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danelloevee-sky · 11 months

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Aaaa please tell me more about children of darkness / your Sky world

Had to retype this because I forgor to save the draft 💀 anyway lore stuff below the cut

So in my sky world light and darkness need to be kept in a balance for the world to thrive. According to legend, if there is too much Darkness, the world will rot and fall to decay. On the other hand, if there is too much Light, the world will burn to ashes. The earth is a neutral ground, providing places, resources, and earthly creatures to the children of Light and Darkness. The god of the earth isn't capable of creating her own people, which is why the witches were created with cores given by the other two main gods.

Since you're asking about the children of darkness specifically, I'll talk more about them in this post but here's a google doc of other groups of people in the world with some key points. Anyway back to them

Religion

The god of darkness resides deeper than the depths of the ocean. The element of her children is water, just as the element of Megabird's children is fire. The most important group among the sea people are their priests. They listen to the whispers of their god in the waters and provide guidance to everyone from their understanding of her words.

Territory

The main capital of the Sea People's civilization is a large underwater city and all kinds of people live there, from prominent and historical families to regular shop owners. They also have settlements on the land, mostly around other large bodies of water like lakes and the seashore.

Political borders

While they prefer to reside closer to the waters, their territory still extends to some of the great land forests until it reaches the boundary cutoff created by the priests of the sea people and of the witches. Since it falls under their care, there is a sovereign organization that looks after it called the forest watchers. They don't need to follow the orders of the central or local governments. The maintenance of the forest border is too politically important, which is why it's important that their members are not easily swayed.

Cultural inspirations?

Honestly still a work in progress but I'm thinking to lean a bit towards Chinese cultures, which is why Ivel calls Blake gēgē. I'll make it more prominent when I touch on the more traditional and older families and groups

Dragons

I've chosen to interpret the Krill/Dark Dragons that we have in the game as corrupted light mantas. In my story they're either called Krill or Lesser False Dragons (if someone is feeling particularly touchy about it). There are actual dark dragons. Similar to Chinese dragons, they are connected to the water. They're not venerated, but they are well loved by the people. A few young ones even enjoy helping people with difficult tasks

That's all I can think of for now ^o^ there's loads of stuff I still need to think about but feel free to ask more about specific stuff maybe it'll help me whsgsjj

#pangutana #story time #sea people #children of darkness #oc fun fact #oc lore #info: world #writing: lore #dianthe writing

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umblrspectrum · 1 month

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i love learning cursive just to write text for exactly one character

#fun umbral lore. i can barely read cursive #if you want to hide anything from me then write it in cursive and i will literally never be able to read it #or write it. i had to google cursive text generator and copy it for this #ill settle on textbox designs also eventually #god its been so long since i've drawn the manor gang i think #saw this post and i immediately thought “cyn”#it has nothing to do with her being my number 1 blorbo. bite me #murder drones #art #murder drones n #murder drones v #murder drones j #murder drones cyn #serial designation n #serial designation j #serial designation v #they're so gay also they blushed immediately after this and made out probably im still torn between like 5 different ships #curse you fanfics for putting these ideas in my head

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lizardsfromspace · 1 month

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The worst thing I've ever written is my final assignment for a screenwriting class. The professor successfully pushed me into writing the blandest mess of a "thriller" you could imagine. It was garbage, and when he called me to give feedback on it, his only point was. His only point was. His only point was asking me why I made a character Chinese, if I didn't have her do "kung fu" or use "herbal medicine". I pointed out she was a spy, and spies in our modern post-post-Cold War era basically have to be Chinese or Russian or American, and I'm pretty sure Chinese spies use guns instead of channeling the mystical kinetic energies of the chi, but he demanded I "use" the fact she was Chinese. Though someone staring at the hottest garbage ever written and only going "but why isn't this character white?" does seem like a realistic simulacrum of the film industry experience

#writing #lore

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lightasthesun · 5 months

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Comprehensive Lexicon Guide for First-Time SW Fic Readers:

Flimsi/Flimsiplast = Paper

Flimsiwork/Datawork = Paperwork

Stylus = Pen

Datapad = Tablet

Comlink/Comm = Communication Device/Phone

Binders = Handcuffs

Chronometer = Clock

Spectacles = Eyeglasses

Chrono = Watch

Conservator = Refrigerator

Caf = Coffee

Nerfburger = Hamburger

Blue milk = Milk (literally blue)

Hubba chips = French Fries

Sweet roll = Doughnut

Flatcakes = Pancakes

Tabac = Tobacco

HoloNet = World Wide Web

Holovision/HoloTV = Television

Holodrama/Holovids = Movie/Videos

Holocamera/Holocam = Camera

Holomap = three-dimensional map

Holojournal = Newspaper

Holocube = Picture frame

Holotable = Projector

Holoscanner = X-ray machine

Holojournalist = Reporter

Flatholo/Holograph = Photograph

Sonic Damper = Active Noise Cancellation

Refresher/Fresher= Bathroom

Sonic Bath = Bath

Sanisteam/Sonic shower = Waterless Shower

Hydrospanner = Wrench

Hydro Flask = Water Bottle

Power Cell/Energy Cell = Batteries

Authorization Chip = Decryption key

Datatape = Disk

Datastick = Flash drive

(Personal) Com Code = Phone number

Datachip = SD Card

Synthflesh = Synthetic skin

Glowrod = Flashlight

Sparkstick = Match

Slugthrower = Gun

Slug = Bullet

Vibroblade = a blade that can vibrate at high frequencies, increasing its cutting power and penetrating ability (tactical knife)

Rangefinder = Rifle scope

Turbolaser = Cannon

Ion pike/Vibropike = Spear

Electro Staff = Stun baton

Blaster = Pistol/Rifle

Stun Blaster = similar to a Taser

Landspeeder/Airspeeder/Speeder = Car

Turbolift = Elevator

Slideramp = Escalator

Starfighter = Fighter jet

Rotorcraft = Helicopter

Hoverpack/Jetpack= Jet pack

Speeder Bike = Motorcycle

Skylane = Traffic lane

Railspeeder/Hovertrain = Train

Power Chair/Hoverchair= Wheelchair

Windscreen = Windshield

Podracing = Car racing

Dejarik = Chess

Sabacc = Poker and Blackjack combined

Galactic Rebels = Combat simulator

B'shingh = Dungeons and dragons

Jizz = Jazz music

Wailer = Singer (ie. Jizz Wailer)

Cantina = Bar or Pup

Para Sailing = Paragliding

Aurebesh = Alphabet

Credits = Money

Sleeping Pallet = Bedroll

Naming Day = Birthday

Youngling = Child

Galactic Basic Standard/ Basic = English

Medkit/Medpac = First aid kit

Hypo = Syringe

Medic/Healer = Doctor

Medcenter = Hospital

Bactapatch = Bandaid

Nanoweave = Fabric

Transparisteel = Glass

Plastifoam = Packing material

Durasteel = Steel

Plasteel = Plastic

Duracrete = Concrete

Slicer = Hacker (slicing = hacking)

Identikit = Passport

Minder = Therapist

Synthleather = Vinyl

Viewport = Window

Cooling Unit = Air-conditioning

Honeydarter = Bee

Slythmonger = Drugdealer

Spice = Drugs

Stimpill = Caffeine pill

Power Socket = Plug

Cutters = Scissors

Cycle = Day

Standard Cycle = 24h

Standard Week = 5 days

Standard Month = 35 standard days

Standard Year = approx. ten months

Tenday = literally ten days

Cigarras/Smokes = Cigarettes

Click = Kilometer or 'a moment'

Parsec = a unit of distance

Tweezers/Clanker/tin head/tinnie = Droid

Separatist = Seppie

Promise Ring = Wedding Ring

Body Glove = Jumpsuit

Slicksuit = Wet suit

Civvies = Civilian clothing

Carbonite = a metal alloy used to freeze a person in a state of hibernation

Hyperdrive = device that allows a starship to travel faster than lightspeed

Moisture vaporator = device that can extract water from the air, commonly used on tatooine

Glareshades = Sunglasses

Gasser = Gas Oven

Repulsorlift = technology that can create an anti-gravity field and is used for levitating heavy objects

Heating unit = Heater

Utility Droid = Roomba

Sunbonnet = a Clone trooper helmet

Bad Batcher = a defective Clone Trooper

Banthabrain = birdbrain/ a stupid person

Bantha fodder = waste of space/nonsense

Blast! = word of exclamation

Blasted! = s.o in anger or annoyance

Blaster-brained = dimwitted

Blaster fodder = cannon fodder

Blast off = Piss off

Brainless = Stupid

Bug/Bugger = used to refer to Geonosians

Forceforsaken = godforsaken

Full of Poodoo = full of shit

Poodoo = Shit

Kriff = Fuck

Jedi scum = derogatory term for jedi

Kark = derogatory expletive

Larty = LAAT/i gunship

Laserbrain = insult

Meat droid = derogatory term for Clone Troopers

Redrobes = Palpatines guard

Rookie/Shinie = newly recruited Trooper

Scum = insult to refer to bounty hunters/rebels

Sharpie = Sharp-witted

Sithspawn/Sithspit/Hellspawn! = expletive

Sleemo = Slimeball

Son of a bantha = insult

Wizard! = Cool

Spaced = dead

Hutt-spawn = Bastard

Karabast = exclamation of dismay

Stang = Crap

Buckethead/Bucketbrain = derogatory term for Stormtroopers

Bucket = Helmet

Nat-born = Natural Born

Roger Roger = affirmative/copy that

Droid poppers = EMP grenade

Sitrep = short for situation report

Backwater Planet = any planet that isn't part of the core system

Holocron = device that can project a three-dimensional image of a person/object and is used for communication or entertainment.

Kessel Run = a risky Operation. Commonly used as a metaphor in impossible situations.

Thermal Detonator= device that can create a powerful explosion like a grenade or bomb

Ray Shield/Energy Shield = creates a (protective) barrier

Rebreather = device that allows a person to breathe underwater or in toxic environments

Phrases:

Wild goose chase = wild bantha chase

That's bantha shit = that's bullshit

As slippery as a greased Dug = untrustworthy

Credit for your thoughts = penny for your thoughts

Cut the poodoo = cut the crap

to get your gills in a twist = get upset about something

Holy mother of meteors = holy mother of god

Oh my skies/ Oh my stars = exclamation of surprise

Stars' end! = exclamation of disbelief

What in the blue blazes = exclamation

When Geonosis freezes over/When it snows on tatooine = extremely unlikely

Who pissed in your power supply = who pissed you off

Blast it = damn it

By the maker = exclamation of surprise

Great karking Dragon = expression of disbelief

Lothcat got your tongue = equivalent of 'cat got your tongue?'

Sod it = expression of frustration

#shitpost incoming #I'm converting my friend into a star wars fan so I thought why not make a dictionary for every new fic reader lmao #star wars #writing star wars #star wars languages #star wars lore #im definitely missing some but these are words I've seen most commonly used in fanfic #userlumi #writing star wars fic #aurebesh #galactic basic Standard #as long as one person finds this post helpful it was worth it #youre all welcome to add to it #im stopping now coz otherwise I'mma clog the dash

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agentravensong · 3 months

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thinking about how the extra area added on to a pacifist run of undertale, the true lab, is about alphys's past mistakes. how it ends with the story reaffirming that, despite the pain she's caused, the thing that matters is that she has now made the choice to do the right thing. she's still worthy of her friends' love.

thinking about how undertale doesn't expect the player to get a pacifist ending for the first time. how it's more likely than not that the player will kill toriel the first time they battle her, how lots of players don't initially figure out how to end undyne's fight without killing her, etc. what it expects — not even expects, really, but hopes — is that the player, if they care enough, will use their canonically acknowledged power over time to make up for those mistakes.

no matter how many neutral runs a player has done before committing to the pacifist run, the thing that matters to the characters, to the story, is that you've chosen, now, to do the right thing.

compared to alphys, the player honestly gets off lightly, in that you're the only one (other than flowey) who really remembers any harm you might have caused. and any direct guilting the game could have done about it is long past at this point. instead, as undertale often does, it makes its point via parallels: alphys caused harm, and she knows it. she has committed to being better. in doing so, she has unlocked for herself a better ending to her story. and she deserves it. she's forgiven.

those structural narrative parallels are all over undertale, if you know where to look. and that's one of the things that makes it so fuckin' good.

#undertale #alphys #true lab #this inspired by a mutual's alphys posting #and a discord convo i had a couple weeks back about ut's stance on ''punishing'' the player vs the monsters for their actions #and thoughts i've had generally post a certain fangame with a color in its name about just how well ut is structured as a narrative #everyone rightfully praises toby fox's character writing but stuff like this i think flies under the radar a bit by comparison #and it deserves to be appreciated #there's obvious Lore reasons why the true lab is only visited in a pacifist run (what's revealed about chara and flowey)#but this is the other half of it: the message of alphys's story hits hardest on a paci route post neutral runs #toby fox is a good writer more often than not

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jesperfaheys-defenseattorney · 4 months

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I'm doing an experiment

Edit: Should've added smut. If smut is your top struggle and you want to or do write it, reblog and say so <3

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foldingfittedsheets · 28 days

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Most parents I think worry or wonder when their kid might finally start repeating swear words they hear. The tale of my initiation into the world of cursing was the subject of family lore however.

First, to set the scene, my nana spent a lot of time with me when I was young. She lived with us briefly and I firmly cemented my place as number one favorite grandchild by climbing up into her attic room to cuddle on the regular.

She’d take me on errands and watch me when my parents were at work. She even once lured me away when she ran into my dad watching me as a store. She didn’t think he was keeping a close enough eye and called me over to her a few aisles away.

I happily complied since I loved and recognized her then we watched my dad for several minutes before he finally looked down, saw me missing, and panicked. “That’ll teach you to keep a better eye on her!” My nana scolded him, convinced that every babynapper was slavering for her precious redheaded grandbaby.

So one day my mom had me in the car. We were driving along and from my back seat I chirped, “Can we play pretend?”

My mom smiled, imagining I’d start narrating some silly adventure or something. “Sure.”

“Shit shit SHIT SHIT SHIT!!!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.

My mom sat stunned in the front seat, baffled momentarily by the stream of cursing.

After careful questioning it was pretty obvious what had happened. My nana had sworn up a storm in front of me but didn’t want to come clean about it to my parents when I started repeating it. She’d instead invented a fun game and the rules were that I could only curse when we were playing a special game.

My mom was furious, and my nana got a sound dressing down both for the cursing but more importantly for the lying.

My favorite time telling this story though was to a girl in high school. She listened with wide eyes then asked, “Did your mom fire her?”

“What?”

“Your nana? Did she get fired?”

“My…. Grandmother? Did my mom fire my grandmother??”

“Ohhhhh. Not the nanny then.”

#ramblies #funny #ffs foibles #writing #story #shit kids say #I’m sick and channeling lore

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thearchmanofgreenfield · 8 months

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Me when I hit that Creative high at 1.00 am in the morning and come up with the greatest story ever conceived...

And then... by the time I wake up... I've FORGOTTEN ALL OF IT.

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emo-batboy · 7 months

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A Wild Battinson (Social Media AU)

Part 43 (Masterlist)

(Part 44)

Me, to myself: I just think the series was better when I posted several times a week because the pacing felt more natural, and it translates better when people binge it.

Also Me, holding two jobs and a bat: If you try to post once a day again, I will disconnect your head from your shoulders—

@bruciemilf guess who’s back

Anyways, folks! :D So I'm thinking of a new upload schedule where I spend a bit preparing the next ten or so parts then post it all in two weeks? I think that would be fun (and much better for my creative process.)

I’ll be posting the next part very soon :) But it's going to be drastically different from what I've done before. Let’s see if anyone can guess why.

Yada yada don’t die LOVE Y’ALL

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katabay · 4 months

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ONCE UPON A TIME, THERE WAS A KNIGHT...

the visual inspiration for this was a combination of Frederic William Burton's Meeting on the Turret Stairs and also Bernardo Cavallino's The vision of St. Dominic receiving the Rosary from the Virgin

this was supposed to be just a one off illustration to get the thoughts out of my system, but then I started thinking about medieval politics and warfare and plagues and a castle and home as both a place of refuge, a prison, and a tomb, so perhaps they will end up as ex voto characters as well.

you may say, hey! that rosary looks like it has too many beads! it's a fifteen decade rosary, probably. dominicans are really into marian devotions. it works out.

also. spiral style stair cases. oh boy. it was that unexpectedly more difficult than I originally thought it would be to draw. the more I think about it, the less I understand them, even though I had a million photos of the stairs in front of me while I was drawing it.

⭐ I have a tip jar (ko-fi)!

⭐ and other places I’m at! bsky / pixiv / pillowfort /cohost / cara.app

#the economy and my bank account are in shambles and i ended up stress drawing this whole thing in one go #its so many lines. the next time i draw this. because i will be revisiting this composition. i want to use a different inking brush #i think. but the next time i draw this it will be with solid blacks on the stair case steps i think #hey here's a fun fact for those of you who aren't catholic. did you know that kissing the ring of the pope/a cardinal/etc #grants you an indulgence. cardinals also used to kiss the pope on the mouth. also foot and hand iirc. anyway #there are no cardinals in this drawing but im saying if you write medieval/renaissance smut about men of the cloth #you can really amp up the friction between holy and seductive with a lot of the (gestures vaguely) that.#actually another fun fact about cardinals. their fun sun hat (it's called a galero) has some fucking weird as hell fever dream (literally)#origin lore. so if seductive isn't your thing. the horror of a thing that you wear is also extremely fun #esp when you get into medieval gender performances of clothes and how they define a person etc #generic medieval tag #original tag

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skyscrapergods · 5 months

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has being fucking Massive and Immortality changed the alicorns’ perspective on regular ponies? I imagine they’d get more condescending and distant and stuff

You are surrounded by flies. If you pause, and look closely, you realize the flies are iridescent, with deeply colorful eyes, and beautiful wings like stained glass. It cannot see the colorful windows of your world, but you can try to describe them. But know that doing so take up the creature's precious time. Years to them is mere hours to you. In a long conversation about the stars, you and the fly share ideas and perspectives. You come away delighted with a new view on constellations and what they mean to the common folk.

The fly comes away dazzled, haunted, and halfway to the grave. What was to you a wonderful conversation was years of study, communion, and dedication on the part of the small creature. He gave up any other pursuits, he constructed his life around this cause. He lost his friends, family, and home. You lost your lunch break.

You love this creature. You love the small being that you once were. You want to talk to him again. You want to tell him of the stars, of dreams... but to speak with him twice, at least meaningfully, would take from him the rest of his life. Could you demand that from him for the sake of your own curiosity? Years passed for him already. In the time it took you to draw a breath, his childhood ended. Do you summon him again? Or do you let him go to live his life, what's left of it?

It is painful for everyone. It hurts something in your chest, it breaks the heart of a god. It wounds his family to watch him leave them behind for the sake of what? A mere whim? He had ambitions! He had a story! It's all gone now. Rewritten for your musings.

You leave him. He cries for you but he needs not a goddess. He needs to live, to turn from the sky to his fellow bugs.

That's what he is. A fly. A mere insect to you. To hold him down is to pin him through his soft center, and display his corpse as a record of his extinction.

So look away. Forget the color of his eyes, the sound of his voice, and the intelligence that stirred you to pluck him out his world and keep him in yours. There, he would be a wildflower with a cut stem. He would be beautiful, but he is so small, and so quiet. He would be just a decoration on your table; made to dance and sing for your amusement and then tossed out with the rubbish when he breaks.

You miss him. You love him. But he is a crawling worm and you are the rain. There are many others like him, but you must be careful to only speak a few words to each. Or better yet, say nothing at all. Let them fade and mix into a writhing blur without name, stories, or opinions on stars.

You are surrounded by flies.

#ask #shire draws #mlp #my little pony #alicorn #alicorns #eldritch horror #skyscraper gods #shire writes #shire screams #skyscraper gods lore #alicorn lore #cosmic horror #cosmic angst #ssg alicorns #ssg luna #ssg pipsqueak

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danelloevee-sky · 1 year

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A record from the Archives

A small slate with writing recovered from a ruin found in Prairie, dated 500 Akash. Portions of the text are illegible. It seems to be a journal entry entailing a theological discussion between two young Heralds of Light.

On this day I fought [with] [unreadable] . They are so [cruel] and uncaring with their words . " Dearest Alef is only reaping what he sowed as the ' Almighty and [unreadable] Re[sh] ' " . Pah ! When will they learn this is no attitude for us who need to return [Light] to the world ? Incorrigible fellow . This is the very reason why they will never be acknowledged before I . If they thought for more than two light beats* (?) they would realize the Great [Bird] put Alef where he is to save and protect him . If she was truly angry and if he was unforgivable without a doubt , well , she would have rendered his very soul to ash . I am sure of it .

*needs further documentation

Latest translation and transcription by Archivists Lior and Mei

#story time #oc: lior #oc: mei #'theological discussion' and then its two teenagers yelling YOURE WRONG you IDIOT #anyway thats the state of alef and resh in my story #same person #alef is the form closer to megabird #resh is the identity he took on as king and slowly became corrupted with greed #he is now in limbo forever (maybe)#dianthe writing #info: world #writing: lore

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chaos-bringer-13 · 4 months

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I just told mom about some bits of Danny Phantom lore and it basically went like this:

Me: So, this kid goes into his mad scientists parents' portal, activates it, sorta dies and instantly resurrects as a half ghost.

Mom, terrified: Poor mother.

Me: Nah, his parents didn't actually notice, they're kinda negligent, too invested into their work.

Mom, more terrified: Poor children.

#danny phantom #this is how you react to being exposed to dp lore #she looked so ready to adopt danny and jazz that instant #kinda wanna write fanfiction with mom #she would write the best angst #and also amazing crack #she's good at death jokes and dark humour #how do i get my mother into phanfiction

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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 days

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Against Lore

For the rest of May, my bestselling solarpunk utopian novel THE LOST CAUSE (2023) is available as a $2.99, DRM-free ebook!

One of my favorite nuggets of writing advice comes from James D Macdonald. Jim, a Navy vet with an encylopedic knowledge of gun lore, explained to a group of non-gun people how to write guns without getting derided by other gun people: "just add the word 'modified.'"

As in, "Her modified AR-15 kicked against her shoulder as she squeezed the trigger, but she held it steady on the car door, watching it disintegrate in a spatter of bullet-holes."

Jim's big idea was that gun people couldn't help but chew away at the verisimilitude of your fictional guns, their brains would automatically latch onto them and try to find the errors. But the word "modified" hijacked that impulse and turned it to the writer's advantage: a gun person's imagination gnaws at that word "modified," spinning up the cleverest possible explanation for how the gun in question could behave as depicted.

In other words, the gun person's impulse to one-up the writer by demonstrating their superior knowledge becomes an impulse to impart that superior knowledge to the writer. "Modified" puts the expert and the bullshitter on the same team, and conscripts the expert into fleshing out the bullshitter's lies.

Yes, writing is lying. Storytelling is genuinely weird. A storyteller who has successfully captured the audience has done so by convincing their hindbrains to care about the tribulations of imaginary people. These are people whose suffering, by definition, do not matter. Imaginary things didn't happen, so they can't matter. The deaths of Romeo and Juliet were less tragic than the death of the yogurt you had for breakfast. That yogurt was alive and now it's dead, whereas R&J never lived, never died, and don't matter:

https://locusmag.com/2014/11/cory-doctorow-stories-are-a-fuggly-hack/

Hijacking a stranger's empathic response is intrinsically adversarial. While storytelling is a benign activity, its underlying mechanic is extremely dangerous. Getting us to care about things that don't matter is how novels and movies work, but it's also how cults and cons work.

Cult leaders and con-artists know that they're engaged in mind-to-mind combat, and they make liberal use of Jim's hack of leaving blank spots for the mark to fill in. Think of Qanon drops: the mystical nonsense was just close enough to sensical that a vulnerable audience was compelled to try and untangle them, and ended up imparting more meaning to them than the hustler who posted them ever could have dreamt up.

Same with cons – there's a great scene in the Leverage: Redemption heist show where an experienced con-artist explains to a novice that the most convincing hustle is the one where you wait for the mark to tell you what they think you're doing, then run with it (scambaiters and other skeptics will recognize this as a relative of the "cold reading," where a "psychic" uses your own confirmations to flesh out their predictions).

As Douglas Adams put it:

A towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

Magicians know this one, too. The point of a sleight is to misdirect the audience's attention, and use that moment of misattention to trick them, vanishing, stashing or producing something. The mark's mind is caught in a pleasurable agony: something seemingly impossible just happened. The mind splits into two parts, one of which insists that the impossible just happened, the other insisting that the impossible can't happen.

You know you've done it right if the audience says, "Do that again!" And that's the one thing you must not do. So long as you don't repeat the trick, the audience's imagination will chew on it endlessly, coming up with incredibly clever things that you must have done (a clever conjurer will know several ways to produce the same effect and will "do it again" by reproducing the effect via different means, which exponentially increases the audience's automatic imputation of clever methods to the performer).

Not for nothing, Jim Macdonald advises his writing students to study Magic and Showmanship, a classic text for aspiring conjurers:

https://memex.craphound.com/2007/11/13/magic-and-showmanship-classic-book-about-conjuring-has-many-lessons-for-writers/

There's a version of this in comedy, too. The scholarship of humor is clear on this: comedy comes from surprise. The audience knows they're about to be surprised when the punchline lands, and their mind is furiously trying to defuse the comedian's bomb before it detonates, cycling through potential punchlines of their own. This ramps up the suspense and the tension, so when the comedian does drop the punchline, the tension is released in a whoosh of laughter.

Your mind wants the tension to be resolved ASAP, but the pleasure comes from having that desire thwarted. Comedy – like most performance – has an element of authoritarianism. You don't give the audience what it wants, you give it what it needs.

Same goes for TTRPGs: the game master's role is to deny the players the victories and treasure they want, until they can't take it anymore, and then deliver it. That's the definition of an epic game. It's one of the durable advantages of human GMs over video game back-ends: they can ramp up the epicness by "cheating" on the play, giving the players the chance to squeak out improbable victories at the last possible second:

https://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2009/03/behind-the-screen.html

This is so effective that even crude approximations of it can turn video-games into cult hits – like Left4Dead, whose "Director" back-end would notice when the players were about to get destroyed and then substantially ramped up the chances of finding an amazing weapon – the chance would still be low overall, but there would be enough moments when the player got exactly what they'd been praying for, at the last possible instant, that it would feel amazing:

https://left4dead.fandom.com/wiki/The_Director#Special_Infected

Critically, Left4Dead's Director didn't do this every time. As any showman knows, the key to a great performance is "Always leave 'em wanting more." The musician's successful finale depends on doing every encore the audience demands, except the last one, so the crowd leaves with one tantalyzing and imaginary song playing in their minds, a performance better than any the musicians themselves could have delivered. Like the gun person who comes up with a cooler mod than the writer ever could, like the magic show attendee who comes up with a more elaborate explanation for the sleight than the conjurer could ever pull off, like the comedy club attendee whose imagination anticipates a surprise that grows larger the longer the joke goes on, the successful performance is an adversarial act of cooperation where the audience willingly and unwillingly cooperates with the performer to deny them the thing that they think they need, and deliver the thing they actually need.

This is my biggest problem with the notion that someday LLMs will get good enough at storytelling to give us the tales we demand, without having to suffer through a storyteller's sadistic denial of the resolutions we crave. When I'm reading a mystery, I want to turn to the last page and find out whodunnit, but I know that doing so will ruin the story. Telling the storyteller how the story should go is like trying to tickle yourself.

Like being tickled, experiencing only fun if the tickler respects your boundaries – but, like being tickled, there's always a part where you're squirming away, but you don't want it to stop. An AI storyteller that gives you exactly what you want is like a dungeon master who declares that every sword-swing kills the monster, and every treasure chest is full of epic items and platinum pieces. Yes, that's what you want, but if you get it, what's the point?

Seen in this light, performance is a kind of sado-masochism, where the performer delights in denying something to the audience, who, in turn, delights in the denial. Don't give the audience what they want, give them what they need.

What your audience needs is their own imagination. Decades ago, I was a freelance copywriter producing sales materials for Alias/Wavefront, a then-leading CGI firm that was inventing all kinds of never-seen VFX that would blow people away. One of the engineers I worked with told me something I never forgot: "Your imagination has more polygons than anything you can create with our software." He was talking about why it was critical to have some of the action happen in the shadows.

All of this is why series tend to go downhill. The first volume in any series leaves so much to the imagination. The map of the world is barely fleshed out, the characters' biographies are full of blank spots, the mechanics of the artifacts and the politics of the land are all just detailed enough that your mind automatically ascribes a level of detail to them, without knowing what that detail is.

This is the moment at which everything seems very clever, because your mind is just churning with all the different bits of elaborate lore that will fill in those lacunae and make them all fit together.

SPOILER ALERT: I'm about to give some spoilers for Furiosa.

FURIOSA SPOILERS AHEAD!

Last night, we went to see Furiosa, the latest Mad Max movie, a prequel to 2015's Fury Road, which is one of the greatest movies ever made. Like most prequels, Furiosa functions as a lore-delivery vehicle, and as such, it's nowhere near as good as Fury Road.

Fury Road hints as so much worldbuilding. We learn about the three fortresses of the wasteland (the Citadel, the Bullet Farm, and Gastown) but we only see one (The Citadel). We learn that these three cities have a symbiotic relationship with one another, defined by a complex politics that is just barely stable. We meet Furiosa herself, and learn something of her biography – that she had been stolen from the Green Place, that she had suffered an arm amputation.

All of this is left for us to fill in, and for a decade, my hindbrain has been chewing on all of that, coming up with cool ways it could all fit together. I yearned to know the "real" explanation, but it was always unlikely that this real explanation would be as enjoyable as my own partial, ever-unfinished headcanon.

Furiosa is a great movie, but its worst parts are the canonical lore it settles. Partly, that's because some of that lore is just stupid. Why is the Bullet Farm an open-pit mine? I mean, it's visually amazing, but what does that have to do with making bullets? Sometimes, it's because the lore is banal – the solarpunk Green Place is a million times less cool than I had imagined it. Sometimes, it's because the lore is banal and stupid: the scenes where Furiosa's arm is crushed, then severed, then replaced, are both rushed and quasi-miraculous:

https://www.themarysue.com/how-does-furiosa-lose-her-arm/

But even if the lore had been good – not stupid, not banal – the best they could have hoped for was for the lore to be tidy. If it were surprising, it would seem contrived. A story whose loose ends have been tidily snipped away seems like it would be immensely satisfying, but it's not satisfying – it's just resolved. Like the band performing every encore you demand, until you no longer want to hear the band anymore – the feeling as you leave the hall isn't satisfaction, it's exhaustion.

So long as some key question remains unresolved, you're still wanting more. So long as the map has blank spots, your hindbrain will impute clever and exciting mysteries, tantalyzingly teetering on the edge of explicability, to the story.

Lore is always better as something to anticipate than it is to receive. The fans demand lore, but it should be doled out sparingly. Always leave 'em wanting more.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/27/cmon-do-it-again/#better_to_remain_silent_and_be_thought_a_fool_than_to_speak_and_remove_all_doubt

#pluralistic #writing #lore #series #science fiction #the elaborations of a bad liar #always leave em wanting more #james d mcdonald #guns #pilkunnussija #craft #Silmarillion #sf #Better to Remain Silent and Be Thought a Fool than to Speak and Remove All Doubt #magic tricks #conjuring #narrative #mad max #furiosa

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