned... let's see... Jenn Burke's Not Dead Yet series is pretty interesting, though it eventually angered me with a side character death.

E.J. Russell has a lot of books with different ships but that are all in the same universe. They work better for me than most such books because there's an urban fantasy arc plot about missing fae running through them. Some are a bit too ultra-fluff for my taste. Many are pretty funny. A lot of them feature things like supernatural dating agencies or event planners.

Integrate by Thea Hayworth is only available on Smashwords and is a one-off, but I can't say no to an alien-human buddy cop duo. Both the case and the romance are reasonably fleshed out for this short length, and the worldbuilding is fascinating. I want more! Come back usually-fic-author and write original!

I enjoyed AJ Sherwood's Jon's Downright Ridiculous Shooting Case and sequels/stuff in the same universe.

I've only checked out Beth Bolden a little bit. I met her at a conference, and she seems cool. (Definitely a recent fic fandom person, like many of us writing original m/m.) I read part of a boy band romance of hers that she admitted was 1D with the serial numbers filed. Filed well, I might add: the original version is sufficiently SoCal that I wasn't positive which boy band it was riffing off of. But what I really enjoyed was her fairytale-ish fantasy novel Yours, Forever After.

Meghan Maslow's Starfig Investigations was an instant favorite for me. I'm not sure if younger people will even be familiar with the genre of fantasy it is. It didn't click for me until I heard her talking about it, but the series is basically a take off of Robert Asprin's Myth series: oldschool secondary world fantasy full of dumb puns and jokes that only make sense in relation to the real world. Like that series, Maslow's features portals between realms and a lot of magic tech in advanced cities even if the trappings are Ren Faire-ish. The sense of humor style was pretty common in early 90s sff publishing and turns up in old games like Monkey Island, but it's not something I see all that much in m/m fantasy novels.

Harper Fox's Tyack & Frayne series is about a cop and a psychic in small town Cornwall. Lots of pagan vibes in this one, and some of the supernatural stuff picks up as the series goes along, but the basic structure is contemporary British mysteries.

The Plumber's Mate series by J.L. Merrow is a much more comedic take on UK village mysteries. I'm not usually into stories where people end up with their bully from school, but I liked how it was handled here. The side characters are a hoot, especially the camp best friend and the dwarf porn star turned vegetable salesman.

Morgan Brice I'm not as fond of, but she has a bunch of series including one that feels like early seasons Supernatural.

I don't think I ever read the sequels to My Zombie Boyfriend by T. Strange. It's... well... about a dude who finds a hot corpse and decides to revive him as a zombie. The lead is a weird little perv with an ex who's a goth mortician, a horrible undead pet cat, and an obsession for his new zombie project. I found this one while looking for creepy books after reading one too many bits of ultra-fluff with barely any plot.

I was enjoying the Hours of the Night series by Irene Preston and Liv Rancourt, but it seems like they stopped writing it without resolving anything? A lot of the books I've read are good but would have been better with more sequels, so they don't spring to mind here.

There are seriously a shitton of writers working in this space. I just found a few authors and started trying books and seeing what else was on the same goodreads lists and so on. You need to have a tolerance for hideous cover art, but plenty of the actual books are fine.

[void-botanist]

About me

For easy reference, here's my tag navigation.

It's about time for a new writeblr intro to go with my new WIP intro!

name // NavarenWizard (you can call me NW)

pronouns // he/they

age // mid 20s

occupation // grad student, gay husband

background // neurodivergent american genderqueer trans guy

interests // writing, drawing (traditional and digital), anime, webcomics, video games, web design

main blog // @an-elegant-void -- I follow from this blog!

writeblr // @navarenwizard

format of my intro // shamelessly borrowed from @pens-swords-stuff (whose writeblr you should also go check out)

About my writeblr

name // NavarenWizard (@navarenwizard)

age // ~1 year

focus // diversity and worldbuilding -- I reblog from various blogs that discuss representation in media and how writers/artists can do better. You'll also find some writing memes and art/art tutorials here too.

audience // this blog is open to anyone, but be aware that some of what I reblog is going to be about queerphobia, racism, ableism, fatphobia, etc., with the goal of helping myself and other creators do better.

asks // I can personally talk about:

NaNoWriMo events

WikiWriMo

Scrivener

queer representation (although of course I can't speak for every queer person)

design of writeblrs/writers' websites

Please also reach out to me if you have any accessibility issues with my blog!

About my writing

genres // queer, fantasy, sci-fi, slice-of-life, romance, erotic romance (my writing is generally solarpunk-adjacent)

themes // sustainable living, recovering from emotional trauma, happy queer lives and families, healthy relationships and communication

formats // original novels, occasionally poetry or short stories

experience // seventeenish years of writing, a couple years of being serious about writing well (i.e. with structure, planning, representation, and awareness of harmful tropes)

goals // self publishing my novels eventually, when they're complete and edited

Active WIPs

The Fourth Android

genre // queer, fantasy, sci-fi, slice-of-life

tag // #tfa

super quick synopsis // A human-built android integrates into an island community to gain his citizenship and visit the world's other three androids, unexpectedly becoming an astronaut along the way.

status // about to write a third (and greatly improved) version for NaNoWriMo 2022

Inactive/Simmering WIPs

Tales of Tobar Si

genre // queer, fantasy, romance

tag // #ts (there's nothing there though; apparently I never posted an intro)

super quick synopsis // An aos si man escapes from his abusive family on Earth and returns to his Faeryland home, where he begins to heal and tries to find a way to confess his love to his best friend.

status // partially drafted for NaNoWriMo 2020, simmering

Triad

genre // queer, fantasy, erotic romance

tag // #triad

super quick synopsis // An ex-princess and her husband accidentally fall in love with a trans guy farmer and have to figure out their own happily ever after.

status // partially drafted for Camp NaNo July 2021 and NaNoWriMo 2021, simmering

[arusand]

Snowless day started this month. Workfilled weeks with nothing to bring me to my laptop or my drawing tablet.

Had to move my hands and mind a bit so to get myself going properly. Little sketches don't make me expect myself to draw a masterpiece the moment I sit down and take my digital pen. I'm half asleep all day lately and simply can't even be bothered to take my laptop out of the bag. I've got to say... I'm really happy that I finally drew something proper with a pen - haven't done that in years.

also the lore stuff:

Yakinia is my imaginary version of Alaska bundled up with Washington, BC, Yukon, NW Territories and Nunavut. For an even better comparison imagine Alaska but with some damn proper urban planning and easily accesible public transit 🥲

Some of my oc's have family in there. More on that later.

Shegaya is... well, you could say Siberia bundled up with Kamchatka, Chukotka and Sakhalin. Though Шечая is not nearly in as bad of a situation as it's irl inspirations are. After all as the name might imply, though it's completely coincidental, that yes, you can be gay there. The inspiration for both regions are mostly of geographical and cultural sense rather than "political" if that means anything.

The two countries are separated by a channel and an inland sea called the Illinian Sea. A set of two + one under construction road bridges and one railway bridge connect them on the southern edge of the Illinian.

I'll post the map of .ya and .sg later on my profile

My worldbuilding atm is not great so I would love to hear what do you think.

And for more sketches - digitalise me when I wake up.

[fiovske]

What gives me hope for shadowgast is that Jester still hasn't shown any romantic interest in Caleb at all. So the chances of it not being Vaxmore all over again are a little better... but I agree with how you're feeling about it

dude... I. tbh in my head I had it like: Astrid is the second choice for Caleb and if THAT doesn't work out then Essek is a possibility and even then, best chance for mlm is like a SUGGESTION of post-campaign romance. (I'm sorry if I'm being extremely negative about this, I just like to prepare myself for worst case/ mediocre scenarios and all that.)

like that's the romance endgame I'd resigned myself to for Caleb, since I realized that he's been wingmaning for FJ so... like. he's stopped persuing jester (I hope). unless he pulls a googly and tries to gun for wj again. single jes is my favourite outcome rn (if only CR were brave enough to do beauyashter *sigh....) I still don't think shadowgast has much of a chance tbh I'm not gonna pit my hopes up only to be let down, I'd rather expect nothing and be content with getting nothing or gods forbid, being pleasantly surprised if shadowgast DOES end up happening somehow.

[omgellendean]

asoiaf male musculature, a handy list

In the world of ice and fire, a man can be muscled like...

a maiden’s fantasy. Incredible, amazing, show-stopping, your six-pack still haunts your best bro’s dreams years later.

a bull. Ok, I guess?

an ox. Somehow sounds less cool than the previous one.

a bag of rocks. No.

[quijotesca]

I sometimes wonder if I should post this weird NWS Samurai Jack fanfic I started a while ago that was based on an overly detailed dream I had. Looking at the project, it's a bit more fragmented and rough than I remember it being. I'm not sure I'll ever do anything with it. I was having fun taking the wonky dream logic shit at face value so maybe someday?

Post got rambly.I t’s about boring worldbuilding more than anything NWS. Sorry!

If I were ever to finish it, it’d probably be the best fucking fanfic about Jack ending up in a polyamorous relationship with some people he met in an underground city and that’s all it fucking is. I actually liked the characters a lot, but the whole thing wasn’t amazing enough that I’d ever work it into original fiction.

There was worldbuilding, albeit nothing super complicated. In fact, that was the fucking point: Because of dream shit, the people in the city practiced what’s essentially some weird form of folk Catholicism involving science. (???) Kinda fun, but it meant that I had to at least attempt to explain why Catholicism existed. So he core idea was that Aku was more motivated by petty grudges (such as the one kicking off the story) than a desire for actual conquest. I am not even going to speculate as to if Jesus actually existed because it doesn’t fucking matter. The point is, Aku apparently didn’t have enough of a beef with the Pope to shut  Catholicism down immediately. He might’ve at some point because I’m pretty sure I implied that there wasn’t a central Catholic church anymore. It’s hard to say because it’s also the distant future, so a number of things could’ve happened.

The world building was a tiny bit more complicated than that, so I might .cannibalize aspects for other projects. (No weird Catholic stuff) Unfortunately, I had to rediscover a snippet of something that i thought was really good so...yup, I guess I haven’t given up on that yet. Fuck.

[fountainpenguin]

Riddle's Traffictober - Batch 3

3rd batch of Traffictober one-shots are up on my AO3!

Full series - Find full list and tags here

Batch 1 Post - Traffictobers 1 to 7

Batch 2 Post - Traffictobers 8 to 14

Batch 3 Post - Traffictobers 15 to 21

Below are Gen and T-rated Traffic SMP fanfics (one-shots) of various lengths. Pop on by if you think you may enjoy:

15 - “Scottagecore” (Link) - Scott and Pearl cuddle while Scar tries to rip apart their bird feeder.

Last Life - Exploring how soft and in sync the galaxy duo soulmates were before their Double Life break-up drama.

16 - “Gem Is (Not) Great” (Link) - Wearing someone else's skin is a big responsibility.

Limited Life - Gem takes a shower to rinse off outside code, then dresses in Cleo's skin... as ready as you can be when you've had no time to prepare to play a death game you've never even watched.

17 - “Dogwarts Lullaby” (Link) - Martyn introduces Ren to caramel apples.

3rd Life - Brief character study of the Martyn & Rendog relationship during their Dogwarts arc.

18 - “Mum's The Word” (Link) - The phantom hybrids have charcuterie dinner with their mom, the Phantom Dragon, before she goes on her date with Ren.

Double Life - Couldn't stop thinking about Episode 2 where Ren and Martyn have a long talk about how badly Ren wants to date Martyn's mom and he even specifically uses the words "Ask your mom if we're still on for later" but also everyone in the Pixels Imperfect universe was hatched from a dragon egg.

Probably my second favorite of all the Traffictobers because I am a sucker for animal people politics and family drama <3 It's goofy and has a wacky premise but super fun worldbuilding. Martyn delivers souls like they're pizzas; it's great.

19 - “Blue as the Desert Sun” (Link) - Side effects of having a corrupted player file may include body and species dysphoria.

Double Life - Grian awkwardly offers Scar what comfort he can when Scar gets too sucked into his reflection.

20 - “For Sale: Bird Wings (Never Worn)” (Link) - [NW AU] - Grian runs off with a stolen Totem of Undying. It saves his life, but at what cost?

Neighborhood Watch AU - First chapter of a short multi-chapter that introduces the "all 5 seasons of roleplay lore and mechanics are squashed together in one serious universe" worldbuilding.

Grian possesses the last Totem of Undying in the known world for about 4 minutes before he blows up.

21 - “Seeing Scarlet” (Link) - Bdubs never was good at controlling himself on red.

Double Life - Dramatic interpretation of Bdubs' axe misclick on Impulse during their finale fight against Pearl. Impulse stop perma-dying from hits to the back challenge (Impossible)

I had a ton of fun with this batch. Enjoy!

[lord-momonga]

What was so bad about the side story? I was dreading it myself because I figured it would have nothing to do with Ainz, but his still being there made it worthwhile for me alone, and the excellent worldbuilding made it one of my favorite volumes. It's not canon, sure, but I don't think it's a waste of time, since there is canonical information in it, and the what-if scenario is very interesting. I loved seeing a Satoru who got to be truly happy, NW liches, the staff, the new AoG, it was great!

Everyone likes Overlord for different reasons, but I genuinely disliked this syory because it neither provided a fanservicey, wholesome evileye adventure, nor the interesting depiction of Ainz that we know and love. The story seemed like nothing more than a hollow pitch for the introduction of the dragon lords. It was forgettable in every way, shape and form. Don't let my cynical nature sway your thoughts. I'm only salty due to a sense of disappointment.

[surroundedbypearls]

Revisit and Ramble: The Night World Series

Recently I started revisiting some books I loved when I was a teenager to see what I thought of them now, for nostalgia and for fun. I’ve been writing since I was ~13 but my skills and style have evolved since I read a lot of these books, and so has my way of reading since I’ve started reading as a writer. So I decided to make these ramble/review posts because why not? Whee~

The first revisit is to the 9 (where’s Book 10, Lisa??) books of the Night World series. It seems like a lot to cover in one post since there’s 9 books, but they’re quite short and simple stories so we’ll squeeze them in.

See me ramble below the cut! It’s a mess. I’m sorry.

This was written in the 90s so I’m not going to get mad at it over representation but it’s amusing how straight and white everything is. There is the occasional POC as a minor character but no queer characters and it was so noticeable this time. (at least she’s not pulling a JK and pretending to have diversity though)

The only protagonist who might not be white is Raksha Keller (Witchlight), but I only headcanon her as brown because of her name, and she probably was just written white with a stolen Hindi name. Not on my watch

Speaking of Keller, she’s probably one of my favourite NW protagonists. Generally the main characters are okay even if some of them are a bit samey. Keller and Rashel (The Chosen) are my favourites. Rashel is that bitch.

I’m disappointed at the lack of werewolves/shapeshifters as main characters, but it turns out LJ addressed this in the NW guide so that was cool of her to acknowledge. (and yes I do own that)

I like her worldbuilding. The vampires are interesting and I like how she intertwines the Night World and human world together. And I love the witches.

The “soulmates” thing is conflicting for me because I think it’s an interesting world/plot element, but it also leads to insta-love that just doesn’t work for me in some of the stories. Like I believe they could fall in love eventually but not that quick. Some work better than others.

Thea and Eric from Enchantress are the best couple because they actually share interests and have chemistry outside of any soulmate principle driving them together. A couple of the other ones are good but I just think these two are the winners.

I’m not sure if Quinn’s redemption arc in The Chosen works because on the one hand, I get it but on the other hand...no. Kill him. He’s a bastard. Yknow? I’m just not sure.

That said, The Chosen is probably one of the better stories. There’s a lot of intrigue and good tension and I like the characters. 

Ash is a better example of a reformed bad guy because he’s at his worst during over characters’ POVs. In Book 2 (Daughters of Darkness), as he grows and you get his POV, you never really know how serious he was about being a villain in Book 1. He says he was just joking, but was he? Who knows? I like him. He also comes up the most re. anthology cameos, which is funny. He gets to grow in other people’s stories as well as his own.

Ash and Mary Lynette (Daughters of Darkness) are one of the relationships where the soulmate thing is entertaining and kind of works, and they’re both likeable if a bit annoying (but intentionally annoying not YA annoying, which is different I think).

Dark Angel was one I didn’t really like back in the day, but I enjoyed it more this time. Gillian’s initial character is still bland but the story itself is interesting outside of the cliché high school stuff.

Idk how to explain it but Delos in Black Dawn is somehow both boring and interesting at the same time. Him and Maggie’s chemistry is believable but their relationship is soo insta-love. Sylvia is interesting as an antagonist, and I like her ending.

I don’t have much to say about Soulmate except that it’s good, I like the concept and the relationship (though the thought of blonde white Hannah being reincarnated in ancient Egypt is hilarious), and I love Paul the psychologist.

All LJ Smith’s protagonists have super long hair and it’s obviously her projecting (LJ Smith has/had hair long enough to sit on for most of her life). I’m not judging, I have left-handed characters for the same reason, it’s just funny when you recognise it.

I just realised I never mentioned Secret Vampire or Huntress. They’re both fine. I find the side characters in Huntress more interesting than the main ones right up until the last couple of chapters. Philip is the best character in Secret Vampire (besides Ash). James is wildly boring. All in all SV is probably my least favourite story since I don’t really have anything to say about it. It’s a good introduction to the world I guess?

If anyone else has read this series and has some thoughts I’d love to hear them! Let’s ramble together 😁

Actual book reviews where I make sense Message me

[gustave300]

World of Ewea: Vilstag a northern warlike nation know for raiding surrounding lands. Now they’re going from raiding to conquering what has caused this change you might ask? Discovery of old magic runes know as “Fasht” magic used before the great tragedy. The magic comes from the true name of nature’s elements and scribing them into runes. Veknel Fasht are masters of this newly learned magic they can scribe this old language into objects allowing other to use this power. The warriors trusted with the powers of the old runes are know “Regfasht”. this regfasht is given flame gloves that create a short but powerful flame that can melt steal. Some regfasht have other nature based powers (elemental control and beast mastery). #worldbuilding #art #myart #fantasy #magic #fantasywriter #fantasycomics #ink #markers https://www.instagram.com/p/BszGPq-nW-b/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=9al1ws23irjt

[void-botanist]

About me

name // NavarenWizard (you can call me NW)

pronouns // he/him

age // mid 20s

occupation // grad student, gay husband

background // american genderqueer trans guy

interests // writing, drawing (traditional and digital), fantasy and speculative anime, video games, web design

main blog // @an-elegant-void -- I follow from this blog!

writeblr // @navarenwizard

format of my intro // shamelessly borrowed from @pens-swords-stuff

About my writeblr

name // NavarenWizard (@navarenwizard)

age // brand new, though I have been reblogging things here for a little bit

focus // diversity and worldbuilding -- I reblog from positivity/creative blogs for and about marginalized groups, and from various sources that discuss representation in media and how writers/artists can do better. I also just want to be more immersed in an online writing community!

audience // this blog is open to anyone, but be aware that some of what I reblog is going to be about queerphobia, racism, ableism, fatphobia, etc., with the goal of helping myself and other creators do better.

asks // I can personally talk about:

NaNoWriMo events

WikiWriMo

Scrivener

queer representation (although of course I can't speak for every queer person)

being terrified of getting involved in communities (ironic, I know)

writing novels when you can't bring yourself to read novels

design of writeblrs/writers' websites

Please also reach out to me if you have any accessibility issues with my blog!

About my writing

genres // fantasy, queer, romance, sci-fi, erotic romance

themes // sustainable living, recovering from emotional trauma, queer lives long after coming out

formats // original novels, occasionally poetry or short stories

experience // sixteenish years of writing, a year or so of being serious about writing well (i.e. with structure, representation, and awareness of harmful tropes)

goals // self publishing my novels eventually, when they're complete and edited

WIPs

Tales of Tobar Si

genre // queer, fantasy, romance

tag // #ts

super quick synopsis // An aos si man escapes from his abusive family on Earth and returns to his Faeryland home, where he begins to heal and tries to find a way to confess his love to his best friend.

status // partially drafted for NaNoWriMo 2020, simmering

Triad

genre // queer, fantasy, erotic romance

tag // #triad

super quick synopsis // An ex-princess and her husband accidentally fall in love with a trans guy farmer and have to figure out their own happily ever after.

status // partially drafted for Camp NaNo July 2021, simmering

I'm also planning a novel that I'll kickstart with NaNoWriMo 2021 -- more on that soon!

[katherine-rambles]

i finished breath of the wild. ~105+ hours, all shrines, most quests. 

spoiler-light thoughts & advice for those who are playing/want to play:

please for the Love of the Goddess get the memories. 90% of the ‘story’, such as it is, is in them, and the ending is hard to get satisfaction out of narratively if you don’t do that. 

related: it’s a good idea to finish Kass’s quest line. i suggest, before you head into the final fight, re-watching the memories in order and listening to kass’s final song. 

you’ll probably get the memories out of order; that’s fine. but be aware that the impressions you get of Zelda may be weird at first b/c of all these moments from different parts of her timeline. this is why i HIGHLY suggest re-watching all the memories in order. our brains are trained to see varying behavior as a Bad Sign, and if you aren’t paying close attention to the timeline of the memories as you get them (like i didn’t) your impressions of zelda can be. weird. 

the Feel of this game is primarily in two parts: the interactions with the world and then the character interactions. (i group ‘enemies’ and ‘bosses’ and ‘shrines’ in the former.) 

it’s actually a decent amount like Majora’s Mask in this way, honestly. except for that in This game, it’s really easy to just... not talk to anybody. which is a fine choice, just-- know you’re missing out. there’s a decent undercurrent of themes you will miss out on if you decide not to talk to random folks. that and there are like ten bajillion hints hidden in random npc dialogue all fucking over the place. plus some really great worldbuilding. why miss out?

combat in this game is mostly what you make of it? like I’m boring and i just stab things but this is a game where you can get chickens to attack your enemies for you. lots of fun to be had using the environment+items to your advantage, and this is really one of the only games that lets you do combat like this outside of tabletop roleplay with a DM. so. 

related: the enemies scale with your stats, for the most part. there’s some difficulty spikes right after the enemies ‘level up’, but for the most part straight 1v1 combat isn’t a terrible challenge. especially once you hit the stat max. that being said nEVER get in the middle of ten enemies without a solid plan you will die

the Divine Beasts quests give you some cool powers. i wish i had known what they were so i could’ve gotten some earlier than i did. here’s the rundown.

if you find yourself climbing a lot, do the Rito divine beast (nw)

if you like attacking, especially groups at once, Gerudo one (sw)

if you find yourself dying a lot, and:

it’s because you’re getting hit a lot, do the Goron one (nne)

it’s because of environment/hard to defend against things, go do the Zora divine beast (e)

tbh both of these help you Not Die a ton but those are my reccs

an easy way to train your horse is to Sprint and then when the horsie slows down but is still going, pat. this is basically a way to brute force the training, instead of waiting for the horse to do Something Bad and redirecting it. idk why it works but you can always do this.

if you’re having trouble with the Guardians do the Akkala Lab questline (i believe it’s started by the Hateno lab one, but you may be able to start it independently.) thereafter, invest in ancient-tech-arrows. these also make most of the Divine Beast boss fights easy as heck. 

there are 900 koroks and seeds. sure, get them if you want, but don’t feel a need to complete them any more than what you personally want for your inventory purposes. the only prize you get at the end is... having gotten all of them, basically, so. 

that’s most of the stuff i wish i’d been told. have fun out there! ;)

[ciathyzareposts]

Ringworld – Five Aliens and a Stasis Box

Written by Reiko

Quinn’s Journal #2: “I’ve managed to escape with Chmeee’s son in the prototype ship, but now the Puppeteers want us to go retrieve some ancient technology in stasis boxes on Ringworld. How are we ever going to catch up with the Destroyer? These boxes are not exactly easy to get to, either. Seeker is confident as always, but he’s taking the worst of the danger during these retrieval missions.“

Landing at Ringworld’s spaceport

We get some interesting visuals depicting the huge scale of the thing as we land in a spaceport area and descend to the surface of the Ringworld. We land near a primitive tribe of people, who are apparently holding onto an artifact that the Puppeteers want. The strongest of the “stasis reflection” signals points to near this location. It’s so strong that it might even be something as large as a spaceship.

Seeker suggests using the “God Gambit” to awe the natives and get them to do what we want. They’re not quite as cooperative as we’d like, though. We have to prove ourselves worthy before we can access the stasis artifact. Seeker is sent off on a mission to kill the “Screaming Devil,” some monster which has been terrorizing the village.

The priest of the People in the Canyon controls access to the artifact.

Meanwhile Miranda and Quinn stay in the village and try to talk to the high priest of the tribe, who describes himself as the “Holder of the Key to the Sacred Tech,” among other things. He calls their artifact the “Sky Silver.” Seems like some piece of advanced technology fell from the sky and the tribe has been guarding it ever since.

From the main village screen, there’s something that acts like a forcefield preventing us from entering the area where the Sky Silver is kept. Next to that exit, I find some kind of column with five black spots arranged in a square with a spot in the middle. Four small objects rest nearby, which can be placed on the spots, but the correct arrangement is not immediately obvious.

The chief thinks Seeker, or “See-Ku,” is a god, but Quinn and Miranda don’t get the same level of respect.

I tried to talk to the tribe’s chief, but after a brief exchange, he won’t talk to me again unless I give him “strong drink.” Lacking any further leads, I can’t think of anything to do but to go back to the lander, where Quinn comments that “Alterian Moonshine” would probably be an appropriate sort of strong drink. That’s an interestingly specific need, but I have no idea where to get that.

Dolphin prosthetics, how creative.

I start looking around the lander and discover the ship’s computer. Which says nothing about moonshine, Alterian or otherwise, but does contain rather a lot of interesting information about various races and their backstories. Apparently in this future, dolphins and whales are sentient and have been given strap-on flipper “hand” prosthetics so that they can actually manipulate tools and work with technology. Not that that seems to have any direct bearing on the story, but it’s great worldbuilding.

The replicator options are displayed like dialogue choices.

Miranda’s occupied with running some diagnostics while I go looking for moonshine. Eventually I discover the elevator and use it to go to level 2. There I can see several doors to various places like the autodoc, but the most useful thing is the food replicator, which offers me five options, one of which is just labeled “ale.” I’m not sure if that’s strong enough, but I take it anyway. Quinn has a comment about the other four options and appears to take them, but there’s nothing else added to my inventory besides the bottle of ale.

In the storage room I find a medkit I can take, as well as the airlock and pressure suits for everyone. Seeker seems to have two pressure suits, a normal one and a suit that looks like armor. Quinn wonders if it’s legal for him to have the battle suit. Miranda’s suit is stowed with her boots placed separately for some reason. I can also have Quinn put on his suit and walk around, but I’m told I don’t need the airlock right now, so I don’t seem to need the suit either. I suspect there might be a scene later where I have to get into the suit and exit through the airlock, though.

My quarters are quite colorful.

I check out my quarters but find little of interest aside from some colorful alien art and a gravity field “bed.” A cabinet inside a table holds a few things from the previous owner (although who would that have been if this is a prototype…?), including a copy of Moby Dick and a “song sphere,” but nothing I can take or manipulate. The third level holds just the bridge, but I find nothing to do there as well. A hatch that gives emergency access to bridge controls is locked. Each level holds the same computer with the same information, in case I feel the need to look something up at a moment’s notice, I guess.

I guess he does consider “Ku-In” to be a god also. And she makes it very clear later what “rishathra” involves…

Well, I’ve got the ale, so I leave the lander, collecting Miranda on the way out, and we return to the village. When I get there, we automatically greet the chief and offer him the ale as a gift. Miranda stays with the chief to make sure he gets drunk, while Quinn, as a reward, gets the honor of bedding the chief’s daughter, which she is actually very happy about. I’m not even making this up. Once the daughter is satisfied and asleep (which happens automatically and mostly off-screen), Quinn gets the opportunity to move around again and try to get to the stasis artifact by bringing down the force field.

Is that a ladder in your pocket, or…?

I regain control in the chief’s kitchen, where the daughter has her bed (to tend the spit, perhaps?). I first notice and take a rope hanging on a peg. When I exit the kitchen, I find myself back in the chief’s room, where he has just become so drunk that he passes out on Miranda. He won’t get in our way again for a while. Miranda hints that I might want to find something useful in that room, so I swipe the chief’s ladder, which seems to disappear into my pocket, despite being significantly taller than Quinn.

Well, that was not smart.

When I leave the chief’s room, the guard is just walking away and doesn’t seem to see me. I’m sure I don’t want him to interfere with what I’m doing, so I quickly drop the ladder right by the wall so that Quinn can climb up on top of the caves. I can’t really move around up there, but I have access to two holes. The hole on the right, with lots of smoke, drops me straight down into the chief’s cooking fire. Whoops.

The hole on the left, with just a wisp of smoke, drops me into the temple, but landing from that height causes too much noise. The priest comes in and pokes me and warns me not to go in there again. I saved and tried again without doing anything different, just to see if his threat meant anything, but the same thing happened again, so I guess not. To make less noise, I’ve got to climb down the rope, but using the rope on the hole doesn’t work. Using it on the nearby rock outcropping does, though.

This was surprisingly difficult to see on the back wall.

Inside the temple, I examine and poke everything multiple times before I discover that there’s a drawing on an old piece of skin on the back wall, which shows me the correct arrangement for the objects near the force field. NW: moon, NE: planet, SW: comet, SE: star, center: ring. I go back to the force field controls and put all the pieces that are there in the correct places, but I seem to be missing one. I don’t have the ring shape that’s supposed to go in the center.

I look around again and finally remember that I can go into the priest’s room in front of the temple room too. I spot the ring shape on the priest’s necklace hanging by the opening in the back of the room, but I can’t get it from there, or the priest wakes up from his nap and scolds me again. I have to go back up the ladder, climb down the rope into the temple, and go into the room from the back so I’m standing by the back opening. Then I can quietly grab the necklace and return the way I came.

All five pieces in place on the control box.

When I get back down to the front, Seeker appears with his kill, whatever monster it was that was disturbing the village. After he’s taken care of that (it’s clear that he’s planning to eat it at some point), then I can use the necklace and place all five shapes in the correct places to disable the force field.

That’s at least 25,000 years old, apparently.

Seeker and Quinn go look at the Sky Silver, but it’s an ancient ship encased in a stasis field. I can do nothing with it other than scan it with my scanner (finally an actual use for the thing), which tells us we have no way of breaking the stasis field.

We leave empty-handed in the end, so Seeker decides we need to look for the next “stasis reflection” which could be what the Puppeteers want. I thought they gave us coordinates, but I guess those were just approximate, and we have multiple possibilities within that area. There’s some discussion about how the stasis field objects might be from the ancient Thrintun Slaver civilization, which would be valuable technology.

Suddenly, the Hindmost’s hologram appears again, and he insists we tell him everything we found so far. Quinn tells him we found nothing yet, but we’re on our way to check the next location right away. Hindmost urges us to hurry, as our race’s survival might depend on it. But the group doesn’t really trust him and doesn’t want to tell him any more than necessary.

Stubborn Kzinti pride at work here…

At any rate, we land near the next significant signal, which seems to be located within a cave. Seeker and Quinn proceed to have an argument about whether Seeker is going to go into the cave by himself to investigate, or whether Quinn will go too. Outside the cave, we find a pile of humanoid bones, which redoubles Seeker’s insistence on going alone. Seeker thinks he’s a mighty warrior that doesn’t need any backup, and Quinn just wants to help watch his back. I get one conversational choice here, but it doesn’t seem to matter what I say, because Quinn ends up going back to the lander to help Miranda track Seeker while he enters the cave.

Seeker smells humanoids and comments that all humanoids smell like food to him, which is not particularly reassuring to Miranda and Quinn. The smell keeps getting stronger until suddenly we get a glimpse of a fierce alien humanoid on Seeker’s monitor, and then we lose the signal. Miranda suggests that Quinn needs to go after him, and make sure to take a medkit (which I already found in the storage room).

The snare was only the obvious sort of trap, and not large enough for a human.

I cautiously step into the cave. It’s pretty creepy, with an odd smell and some bat-like creatures flying around. One of the creatures is caught in a snare made out of tough fibers. One strand of the fiber runs deep into a hole, but I can’t do anything with it. When I start to move back toward the entrance from that hole, I very suddenly fall into another hole that had been concealed. It’s a trap! (It was so sudden that I was completely startled.)

Quinn acts drunk.

The creatures that had captured Seeker have captured me too. I try to talk to their leader, the “Flesheater Lord,” but he’s not having it, and throws me into the same “food pit” where they’ve put Seeker. I noticed that their speech seemed completely unintelligible at first, but after a few exchanges, Quinn started getting a few words. The same thing happened at the village. He must have some sort of universal translator that needs some input before it starts working. The creatures also give off some sort of odor or pheromone that makes Quinn dizzy and ineffective.

In the pit, Quinn’s head clears. I check on Seeker, who’s unresponsive, so I use the medkit on him to give him a stimulant. He’s still mostly unresponsive, so I scoop up a sharp bit of bone from whatever else died in the pit before we got there, and squeeze through a narrow tunnel to get back to the original cavern. I have to be really careful where I step, or I’ll fall into the trap again, but if I go around, I can use the sharp bone to cut the cord of the snare and free the bat creature.

The grateful bat-creature is willing to help me.

I can’t find anything else to do, but after I let myself get caught and put back into the food pit, the next time I try to leave, the bat creature I freed appears and talks to me. It says it can show me a way out, and it gives me an anti-pheromone drug. Quinn automatically takes it, and then I can also administer it to Seeker to wake him up the rest of the way. (Rather fortunate that it works on both human and Kzinti physiology.) Since he can’t get out the same way I can, he stays there while I escape again and get the bat creature to show me how to get to the eaters’ “throne room.” We can’t leave without getting that stasis box.

I follow the bat creature off toward the left, but suddenly I run into a couple of the eaters again, and they drop me back into the food pit. Well, this is getting old. I try again, and this time I stun one before they can grab me. The rest scatter and leave me alone. I find the stone covering the food pit and open it so Seeker can get out. The bat creature is hanging from the ceiling there, so I talk to it one more time, and it tells me to push the big pillar. I poke at the pillar a bit and find a stone that looks out of place. Pushing it takes me to the big room full of skulls that had been full of the eaters before, but is now completely empty. I take the shining stasis box, collect Seeker, and we walk out completely unopposed. That was rather anti-climactic.

Back on the lander, we set course for the next stasis reflection, but in the meantime, we decide to try to open the box we just got, especially because Hindmost calls again and demands to know our progress. We tell him truthfully that we got one box but we haven’t had a chance to open it yet, and he goes away. I get a dialog choice to look up information on stasis fields, or just go ahead with opening it.

The entry on stasis fields in the lander’s computer.

I had read the entry on stasis fields along with the rest of them a while back, but I review it again, just in case. It says there are two kinds of stasis fields: protection fields, which usually have no controls and operate automatically, like the one around that crashed ship, and preservation fields, which usually have controls and enclose things to be stored for later, like pieces of technology. If the box has a preservation field, we might be able to open it.

It also says that one stasis field cannot exist inside another. The larger takes precedence. That turns out to be the key to opening these boxes, as Miranda can simply generate a field around the box, which deactivates the box’s field. Inside it, she finds some kind of device, which sends out a beam that leaves Quinn feeling odd, with tingling fingers and a ringing in his ears. Maybe we’ll figure out what that does later.

Ringworld map of the coordinates given by Hindmost.

Next time, we’ll go after the next box. I’m not certain how many of these stops for boxes there will be, but I realized later that there had been a map shown when we first arrived at Ringworld. The map shows five stasis reflection points, and we’ve been to two of them so far, so there should only be three more.

Number of people stunned by Quinn: 1 (the Flesheater); 4 total Number of actions taken by Quinn other than stunning: 18 (including getting 7 items: the ale, the medkit, the rope, the ladder, the ring-necklace, the sharp bone, and the stasis box); 24 total Number of conversational choices: 3 (two in the argument with Seeker, stasis field choice) [and a half? if the replicator counts]; 7 total Number of deaths: 1 (falling in the cook fire); 2 total Number of alien species encountered: 5 (2 from the first session: Kzinti and Puppeteers, 3 from this one: the People of the Canyon, the Flesheaters, the bat-creatures)

Session Time: 2 hrs 20 min Total Time: 3 hrs 10 min

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There’s a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no points will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. Please…try not to spoil any part of the game for me…unless I really obviously need the help…or I specifically request assistance. In this instance, I’ve not made any requests for assistance. Thanks!

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/ringworld-five-aliens-and-a-stasis-box/