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mira--mira · 3 years

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Hi! I was wondering

How do you think Hashirama and Madara would be in a Road to Ninja version?

I remember once reading a Hashimada fic (which I never finished RIP) that was about Madara appearing in the RTN universe and the 3 things that stucked with me were:

1.- Madara was the first Hokage (something that Madara thought was horrible when he saw his sculpted face on the Hokage mountain 🤣)

And personally I think that it would not have been like that even in the RTN universe because we didn't see his face along with the other faces of Hokages in the movie (Yeah, apparently I'm basing myself on a movie which I'm not even sure if it's canon or not, even though Kishimoto wrote it) and the RTN characters didn't seem to even know who Madara is.

2.- Hashirama having his bowlcut as an adult

And I agree with the Madara from that fanfic, it looks awful on him. Hashirama, babe, I'm sorry but the only ones who can rock that style are Guy Sensei and Rock Lee, I know you just were trying to be cool but it doesn't suite you.

3.- Tobirama was a porn writer

Instead of being a fan of forbidden jutsu and creating justus, he wrote porn novels a la Jiraiya. And I'll hold that headcanon with my dead hands.

The only other fanfic that places the founders in the RTN universe is one where the protagonist is Mito (it's an interesting one-shot that pairs her with Itama 🤔)

She was kind of a shy person 🤔? And so it was Tobirama 🤣 which I found fun.

Hashirama, as the first fanfic I mentioned, was the Tobirama of the place (saddenly Madara wasn't in this fic).

So I would like to know what are your versions of the founders (or only Hashirama and Madara if it is too much) in the RTN universe! And how do you think things would be

Hmm, RTN is an interesting concept to me but, to be honest, I don't think Konoha would exist if a lot of personalities got flipped 😂 I haven't read any RTN fics with the founders, but if you, or anyone else, have links at hand I'd love to check them out 👀

1. Madara

Here's the big one and the crux of why I don't think the village would exist. Typically I characterize Madara as an extremely responsible man who internalizes things when he shouldn't, takes himself way too seriously, is aggressive and abrasive even to people he loves sometimes, but genuinely loves the people closest too him. Reversing this would make a character that slacks off, takes no responsibility, and is completely passive in life and has fleeting attachments to others around him. Assuming he wouldn't die on the battlefield, I could see the RTN "alternate" personality coming about of Madara's being so overpowered and competent that he loses interest and distances himself from things before he can get attached and lose them.

It makes building a village very hard though. (At first I was tempted to go RTN Sasuke route and maybe RTN!Madara is a little more openly flirty than canon!Madara, but the passivity and refusal to take responsibility would be the "core" qualities for me.)

2. Hashirama

Hashirama is a bit weird because he has a lot of surface-level "conflicting" traits in canon. He is optimistic but he pushes beyond his natural attitude and uses it as a mask to hide instead of addressing his feelings. He's mischievous, likes jokes and games, and can be a bit hedonistic with his pleasure but can equally be serious when necessary and will willingly sacrifice for others around him. And simultaneously, Hashirama and Madara are connected by a shared sense of idealism but also anger. Hashirama is a very kind, but extremely angry, man. I think a RTN!Hashirama would share a kind of apathy of RTN!Madara but instead of passivity his lack of anger would manifest as cruelty. Because canon!Hashirama is angry but his anger is usually a righteous kind. I don't think RTN!Hashirama would go out of his way to be cruel, but he doesn't have the empathy of canon!Hashirama, especially to others' suffering. He enjoys fighting just a bit too much and has no qualms about killing. In his mind, he should always come first in any situation and prioritizing (or even considering) others' is effort and him going out of his way to be "nice" and the other should be thankful. Similarly if he feels any negative emotion, he won't bottle it up and swallow it down, he'll immediately address it, usually confrontationally. RTN!Hashirama is as intelligent as his canon counterpart but he doesn't suffer fools and he hates it when people underestimate him. He's pretty proud and vain, tbh.

I really don't think the above would make him the "Tobirama" of RTN verse. To me Hashirama and Tobirama have different core values and perspectives and inverting Hashirama's doesn't make it become Tobirama's, if that makes sense. This one is also wordy bc I immediately knew how RTN!Madara would be RTN!Hashirama is a bit harder to pin down. But I hope it's clear why I have doubts about the village existing...maybe if RTN!Hashirama got it in his mind as a pet project for the hell of it, that he'd be a better leader for the country and not just the Senju alone, and RTN!Madara liked the idea of no responsibility and being able to detach even further than he already was? But that's still kind of grasping for a reason.

3. Hashimada

Equally I think any Hashirama/Madara relationship would be ehhh. They definitely wouldn't have the overwhelming bond of their canon counterparts, and it could be a relationship ripe for unhappiness. The closest I can think of to making the ship work is RTN!Madara would be drawn to Hashirama's absurd level of self-confidence and able to let the casual cruelty slide off instead of getting worked up about it. In a way RTN!Hashirama is stable and predictable. If he's pretty overpowered, there's less of a chance RTN!Madara would lose him, so their relationship isn't deep but it's more or less dependable and Madara knows exactly what he's going to get. In contrast RTN!Hashirama has an audience in the form of RTN!Madara and a partner that's not going to push back against his ideas. RTN!Madara doesn't ask for much and he doesn't complain when RTN!Hashirama puts himself first. He doesn't want, or might not be capable of, the deep emotional bond their canon counterparts have. RTN!Madara wouldn't leave Konoha (if it existed) in the AU, because he doesn't really care. If someone upset RTN!Hashirama and he decided to leave to 'do it right' RTN!Madara would probably follow, maybe out of some loyalty for RTN!Hashirama but mostly because it's what's easiest.

4. Tobirama

The core of Tobirama's character to me is prioritizing logic over emotion and both a conscious and unconscious failure to realize he can't completely eliminate emotion. Tobirama loves his brother, he's curious and has a desire to find out what makes things work and is willing to bend morality to get results if it'll serve a greater good. He's very aware of the unfairness of the world but believes it's an unspoken truth of humanity and can only be mitigated through logical means, but never completely erased. He'll be the sacrificial lamb, the one that works in shadows so his brother can have his utopian dream. Despite everything, he loves his genin, the strongest bonds he has aside from Hashirama, and does try to instill in them lessons he think will help them and lead to peace and stability in the village. He's still influenced by the prejudices of his time and can never find it in him to truly forgive the Uchiha.

A RTN!Tobirama would be a man ruled by emotion. Him writing erotica all day definitely could be one way this manifests lol. But overall he's sensitive and spiritual and can't stand the idea of killing. He and RTN!Hashirama don't get along and he actively tries to avoid his brother. RTN!Tobirama has equally strong principles as canon!Tobirama, but they're pacifist in nature and while he likes his studies, he prefers to be out talking to people and learning from them first hand. He's very naive and can be easily taken advantage of and he has trouble focusing on any one thing for too long. No matter how many times this happens, he never can harden his heart or be overly suspicious of others. RTN!Tobirama would most likely be the one support peace in this AU. He embraces the Uchiha and all the Senjus past enemies with open arms, almost to a foolish degree. It'd be a bad idea if he became hokage in this AU because he's a terrible negotiator and has a bad people-pleasing streak and struggles with long-term tactics. With the exception of RTN!Hashirama, who he considers an aberration who doesn't have a soul, humans at their core all have good intentions at heart.

5. Mito

I characterize Mito as a very level-headed woman. Her marriage to Hashirama is political in nature but they grow to be good friends and she never expected to fall in love and she's glad Hashirama didn't want a traditional wife. Mito is devoted to her community work (she works hands-on with people in the village), she seeks out connections with others and, despite the distance, remains close with her family in Uzushio, constantly writing them letters. She's spiritual and follows the Uzumakis' beliefs (not gonna list this OoT spoiler lol) and studies fuinjutsu in her spare time, something she's done since she was a child. She is willing to sacrifice if it meant protecting something she considered greater than herself, much to her own personal detriment. She loves and is proud of her children and grandchildren, but if she had a choice, she would have chosen to remain childless, she finds her true calling elsewhere.

RTN!Mito, similarly to RTN!Tobirama, is ruled by emotions. She dreams of one day making a good marriage for herself and centers romance and being a mother as her ideal life, but she's extremely picky when it comes picking the perfect husband. RTN!Mito knows how much she's worth and she refuses to settle and will not even entertain the idea of an arranged marriage. She has a hard time forming long-lasting, deep bonds with other people and views starting her own family as the solution to this problem. At times she can be a bit absent-minded and unintentionally selfish, but she's not actively malicious. She blusters a lot and depending on the situation can come off as cold and uncaring, but it's only to hide the depth of her true feelings and loneliness. In this AU she would absolutely refuse to marriage RTN!Hashirama. Nothing on hell or earth, could make her change her mind.

Mito is such a blank-slate character it feels like writing an oc more than a canon character, tbh. And this is something I don't see brought up a lot but a "heart full of love" to combat the kyuubi's hatred to me has never been exclusive to romantic or familial (to children) love. *cough* I want a complex female character who's not vilified for not wanting to have children and/or regretting having them *cough* Mito's "love" was for the people of Konoha and Uzushio. My personal headcanon regarding her and Hashirama's child (I don't think she had more than one) was that she was dedicated to her son, but quickly realized being a mother wasn't her dream or something she even actively liked. The kid was well-cared for and she was dutiful towards him, but Hashirama was the parent that loved and embraced him with his whole heart and it led to some tension between Mito and her son as the kid could tell the difference and neither of them were "wrong" to feel the way they did. This is why Tsunade was shown with Hashirama instead of Mito, he was a lot more present in her life when she was young (instead of Kishi just not having made Mito as a character yet). But after Hashirama and Tsunade's dad died (and then Nawaki), she and Mito grew close but it was definitely more of a friendship or student/mentor relationship rather than a traditional grandmother/granddaughter relationship but both were satisfied with it and loved eachother. Likewise I didn't want RTN!Mito's characterization to be shallow and hit misogynistic undertones with her being an "opposite" to Mito's calm, level-headed, focused on her work/passions characterization.

6. Closing thoughts

#1: Wow this got long #2: I feel conflicted about RTN because it seemed to flip surface-level characteristics instead of deep characterizations, and ignored flaws altogether. The ones above, esp. Hashirama and Madara's, are kind of dark in a way? But that's the only way it makes sense to me...Gai and Lee caring about style and being stylish is a funny joke but if you were to actually poke and prod and say their personalities were inverted, neither of them would be top-notch ninja as we know...unless I'm just completely misremembering RTN because I realize it's been years since I saw it lol. Anyway, hope this was entertaining!

#naruto #hashimada #hashirama senju #madara uchiha #mito uzumaki #tobirama senju #asks #al-stuffy #rtn au #long post

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rpbetter · 3 years

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"writes dubcon therefore is a freak who should be bullied off the site" ho boy i'm fed up with people acting as if consenting adults writing [insert "problematic" fictional thing here] is the worst thing in the world. seen way too many people justifying harrassment of REAL PEOPLE by "they write thing that triggers me". ok, and? mute the tags or don't follow! "it triggers someone" is not a valid reason to ban a topic. piano music triggers me yet i don't go around demanding everyone stop playing the piano.

Anon, not only is everything you said absolutely valid, but also, thank you for demonstrating that triggers are incredibly varied and as such, we cannot predict everyone's triggers. Making the entire "point" of banning for possible triggers invalidated as hell.

We should be aware of things like the most commonly occurring phobias (things like arachnophobia and coulrophobia that are, additionally, easily triggered by imagery) and tag them. We should be aware of very obvious triggers, that are, again, easily set off by imagery, like blood, eye trauma, and depictions of domestic violence. And we should always read and be aware of our writing partners' stated triggers so that we can tag them appropriately or even decide that it isn't going to work because our muse, canon story, or interests are going to present an unfair situation in this partnership.

But triggers can be highly unusual, as well as activated differently (even at different times) for everyone. I'm not triggered by seeing hotel rooms in pictures or movies, I'm not triggered by writing scenes that take place in them, but I'm triggered to some degree by being in one. It's outrageous oversimplification to act like all triggers are the same, they all display the same way, they're all going to trigger someone on the same basis, everyone's going to react the same to their triggers. There is absolutely no way to prevent 100% of possible triggers for 100% of the population, 100% of the time.

Add to this that way too many people trivialize triggers by throwing around that term to justify the banning of something that makes them uncomfortable or that they take a personal, moral issue with. "I don't like this" and "I'm grossed out by this" and "this makes me feel uncomfortable" is not being triggered. It's just a good way to weaponize the better nature of other people so that they comply.

Most people legitimately do not want to trigger someone, especially if they have triggers and know what it's like. Just like no one wants to be accused of cruelty towards trauma survivors in general, or be designated a pedo, rape apologist, or fascist. They're all things to weaponize in order to isolate, shame, and control. And that's really fucking gross. These are serious, real things that have no business being trivialized to police content, win internet arguments, or garner popularity.

The potential for someone to be triggered isn't a reason to ban anything; we have tags, we have blacklist.

While I'll be the first to say that tumblr's blacklisting can be as shitty as everything else on the site, the primary issue with running into content you don't want to see comes down to two factors: no one tagging/tagging correctly and actively exposing yourself to that content. Going through people's properly done tags and blog warnings about their content in order to "call it out" is actively exposing yourself by choice. You actual walnuts.

Calling people on on their "problematic" content is bringing those topics to the attention of other people. That's the whole point of this gross behavior: look at the freak pedo abuse apologist I found, they write dubcon!! Don't look if you'll be triggered uwu

Buddy, pal, my guy...you just put that on blast for anyone to run across. Maybe their blacklist catches those words in your callout post, maybe it doesn't. Maybe they think you're a safe space because you promote yourself that way, so they click it anyway. Point is, you just willfully and irresponsibly exposed people because it's more important to you to demonize a rando on tumblr RPing something you take issue with. Good job!

Furthermore, dubcon itself is such a hilarious issue to take. Do they realize that isn't always sexual, or? Not? I'm thinking not. Funnily enough, one of the oldest posts I've been working on for this blog is about exactly this topic, the myriad situations that are dubious consent. That doesn't have to be sexual, and neither does it have to be intentionally predatory. You can come up with some amazing character development with a lot of muses in the RPC with dubcon because almost everyone's muse has some manner of trauma that might negate their perception of their own consent...and what do you do then? Is it removing more agency from that muse to shut them down, or is that always the better option? Can you separate your opinion as the mun from your muse's natural reactions? How does this impact the muses involved not just that moment but the next year?

Point is, dubcon isn't always some rapey situation. Even if it was, even if someone is writing it that way, it's literally not your business or your problem.

There's one mutual-in-law on my RP blog that really bothers me. They write things that I find fetishizing, incredibly rapey, all around shit that bothers me. I don't want to see it, some of the things they write makes my damn skin crawl. This person doesn't know it, we certainly don't speak and I don't think they like me very much, but I've repeatedly defended their right, specifically their right as a person with some long-term callouts on them, to write what they want to. I have them blocked and their urls blacklisted so I never have to see my mutual reblogging their threads. It's not a problem because I don't click "show anyway." Why would I, if it genuinely bothers me so much?

That's how you handle things that bother you; you use the tools available to not interact even by accident. Not by launching a morality crusade.

If any of us want to write what we enjoy, we have to allow others that same freedom. It's always a matter of time before this policing grows to include more and more topics, it's been used multiple times to get well-meaning people who don't fall into the general demographics to police queer, BIPOC, and other marginalized groups off of platforms. We've been fortunate in most of the RPC that it implodes on itself before it gets all the way there, but even so, you can see it.

It starts with things that produce a visceral reaction in the great majority of people, positions this with a repeatedly condemned idea presented as solid fact that fiction is reality, and you've got the start of something awful. Today it's something you don't like, maybe even something that triggers you, so you either support it or you quietly allow it to happen. Who needs to write that "freak shit" anyway, can't they just be gross privately? Six months from now, it's something "problematic" that you enjoy like violence that's canon-typical for your muse, or your OTP because they're gay and that's fetishizing, they're cis male and female but one or both is bi and that's bad representation, or they canonically have a rocky relationship so that's romanticizing toxic/abusive relationships.

If you can't care for any other reason, you really should care about how it is going to impact you sooner or later. In an environment like this, you can stay in your space, put warnings on your blog, and tag properly and you're still going to get a callout if the wrong person finds your blog. Just takes a single person with more time, energy, and skewed ideas of justice than they have reading comprehension or common sense.

Again, I cannot encourage people enough to give warnings, but it's difficult to ignore why those warnings are slipping; they're a way to be found, designated as a Problem, and called out. Look, it's another reason why callouts actually make things worse, not better! People put that shit in their rules so you can avoid content, they're being responsible and interested in promoting a safe RPC. Let them do it, damn.

You can't tag everything, and if you've never experienced what a giant series of repetitive tags is like on a screenreader you probably should before you tag seven paragraphs of possible issues. You can tag for visuals, you can tag for the obvious things, and you can tag for what's in the rules you agreed to when you followed/followed back. But you should also warn people that you write "dark topics" on the tin, and expand on that in your rules for specific things like graphic violence, toxic relationships, dubon, and addiction.

That's how responsible adults, not over-aged children, make better decisions about their mental health and general comfort. Not by appointing themselves the watchdogs of the damn RPC, here to protect you whether you want to be or not, find that incredibly insulting or not when you're in one of their categories of people who must be protected, by forcibly banning Problematic Everything. Problematic, of course, being entirely in the eye of the content police.

It's fiction. No one and nothing real was harmed. It's great that you are so invested in the fictional world and people that make you happy, but take a fucking big step back into reality. The real people you're harming with your bullshit had every right to peaceably exist. If what they're writing is triggering to you, stay. away. from. it.

Without any coincidence whatsoever, that's how you get from the base-point of Problematic Material to Problematic Mun. Yeah, it's just fiction, it's just RP, but I also took something out of context OOC or was upset by their tone on their own blog or couldn't exercise the minimal adult logic to remove myself from their presence OOC as well. So, now, you've got OOC behavior being added to the callout, if it wasn't already. Everyone is now ableist, transphobic, racist, and a misogynist because it lends that visceral reaction to the callout and ups the game from just being "y'all so gross you aged up a cartoon character to ship" to "this is REAL and it won't be tolerated! OP is actually a pedophile, they told a sexual joke in a discord server with a minor present and I have the receipts!"

What are the most storied callouts in the entire RPC? I'm absolutely certain the same names came to mind no matter what fandoms you're in, and one of them was "Matt." Another was probably "Ares/Snow". They're all successful and keep being brought up out of the closet anytime people are bored enough because their primary punch is the mun themselves being a predatory threat to the community. The mun is verified to be a bad person. Well, of course, that's got to be repeated, it worked. (Even if it did not, at all, work and only made it harder for people to avoid any of these muns.)

Are there people in the RPC who are legitimately a problem? Absolutely, yes. We're all supposed to be adults, however. Part of being an adult is having and acting upon one's agency. If someone is coercing you into things you are not comfortable with, shut it down. If you have difficulties being certain of those situations, run it by a trusted, honest friend or available, impartial source in the RPC for a second opinion. If you can't handle any manner of confrontation, there really are situations in which it's perfectly alright to block someone without any discussion. It's just the internet, you're in control of your space. Own it.

Minors are a whole other can of fucked up worms I'm not even getting into right now except to say that because a minor exists in a space they were told to stay out of does not mean we ban all topics inappropriate for their consumption.

tl;dr: banning shit doesn't work anyway, the whole idea is predicated upon some incredibly problematic takes IRL, and no, there's no justification for it outside of intense personal problems with one's own importance. That energy would be infinitely better spent volunteering one's time to help real people in crisis or after surviving one, or even oneself in developing some healthier approaches and thought patterns.

#hey what if we all start saying we're triggered by callout culture is that bannable then lmao #vespertine #drama cw #bsnf #callout culture #tumblr rpc #rp problems #also thank you again anon I hope you're having a great day!

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red-the-dragon-writes · 3 years

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Today's post is not on the usual "writer blog fare" side. Instead I am going to introduce you to several fun facts about various animals on our planet and then talk about worldbuilding.

1. Lampreys are a kind of "living fossil"- a not-really-so-scientific term for a creature that has lived unchanged for a very long time, so long that we have fossils of them looking the same way they do now. They don't have proper jaws, just a circular sucking mouth with teeth set into it and a tongue designed to strip flesh off of what it touches. They're finless fish, look quite a bit like eels, and have this really alien, uncanny vibe to them.

[id: a long, slender bluish-silver lamprey sitting among rocks. It has a long snout, an eye, and then six small perforations in its side arranged at an even interval sitting behind the eye. The environment it is sitting in is very yellow and green in comparison. end id]

[id: an image of a lamprey from below. The snout ends in a round, flat mouth which is studded with teeth in four concentric circles. The teeth are smallest near the outer edge and largest in the middle, and look like very sharp round points. In the center of this ring is another, smaller circle, where the pointed, tooth-like tongue can be seen, as well as a hole for the lamprey to actually ingest food with. Its eye is visible, as are some of the perforations on its side. This one is a more mottled gray than the first one was, and less shiny. end id]

Sea lampreys, which are the kind i've sort of not really kinda researched, are a major pest in the Great Lakes, where they regularly attack fish. They can get up to two feet in length. Despite this, they are not particularly dangerous towards humans.

2. Horseshoe crabs are also "living fossils." They've been around and virtually unchanged for millions of years. They're not true crabs, and are more closely related to chelicerata species, like spiders and scorpions (and many more). There are a lot of cool features of horseshoe crabs, but one of their most extremely cool, to me, is their blood.

I'm not going to post any images of what I consider to be animal cruelty, so you'll have to take me at my word here, but this is a bottle of horseshoe crab blood. If you're sensitive to images of animal cruelty, I don't recommend looking for proof, but if you aren't, there are plenty of images of the blood coming out of the creature for you to verify this with.

E[id: a bottle of slightly frothy, opaque blue liquid. It is sitting in a row with several other bottles of the same material. end id]

I am a sucker for blue blood, I just think it's neat, so that's all I'd need as an excuse to slam some horseshoe-crab-inspired nonsense in my exceptionally gory and fucked up wips, and if you've been reading along with WiB you may have noticed that blue blood does come into play at some point! But that's not all that's neat about horseshoe crab blood. Unfortunately for the horseshoe crabs, but fortunately for us, their blood is literally the only source of an important compound used for detecting the presence of dangerous bacteria in certain pharmaceutical drugs. (Fortunately, there are replacements that will hopefully become more popular in coming years.)

Now that we've gone over all that, onto the worldbuilding!

I worldbuild by Rule of Cool. Let's just get that out of the way. Every so often people will ask me how my worlds get so expansive (not WiB, WiB i made up on the fly by cribbing from fanfic and like... BBC Merlin. Assume very little of this holds true for WiB) and the answer is largely that I take every interest I have ever had in anything and smash it all together and throw it at my wip to see what sticks. and then I just... like... reasonably attempt to figure out what the natural conclusions will be.

So: we have lampreys. We have blue-blooded ancient sea creatures with spectacularly important and valueable blood. We are writing this into a story that takes place on land, somehow.

- The first option, and the one I'm going to talk about most because I did it, is just to rule-of-cool it into a character. (Or a place, or an item, or whatever, but largely I do rule-of-cool on living creatures and think harder about the world around them.) If you've been keeping up with WiB, you may have noticed that (spoilers) Zero Point is some kind of fucked up magician with a lamprey mouth in their hand who shapeshifts and bleeds blue. This is where I got those inspirations from (along with, like, some other stuff. I promise there are no lamprey assassins, but- continuing in the trend of stealing from sea creatures- the bobbin worm is a spectacularly beautiful, spectacularly deadly creature if you're within its weight range. which is like, goldfish size, but. And cuttlefish are known to disguise themselves as other animals, and can change sexes if the male:female ratio where they are isn't ideal.)

So you can take the elements you like, and just kind of slam them together haphazardly, which is what I did with Zero Point. The trick to this kind of worldbuilding is just to avoid looking too closely at it. The magical assassin has a fucked up mouth in their hand? Yeah, okay, that seems kind of fucked up and creepy. What do they do at all times? They hide it under a glove. So the protags Just Straight Up Never Ask. And voila; it never gets explained, and it never has to.

Same with the blue blood. It shows up, it functions as a plot device because only Zero Point has blue blood; it is never explained or even delved into with much detail. And if it were, it would fall apart instantly, because the justification is literally just "i thought it was neat. No, no one else is like that. I don't even know why they are. i just felt like it"

- The second option is to consider the effects of the things that you're working with, and then work off of that.

Let's take Zero Point again. Strip them of their context (weird assassin with magical powers) and just like, consider the fact that this is a creature with blood that regularly retails for over $10,000 USD, is intelligent as fuck, shapeshifts, has a mouth in their hand that may or may not be their actual mouth, and can exist on land so long as they have suitable access to water. What does that mean for our setting? Surely they're not the only person like that; so you have a whole species of people who are sort of but not really amphibious, shapeshift, and maybe have magical powers, who knows. They can't shapeshift their fucked up lamprey mouths, maybe. That seems like a reasonable limit. So their blood is highly valuable- what does that mean for their relations with other people, or their culture? What kind of foods do they eat? How do they create a sense of culture as shapeshifters; is there even a way that they represent themselves in art? How do they interact with the world? Do they have a "true form" or not? Every one of these questions will spawn new questions. If you answer all of them you'll lose your mind, but if you answer at least ten you'll spawn a much more background-heavy world that can help to shape your story much more effectively than trying to just craft a narrative will. Sometimes it works very well for a story. Sometimes it gets you lost in the weeds.

- The third option is to reference something else, and build off that. Again, let's use Zero Point as the example.

In the original story that the WiB ensemble is from, Closerverse, which may have some mentions on this blog but honestly I have no idea, there is a city that I've done quite a bit of worldbuilding on. This city is called Hudson, and one of the major important features of it is that it is partially underground. (This is a reference to the DFZ of Rachel Aaron's Heartstrikers series). Hudson is intentionally run to be the worst, most unpleasant city in the world, and one of its features are its wildly intelligent, dangerous forms of aquatic life. The lowest level of this city is partially submerged, and all of these creatures plague the people who live down there.

Closerverse was also set during a period of early industrialization, and Hudson heavily referenced US history, especially 1900s-1920s labor history. Tenements, pollution, zero protections for workers, et cetera. Hudson is a nasty, miserable place, and everyone who lives there can feel the jaws closing in on them.

Anyway, in Closerverse you got these fucked up massive eel-like creatures (lampreys, but with extra features) that due to some rather significant meddling wound up growing legs and then got really massive and started eating people. They have blue blood, glow in the dark, and make fairly decent eating as long as they aren't eating you. And they're intelligent. Given the whole "mutual eating each other" thing, the eels and the people of Hudson have some pretty major animosity going on.

Most of Zero Point's stuff is really just me referencing the Hudson Eels, because I fucking love those. They're some of my favorite worldbuilding elements ever. But given that no one else in WiB has ever seen a Hudson Eel, let alone seen their blood get dry on things, or whatever, everything about Zero Point is wildly out of context. And that almost makes it better, because the whole deal with them is that they're mysterious and weird, and having them be a mysterious and weird reference to something no one but I know about most likely is like, fun and neat.

There are, of course, other modes of worldbuilding as well, but I typically aim to stick to the first two as much as possible. The cooler you make something, the more possible questions it raises; the more questions something raises, the deeper your world gets.

Although, a word of advice: sometimes animals just do things. Sometimes bodies just have features. Who would invent fingernails? But having them is mighty convenient, isn't it? For that matter, who would come up with a deeply logical and reasoned explanation for eyebrows- but not having those would be very strange, to us. You can get away with doing a lot by just having that be how it is, and not having the characters comment on it.

Also, the more "shaped" a thing should be, the more you'll want to take the second approach. For house design, something intentionally built, you'll want to know why it was built, and what purpose is this and that room, and why is it painted such and such colors. But if you're talking about adding a second moon, like... fuck dude, who needs to know why there's a second moon? Maybe if you have sailors you have to know what it'll do to your oceans, but that's the kind of thing you can kind of just say exists and move on. You'll figure it out; it gets pretty intuitive.

Anyway, happy worldbuilding!

#writing advice #long post #worldbuilding

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allurascastle · 7 years

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There isn't any shame in being upset about somebody who's harassing you. I'm sorry you're going through that. I hope everything works out with the restraining order, or that that guy just leaves you alone in general. Take care.

Aww, thank you! It makes me feel a little better for you to say it, I just…really hate having emotions and being effected by things. Boo.

Admittedly, I’m 60% sure most of my response to this is because this isn’t the typical kind of creeping. THAT I can deal with just fine. This is…wow. Just downright unsettling. (And the conversation we’d been having immediately before the one that sent me into fight or flight mode really just makes the whole thing worse.)

This dude, who I’ll from now on identify as Logan, was someone I first met in early May if I had to guess. It was before Ethan was sent to jail.

(Context of Ethan: he’s one of my two older brothers, who are twins. He is very much the problem child of our family, and is the one getting into legal trouble and drugs all the damn time, is abusive, self-centered, and delusional. Overall: awful person and has done enough shit to warrant me saying he deserves the life sentence he may very well be getting. Back to the story.)

I’m not sure why Logan was in the infant’s diaper aisle, he didn’t grab anything and just tried chatting with me, but he recognised me pretty much on sight (in retrospect, my name isn’t a very common one and we wear name badges, he could have pieced it together from that - and I say that because it was a little too fast for having been three years…or maybe not) as being Ethan’s sister. I say “tried chatting with me” because the second someone utters Ethan’s name, I’m all but gone. I hate him and want nothing to do with him and hia fucking friends need to leave me alone. (But I was at work, so I said “yes, now how may I help you?” and then left with “good night, I have work to do.”)

At the time, I assumed he was one of Ethan’s recent friends. He goes through them like toilet paper, as you’d expect from a serial abuser, and is really great at convincing him he’s great and swell. They never listen and frankly, 8 years of no one listening to you will just have you throwing your hands up in the air and saying “go get your fucking self esteem ruined away from me, idgaf.”

Now…Ethan has this habit of talking about us (the family) and showing off pictures (last I checked), so I chalked it up to that, fumed, angrily ranted with a friend and moved on.

Saw Logan a few other times. He asked me how Ethan was doing once and I angrily snapped “I don’t know, I don’t talk to him.” To which he responded: “that’s a shame, he’s a great guy.” I had no answer appropriate for my workplace so I just walked away from the fitting room with none of the items I intended to put away. I think I saw him one more time before this most recent* time, but I don’t remember any of it.

*the most recent time would be earlier today, 9/24, but I am actually referring to the incident, which happened around 8:10PM on 9/19.

So…the incident. It started off innocently enough - and at this point, I should mention I had bad vibes about this dude already, but brushed them off because he obviously wasn’t neurotypical (which made me disgusted with Ethan, but I wasn’t shocked), I’d guess on the autistic spectrum if I really had to: just the way he talked and seemed to process things.

But so, I figured it was good ol’ social ableism and told myself “you’re better than that” and was friendly with him bc a) it was my job, b) I had no reason to be rude but if he brought my brother the fuck up again I was GONE, okay, GONE. I ain’t here for that shit. I like my life drama-free. I should ALSO mention that thos whole time, spanning a few months, I didn’t know his name AND I was under the assumption he’s the one who turned Ethan into the troopers for the Rikki fiasco, and in my eyes, that was a bit of a redemption most Ethan’s friends would never get.

I really wish I’d just…listened to that bad vibe and gtfo of dodge. At first, he strolled up to Fitting Room while my coworker, an older gal named Sharon, with a cart of Halloween decorations and said he was just in the store buying some Halloween stuff and proceeded to tell Sharon about what he was going to be for Halloween, emphasising that it was the scariest thing he could imagine (turned out to be a “dark Flash” from Flash a few years ago. Idk bc I’m not really into superhero TV shows or movies. Doesn’t sound scary to me, but whatever. We all have different things that really spook us).

We somehow got onto the subject of a kidnapping that’d happened in the area, and from there some dude has apparently been reported watching female employees leaving at night from the parking lot (creepy, and I didn’t know that, but I also get picked up because I don’t have my licence yet). And from there, I mentioned some things to do in that sort of situation, and the conversation shifted towards the subject of kidnap AND rape (he mentioned that it happened to his friend’s niece when she was thirteen and that it broke his heart. This is the only thing that really sticks out from this part of the conversation and for a reason).

Sharon leaves, and Logan starts talking about his relationship woes and saying how when he’s around girls he likes, he gets flustered and starts pouring his heart out - and mentions a specific time he did this with a long time female friend of his and he starts bemoaning about how the friendship they’d had for so long was just gone. (I politely asked him if she had reacted cruelty, because - and I SAID this - there was no reason for the friendship to be gone since she didn’t reciprocate, after all she wasn’t obligated to. He said that she was but…the way he said it sounded Bad.) And then onto cheating (I told him no one deserved to be cheated on while trying to edge away, because dudes getting onto the friendzone is a huge red flag, and then going onto cheating? B y e) and he mentions he caught his recent* fiance cheating on him (and specified that he caught her walking up to some dude. Er…I hoped I was just missing some context from that, but I’m not giving the benefit of the doubt on it).

And then. AND THEN he says this: “You know, I was really into you a few years ago, but your brother said not to try because of the age gap.”

My alarm bells were already going off, but my blood went cold as ICE at this.

I’m eighteen, a few years ago I was fifteen. I hadn’t EVER met this dude, and I commit all of Ethan’s friends to memory so I can avoid them. Also, nice hypocrisy, Ethan (Rikki is either 14 or 15 right now. He’s in jail for dating and fucking her).

Let me emphasise I THOUGHT THIS WAS A RECENT FRIEND OF ETHAN’S WHO HAD SEEN A RECENT PICTURE OF ME AND RECENTLY BEEN TOLD ABOUT ME

Now, back in 2014 before Ethan moved to Anchorage, he did not live with me and my parents, and we were living in one of my dad’s friend’s cabin. He lived with my grandmother a decent way away, and were were pretty fucking livid with both of them. So he only got to come over to see his kids when we had them, bc their mother had a restraining order, but even that didn’t last bc - well, he was abusive and homophobic and screamed at my TODDLER NEPHEW that he would not have a gay son…when all he did was put on a straw hat to get giggles like his sister.

So yes, I have never met this dude. I didn’t even know his name until he mentioned going to grade or middle school with my sister in law (I…am not sure how he knew my other brother was married, that happened THIS year) and her brother, who he called by…well, I’ve only ever hear this brother called “RJ”. I was a little shocked and mentioned it, and he mentioned his name and how he wasn’t called by it much anymore either. I completely forgot this until I was in the car on the verge of crying again to Susanne.

“You know, I was really into you a few years ago, but your brother said not to try because of the age gap.”

Like. I’m going into panic mode as everything I’d thought is being challenged. (I vaguely recall in our conversation with Sharon, him mentioning how much he hates pedophiles and me asking if he was the one who called the troopers on Ethan than, and even after a short summary he maintained he wouldn’t “do that” to Ethan… Also at some point we established he was terrified of my parents, and after that night he has a very good reason to be.)

I don’t remember what I said. I just remember trying to leave again but a customer came by and I had to let them in the rooms because I had the keys, and policy states I can’t leave with people in the room, and Sharon has the radio with management on it.

He then asks me, while I am effectively trapped there, if I believe in fate. “No.” I said as curtly as possible.

“Well I do, especially when it comes to love.” I LEGIT WANTED TO FUCKING DIE. I WAS CRINGING SO HARD. He went on to say something about how love’ll happen of it’s meant to and…

The customer left and I told him I had to go do my job and took off weaving through apparel.

I think I saw him head towars Halloween (the front of the store, where he presumably got the shit in his cart; what brought him over in the forst place was apparently a discarded shit and it drives him nuts whem those get left around by other customers). I didn’t have a radio to find out where a manager was, but I booked it to Customer Service to hunt a CSM down.

I told her, came up with a code (code alex) if I ever needed to be saved from a similar situation. Not even an hour later I was still so nerve-wracked and only getting more anxious as I was there until 10 but Sharon was leaving at 9, that I went and talked to an ASM. Or tried. I staryed crying on the phone with her so she sent me on a break, and I started to break down again talking in the office. She sent me home early at 9:20 PM and told me to contact management if the dude showed up again.

My sis talked to her on Thursday about the guy, since she knew his name, but I don’t remember what Susanne said was the outcome bc I didn’t work Thursday and The ASM wasn’t there today. (I did have to tell another ASM who had me call the police, who recommended me to go get a stalking order after he stopped being stupid.)

Another ASM heard while he was back there and offered to walk me to my car, and hung around for a little bit when I told him I was being picked up. I know he told my sis he’d walk me to my car of I ever needed or wanted someone to, so that was a relief.

TODAY I saw him briefly right after I clocked in and was on the salesfloor talking with my coworker E. He tried talking to me but fight or flight kicked in and I noped all the fuck the way to Mark, who had the radio, and then hunted Jaime down with E walking with me.

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