#anyway want some more worldbuilding?

[icewindandboringhorror]

I made a few new wax seal stamps out of clay (like the ones I did for my worldbuilding stuff forever ago), this time just of random symbols that I thought might look good done in the style of painting over the raised part of the wax or etc. :0c Some of them aren't carved deep enough to really show up that well, but overall they worked okay for being clay lol

[not-poignant]

Tbh one of the reasons I haven't gotten around to Palmarosa yet is because I knew I had to do a fuckton more worldbuilding research and couldn't be bothered because I was like 'this is going to be a lot more work than it needs to be.'

And after 4 straight hours and over 50 tabs which distilled down into 2000 words of worldbuilding that isn't even me getting to the chapter yet, I was right lmao. But in good news, it means I can officially get started! We're going to Luskan, folks :D

[valiant-portabella-pirkko]

a miscellaneous thought for future GW2 expansions; it'd be neat if we eventually wound up with one that includes a PvE version of the Warclaw mastery tree to make it relevant outside WvW. it's got a neat concept and some fun skins, but there's not really any reason to ever use it outside that specific game mode since none of its skills carry over into PvE. with siege damage mechanics added to some open world events, it'd be neat to see the og siege mount get an update.

bonus points if the expansion it's included in is Mists-focused, since that'd match up with the Warclaw's current lore, too.

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads // twitter thread

To Shape A Dragon’s Breath

YA fantasy

a young Indigenous girl finds & bonds with a dragon hatchling - the first time in many generations for her people - and is required to go to the coloniser’s dragon academy in their mainland city, to learn how to raise her dragon and the science of its magic

historical inspired setting on the cusp of industrial revolution with steampunk vibes

bi polyamorous MC, Black lesbian SC, nonverbal autistic SC

[artist-rat]

grabbing my da ocs to give them an og story in an og setting. testing some new looks. barbie meme is the first thing i draw

this has been my announcement

[abirdie]

Gael García Bernal in Another End (2024, dir. Piero Messina)

(these gifs also feature Renate Reinsve)

Gifs are all 540px wide so you can click to see larger.

[other gael filmography gifsets]

[arolesbianism]

Despite how much I suffered making my last isat au Aris sprite redraw, I decided to do it again and once again went through hell doing it. There’s like a billion mistakes in this (such as her having the wrong arm rip) but at the end of the day I’m still happy with how it turned out :]

[mewgatori]

One thing I haven't seen explored much in mg stories where your negative emotions can lead to you becoming the center of a monster of the week event is how does this effect the civilians long term?

Would some people become more emotionally repressed if this situation continued long enough because they know that being openly negative is risky? Like sure you could tell your friend they're doing something that's bothering you, but what if their level of distress at being told this becomes so great that they become a grief monster? Would you really want to take the risk of telling the hard truths to someone knowing they would become incredibly durable, violent, hard to restrain, and almost impossible to reason with?

Would openly emotional people start getting ostracized as people piece together what type of situations normally precede monster attacks? Like do you really want to spend time with the local crybaby knowing anything could set them off at any time and you will need to have an escape plan ready because you can't help them when that happens?

Medical professionals giving diagnoses of terminal diseases is already straining enough but imagine knowing there is a nonzero chance that your patients' struggle to cope with their feelings about the diagnoses would make them become a superhuman level threat to society and you will be in a very small closed room with them(and probably alone) when you break the news. That would make the whole event so much more stressful

I think that's a type of idea I'd like to delve into in the future

[fishyartist]

think ive finally figured out a building process i dont despise. still got a LONGGG way to go improvement wise (a whole lifetime even) but the process occurs regardless :3

[marinsawakening]

The most annoying thing about the Gerudo in BOTW is the orientalism, racism and misogyny. The second most annoying thing about the Gerudo in BOTW is the way the orientalism, racism and misogyny directly tank their worldbuilding.

I'm not gonna talk about why the Gerudo are orientalist, people smarter and more informed than me have already done so extensively and I don't have anything to add to that discussion. I'm here to bitch about how it affects the worldbuilding to the extent where Gerudo society, as portrayed in BOTW, does not make much of any sense in-universe.

Let's be clear here: the worldbuilding would be trash even if it made complete in-universe sense because it's orientalist and misogynist. But it doesn't even make sense in-universe and it's pretty much entirely because of the orientalism and misogyny.

Two things are true about the Gerudo at once: 1) they do not allow men into Gerudo Town, and 2) they are absolutely obsessed with finding husbands. I don't want to guess at percentages, but a truly ridiculous portion of the dialogue the Gerudo get is somehow related to finding husbands, being in love with men, etc. It is baked into their culture, most obviously exemplified in the love lessons that occur in Gerudo Town. But, more important than lessons or whatever, is the fact that leaving Gerudo Town to find a husband is considered a coming of age rite of passage for young women. It is an integral part of Gerudo culture to leave on a journey to find a husband.

And let's be clear: the goal here is absolutely, unambiguously long-term marriage. Many Gerudo you meet lament the shallow nature of the men who try to pursue them, we see Gerudo who reference husbands they currently have, and just generally the way the Gerudo talk indicates that they are not looking for a one-night stand or a summer romance: they are looking for something permanent. They are looking for marriage, and a good portion of them succeed.

So. Uh. Where do their husbands live?

The only time see any Gerudo who permanently lives outside of Gerudo Town is in Tarrey Town, and you're the one who brought her there. All the other Gerudo you meet outside of Gerudo Town or Kara Kara Bazaar are travelling. There are no Gerudo residents in Kakariko, Hateno, or Lurelin, or mixed Gerudo children.

This is very, very weird when you consider that married Gerudo would not be able to live with their husbands in Gerudo Town. The 'no men allowed' rule has no exceptions, so if a newly wed couple wanted to live together - and they almost certainly would - they would have to do so outside of Gerudo Town. And yet, we do not see them, despite demonstrable evidence that married Gerudo do exist.

There is another option, of course: that Gerudo culture normalizes long distance relationships even for married couples, and that the husbands live outside of Gerudo Town whereas the wives live within it. This is theoretically possible, except we never get any real in-game hints indicating it. It's still the option that makes the most sense, but it's a fanmade band-aid solution, not a real element of the worldbuilding.

Either which way, the inherent conflict between 'men are not allowed in Gerudo Town' and 'a big part of the Gerudo Town culture is to get married to men' should logically be causing tension. While the guards take the rule very seriously, most of the people you meet inside Gerudo Town don't really care that you're a man, and we know there's a thriving black market supplying men's clothes. This indicates that, already, in canon, most Gerudo play fast and loose with this rule to begin with, and don't have much special attachment to it.

Which makes it even more glaring that nobody seems to be arguing against it. Logically, there should be conflict between the Gerudo who value the tradition of an all-women Gerudo Town, and the Gerudo who want to be able to live with their husbands in their hometown. With how incredibly centered the Gerudo's culture is on these two things, this should be a major political problem that's going to singlehandedly turn Riju grey before she even comes of age. There should be discontent and unrest from newlyweds and long devoted wives who don't want to leave their home behind to be with their husbands, and don't want to leave their husbands behind to be home. Who would want to, at the very least, be able to show their husbands their childhood home.

But even if there wasn't, there should be a larger Gerudo presence outside of Gerudo Town. Either Kara Kara Bazaar should be a lot larger and more populated than it currently is, or there should be one or more smaller towns around Gerudo Town where the married Gerudo live with their husbands, or where the husbands of the Gerudo who live in Gerudo Town reside. You cannot tell me every single Gerudo would be okay with abandoning their culture and moving in with their husbands; even if they could not bring their husbands back to Gerudo town, they would frequently like to live somewhere close by. And if we take the long-distance approach, there would be plenty of couples who wouldn't want to be separated too far, and therefore there'd be husbands moving closer to their wives, even if they could not live in the same town.

But say, for the sake of the argument, that this also didn't happen: then, at the very least, we ought to see Gerudo in other Hylian settlements. We ought to see Gerudo who live in Hateno, Kakariko, Lurelin, and maybe even at the stables. We ought to find populations of diaspora and mixed race Gerudo who have grown up outside of Gerudo Town, and have maybe even never visited it. We have circled back around to the first point of argument.

If the Gerudo are getting married, we should see evidence of their husbands, somehow, beyond dialogue references and quest objectives.

The reason we don't, of course, is obvious: orientalism. The Gerudo are an orientalist idea of a harem, exotic women out of reach yet practically begging to be conquered by Western men. They want to be with men, are searching for men, yet are very rarely shown to find one because doing so would pop the fantasy being sold to male players: that they could be the one to get them.

So to successfully sell this orientalist, misogynist fantasy, the worldbuilding becomes completely and utterly nonsensical.

[HAS NOT PLAYED TEARS OF THE KINGDOM DISCLAIMER]

[icewindandboringhorror]

Lineup of all of the characters that appear long enough to need a visual representation of them in the game lol

[waywardsalt]

tbh i might go ahead and put dungeons in as a part of the bellum x linebeck fic's plot since like. 1) struggling to actually figure out a main plot and having dungeons as sort of bit points to hit and be little bits of fitting exploration and bonding and 2) i do kinda want to do dungeons. i like thinking of them and again i do think its fitting.

[chocolatepot]

Me a couple of days ago: I don't love it when people do the "she should have murdered more people" thing, why can't we meow-meow-ify female characters like we do male ones and put them in h/c situations?

Me after watching Gen V: Kate should have killed more people actually

[sysig]

TFW you kill god: Oops lol 🙈😳✌ ️(Patreon)

[mossflower]

thinking so incredibly hard about the fairy wip

[rawliverandgoronspice]

One thing I really like is that the whole Unhallowed Vespers trilogy (so Litany, Descant and Antiphon) is that is really served as my brainstorming test grounds for Thralls.

There are ideas in there I realize I don't like as much as I thought in hindsight, or conflict with other stuff I decided I'd rather pursue instead, and I get to have explored them before committing to those in a more long-form kind of project --or some that are too subtle or complicated to be carried out outside of writing (mostly thinking of a ton of Ganondorf character details, some things about gerudo culture that I want to tweak, characters that are getting axed because We Don't Have Time, etc).

On the contrary, there are things I set up in there I never actually got to explore, and I get to pull out that thread in here instead (basically every single of the hylians' character arc roughly, Nabooru, even Impa in a way). It's pretty weird and interesting to revisit the same core ideas twice, but in a different medium and with different character arcs in mind starting off the same thing.