lilietsblog reblogged
Ship trope I'd love to see more of: "Are we in love? I mean, yeah, probably, but that's a problem for future us. Right now we're just trying to make it through the Plot."
lilietsblog reblogged
My biggest tip for fanfic writers is this: if you get a character's mannerisms and speech pattern down, you can make them do pretty much whatever you want and it'll feel in character.
Logic: Characters, just like real people, are mallable. There is typically very little that's so truly, heinously out of character that you absolutely cannot make it work under any circumstance. In addition, most fans are also willing to accept characterization stretches if it makes the fic work. Yeah, we all know the villain and the hero wouldn't cuddle for warmth in canon. But if they did do that, how would they do it?
What counts is often not so much 'would the character do this?' and more 'if the character did do this, how would they do it?' If you get 'how' part right, your readers will probably be willing to buy the rest, because it will still feel like their favourite character. But if it doesn't feel like the character anymore, why are they even reading the fic?
Worry less about whether a character would do something, and more about how they'd sound while doing it.
lilietsblog reblogged
The SS Warrimoo, a passenger steamship traveling from Vancouver to Australia, was silently knifing its way across the mid-Pacific waters. The navigator had just finished calculating a star fix and handed the results to Captain John DS. Phillips.
The Warrimoo's coordinates were LAT 0º 31' N, LONG 179 30' W. The date was December 31, 1899. "Know what this means?" First Mate Payton announced, "We're only a few miles from the intersection of the Equator and the International Date Line."
Captain Phillips was prankish enough to seize the opportunity to do the nautical feat of a lifetime. He summoned his navigators to the bridge to double-check the ship's position. He altered his course slightly to focus directly on his target. He then altered the engine's speed.
The calm weather and clear night worked to his advantage. At midnight, the SS Warrimoo rested on the Equator, exactly where it had crossed the International Date Line. The ramifications of this odd arrangement were numerous.
The ship's bow was in the Southern Hemisphere, in the middle of summer. The stern was in the Northern Hemisphere, in the midst of winter. The date on the aft portion of the ship was December 31, 1899. The date on the forward half of the ship was January 1, 1900. The ship experienced multiple days, months, years, seasons, and centuries simultaneously.
lilietsblog reblogged
I'm a big fan of wizards-as-programmers, but I think it's so much better when you lean into programming tropes.
- A spell the wizard uses to light the group's campfire has an error somewhere in its depths, and sometimes it doesn't work at all. The wizard spends a lot of his time trying to track down the exact conditions that cause the failure.
- The wizard is attempting to create a new spell that marries two older spells together, but while they were both written within the context of Zephyrus the Starweaver's foundational work, they each used a slightly different version, and untangling the collisions make a short project take months of work.
- The wizard has grown too comfortable reusing old spells, and in particular, his teleportation spell keeps finding its components rearranged and remixed, its parts copied into a dozen different places in the spellbook. This is overall not actually a problem per se, but the party's rogue grows a bit concerned when the wizard's "drying spell" seems to just be a special case of teleportation where you teleport five feet to the left and leave the wetness behind.
- A wizard is constantly fiddling with his spells, making minor tweaks and changes, getting them easier to cast, with better effects, adding bells and whistles. The "shelter for the night" spell includes a tea kettle that brings itself to a boil at dawn, which the wizard is inordinately pleased with. He reports on efficiency improvements to the indifference of anyone listening.
- A different wizard immediately forgets all details of his spells after he's written them. He could not begin to tell you how any of it works, at least not without sitting down for a few hours or days to figure out how he set things up. The point is that it works, and once it does, the wizard can safely stop thinking about it.
- Wizards enjoy each other's company, but you must be circumspect about spellwork. Having another wizard look through your spellbook makes you aware of every minor flaw, and you might not be able to answer questions about why a spell was written in a certain way, if you remember at all.
- Wizards all have their own preferences as far as which scripts they write in, the formatting of their spellbook, its dimensions and material quality, and of course which famous wizards they've taken the most foundational knowledge from. The enlightened view is that all approaches have their strengths and weaknesses, but this has never stopped anyone from getting into a protracted argument.
- Sometimes a wizard will sit down with an ancient tome attempting to find answers to a complicated problem, and finally find someone from across time who was trying to do the same thing, only for the final note to be "nevermind, fixed it".
lilietsblog reblogged
Inadvisable tabletop RPG premise #137: fantasy adventure game where each player character is the Chosen One of a different world-ending prophecy; while the game is cooperative at the PC level, it's competitive at the player level, with each player employing various meta bullshit devices to ensure that their apocalypse is the one that comes to pass and their Special Little Guy gets to be the protagonist of history.
#tabletop#Reblog#YES#i can imagine the mechanics for this#Flags and anti-flags (resolutions that neutralize previous flags)#Keyword flags and overlapping keywords for different apocalypses#The game has two objectives: stop WHATEVER is going on and make sure its the your one#Maybe with lesser prizes / subvictories that only count if you achieve the first goal#To disincentivize players from going “if i dont win everyone loses” and sabotaging the whole effort#Some people will do that anyway but thats just interpersonal#The structure of the game itself must reward being the last place winner#Maybe in addition to trying to push your plot you're also pushing your character through a character arc#Furious elbow shoving but still doing your best to act in concert#I want to play this#And you definitely get mechanical secrets from other players#Like have your target keywords be secret?#And everyone is bluffing the hell out of it trying to pretend their target keywords are different#A range of playstyles between relaxed 'all cards on the table' and#the viciously competitive mindgames#Alliances! Betrayals! Players who are just here to have a good time and save the world!#The ultracasual “we just compare our cards at the start and decide whose we like better then just normally cooperate towards that goal”#There are definitely cards btw#You draw keyword cards at the start (probably with many variant rules as to how many)#And then come up with a description of what they actually combine into#Or maybe theres a table of all possible combinations and what they mean#The second one sounds like it would make actual play easier#So probably that#Why not just draw the scenario card with keywords on it?#Because you can let players discard keywords and have a limited choice over what they get
lilietsblog reblogged
captainsnoop-deactivated2020041
i was playing pokemon blue on stream earlier at 350% speed and i got to thinking
what if the reason nobody in the pokemon world has any good teams is because its considered a dick move to have a proper team comp
like culturally everyone is like “haha pick the pokemon you want! if you’re happy with three geodudes, thats you and your life!” and then you’re supposed to just have a friendly battle with any other pokemon trainers and whatever pokemon they just happen to have
like the average trainer is probably just walking around with a growlithe because that’s their pet, or a hiker has three geodudes because the geodudes help him with hiking. and if this pet owner and geodude hiker meet, you’re supposed to have a friendly battle but nothing too serious
now imagine the 10 year old kid that has six pokeballs on their belt comes up. you’re like “haha, we’ll have a friendly battle!” and you throw out your geodude
and they throw out a fucking gyarados, and it one-shots your geodude
and then you throw out your pidgey you have because the pidgey helps you navigate mountains because you’re a hiker
and then electricity crackles around the gyarados and a thunderbolt flies off of this giant dragon and evaporates your pidgey
so you’re down to your last pokemon. you tell them you’re gonna send out your bulbasaur. the ten year old is like “oh okay in that case i’m gonna pull out my vulpix.” like not only is this kid walking around with an amped-up super dragon, but theyve also got multiple pokemon specifically for making type advantage counter-picks?
this kid’s a fucking asshole! really, kid? what are you trying to prove here? this is a friendly match between strangers for fun! why are you composing real-ass competitive teams? what a fucker!
i mean if you look at how npc’s talk about their pokemon, they’re service animals mostly. some of them are just pets. apparently they really enjoy sparring, so you let them battle other people’s pokemon for socialization, it’s like going to the dog park.
hell yes i’d be mad if i took my chronic pain support chow-chow to the dog park and some asshole with four rottweilers and a husky was like SIC EM THUNDERNUTS even if my dog enjoyed the tussle at first.
look, kid, the paras helps me weed the garden. it’s not a special forces attack paras. it’s just a bug that eats dandelions. please calm down.
maxiesatanofficial
This is precisely why Cooltrainers are exiled to the mountains
It’s not the trainers’ fault, they’re going about their god damned business trying to get badges and go to the Pokemon League and stop legendary Pokemon from fucking shit up and save the world, but they’ve got fuckin’ Hiker Willy stopping them on the path and running over here like;
“PLEASE WILL YOU STOMP MY TWO GEODUDE INTO THE EARTH!”
Like, fuck off, if Willy didn’t want my Swampert to one-shot his hiker helpers then he shouldn’t be trying to harass unaccompanied 10-year-olds halfway up a mountain. I mean, at some point, ya gotta know what a trainer looks like, and the majority of them are little tweens running around by themselves. These are little twerps trying to go up against the Elite Four, they’re not messing around.
Hiker Willy is asking for it. He’s asking me to kill his Pokemon.
The notes on this post are an absolute joy.
This is more of a martial arts thing but here at least if you show up at a new gym and annihilate every partner you spar with, either nobody will spar with you anymore, or one of the strongest fighters at the gym will wipe the floor with you to take your ego down a notch, and I feel like that’d transfer over fairly well culturally
Like yeah it’s all fun and games dropkicking noobs and exchamging nothing until Brianna, 36 year old brown belt in the women’s 180lb division, makes you eat your own elbows
is that why, once you beat a Gym Leader, you’re done with the whole Gym
lilietsblog reblogged
#reblog#yes#i grew up with a bookcase full of kids' books and a remarkable number of them were by astrid lindgren#it actually took me a while to put it together#they werent even from the same publisher i dont think#the biggest one was the yellow book#it had mio the lionheart brothers and ronia#it was one of my favorites
lilietsblog reblogged
Free worldbuilding idea:
Wizards have the same trust in magic that software designers have in software, which is to say, almost none at all.
“Are you fucking kidding me I worked in a reagrent shop for a few years I don’t trust any of that stuff. Who the hell knows what other components are in the ashes.”
“Yeah I was in the circle that made Alston’s Divine Circle of Teleportation. There’s some pretty nasty corner cases you can get into but the headmaster published it without us. I just take ships. It’s way safer.”
“I call bullshit on that Necromancer channeling spirits of loved ones. What did he say he was using? ‘Medium Conduit Ruinic Circles’? That’s just a bunch of buzzwords slapped together, and they don’t even interact with each other.”
“I’ve been looking at this scroll all morning and I’m 90% sure that the scribe didn’t even look at the standard for pyromancies.”
“Help Desk, this is Gloriline, what did you fuck up this time?” *indistinct vocals* “Dave, I’ve seen the news, and, frankly, I can see the ash cloud from here. You paid for extended support, not enabling support.”
purewriting
“I can’t get this fucking spell to work, Jane, can you look it?”
*passes a scroll* *a few moments of silence*
“I think you missed a bookend rune right here-”
“GODS DAMN IT! IT’S ALWAYS SHIT LIKE THAT! THANK YOU!” *angrily scribbles on parchment*
(It takes five more aggravatingly tiny adjustments before the spell works)
I don’t play wizards anymore because they’re too much like my day job.
Instead of a orb the wizard has a little statue of a duck he tells his spells to and then swears when he spots the obvious mistake.
beachfox
You beat me to it! I was going to add that the reason why wizards and witches always have familiars around is so they can Rubber Duck at them until they realize what the mistake with their spell is!
Outsiders get it wrong and figure the familiars are somehow teaching spells to their owners, but no. It’s just explaining to Firewing what you’re trying to do with this teleportation matrix until you realize that you’ve been using telepathy crystals to power it the whole time like a FUCKING IDIOT!
Programming is magic (derogatory) so why shouldn’t magic also be programming (derogatory)?
lilietsblog reblogged
I was gonna say “what you think he had insurance???” but 1) at least in the early aughts to mid-teens, NY was one of the less excruciating states to get medicaid in, and 2) he was a minor and it’s a LOT easier to get medicaid for a minor, especially when said minor’s legal guardians are retirees on fixed incomes I’d wager.
So yeah they’re all just fuckin dumbasses! I love them.
This is why I think it would be peak comedy for the radioactive spider to be of a non-venomous species and for there to be a scene of a new Peter Parker/Spiderperson looking up the spider’s features or posting a photo to an identification subbredit before being informed of the fact that nothing will happen
entemologist reddit: oh yeah, that one’s venom isn’t strong enough to cause anything other than a bit of localized pain at the bite site, no worries.
Peter Parker the next morning, stuck to his ceiling: Well someone fucking LIED!!!!
Peter Parker typing out an angry internet rant to send back to the entomologist about “this is fucking bullshit I feel like ass I walked into six walls and I’m sweating fucking GLUE”
People keep asking him for updates and he does two more before deciding to become a superhero and deleting his reddit account
Six weeks later someone else posts about how “so that one spider bite guy. The one who kept. Sticking to walls. And this, uh. New hero guy. Climbing walls. Spiderman. Connected?”
lilietsblog reblogged
Anonymous asked:
Would you want to be immortal if you had to be chronically ill?
lilietsblog reblogged
My autistic brother created a new family Christmas tradition
Okay, so last year, my mom bought this Christmas moose that she lovingly named Barry
This is him
Cute, right?
Well, for whatever reason only known to my brother, he decided that he wanted to put Barry in different rooms of our house and it usually scares the shit out of whomever happens upon Barry; usually the person who finds him is the person that my brother wanted to scare.
So far, Barry has been found
On our dining room table
On my dad's side of my parents' bed
In my parents' closet
Outside their bedroom door (at 5 in the morning and scared my mother shitless)
Near the kitchen door
Near my fucking bed
At the bottom of my sister's stairwell
In our bathroom
And down the hallway
This has gone on for 9 days and it doesn't seem to show signs of stopping. Most of the time we know who gets Barry because it's always followed with a very loud "FUCKING BARRY!!!!!"
My brother is the funniest fucking person I know.
Update:
He found his way into my sister's room.
And my brother is cackling maniacally downstairs.
Holy fuck this doll is creepy
Another update:
The soft glow of the Christmas tree seems to quell his bloodlust
vote to replace the evil surveillance Elf on the Shelf with Barry the Chrismoose
Broke: Elf on the Shelf Woke: Moose on the Loose
lilietsblog reblogged
the-suckiest-sburb-of-all
Ever wanted to meet your younger self?
lilietsblog reblogged
What I’d give for one of the Cinderella remakes to go into how when you’re in an isolated and abusive situation, sometimes you need to be saved and you’re not weak if you can’t escape by yourself
I’ve never been a fan of bad faith reinterpretations of fairy tales, especially ones which flatten the originals into “princesses is saved by a prince and nothing else”, to then go #girlboss. The princess can save herself because she’s a strong female character! (Implying if you’re in a bad situation, it’s because you’re not strong enough to get out)
Also the concept of the Prince over the course of like… a couple hours hanging out with Cinderella going from ‘Haha nice I really like you’ to ‘oh fuck i can tell from context clues alone that your home situation is FUCKED UP’ it’s good shit ‘I have just met you but ON GOD I’m gonna get you out of there beautiful mystery woman’ cinderella makes desperately yelling into the night ‘how can I find you again!??!’ when she’s taking off that much more poignant really
He’s been trained to read the room. To read the context clues. To read politics and scheming and planning and people. He’s a Prince, it’s either that or accidentally drink poison by age 15. And he reads her and …
She’s impossibly wealthy. The dress isn’t a fabric he can recognize, but it’s beaded with cut diamonds, faintly milky opals that shimmer with a rainbow, little pale aquamarines, and somewhere are little bells gently ringing with each step - he’s a Prince and he can’t afford to dress like that. The slippers ring too … there is nothing like that crafted by the hands of humans. That’s fairy stuff. She has an in with them that eclipses royal politics. She is powerful in the Old Ways.
All this wraps around the poorest woman he’s ever seen in his entire life, and he’s seen some very, very, poor people in his time.
Poor in money, but poor in “oh you poor thing!” as well. This is someone who has been robbed blind. This is someone who carried themselves waiting for the lash, for a browbeating, for harsh, cruel, abrupt, punishment.
He expects her to be haughty, or hard, or meek or… something else… but she’s just nice. She’s just … nice.
The rigid posture comes out of his back, his tongue unsticks. She’s like sitting by the embers of a low, calm, fire. He feels warmed and rested simply speaking to her. He wonders if it’s magic, and it might be, but if it is it is magic that is her own.
And that terrifies him, because he’s trained to see these things and he knows someone with a cruel hand is waiting to douse her, and snuff her, and beat the last glimmer out of her shining eyes - eyes that put that dress to shame and and and and… she’s gone.
Oh god, she’s gone. It will be all over her sweet, kind, warm face that she transgressed and … oh god they’ll kill her, whoever they are. This will embarrass them and if there’s anything he knows, it’s that you don’t humiliate someone who has power over you and walk away unscathed.
And all he has is a fairy slipper that will only ever fit her foot (it’s not merely shoe size, it’s a kind of spiritual fit as well), and the vain hope that he can keep such a bright light from burning out. It doesn’t even touch his heart that what he’s feeling is a kind of pure philia, not until it enraptures him soul to bones, all at once. Oh god, oh no, oh shit… he’s reached well above his station, but…he can try to be good and worthy.
The way he sees it, sometimes even the strongest people can be brought low and need just… a little help. She had enough in her to do whatever she had to do to free herself of those evil relations if she had to, but she shouldn’t have to. There’s no glory in blood. Sometimes it’s okay for the ending to be happily ever after.
#reblog#cinderella#tumblr stories#YES#i like this one#consider also: he doesnt quite understand#he can tell Something is off#he can see a mismatch#hes worried about her but he doesnt quite know what hes worried about#he doesnt know what might happen to her#he has never seen anything like it with his own two eyes#it didnt happen to him or in front of him#he has never heard it said in clear words#hes just getting Anxiety from the way she holds herself#its Wrong#shes Scared#he doesnt know of what#he just knows he is scared too#and he knows he will keep being scared until he finds her again#he doesnt want to live in a world where scary things happen and he cant do anything about them#hes the prince#hes supposed to have power isnt he?
lilietsblog reblogged
I personally headcanon that the reason that the townsfolk all unquestioningly accept the farmer despite them being the weirdest person (?) alive is that they've all lived in the same tiny, rural, seemingly isolated town for most of their lives and have no real experience with someone from outside it. They probably just accept that that's just how cityfolk are, and it would be rude to question it. Like yeah, they sometimes barge into their bedrooms wearing a trashcan lid as a hat, present them with their favorite meal, and then fuck off to fish until they pass out at two in the morning, and routinely take one-way trips to Calico Desert with no way to get back, only to be spotted heading into the mines early the next morning, but they're from Zuzu city. Besides, that meal they pulled out of their backpack was pretty damn good
lilietsblog reblogged
do you guys remember the lilo and stitch tv show. they find these weird creatures causing problems and then they figure out how their weird specific abilities make them really helpful for one particular task. i need some organization to lilo and stitch me. was the show INTENDED as a fantasy for weird lonely children? i guess lilo herself is also a fantasy for weird lonely children.