saw a comment someone made on a post saying “it’s not possible to read dark fiction and not have that affect your morals, you can’t train your brain NOT to normalize those things!” and i completely agree
as a life-long crime fiction and horror fan, i am an immoral monster. i’ve watched all 456 episodes of law and order and committed a murder after each one. i ate my neighbors after watching hannibal. i started a meth lab after breaking bad. i ruined my high school prom because i watched carrie the night before. in middle school i read stephen king’s it, went down to the sewers with some friends and
Part of me wants to shift the entirety of Magical Fantasy Adventure Land into the normal world instead of splitting it into a separate realm.
Part of me is still annoyed that this fucker still doesn’t have a proper title. Or at least something that sounds better as a place holder.
it’s called Mafalia. that’s your world’s name. ‘MAH-FAR-lee-uh’.
That actually sounds really good as a world name. I’m curious to know where that came from?
it’s the acronym. “Magical Fantasy Adventure Land”-ia becomes MaFAL-ia: Mafalia.
i always find if you need a placeholder name for something, write it out and make up an acronym, adding and removing letters or vowels if need be.
for example:
“The House Where Clio Fell in Love With Him”
“The HouseWhereClioFellinLoveWithHim”
“THoWeCliFiLWH”
“ThrowecliFiLWH”
“ThrowecliffiLWH”
“ThrowecliffiLWH”
“Throwecliffe”
“Thrawecliffe”
hence ‘the house where Clio fell in love with him’ becomes ‘Thrawecliffe House’. what’s a ‘thraw’? i don’t know. is it on a cliff? maybe; that’s an author’s preogative.
suddenly the name of the house itself throws up new questions which an author in answering goes off down a rabbit hole of worldbuilding.
Holy fuck. That is absolutely amazing advice.
Thank you so much!!!!!
As someone who regularly smashes words together for humorous purposes, I’m appalled I’ve never thought to use it in my writing. Bless you.
good advice
My favourite example of this is Dragon Age. The setting is called Thedas, which comes from calling it “the Dragon Age setting” in development! TheDragon Age Setting The DAS Thedas
i dont know how these things will pan out but im keeping my eye on list – noelle might be important – gaster doesn’t know the names of darkners – susie and ralsei’s roles as foils to one another – lancer is either a younger sans or is a purposeful red herring with all the callbacks both visually and aligned evidence – king spade paralleled asgore, so the “queen” will most likely parallel toriel (whether she’s related to the king spade and lancer or not) – roulxs+lancer relationship post-chapter 1 – how ralsei’s opinion on the duty of darkners will influence lancer – the ralsei plushie theory + confirmation – ralsei as someone who was ‘born for this purpose’ and the mysteries surrounding both his personhood and similarities to asriel – seam’s talk about a time that was previously more chaotic than this but that we don’t need to know about – the recurrent theme of purpose being related to others (themes of codependency?). (ex. king spade’s purpose being directed at his knight, ralsei’s at susie and kris, seam talking about how his life would have more purpose with jevil) – how the strong themes of a christian approximate might be related to ralsei and his own preaching. you can’t be happy without serving the lord / you can’t be happy without serving darkners – recurrent theme of blood. ‘the skin and the blood’ of the doughnut, lancer’s bucket of blood, darkners seeming to have blood whereas monsters don’t, church juice being symbolic of blood, ‘does it hurt to be made of blood?’ (monsters still clearly don’t have blood in this world and it’s emphasized) – don’t forget, and the mystery of the ‘big three’ – kris’ combined traits from both frisk and chara that make them seem to not be quite either. the mysterious absence of other humans in the world. – the mysterious event that split apart the dreemurr family in this world – assumption here seems to be that the monsters never went underground, but i wonder if the war was won much earlier. events were set in motion that made gerson die earlier (won at the cost of certain people?)
See, this kills me because it’s a pretty fucking fundamental driving force in Eliot Spencer’s character – “you can’t make that promise to more than one person.” And yet he ends the series doing exactly that.
The evil writerly part of my brain wants to know what happens when he can’t be there for Parker and Hardison both at the same moment. Whether it’s a heist gone wrong and he has to choose who to protect, or they’re in conflict with each other and he can’t avoid taking sides – what happens?
Hardison. (At least for the job gone wrong, and assuming nothing in the job fundamentally supercedes it by putting other’s lives in danger.) Parker would tell him to get Hardison out and he’d do it, because that’s what makes them…them.
And when Hardison demands why, Eliot tells him, “she said to say, there’s never a plan M.”
Recently, I was re-reading His Majesty’s Dragon right after Blood of Tyrants and I was struck by how much Laurence smiles in the first book. So, being me, and having shiny new digital searchable copies of the series, I did some checking.
I searched for the word strings ‘smile’, ‘laugh’, and ‘grin’ (which included any variations thereof) in relation to Laurence and got a generally accurate idea of his mood throughout the series:
His Majesty’s Dragon: smiles 14, grins 2, laughs 6
Throne of Jade: smiles 5, grins 1, laughs 3
Black Powder War: smiles 1, grins 1, laughs 0
Empire of Ivory:
smiles 0, grins 0, laughs 0
Victory of Eagles:
smiles 0, grins 0, laughs 0
Tongues of Serpents:
smiles 0, grins 0, laughs 0
Crucible of Gold:
smiles 0, grins 0, laughs 0
Blood of Tyrants:
smiles 0, grins 0, laughs 0.5
League of Dragons:
1.5 smiles , 0 grins, 1.5 laughs
(.5 = when Laurence ‘almost’ does the thing)
This makes Temeraire’s surprise at Laurence laughing “quite out loud” in LOD that one time EXTRA HEARTBREAKING, GOOD WORK NAOMI NOVIK.
aang is one of those characters who is legit very mature and accommodating and understanding and really kind of has to be Good for other characters in the show a lot, but fandom absolutely lambastes him for perceived flaws in a way that is very disproportionate. people are just unfair to him.
me: fascinating the post: [doesn’t talk about f/riskriel at all, just talks about how frisk and kris aren’t nonbinary] me: sucks
One of these days I’m gonna create a gang of Former Gifted Kids dealing with anxious perfectionism, avoidance of trying things we aren’t already good at, and the illusion that accomplishments only count if we attain them at an absurdly young age. I’ll get us some cool jackets.
Can the cool jackets be black? I’m flexible re: the cut.
penandwind: Idea for the jackets: have awesome phoenixes on them that say “burnt out” on it.
just once I want to see a good post critiquing makeup culture that doesn’t turn out to be made by some janky radfem blog
oh hey!! I’m not a janky radfem I can do it myself!
makeup culture is wack and normalizes a ludicrously high bar as the bare minimum women can do. I saw a “lazy"makeup tutorial the other day that listed 22 separate goddamn products. you’re supposed to buy and know how to use 22 different things on your face just for the privilege of being considered lazy and that’s uuuuuuh what’s the word? bullshit.
Really, five products could work, even 3. Just frame the face, eyes, lips, and you’re done.
0 products also works great
because I’m gonna be real here, the idea that 22 products is a minimum sucks but it’s really upsetting that any amount of makeup is the bare minimum at all
I would really just suggest some powder foundation, concealer, mascara and lipgloss/lipstick, or tbh just mascara works too, but that’s up to you
I’m sorry if I didn’t express this clearly enough in the original post but I’m not really looking for more concise makeup regiments. my intention was to point out how it’s Bad that makeup is considered a bare minimum at all, regardless of individual feelings on the matter
no face should be “required” to have “a minimum” of makeup. makeup has no health benefits and does nothing but fill the pockets of companies that prey on women and our insecurities.
makeup should not be seen as hygiene because it isnt. get that shit out of your head.
this post: makeup culture is ridiculous and 22 products should not be considered a minimum requirement for someones face. no one should have to do that
the notes: so like……. what youre saying is……. we need to make the minimum about 5 or 6 instead… i gotcha
Really the only makeup you need is eyeliner but that’s just my personal opinion
okay
where did we lose you
why are people like this
but like who are you to tell someone to not do what they want tho? if they put make up on because they want to, then thats not your problem? Youre not the one buying those 22 kinds of make up? Seriously op, “minimum” requires a number. Just say you dont like make up and move on 👀
I’m literally not telling anyone what to do except, like, being aware that makeup culture is a misogynistic capitalist structure whether you personally enjoy taking part in it or not
like I don’t care if people individually like wearing makeup, it’s still an industry that is built on convincing women that their natural bodies aren’t sufficient and pushing for increasingly elaborate (and expensive) looks to be the norm for ALL women regardless of whether they enjoy it
wear 22 products or 44 or whatever, but please for the love of god be self aware
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