writing & stuff

chaotically MaDD

[we-are-madd]

sup folks and fae, this is a sideblog for us (@wellthatschaotic), to share our experiences with MaDD. we're autigenic & mixed-origin, and have a lot of paratives. our life is heavily influenced by MaDD as well as our system so i thought it fitting to give us a sideblog specifically for talking about that! questions are welcome (and encouraged), hate is not. to make it clear: we are not romanticizing any disorders, we're just looking for the silver lining.

we'll probably be posting stuff about our paracosm, like story/plot outlines or areas in it as well as (possibly) some scenes, maybe just writing tidbits/quotes. many of our paras are unnamed (partially because all the named ones turned into paratives /lh/hyp). feel free to infodump about yours in our askbox! we'll turn anon on too because we love hearing about that stuff!

there'll also probably be some stuff about being a parative/coming from a different world/etc., so yeah.

thanks and have a lovely day!

[faustique]

how beautiful is it to know that the same moon has watched you grow through all the different versions of yourself

[wellthatschaotic]

do you guys think i could be a skilled enough writer to make money off of it... .

[we-are-madd]

concept . species that is reborn but depending on how they die that affects their new body. so like if they die a violent death their new body is more resistant to violence/pain or if they die of drowning their new body can hold their breath way longer. OR the reverse where the new body is LESS adapted to whatever killed them .

[we-are-madd]

Her eyes were the color of the sky.

Blood red.

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

I'm going to sleep, any recommendations for some good dreams?

A Faceless person sits at the table in the center of the room. They are shuffling cards, waiting for you to take your seat. They hum as they deal the hands. You are playing Go Fish. 

As you play, you and the Faceless being speak of many things. You speak of knowledge of the near future, approaching events, some fortuitous and many most bleak. The conversation turns to talk of a greater event, the darkest hour yet to come. 

The Faceless one comments this: ‘There are many beasts and horsemen in my stables. I have yet to decide which to unleash.’ 

You watch as features bubble up beneath the Faceless skin–the beginnings of a nose, lips, eyelids, a face protruding from a once smooth expanse. No longer Faceless, the devil stands up, shakes your hand, and makes to leave. It pauses just once, to call back into the room. ‘The cards are a gift.’

You look at the cards and they have changed. They are black, large, inscribed in a language you do not read but which the cards read to you. When the cards start speaking to you, you put them away in their box. Already too many things are unleashed in the world.

Tonight, you spoke with the devil. 

The devil looked a lot like you. 

[hacvek]

reminder to worldbuilders: don't get caught up in things that aren't important to the story you're writing, like plot and characters! instead, try to focus on what readers actually care about: detailed plate tectonics

[olyia-stories]

@dragonpyre any chance you could elaborate on this

[dragonpyre]

I grew up learning about land formations. Seeing fictional maps that don’t follow the logic and science of them makes me upset

[serinos-kitt]

What are the most common sins you’ve seen relating to this? I wanna know

[dragonpyre]

Mordor.

Why is the mountain range square. How did the mountain range form. Why is there one singular volcano in the center. Why does it act like a composite volcano but have magma that acts like it’s from a shield. If it’s hotspot based volcanic activity why is there only one volcano.

And then the misty mountains!!!! Why isn’t there a rain shadow!! And why is there a FOREST where the rain shadow should be!!!!!!!!

[serinos-kitt]

So what is a rain shadow?

[lethalbutterfly]

Wind blows clouds in from the sea, but mountains are so tall the clouds can't get past 'em, so you get deserts on the windward side of mountain ranges because clouds can't get there to water the land, or do so only very rarely.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Oh yeah nothing is more annoying than fantasy maps that can't get mountains, rivers and rain shadows right.

[mindfulwrath]

May I recommend my new favorite tool: Mapgen4. You start with a random seed and then add mountains, valleys, shallow water, or oceans as you like. You can adjust the wind direction to make wind shadows off the mountains fall where you want. You can adjust overall raininess to make the rivers larger or smaller, or have more or fewer tributaries. It works best for small, isolated landmasses (think islands more than continents) but as there’s no scale bar and it’s all slightly abstracted anyway you can do whatever you want with it. I’ve only just started playing with it but it’s SO FUN.

[jeanjauthor]

I do think this could be useful for writers! ...Caveat, if you're going to use this for making a map for anything published (digital or paper, even if it's only in a fanfic archive or whatever), please, please credit the creator and their program as how you made that map! The more ways information like this gets out there, the more useful it'll be to other writers, roleplaying game DMs/GMs, creators, etc.

[oh-opossum]

One of my favourites for mapping plates, biomes, etc is Tectonics.js. If you're familiar with how tectonics shape a planet, you can guess where the features go by toggling plates, crust thickness, etc. Between Mapgen4 and Tectonics.js, we've got some pretty sweet tools at our disposal.

[brehaaorgana]

More stuff!:

European Geosciences Union Blog — Beyond Tectonics: Building fictional worlds to better understand our own

Reshaping Reality's Worldbuilding Tips

Worldbuilding pasta's series, An Apple Pie from Scratch also check their resources page!

R/worldbuilding's Reading List. Also check out their collected resources link. This basic geology guide from 11 years ago is still nice.

Creating an Earth-Like Planet, and The Climate Cookbook (aka Geoff's Climate Cookbook) technically the climate cookbook is a part of Creating an Earth like Planet I think.

Related: Worldbuilding Workshop's "Working Out Climates Using Geoff’s Climate Cookbook." Which goes through using the resource in order to map make. Also just the Worldbuilding Workshop in General.

Madeline James Writes's Worldbuilding Guide

Worldbuilding 101 (this links to the Biomes section but there's like...everything.)

Also I would recommend looking into Landscape Archaeology as well! That's because Landscape archeology is basically adding the social/cultural layer on top of all that geology and geography. Environments change when communities live in them, and communities likewise adapt to various environments.

This is a short free introduction to the concept: "Notes on Landscape Archaeology." To summarize, Landscape archaeology sort of like...studies the relation of people to places/spaces (that is, landscapes) in time.

Also this paper [An Archeology of Landscapes] breaks down/introduces the key concepts that I learned which is first that you can form the "construct paradigm" of a landscape from settlement ecology, ritual landscapes, and ethnic landscapes.

And then the highlights of their summary of what constitutes defining a landscape:

Landscapes are not synonymous with natural environments. Landscapes are synthetic (Jackson, 1984, p. 156), with cultural systems structuring and organizing peoples’ interactions with their natural environments ...

Landscapes are worlds of cultural product ... Through their daily activities, beliefs, and values, communities transform physical spaces into meaningful places. ...

Landscapes are the arena for all of a community’s activities. Thus landscapes not only are constructs of human populations but they also are the milieu in which those populations survive and sustain themselves. A landscape’s domain involves patterning in both within-place and between-place contexts ...

Landscapes are dynamic constructions, with each community and each generation imposing its own cognitive map on an anthropogenic world of interconnected morphology, arrangement, and coherent meaning ...

Basically a "landscape" is made by a community living in an environment. Once you have a geological environment that makes sense, landscape archaeology is like... Basically how I feel confident knowing where trade routes would be on a map, where there are areas of continual high conflict, what kinds of agriculture exists where, etc. once the geological stuff is hammered out, it's like...I know how that would influence the local cultures and vice versa. At that point, it's easy to start marking the natural borders, settlements, trade/port cities, and even strategic fortresses. If you have properly put rivers on a map, then marking your port cities is effortless, basically.

Also:

This course syllabus for a Landscape Archaeology class is freely accessible. It includes an online resources page.

Place, Landscape, and Environment: Anthropological Archaeology in 2009

(Landscape Biographies is open access, as is Landscape Archaeology between Art and Science: From a Multi- to an Interdisciplinary Approach. But I wouldn't try to read every essay.)

[dedicatedfollower467]

If you are like me and find it helpful to have video reference for a process/activity in addition to a written guide, Artifexian is a YouTube channel that does a LOT of world building stuff and specifically he's in the process of creating a world following a lot of Worldbuilding Pasta's methodology!

[tobringchaos]

my favorite part of the day is lying in my big soft bed, lights off, wrapped in blankets, giving myself fifteen minutes to imagine a life where i’m happy and loved before i fall asleep

[seth-whumps]

takes you by the hand. please please please if you're stuck on your WIP or you can't figure out how to progress the scene PLEASE skip ahead. skip a few lines ahead. skip until the next Thing you can think of happens. skip to it skip to it skip to it. you may uncover what you were missing in the midst of your next scenes and you may discover that just transitioning straight to Next Part works flawlessly. skip it. don't sink. skip.

[kitkat-dreams]

My dealer: got some straight gas 🔥😛. this strain is called “Maladaptive Daydreaming” 😳 you'll be zonked out of your gourd💯

Me: yeah whatever. I dont feel shit.

5 minutes later: dude I swear I just saw my trauma reflected in that fictional character

My para, pacing: the DSM is lying to us

[daitheflu-mx]

[tumblingoverstars]

[wellthatschaotic]

im always a slut for when a character does something opposite to what they're known for

character who always has a witty comment/joke/pun going silent. bubbly happy-go-lucky type going stoic. completely stoic character smiling/laughing. always-concealed character lowering their hood.

that's when you know you fucked up

[unpeeled-human]

realizing i am essentially a god presiding over my creations. and i choose to put them in chaotic situations. anyways heres me picking one up

[unpeeled-human]

no escape.

[the-full-moons-teeth]

[mournfulroses]

T. S. Eliot, from The Complete Works of T. S. Eliot; "The Confidential Clerk,"

[septiccoffeefreak]

@funnier-as-a-system

[funnier-as-a-system]

[ID: black text on an ivory background that reads: You've still got your inner world—a world that's more real. / That's why you're different from the rest of us: / You have your secret garden; to which you can retire / And lock the gate behind you. / end ID]

[PT: T. S. Eliot, from The Complete Works of T. S. Eliot; "The Confidential Clerk," / end PT]

[whumpdedoodledoo]

neglected pet whump

whumper who inherited whumpee from a neighbor or relative- they never really wanted them in the first place, but now they've some pet and don't really know what to do with it. so they don't do much with it at all.

they're not intentionally harmful, of course- but perhaps they've a large family, a lot of little kids, always busy with sports, school, dance, playdates, a million different things-

so whumpee is just forgotten.

they get used to it eventually, of course, but their old owner was always so affectionate; they were always cuddling, always talking, going on walks, reading together. they were needed, back then, and they're not anymore.

[mercuriousnitrate]

i make a new para/fictpara

i give them identity issues

i make them a trans girl by accident