Hey btw, if you’re doing worldbuilding on something, and you’re scared of writing ~unrealistic~ things into it out of fear that it’ll sound lazy and ripped-out-of-your-ass, but you also don’t want to do all the back-breaking research on coming up with depressingly boring, but practical and ~realistic~ solutions, have a rule:
Just give the thing two layers of explanation. One to explain the specific problem, and another one explaining the explanation. Have an example:
Plot hole 1: If the vampires can’t stand daylight, why couldn’t they just move around underground?
Solution 1: They can’t go underground, the sewer system of the city is full of giant alligators who would eat them.
Well, that’s a very quick and simple explanation, which sure opens up additional questions.
Plot hole 2: How and why the fuck are there alligators in the sewers? How do they survive, what do they eat down there when there’s no vampires?
Solution 2: The nuns of the Underground Monastery feed and take care of them as a part of their sacred duties.
It takes exactly two layers to create an illusion that every question has an answer - that it’s just turtles all the way down. And if you’re lucky, you might even find that the second question’s answer loops right back into the first one, filling up the plot hole entirely:
Plot hole 3: Who the fuck are the sewer nuns and what’s their point and purpose?
Solution 3: The sewer nuns live underground in order to feed the alligators, in order to make sure that the vampires don’t try to move around via the sewer system.
When you’re just making things up, you don’t need to have an answer for everything- just two layers is enough to create the illusion of infinite depth. Answer the question that looms behind the answer of the first question, and a normal reader won’t bother to dig around for a 3rd question.
This is good advice on worldbuilding.
Andalso.
I would really like to play a vampire-hunting sewer-nun and her pet alligator in a ttrpg.
“They have taken you from the Imperial City’s prison, first by carriage and now by boat, to the east to Morrowind. Fear not, for I am watchful. You have been chosen.”
A personal piece dedicated to my Nerevarine, Sedris Ilneleth.
good evening may i interest you @mistermundy in some ariquars tonite…………………..
Rbing this to my tes specific blog but OH MY GOD?? This is INCREDIBLE how do you do this– seriously, I’m like!!!! Yelling!!! This is so so good oh my god
i hate how my art style always deforms characters’ actual facial features but i refuse to abandon it i hope i did not make him too ugly or forgot anything
also my first time drawing a beard of such shape
my own elven cretin who was also married off to Teldryn Sero tm will come next i hope
Oh my god!! This is so pretty, I love love love your colors, they’re so warm!! And Ari looks wonderful in your style!!
Seriously I’m like, in love with the colors you used, this looks so soft and warm
“If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger.”
like, almost ten years ago I saw an original stage adaption* of the novel that was so good I stillthink about it, so in honor of all the dracula posting going on: the scene from the play that fundamentally changed something in me at age 17.
*it was created to compete in a regional theater competition so alas, it mostly exists in the memory of those who got to see it that year and also in the handful of photos I have from that production on an old flash drive
