Black Dog Blog

Archive for the ‘worldbuilding’ Category

No, I'm not talking about gay boys, although you could say I am something of a fairy in that sense (and vaguely proud of it), and also sometimes quite boring.

No, I mean the other fairies. The little winged gobshites.

So some people love cute little fairies. Some other people are into the dark, sinister side to fairies (which, when you think about it for more than a second, ARE bloody scary).

I just don't engage with the concept of fairies/faeries/fae/fairfolk on any level. They bore me and – well, they do repulse me, but in an unemotional way (since even hating or being scared of them would still be some kind of reaction, whereas they don't grab me in any way).

I suppose it's partly the "small humanoid" angle that totally turns off any sympathy, interest or engagement that I would have in abundance for any animal creature. I don't know. I've just never had any interest in fairies.

I actually stopped reading the Harry Dresden books because they degenerated into "whee, fairies fairies fairies and more bloody fairies I'm so cool, oh and just to turn Mutt completely off, let's add a knight prat who's so pure and Has Faith and wields a Magic Sword of Faith". (Well, that and it got boring seeing Harry get beaten half to death every book without fail and still pull some magic whupass out of his arse.) Shame, because the writing in the books is really pretty OK, the wisecracks are excellent and I do like the hardboiled genre.

But yes, fairies. They don't do it for me. I tend to hate anything with them in. The one exception I've found is Pratchett's Lords and Ladies, which is at least a very complete and competent treatment of the idea, explicitly drawing them as personalityless (an important angle for me) as well as the usual cruel, feline flibbertigibbets.

(Next time, maybe: why Tolkien-D&D-style elves are boring. Or maybe why prats with swords are boring. Then, that selection probably leaving basically nothing in the genre of fantasy for me to read, I'll have to think of some sci-fi things I find hackneyed.)

(Oh, and just in case: I don't actually expect other people to change their interests/writing styles based on my opinion. Hell, somebody go off and tread some genuinely new writerly ground with the idea and I promise I'll be happy you've made boringness into a topic that I can actually enjoy…)

Yummy article about the conlang (constructed language) in the Avatar film.

Letters page of Life academic journal, issue 134 [PDF]

A little background material for Profusion. >:)

(SPOT THE SUITOV!)

The 'short' story Roofrats, which I've been writing with Anke, is completed as of a few minutes ago. *does the dance* So I need to write a cleaner summary for the wiki page.

Conclusion: Nico and Weft make an oddly fascinating double act. But if they ever really get to talking, one suspects there will be bitchfights…

We didn't really get into the 'gang war' plot very much; it ended up being a kind of backdrop. Still, it all helped me flesh out Offwhite City and its attitude towards its penal colonies.

Yavu and Nico may return in the sequel, but we don't have concrete plans for that yet.

Just getting that title pun out of the way so I don't have to use it anywhere else in my writings.

As I understand it, it's normal for creators to be pleased when their creations cause reactions in onlookers. I think that's meant to apply to negative reactions too, sometimes. It certainly does for me in this case.

I was talking to Vespy this morning before leaving for work, and mentioned in passing one of the worlds I built for our little interplanetary ding-dong known as the Twine Wars. The world is called Instar and it's… I suppose you'd call it on the unusual side for generic fantasy, despite being populated by humanoids with pretty few differences from your generic sapiens. They're not especially nice humanoids, but then, humanoids tend not to be, so this is all within the bounds of sensibility.

Anyhoo, I believe the term Ves used to describe lovely little hemispherical Instar was "fucked-up", and in response to further questioning from a fascinated writer he said its inhabitants, and I'm paraphrasing, creep him out. I was kind of surprised, especially as they're somewhat caricatures of a type of animal he likes, but I suppose it's not too surprising on the whole. Ves comes across as a pretty honourable, easy-going and sane sort of chap, while Instarrians, well, produced Weft. (Who is not a typical Instarrian, but rather an extreme worst case scenario.)

I'm rather delighted by this reaction. As long as everyone doesn't feel that way and avoid interacting with them, because then I'll just be sad that the silly-billies are all missing the joke. (Because joke it is. Right now the thing I find funniest is that my ethics force me to view Instar as the good guys for being neutral.)

I became so repeatedly mildly irked by the skewed placement of the collar on that profile view I did of Weft (I've had it set as my desktop wallpaper for a couple of days for a laugh) that I've decided to make it An Undocumented Feature instead. This way, it can be fixed right now instead of waiting for me to get home and open Photoshop. You perceive that my reasoning is coldly logical.

So there you go: the Offwhite citizenry now fastens their shirt collars on the right. Slaves and monks button to the left. I think the political (aristocratic) class buttons to the left too, but that's not to say they're equated with all those holy men and convicted criminals, heavens no.

You see, they've this concept of things alternating as they ascend, shown also in the malarkey over which hand you pass with. Someone one position above you would merit a certain hand, while for someone two positions above you'd pass with the other hand, for three positions above you'd go back to the first hand, and so on. (Before anyone asks, for a spouse you'd use both hands… but one would hope you'd be on close enough terms to pass cheeks instead.)

Aliens would be expected to button their collars to the right. >:)

Now to finish off my peas and chickpea paste and have another look at Commissioning.

Another quick picture today.

Sketch of an Instarrian woman

I call her Jocelyn. *snerk*

More worldbuilding enjoyment. Instarrians are insane and so much fun.

Beauty
Fashion
and more about striation, a beauty fault

This explains why you'll never convince Weft that he isn't ugly. He can prove it with maths!

(Well, sort of like a mapping party, if you don't have friends or GPS or an interest in the outside world.)

Tonight I added a map of Shade to Twine.

It's rubbish in particular because (other than the facts that I don't have Illustrator and that I spent much less than 12 hours on it):

• Probably too little land area, i.e. bits need enlarging all over (haven't I received a few emails from various senders about that topic recently?)
• Soprone's mainland mass is not how I envisaged it, but I can't make up my mind what "how I envisaged it" IS. I think it should be touching the nearby continent, or almost
• Obviously, all land masses need edges detailing
• I think the land bridge between the north pole and Lotsi's homeland needs to be a lot thinner, otherwise there'd be some very grumpy dinosaurs coming down complaining about the noise

The island chain north of the blue continent is meant to be unshaded, though, because the blue folks are very definitely not seafarers and nobody else has snaffled it up yet. (Maybe there should be a large island, close to the blue mainland, that was settled by chance. That's one for the next update, though.)

Did half of my gift picture for Cerhn. Watched the first third of King Kong (the '00s remake) on the video recorder. That has been the extent of my billable time today.

Well, except for finishing The Wiz Biz, one of the books I asked Slen to buy me for Xmas. He got me the two sequels, too. These are titles I've had my eye on for some time, suspecting (correctly, it turns out) that they'll mirror some of my thinking with my worldbuilding and generally give me ideas. The first was ok as a fantasy novel; it's a little (well, a LOT) clichéd in both the worldbuilding and the freckled redheaded love interest, but that doesn't matter: the central thesis is what I was after.

I don't need to do anything with the ideas straight away, so I don't need to rush through reading all the titles before working out my introductory post with one very attractive greying-blonde middle-aged voks, Paraskive. But I can start thinking at the back of my mind about the similarities and differences between Wiz's system of magic and my magic system…