How to generate a comfort place (a fictional place that makes you feel safe and comfy)
I decided to write this because I keep seeing people talk about how a certain magical school from a certain hatemonger's fictional series gives them a sense of comfort. And like, comfort places are valid, but you know what? It's actually super easy to create your own original place that will make you feel good just by hacking your subconscious! Here's how you can do it!
STEP 1: CREATE A SEED POOL
By “seed pool,” I mean a list of things that work for you. Write down a list of things that evoke the right moods for you, like things that feel magical, fun, comfortable, safe, exciting, mysterious, etc. Here are some categories you might include:
Colors/color combos
Aesthetics
Fashion styles
Plants
Animals
Folkloric and mythical creatures
Childhood memories
Buildings
Any other places that give you the right kinds of feelings
Trinkets
Geometric shapes
Literally anything else you can think of
I suggest focusing on the feeling(s) you want to evoke, closing your eyes, and seeing what pops into your mind while you do this!
STEP 2: ENGAGE YOUR IMAGINATION
The next step is to let your imagination work on everything you've written down and let your subconscious mind create something for you. There are two ways to go about this.
METHOD 1: Go settle down and relax
Go someplace you can get comfortable and put yourself in a trance. (Your bed will do fine.) Get comfortable and breathe in whatever way helps you get most relaxed. Close your eyes if it helps. Count numbers if it helps. Focus on the things you’ve written down.
Once you’re relaxed, visualize yourself creating a portal. Pick some of the things from your list to make a portal out of. For example, if green is on your list, you might visualize a portal made of green energy. If birds are on it, you might imagine birds flying around it.
Once you’ve visualized your portal, imagine yourself stepping onto the land where your location is. Look around and observe what you see. If it doesn’t feel quite right, make any adjustments you need.
Keep exploring wherever you wish. You can keep looking around the land, or you can go inside the school. Make sure you visualize people and imagine yourself talking to them! If anything is unsatisfactory, you can mentally make any edits or changes you wish.
When you’re done, get up and write everything down.
METHOD 2: Stay where you are
Relax yourself in front of your word processor, and with your eyes fully open, visualize yourself creating a portal with the method described above. Visualize yourself stepping onto the land where your location is, and visualize yourself interacting with people. Write down everything as you visualize it, making any edits you feel are necessary.
Don't worry about making it perfect yet! While you might want to make a lot of edits during visualization, it's not necessary to try and make it perfect. The point of this exercise is to give you material to start working with. A lot of the refinement will come later.
STEP 3: PLAY WITH IT
This is the part where you start creating headcanons and writing lore and stories! A lot of the refinement will come at this point, because actually writing stuff out will make you think about it a bit more deeply.
Remember all those characters you visualized earlier? Assume that each and every one of them is deeply interesting, no matter how they look on the surface. If you assume they are interesting, your imagination will be prompted to create interesting details about them.
Likewise, assume your location is full of interesting things and history. Take absolutely nothing for granted!
If you want to experience randomness and surprise, you can use my free TTRPG solo engine, Startracks! If you're trying to do magical school adventures, you can also check out my wizardventure meaning tables. (These are modeled after the meaning tables in Tana Pigeon's Mythic Game Master Emulator, a solo TTRPG engine worth checking out if you can!)
I also have more tips for getting out of the hatemonger's fandom here, if you want 'em.
So there you go! Make your own place and have fun!
[If you promote the Marauders fandom or tell people to "just pirate it!" on this post, I will block you. The Marauders are still her IP and therefore keep her work culturally relevant, and corporations use services like Piracy Meter and MUSO to track piracy, which in turn helps them decide whether it's worth licensing merchandise or making new shows.]
