#askworldbuilding

[loominggaia]

Hello: im a fan of your work. I just want to say thank you thank you so much for making this wonderful series. I heard what was happening and I'm sorry I don't have much experience in your situation but I suggest something for you: you said you may start using AI but why not use AI for now until you are in a better place to draw I apologize if I offend you with this but let me tell you something you have nothing to be ashamed about. I'm running out of space: the rest of the message to reddit.

Hello! You are very kind, I appreciate the message!

I have used AI to make some dumb memes and shitposts to keep the blog active, but Tumblr users in general are overwhelmingly anti-AI and I haven't got a positive response to it, so ultimately I don't think it will be as helpful as it would be on other platforms (like Insta, Facebook, TikTok, etc.) In fact it is proving to be detrimental, so I will avoid AI content and fans will just have to accept the fact that there will be much less activity on the blog as I deal with my health issues.

Right now I'm really focusing on the Patreon so that I won't have to resort to things like AI and paywalled stories to pay for my medication. I have one year to figure this situation out before my meds run out. I hope I can get my thyroid levels sorted so I have the energy to make more content during that time.

I just started a new dose of my meds last week. It takes 2 months for changes to set in, so I'm crossing my fingers!

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[loominggaia]

Is there any particular order to read Looming Gaia stories?

I recommend reading them in the order they're listed. But you can start just about anywhere you want to and you won't be too lost, because a lot of the stories stand on their own.

Every single story ties into the others, so you can read them in basically any order and you'll get the whole plot eventually.

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[loominggaia]

I love that you draw a lot of black people!

I’m a black woman, and you draw black women so beautifully. The eyes, the lips, and the hairstyles!!! You really know what you’re doing.

Awww that means a lot to me! Thank you very much, I'm so happy to hear this! <3

I have quite a racially diverse family so I've never really given much thought to this, my characters have always been all over the place as far as nationality/ethnicity/etc goes.

Regarding Looming Gaia specifically, I want to emphasize the world in WORLDbuilding by depicting peoples from all over this fictional world, not just one ethnicity from one place. I also want readers to be able to see themselves in these characters too, so I try to be as accurate as I can with their features. I know I don't always get it right, but feedback like this is very encouraging, thank you again!

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[loominggaia]

Tips for a newcomer (not really new, but haven’t grown much lol) to world building?

I think what's "important" to worldbuilding depends on why you're doing it in the first place. Someone who does worldbuilding strictly to make money will want to focus on very different things than someone who just does it for fun.

I can't tell you what you need to do to be marketable, because that's not why I do this myself. But I can say that if you're just doing this as a personal project, your own enjoyment should be your top priority.

TIP 1: Don't focus on details that are boring to you if it feels grueling to develop, just handwave that stuff away and put your energy towards the aspects you're most interested in.

For example, I haaate geography, economics, and politics. I don't put much effort into these things in my own world. But I love fashion, cuisine, biology, and architecture, so I put more energy towards these things, and it keeps me motivated to keep worldbuilding. If you feel like you're being forced to slog through doing "work" to build your world, it's probably time to let that aspect go and shift to something else. Let the readers fill in the blanks for the other stuff.

TIP 2: WRITE STUFF DOWN! I can't tell you how many times I had an idea and thought "I'll definitely remember that"...and then completely forgot about it later. Keeps a notebook or a word document on your phone where you can just scribble down random crap that comes to mind. Revisit this document from time to time, and you will probably find a use for these ideas further down the line.

TIP 3: Stay organized. Tumblr is the best platform I know of for organizing lore. It works well for me, but other people may prefer different platforms. There are a lot out there, reddit.com/r/worldbuilding has some specific recommendations for apps and stuff. Even just a local folder with word documents in it is a good way to keep your lore organized. As your world grows bigger, you will definitely want to create a system where you can find details quickly and easily, so jump on that early.

These are all just my opinions of course, and your experience may be different than mine. But these are the tips that were most helpful to me. Good luck!

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[loominggaia]

Question regarding worldbuilding fantasy races (or “peoples”): For future reference, a, if I were to use the term “Sirene” (as well as other terms such as “Sirena”, “Sire”, “Shimmerlings” etc.) to name a sub-race of merfolk, would that be copyright or plagiarism? Same with Cecaelia.

Thank you for taking the time to read it.

Hey, thanks for this question! This is a bit complicated to answer, because in some cases I've just used generic names from world mythology (satyr, cecaelia, siren(e), etc.). I don't own the rights to these names and anyone can use them.

In other cases there are names that are my own intellectual property (shimmerling, skorpius, roshava, etc.)

If you would like to use names/species that are exclusive to my world, that's totally fine, I just ask that you please do not profit from them. If your project is just for fun and not profit, then go crazy and use any of my ideas you want!

If you do end up monetizing your project after using some of my designs/names/ideas, I just ask that you change these things to be more legally distinct from my work before you publish, or at least give credit back to World of Looming Gaia somewhere in your project.

Thank you!

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[loominggaia]

Would you say that the nature of evil in looming Gaia is a lot like that in Bojack Horseman? In that everything bad that happens in life isn’t always the result of some conspiracy or shadowy cabal of villians? But is more often the indirect end result of peoples own selfish decisions? People making extremely selfish and short sighted decisions that produce disastrous consequences they either didn’t know or simply didn’t care enough to consider?

I've actually never seen Bojack Horseman, but what you describe here sounds accurate! Just like the real world, "evil" in Looming Gaia isn't always the result of intentional maliciousness.

Sometimes it's just the unintended consequences of something else. Even good intentions can result in evil actions (see Sovereign of Aquaria, or Mr. Ocean, or Karenza...)

Many Great Rulers in Looming Gaia's history took the throne with the best intentions. But oftentimes the money and power gets to their heads and they start acting selfishly, thinking "what's the harm?"

They are so far from the common people in their ivory towers, they don't always see the harm they're really doing to others.

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[loominggaia]

Would it be okay to use your posts on your various peoples as a template for my own worldbuilding? Not copying the info itself or anything of course, but just the organization of their biology, reproduction, culture, groups, etc. seems very useful for someone who struggles to organize all that info. But I don't wanna just use it without making sure it's okay first!

Sure, go for it! I'm really flattered you want to use it!

Anyone is free to use my article formats for their own projects!

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[loominggaia]

LOOMING GAIA DISCOOOOOOOOORD

https://discord.gg/qUpXngrca7

For some reason it's saying "Unable to accept invite" :( The problem might be on my end though, I don't use Discord and I don't know what I'm doing. Is this working for anyone else?

EDIT: I got it to work! I still don't really use Discord because I'm an ancient, crumbling luddite. But I know most people do, so I really appreciate you making this @yuppe ! Thank you!

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