#there's like three years of worldbuilding in this

[fascinatedhelix]

Decided to make a little introductory post to a very particular crossover AU (for ABZU, The Pathless, Journey (2012), and Sky: Children of the Light, to be specific) that @abhorrenttheorizer and I have made art for over on Discord. As there's a lot of ground to cover, I'm putting it under a read-more for courtesy.

Introduction

Welcome to Earth! Specifically, thousands if not millions of years in the future, after at least one cataclysm has claimed the lives of every human on the planet. But not to worry!

A little before the end of humanity arrived, two bird-like gods arrived on Earth, settling in the eastern and western hemispheres to establish their own followings.

Off to the East, we have the goddess affectionately nicknamed "Megabird," who landed on a mountain and began constructing her own unique ecosystem centering on light and flight, creating the Rythulians as her worshippers. (AT's more in charge of this portion; he's got a lot of interesting ideas about the "slugbirbs" as we like to call them.)

To the West, we have the goddess known to her own people as Mother Eagle. First, she got to work producing five eggs, which would hatch into their own unique gods and goddesses: Cernos, Sauro, Nimue, Basilla, and Kumo.

Basilla, the shark goddess*, was the one who crafted the people who would become their worshippers, taking remnants of humans and mixing them with seals and sharks to create the Basillan species (my specialty, based on my personal headcanons for the TGS games).

*(based on the Great White from ABZU being referenced in The Pathless and the mysterious stele that got edited out in an update)

The original Basillan kinda looked like this (these being the "humanoid" forms of the Tall Ones, Basilla included).

However, they wouldn't stay united for very long. Differences in religious views and lifestyle got heated, and eventually the mortals banished Basilla and her followers from their island home, with the Basillan cult setting up shop in an underwater territory a ways away from the Eagle's Island. Over time, the more land-focused followers of the Mother Eagle and the remaining four Tall Ones became the Vokara subspecies, and the more aquatic followers of Basilla alone became the Nanshen.

Here's a really old drawing of the differences!

(Did I forget to mention this AU has been in the works since 2021? Man my art's changed since then.)

Anyways, average Nanshen guy on the left, average Vokara guy on the right.

The Nanshen are more suited towards an aquatic lifestyle, with wider gill slits, darker skin due to heightened sun exposure, shorter and more compact body type, a flatter nose more suited for passing water to the gills, and longer barbels on the ears to allow for greater olfactory sensation underwater. (They're based off of the murals in the ABZU game, as well as probably unintentional environmental storytelling with how unnavigable the map would be without a lot of diving underwater; it only made sense to me that the lost civilization was probably amphibious.)

The Vokara have lived mostly in the mountains for generations, so they're more suited for terrestrial life, with a broader chest, smaller gills to focus on breathing air, lighter skin due to weather conditions providing less light, a more opened up nasal passage for ease of breathing, and smaller barbels due to less of a need for underwater sensory measures. (They're more based on the Hunter's appearance in The Pathless, given that she is way too gray to be a human. I know it's probably just to make her aracial like what they did in Homestuck, but I'm running with it damn it!)

(Anyways, here's a nicer comparison drawing from a little while later. Behold the specbio lesbian wedding!)

Fun Bits I Forgot to Organize

Tusks

Adult Basillans grow tusks like boars (based on the Godslayer's ascended model having these wicked tusks among his rows of fangs). They only really develop towards the latter portion of adolescence, around one's late teens to early 20s, and are regarded for the males as the sign that one has become a proper adult.

Of course, the downside is that these things are continuously growing and have to be trimmed every now and then in order to avoid poking oneself in the eye or scratching people with it.

The Vokara are especially finicky about covering their mouths for... not quite modesty reasons so much as baring one's scary teeth at another person is considered rude and aggressive. The Nanshen, living far more amphibiously and thus not really comfortable with more cloth than is comfortable underwater, don't care about that as much, though if you grimace at somebody they might kick you in the shins.

Barbels

A general rule I keep when designing out-of-water clothing for these guys is to cover the ears. In universe, it's because their barbels are very sensitive to differences in temperature and UV radiation out of the water, so it's deeply uncomfortable to have them uncovered for these guys. Out of universe, it's because The Hunter did something like this in her game, in addition to the ABZU people also covering most of their heads but not their chests for some reason (so probably not quite a modesty thing), and I decided to make up a silly specbio reason for it.

For some examples, here's a spread of different Nanshen city states and their different fashions:

History

The games are still canon here! But there's a little more to it.

The Nanshen had always been travellers, more keen to explore and establish their own territories far and wide. But after those dwelling in the Crown began messing with the Abzu, the life energy of the ocean itself, the ecosystem around the capitol collapsed and the population fled the area. Their former empire collapsed, and in its place, a number of different city states off the shore of their various old territories were established in its place.

Some time before, or maybe simultaneous to that, the Vokara had their own little collapse in the form of the Godslayer's rebellion. Many had read the writing on the wall and fled the Isle before he successfully slayed the gods and took control of the whole Island, leading to a number of villages and kingdoms being formed on the nearby continent, which would eventually spawn the Last Hunter, who would defeat the Godslayer.

There's more to it, but I think I'm approaching Tumblr's picture limit, and I've got more, sillier pictures from the AU. I'll add those later!

#metamorphoverse au #crossover hell #abzu #journey #sky children of the light #the pathless #long post #my art #headcanons #there's like three years of worldbuilding in this

[icewindandboringhorror]

................ he 

#i feel like I posted this already but I also can't find it in any recent posts so... #......he #cats #EVEN if I did post it.. why not poast himb again? it's he #I'm like halfway through actually editing aforementioned costumes and stuff and i WANT to work on sculptures again and I have video #s and that worldbuilding slideshow and all of these things so hopefully like.. more usual stuff soon maybe.. to be posted #for now though yeah.. just cats #The end of the year is also when I panic about the passage of time and how little I've gotten done and how I will never actually be a #sucessful game maker slash author slash cat cafe owner slash set designer slash costume designer slash psychologist #who lives in like Scotland or somehting and also owns my own candle company or something ghbjhb #and will probably just be a mentally ill hermit recluse all my life who dies early of mysterious health issues with 5000 projects left #undone and blah blah the crushing weight of chronic illness and capitalism and so on and so forth #So then I scramble to get projects done to try and meet some goals but usually that means I scatter between projects #so it takes longer to finish all of them. Like instead of dedicating 8 hours to one thing and finishing it one sitting. I'll do 2 hours on #this then 2 hours on that then 2 hours on another things. so they all get done slower even though I'm still technically making progress on #them all. This is also a very poo poo pee pee stink brain way to work and is not like. the most efficent thing but it's just how my brain #organizes tasks sometimes lol #*** #(<ignore this its part of an OCD compulsion lol. anytime you see me type three asterisks I'm not bleeping out a curse word #it's just a Special Secret Foolish Thing I Have To Do At Specific Uncontrolable Times When Brain Says So gbjhhj) #ANYWAY... eeeee #Still haven't resolved my mystery chest injury though so being at te computer for too long is also kind of achey-inducing #Better get over it though because I have like 30+ hours of slideshow vidoe to edit hahaha hee hee hoo!!!!!

[funeralprocessor]

Art from Mundus Carnis, a geiger-esque biopunk worldbuilding project by Screeble on DA.

I'm a huge huge fan of their art and writing and worldbuilding, have been for years. They did some fantastic work in a collaborative spec evo forum game I lurked.

Which have lived in my head ever since.

#spec evo #spec bio #biopunk #worldbuilding #body horror kinda #and some of the other MC designs are...not very safe for work #or life #but that's a side effect of being Geiger inspired #screeble #deviantart #god primordial evo games were so fun and cool I would love to do one with some friends #started with some incredibly basic mspaint blobs as like the original organisms and each post could add a little more to one #eventually we got sophonts and societies and shit like the Lufae and their fungal biotech #I'm using we very loosely there I contributed like three posts before I got scared lol #but god I followed the threads religiously once they got going #and I've stolen stuff from them for my tabletop campaigns for years #the Lufae especially I immediately started using as my go-to underdark-y species #which makes their alien vibes that much cooler when compared to like...an elf

[outeremissary]

Oooh how about 18 (if you want to, it looked like a funny question), 32, and 37 for Balthazar?

I fear I'm going to disappoint you on 18- I don't have my ex's encyclopedic memory of B99 even if thanks to them I think I've seen the whole show about five times over. ^^;; But I can do my best for the others!

[prompt]

32. Your character is having a prom night/debs. What kind of outfit do they wear?

Hm, a modern question. Balthazar is so weird to define in modern style because we live in an era where masculine clothing is rather enclosed. I think being trans in a modern setting vs. a fantasy setting also comes with a different kind of weight. But there's a fantasy element to prom, and certainly a certain kind of spite that queer teens bring to it (at least in my own experience). His outfit is cobbled together from a combination of thrifted oddities and ordinary formalwear. The pride of this ensemble is a bright red blouse with ruffly poet sleeves that must have been nearly fifty years out of style. He goes as friends with Linzi and both of them are called vampire lesbians at school for a week afterwards. It's a nightmare.

At this point in his teen years he would have been a true terror if he'd been left in the Catholic school he went to when he was younger.

37. Your character has been kidnapped. Who has kidnapped them and how do they escape?

Hm, a lot of possible answers here. To seize on one that nearly did happen: one of Balthazar's great fears when he was younger and homeless for a time was getting picked up by any of the various cults that valued having a discount celestial on hand for various gruesome reasons- there's a reason the average lifespan of aasimar is so low. He was never very capable of defending himself despite his sorcerous abilities, so he slept with one eye open and was constantly paranoid about anyone he spent the night with. He can vividly remember an evening that he was approached by a pleasant, well-dressed woman who seemed especially set on talking to him; when she bent forward he caught the briefest glimpse of a death's head moth tattoo under her shirt. Even after he made his excuses and left the bar she had cornered him in, he kept thinking he caught saw someone from the corner of his eye following him throughout the evening. He ultimately spent the night on the floor of a temple of Abadar with a concerned young cleric near him. It's frighteningly easy to imagine what could have happened if he hadn't picked up anything strange about that woman. He could have easily gone along with her to her home- or wherever she decided to lead him- and woken up imprisoned who knows where (if he'd woken up at all).

If he was stuck in a situation like that, it would be difficult to escape, and it would have to be done fast. He would seize on the first opportunity he had with one of his captors alone to attempt to charm them into either giving him the opportunity to get away or getting close enough that if he put them under with a spell he could get either the keys (ideally) or a weapon away from them. There wouldn't be much more for it then except making a break for it and hoping he got lucky. Who knows- somehow his abysmally terrible luck somehow always balances out in the critical moment. Despite everything, maybe the gods look out for him after all.

#b99 and community had for years a similar grip on my ex as kingmaker has on me #I don't think I can ever watch b99 again even though I like it because for three straight years it was in the background almost constantly #regarding the modern au question I'm continuing to channel the lore established in 2020 #in a university au defined 90% through texts from last night jokes. premier worldbuilding. everything just for bits. #that's right: childhood friends balthazar and linzi is the product of just one text post that was funny to me at the time #they have a very up and down relationship in high school. this is one of their closer moments though. mlm/wlw solidarity #and since I've done so much commentary while writing already I'll say that a high awareness of exactly how aasimar are useful to occultists #is the reason that balthazar has never been deeper in anything to do with dark gods #why put yourself in a room with your natural predator without being sure you can survive? he's not that confident... not yet. #ask game #ask me emithing #balthazar lucienne #cassynite

[adriartts]

Something about purpose and pasts, old worlds and new ones.

(Dialogue from @dungeonsanddragonsfifthedition‘s Bird and Bear are Friends)

#original #nightlings #fauns #ANYHWAY. having an incredibly normal one #*slaps roof of mini-comic* this bad boy can fit so much fucking worldbuilding in it #bird and bear are friends lives rent free in my brain. omg they are. f.riends #me preparing to draw reiji: that's it you're going to the fucking grassland. get in the plains idiot #i fuck hard with the bright panel in the middle here. didn't turn out exactly as it was in my brain but i like it a ton either way #it's the only warm colors. they're hella saturated even more so than i usually saturate my colors. resembles either an explosion or the sun #both mean something to the world or the characters respectively so either interpretation is correct #redesigned the tattoo on milo's left arm again because i changed how the moons function. dig it tho and now it's got LORE lmao #the three panels of reiji that overlap the sun look really good. i like his fucked up eyes #all the hands. he's signing. his hair is down and the jewelry is gone. it's the middle of the night. he'd been sleeping #constellations as something that follows milo. stars as something that reiji follows #reiji's colors were initially more saturated but he was TOO fucking purple so i had to change it #their speech bubbles are complimentary colors. sorry. ill be SO normal dude i promise im so incredibly normal bro #apparently around thanksgiving every year I need to do a minicomic. last year was fierce deity comic. now u get ocs #now you get THIS GUY (plural) #my fucked up little creatures who are here to wander around and Find Out #my fucked up little guys who are here to exist on the ashes of an older world. and be friends about it #my fucking. these dudes. make a normal character then shoot them with my beam that makes them a fucked up little fantasy creature. #get creatured. idiot #ONE more. i simplified milo's design a lil for the sake of clarity. mostly just the fur pattern is typically not so defined but for the... #...small panels especially. it didn't look good to draw it all out. ok NOW i'm done #Milo Montalvo #Reiji Droet #oc #ocs

[thenamesblurrito]

I have a strong feeling that you're implying that the modern cybertonian sizes (And the funtionism) are, in a way, influenced by Unicron (All bots having four fingers, like drones, except some size nulls (Because they're old as frag) and the heroes, and the fact that Censere, Tyrest and Archy's descriptions mention having a "boss" they can't disobey)

ohhhhhhhh anon you have NO idea how happy you've made me :3

don't you wonder where the antagonists got the Unicron virus from in the first place? don't you wonder who mutilated Censere and reduced the Magnificence to just a ball? don't you wonder why Tyrest and Archie have faces that are subtly but notably different from what i specify in my style guide? don't you wonder why clever quick little Wheelie can't just run away? don't you wonder why so much information, so much basic ability and biology seems to be lost in modern times? don't you wonder what could change an entire species over millions of years to be closer to a drone, a simple working machine, and who would do that, and why?

don't you wonder why my villain tag is "domestication"?

#u are PICKING UP what im PUTTING DOWN #Unicron #domestication #sitting here literally cackling to myself like some b list movie villain #ALSO LETS SEE IF YOU CAN PIECE THESE LAST TWO HINTS TOGETHER: #dont you wonder what 'faction brand' is on bludgeons relic? #dont you wonder WHO would benefit from mecha being paralyzed when all tangled up in something long and slinky and grasping? #i think im really showing my hand here-- heh my HAND #hey hey also. isnt it convenient theres five members of the hand #what else in transformers lore is notable for having five specific body parts #okay okay okay ill stop now but. very happy you are putting together the stuff ive been weaving into worldbuilding and plot the entire time #THREE YEARS I GUESS #im a sucker i couldnt make it just a simple magical girl anime i had to go make it all COMPLEX

[six-of-ravens]

I'm really trying with Winter's Orbit but somehow it's just not doing it for me...

#im only 28 pages in so i should read some more before i give up but damn :/ #there's just....a lot of infodumping of worldbuilding and a lot of telling and not showing re: characters' feelings #like i just read the whole funeral scene in the bath and I couldn't even get a read of how Jainan felt about his dead spouse #i just keep comparing it to A Strange and Stubborn Endurance and it keeps coming up short :/ #which sucks bc i know a lot of people love this book #can't even say im not in the mood for a gay romance at the moment bc between movie choices and fanfic choices...i am Very in the mood for it #idk. I'll give it till page 50 #last year i read the Big Three of Gay Romantasies (Witchmark / A Marvelous Light / A Strange & Stubborn Endurance) #specifically cute fluffy gay romances with like mystery plotlines #and i haven't really felt the urge to read any since so maybe im just maxxed out on that subgenre? #unlike Lesbian Atrocities which i will read endlessly #or maybe i just don't like this one book and im making mountains out of molehills #gonna go listen to placebo and rotate my blorbos now

[kaydear]

number one cause of fanfic author death: trying to wrangle up timelines

#easy fix would be ninety-nine NOT asking how old the batch is but alas #the worldbuilding demands specificity #personal #if rex is ten at the start of the clone wars and he's a first gen clone #then all second and third gens are younger than ten at the start of the war #and the batch probs didnt get deployed till like year three maybe lets assume #so they were seven at the start of the war #if boba is ALSO ten at the start of the war #but he blends in with the clone cadets in that one episode then clones get their second stage cadet uniform around age 5-6 #so in order for the batch to be in their second stage cadet uniforms in this fic they should be around 5-6 #which means rex is at the same time like 8-9 SO the war hasnt started yet HA GOT IT

[blujayonthewing]

one downside of deciding one of my OCs' dads is a dentist is that I've spent more time than I ever would have expected thinking about the biology of different fantasy races' teeth

#elves gnomes and dwarves all live for centuries! WHAT is their tooth situation like #there's no way they all get their one(1) set of humanlike grownup teeth by age ~10 and have to take care of them for HUNDREDS OF YEARS?? #I have already decided in my heart to lean into my semi-accidental design decision of gnomes having slightly bucky teeth #and say that they do also grow consistently over time and need to be worn down like rodent teeth #but what about molars then? apparently guinea pig and chinchilla's molars ALSO grow continuously #and there are a coupleof mammals who lose and regrow teeth-- only like three but among them elephants which live a really long time #what about elves? and dwarves? well-- what are their diets like? #AND THE PROBLEM ISSS I don't actually KNOW ENOUGH about TEETH to feel confident doing speculative biology about them #I only know enough to know that they probably NEED some kind of speculative biology done on their teeth shdlfjsldj #maybe elves were the first peoples to invent toothbrushes man idk #about me #worldbuilding #gnome stuff #melliwyk #tukklewyn

[meanderings0ul]

About to hit the 25k mark on my current Big Project. Am currently simultaneously:

A) tearing up at the scene I am typing

and

B) genuinely panicking about how many years this thing is probably going to take me to finish

#i am sure everyone writing a book does this exact combo of things #but o m f g #the scale of what this has turned into. the amount of research and worldbuilding work I have done this year. #last time i did anything like this it was 2017? that was a lot of time and experiences ago. #and while there's every chance i finish writing that project someday *i did not finish that project* #i'm so terrified my brain will flake out on this one. even remembering that i put down option three for months and still finished that one. #that one was nothing like the scale of this. this dwarfs RSofC. there is so much of my heart and soul and hopes in this one. #i think my guess of 60k range was...woefully off. i would not be shocked this hits 80k. would not be shocked it exceeds that. #i've done a novella and a thesis. this is a book. #i did not expect the notes i took down the night i saw M4 to become a book. but it did. #and i've learned so much as a writer since the last time I tried a Big Project. #I wouldn't know how to structure this without having worked on Option Three and RSofC. #I wouldn't even know how to *write* it without things I read in 2020. and things I felt in 2021. and things i've been able to say this year #this has become something so beautiful in my head and i want it to exist so much. #but i am such a slow writer. #i hope we're all still around to read it when it's done. #project: BinTG #and i think i wanted this to have for later #for whenever it's finally done #because i'm getting the sense that by the time it is my life will have changed so much again this moment will feel like someone elses #and i'll want some of this some of her some of me to have to look back at

[naggingatlas]

accidentally mentioned john silver Treasure Planet Variant while discussing funny tf2 gunslinger stuff and immediately started crying

#treasure planet isn't a disney movie like it's. it's just not. #it and atlantis? they're not disney disney isn't fucking worthy of them #a disney movie doesn't make me want to cry my fucking stomach out bc of how i my 9 year old #and 7 year old #and 4 year old self remembers it #disney doesn't make the most insane adaptation of my second favorite childhood book #w the most insane worldbuilding and animation and character interpretations and dynamics #most most most importantly dynamics the dynamic between jim and silver #babygirl i want to rip my bedframe to shreds with my bare hands #for context treasure planet might be my earliest memory ever bc when i was 3-4 #i broke my arm in the same place three times in the span of 1.5 years #and when i was in inpatient care my dad used to bring his 2004 thinkpad and #he showed me treasure planet and i asked him to play it every day over and over #and i fucking clinged to that movie and everything in it and when i almost went into a coma #bc of a previous narcosis overdose at night and half of my family went into my little hospital room the next morning #i just asked dad to turn on this fucking movie and i didn't talk to anybody everyone just eyed me while i was immersed once again #completely immersed like mb bc of the stress? i did so idk but treasure planet is a family member to me sorry

[fragmentedblade]

Of course master Gongshu reminds her of Yingxing. Of course

#See? See ? Ahdksbjfjd #I won't ramble but abfkabfjdn #What I always say about the worldbuilding and the small daily lives of the NPCs as traces of the main characters #That was so well done and entirely the core of the Xianzhou story for me #The way they link the handmade flagon with the Artisanship Commission was so clever too #Like those chapters in The three musketeer.s in which D'Artagna.n visits each of them and alongside the thread that is him visiting them #the narration too threads the three friends together by talking about the one that's to come and the one that came before in each chapter #In Twenty years later the same thing happens #Anyway I shouldn't talk about that in this sideblog but yeah it reminded me of that. Very clever use of the narration I think #I talk too much #I should probably delete this later #Fragments and scraps #perhaps #I love him btw. Of course he would mock them #I also adore master Gongshu he's unironically one of my favourite characters in the game but I think I've said that before #Master Gongshu #Yingxing #Jingliu and Blade #Jingliu and Yingxing

[arolesbianism]

Most of the sekai cast are like completely irrelevant to the main plots of the random card au but that doesn't stop me from thinking abt them from time to time. An Kohane and Haruka are more historical figures which ofc means tragedy but also they r kinda silly to me. Goat and boar so caught up in their echo chamber that they forgot how to actually hide it well in front of a normal person (Kohane)

#rat rambles #random card au #sekai posting #they loved to play wrestle and did basically everything together for years and dont ask what happened after that dw abt it haha ha ha #oh for context an is a star guy and haruka was one of the post dark god death dark vessels #neither actually knew that abt eachother until haruka found out too late #kohane didnt do anything bad btw she just stood there while everything fell apart basically #long story short there were some rumors abt a mysterious beast that might be a remnant of the dark god #and some of kohane's neighbors reported their suspicions of her and those suspicions began to escelate #leaving haruka and an to be assigned as her body guards and to also investigate the matters while they were there #now ofc both heard these rumors and went oh shit. uh oh. because both had had their own incidents in the area #the three basically played fake detective for a while where all 3 knew more than they let on but didnt tell the others #as time went on though an and haruka started getting more paranoid as the situation started reaching more wider public attention #this all was a very slow burn and it ultimately culminates in kohane walking in on an in her true form causing her to freak out and #run off leading to kohane freaking out and trying to get haruka's help leading to him freaking out and slipping into his true form which he #was witnessed in and ultimately aprehended #an would end up getting lost in the void place haruka killed and kohane left alone with a shitload of guilt #none of them come up in the main story in any meaningful way but I like to imagine misaki and an were friends for a while in the void place #before an started rapidly deteriorating because of worldbuilding shit rip #shes still technically alive but like. only technically. #but hey kohane would proceed to help shizuku and shiho with some other stuff thats world building relevant #hey ako even eventually reads smth she wrote #meanwhile mizuki is just making dolls and minori is delivering mail lucky bastards #theyre even both still alive! but they do live in the same town as akito still so how ok are they rly /j #theres a few others who have it pretty good too saki and ichika are still hanging out they even still make music #touya and nene are also both alive still but they. dont have it super great. #they do get to be slightly more relevant than most of the others tho even if they only appear in a side plot #hey doing better than honami shes part of the canonically doesnt exist anymore crew alongside yuri and original tae #poor girlie only exists to be a camera for ghost worldbuilding #kanade is the ghost btw shes still technically around but barely

[txttletale]

i've gotten asks a few times on like 'how to do ''fantasy races'' without. like. just making race science true in the world'. and i think there's three approaches. the first is harkening back to tolkein and making it clear through framing device or format/tonal cues that you are writing in a mythic register--that you are writing about a world where the basic premises of positivism and empiricism simply aren't true. a world where 'biology' is like, not necessarily a salient premise--where there are things that just cannot be understood. (that's not to say that tolkein's orcs werent v. racialised in v. nasty ways--but it wasn't race science in the way a lot of more modern fantasy is.)

the second way i think is to go and actually understand the history of 'race' as a concept. 'race' has not always existed--it was an ideological invention birthed from / alongisde the enlightmenent and imposed onto populations through military force. in real life, it's less helpful to conceive of 'race' as an attribute someone has and and more as a relationship they have to society. so if you want to actually include scientific racism in your story as an element of your worldbuilding and not something decalred epistemologically true you should be thinking about why these people have been racialized and under what hegemonic paradigm--who, in-universe, invented & enforces the racial classification system that distinguishes between 'human' and 'orc' as taxonomic characters?

the third and final way is to simply think of the traits you understand as belonging to ''fantasy races'' (say, pointy ears and exceptional nimbleness and hundred-year lifespans for elves) as instead just being... more variations in the way people can be. like, in the real world, we do not consider 'tall people' or 'blonde people' or 'myopic people' a different species. in a world where sometimes people have wings or pointed ears or green skin, why should that be different? you've just introduced new types of variation within the population of people--you've just expanded the meaning of human. and of course, right, you can still roughly group these features, or note that some of them are more frequent in some ethnic groups--in much the same way as saying 'on average, people in sweden are taller, paler, and more likely to be blonde and blue-eyed', you can say 'people in these forests tend to be shorter and live longer and have pointed ears'--without having a hard taxonomy that classifies all these attributes as metaphysically different Types Of Person

obviously these are all very different approaches--and there are probably other ways to handle this too! i just get this question a lot whenever i do Orc Discourse and finally felt like getting these thoughts out. there are so so so many places we can take fantasy--let's move the horizon beyond 'magical race science' and imagine genuinely new worlds

#tattletxt #orc discourse

[ao3commentoftheday]

Idk if this is too broad of a scope for this blog, but if you could answer this, it'd be great.

I've been in a writing rut since I started getting serious about writing, and I've identified the issue in the past month or so: I slant heavily on the gardener end of the writing spectrum and all the advice on writing I've ever seen was for architect-style writing. Not once in the eight years I've been serious about writing did I find any guides on gardener-style writing (and if it says it's gardener-style, it'sreally just architect-style with gardner aspects), and my experience has just been more or less jamming a square peg into a circle hole, getting nothing written and feeling bad about it.

Now I'm unlearning all the architect-style habits that are destructive to me as a writer, but I can't find any resources for gardeners aside from Stephen King's On Writing. If you or any of your followers know how to help a gardener's writing, that would be great. I have so many fic ideas I want to write, but can't since I'm learning to write all over again.

For those who don't know what gardener and architect refer to when it comes to writers, a gardener is a writer who starts with the seed of an idea and lets it grow in whatever direction the light shines. They prune it and weed it as they go but otherwise let the idea lead the way. An architect, on the other hand, plans their stories out first and then writes them. They have a structure and the details all mapped out first and then the writing is just executing on that vision.

As a gardener myself, my biggest piece of advice is to avoid writing advice. Like you've said, the majority of it is aimed at people who do things like plan and plot and worldbuild ahead of time. Because of the structure that that writing style enjoys, providing "one size fits most" writing advice works well for it.

I tend to find a lot of that advice to be counter to what I need to do. Planning a story out ahead just makes me feel like it's already written. Building out the world before I start writing it feels like a hollow exercise - more like writing an encyclopedia than developing a land and culture for my characters to inhabit.

What I find useful is taking an episodic approach to writing. The entire story will be like a season of a television show and each chapter is like one episode. I always have my eventual "season finale" end goal in mind, but any particular chapter can meander closer to or further from that goal. It's alright to take a circuitous route, as long as I get to my destination in the end.

It's also alright if my destination changes as I'm writing. Sometimes those meandering paths take me in a more interesting direction than I was originally going down, and that shifts the story. As long as you're vaguely following a three-act structure (or 5 act or 7 act), the flow of it will feel familiar to your readers and they probably won't really notice it happening.

This advice I'm giving might not ring true to you either. You didn't have a specific problem to address, so I've been wandering a bit in my reply. Really what it comes down to is paying attention to yourself and your needs. Figure out what it is that keeps you writing and what it is that makes you stop. Do more of the former and less of the latter - and don't worry if what you're doing is "weird" to someone else.

I write directly into the AO3 window (which AO3 specifically tells you NOT to do, btw) because drafting first in google docs or something takes the fun out of it for me. I post my chapters without previewing them first. I write in 800 to 1500 word sprints, and I focus on dialogue, and I almost always try to end on a joke or a pun or a cliffhanger. These are all things that make writing an activity that I want to do.

I can't really say anything much more specific given your ask, but I hope something in here was helpful. Let's see if any gardeners out there have some resources or advice that might work for you.

#asks and answers #long post

[baddywronglegs]

Worldbuilding thought.

Elves live a lot longer than other people... But not as much longer as everyone thinks.

Elves over 1000 years old are common. They are the sources of all known history, first-hand account of centuries past.

But some point in extablishing Elven translation they missed that Elves work in base-6 and 1000 is actually just 216.

No-one else lives long enough to realise this discrepancy because that's still like three human life-spans, and Elves care too little about everyone else to notice it. They believe that human lives are merely a blink of the eye for them because if they blink they've already forgotten about you.

#writing #worldbuilding