constructing a universe

writing resources and personal notes and drabbles about my wip 'galactic mages'. feel free to interact and ask me questions, prompts, or respond to ask games

[galactic-mages]

obligatory tag nav post

(if you see this on main tags PLEASE ignore it im begging you)

[bethanydelleman]

I have to say something about how to approach fiction, because while I think I've always done it automatically, judging by online discourse this is not universal: when engaging with fiction you should just accept the premise and in-universe rules.

For example, you reading a story set in the past and the main couple are 17 and 25. Does everyone in the story treat this as a totally normal age gap? Okay, then for now, put your 21st century morality in a little box and label it "real world morals" and then put this couple's age gap being normal in a box called "in-universe/historical morals" and accept that you can store both boxes in your mind without exploding because you are are thinking, rational human being. Because it's driving me straight up a wall that people can't seem to do this! "He kills people, what a red flag!" "Ma'am, that is a magical warlord and if he stopped killing people they would kill him. He doesn't have an office job."

"That was very dubious consent. I can't support this ship." "Sir, she grew up in literal hell, I doubt they had comprehensive sex ed there. Also, she might learn and grow?"

"She's only sixteen, he's a pedo!" "If society at that time says that sixteen is the marriageable age, then no, he's not. That is not how any of this works."

"They grew up together and their parents want them to marry? Gross." "Yeah, it would be weird today, but everyone is treating this as normal. I guess it was A Thing."

Sure, in a modern, non-fantasy story set in your country, judge by your moral code all you want, but if you want to actually enjoy a story that isn't written with your exact morals, you need to accept the premise. Step back later and do some analysis, think about how society has changed (hopefully for the better), but keep in the mind the intent of the author in that time, culture, genre, or universe.

Yeah, Marianne Dashwood & John Willoughby are a creepy age gap today, but Jane Austen thought it was normal so while you read Sense & Sensibility, you can do that too. I promise it will make your reading experience 1000% better and you won't go straight to hell or anything. If you can't handle that, I banish you to the non-fiction section of the library.

Edit: I'm not saying force yourself to read something that is too ick for you. I'm not saying you can't say, "This narrative supported something I found repulsive, so I stopped." I'm just saying, try to read the book from the perspective offered and see what you think instead of freaking out the second something doesn't agree with your worldview.

Edit 2: I don't think this is suspension of disbelief. S.of D would be "I accept that vampires exist in this world" and this would be, "In a world where vampires exist, it's fine for a 900 year old vampire to date a 20 year old human."

[bludraws094]

i love fake plot holes

little inconsistencies that at first you assume "oh, the author must have fucked up", but then later on you realize that no, it was on purpose, they wanted you to think they fucked up but they hadnt

[masterboa]

related: when you think "this has Implications the author didn't think about" and then it turns out the author was thinking about them the whole time

[bludraws094]

you get me

[moshpitsandstargazing]

a relationship should be 50/50

i have a sword. you have a sword. we duel in the woods.

[hunxi-after-hours]

love it when an extremely high-functioning and put-together character gets slammed with something that would topple any lesser person but continues to function in an alarmingly efficient manner while everyone who knows and cares about them flutters anxiously around them like "please lie down please rest please accept medical attention" while the high-functioning character just looks askance at all their concerned faces like "what are you talking about? I'm perfectly fine" as tiny cracks start appearing in their demeanor and facade

[ianthewife]

not all loyal characters have a dog motif and that’s okay sometimes they just have a soul of a head accountant helping their boss w embezzlement you know

[emiko-matsui]

im so charmed by characters who are likely to have the worst day of their life at any given time in the story where we happen to check in on them

[justsomeguycore]

as per my last straw,

[laskulls-deactivated20250318]

More male characters who are interested in their mother's legacy. As a trope there's a lot of sons and daughters who follow in the father's footsteps and there's yes, girls who honor their mother, ect. But let's have more dudes who are like. Stumbling on their mom's secret fairy cottage or some shit. And they're like aight gotta make the tea

[r0zeclawz]

as a transfem, neurodivergent artist ill probably get a lot of backlash for this but im opening a cosmic gate and unleashing a horde of terrible worm-like beasts and their hunger will soon consume the entire galaxy

[cryptotheism]

Writing a million words doesn't make you a good writer. But, anyone who makes it to a million words will inevitably have something going for them. If you're a bad writer at a million words you'll probably be bad in an artistically interesting way.

[what-even-is-thiss]

I like the idea in fantasy that humans are better at maintaining things long term because they set up societies or professions to do it whereas dwarves and elves and stuff are like “just get bob to do it he’s got a good few hundred years left” and then bob doesn’t teach anyone else how to do it

[what-even-is-thiss]

Elf: How have you kept this castle maintained for a thousand years if your lives are so short?

Human: We just train new people how to do it?

Elf: *gears visibly turning in their head*

Human: Are you alright?

Elf: I just realized that we didn’t have to let that whole city fall to ruin just because my grandfather died.

Human: What?

[what-even-is-thiss]

Human: Wait that’s why there’s ruins of elven cities even though you live for so long? You just keep not asking people how to do things? How do you learn anything?

Elf: There’s a lot of “you’ve got time to figure it out on your own” attitudes floating around in our society that I’m starting to question somewhat.

[unassimilatedsoul]

Elf: That sword, where did you get it?

Human: My cousin made it.

Elf: Impossible! Those metalworking techniques were lost a hundred years ago!

Human: What do you mean lost? My great-grandmother learned to make these swords from an elven smith, then taught it to her kids.

Elf: That's ridiculous. No elf would give such secrets to a human.

Human: They didn't. Meemaw delivered the metal to the forge, and no one kicked her out when she stayed and watched. She always said they barely acknowledged her even when doing business with her, like she wasn't worth noticing.

Elf: Come to think of it, my great-uncle always was rather single-minded when he started working.

Human: So he wasn't ignoring her, he just forgot she was there?

Elf: Oh, he was definitely ignoring her, too. He was super racist.

[thekalpar]

I see a lot of nobles out here who think "Well I have a 10,000 square foot castle, surely that's enough space for a knight." WRONG. Knights are WORKING BREEDS, they need to go on regular quests to prove their fealty and come home horribly wounded. I have seen SO MANY adopted knights DESPONDENT because their liege keeps them cooped up in a castle and won't let them go on quests. If you want an armored warrior who will be happy in your castle you need to get a castellan. They're closely related to the knight breed but adapted to the castle environment.

[hey-its-sybarite]

Cooping them up too long is actually how you end up with 60 to 70 thousand dead geese when they finally get out again.

[thekalpar]

PEASANTS! WE'RE HANDLING THIS!

[nebulations]

[ID copied from alt: # IT'S FUCKED UP WHAT HE DID! End ID]

[annabelle--cane]

visibly sweating and stammering over my words and looking around nervously as I try to explain that all the best character arcs are about the inversion of a person's earliest established traits, it creates the most dramatic contrasts and subverts the story's established norms in interesting ways and keeps the flow of events dynamic, so just narratively, objectively speaking, I mean from a purely story-craft focused point of view, the most compelling thing for that suave and domineering character to do isn't to remain suave and domineering but to be brought low and have their cool commanding exterior taken away from them as they're forced to follow orders--hey no where are you going I promise I'm being very rational just let me expl

[hornestoothgap]

T. Kingfisher - What Stalks the Deep

[rubyredro5e]

{image id: Photo of part of a book page that reads "That is horrifying and I want to go home," I said, although I pronounced it, "Ah. I see."}

[marlposas]

when richard siken said “I want to tell you this story without confessing anything [...] I want to tell you this story without having to be in it”

[darkaviarymc]

Tragedy alignment chart. Feel free to use, but please reblog if you do.

[mikkeneko]

And of course the second part of the tragedy, which is: which quadrant did you think you were in vs. which one you were really in

[mynameisrocks]

[nebulations]

[ID: An alignment chart in the form of a graph. The vertical axis goes from "You were in control" to "You had no control," and the horizontal axis goes from "It was always going to end this way" to "It didn't have to end this way." Image two labels the quadrants as follows:

It didn't have to end this way, You were in control: it's all your fault

It was always going to end this way, You were in control: self fulfilling prophecy

It was always going to end this way, You had no control: the horror of inevitability

It didn't have to end this way, You had no control: they let you down. End ID]