Worldbuilding In Five Tag Game

Worldbuilding in Five Tag Game

Another super belated thanks to @athenswrites for the tag! I LOVE worldbuilding and talking about my worldbuilding, so this is perfect lmao. For this one I'll be using my WIP, Crown of Blood. It's the only one I have decent inspo pics for. None of the images are mine! I found them on Pinterest!

"Rules: post 3-5 images of a place in your world and tell us a bit about it."

Castle Pieris

(Name is a placeholder.) Technically belonging to the king, it's the current permanent resident of Princess Adrasteia, as a gift for her birthday. As King Silas III has yet to bequeath a castle unto the rest of his children, it's largely accepted as a blatant act of favoritism. Previously the stronghold belonging to a warlord of Sylvatica (a nation-state-turned-province after being conquered some decades back), it served as a holiday villa for several generations of Adecian royal families).

As such, there are centuries' worth of wards, traps, and other tricks (both magical and mechanical) built, powered, and neglected by both Sylvatican and Adecian residents. Magic is etched into each beam and brick.

Pomari Town

One of the closest and most prosperous towns near the Palace. A bustling place that still manages to feel small, despite being so full of life. Lilia (the protagonist of the original story) and her mother live on the outskirts.

Pomari specializes in small magic craft productions (such as potions and talismans), as well as fashion. There are plenty of guilds in the area. The residents are primarily merchant class, with the occasional lower-end nobles occasionally residing there during the on-seasons in secondary town homes. The peasants that live there are usually employed as commute cleaners and servants, with properties closer to the edge of Pomari. (I'm not the best at economics so I'm definitely going to be workshopping this more at a later date).

I hope this was interesting, lol. (Gently) Tagging: @amaiguri, @mysticstarlightduck, @the-down-upside-finch, @cypriathus and anyone else who wants in!

OC vs Cockroach

@the-down-upside-finch tagged me in this and I'm gonna tag @anyablackwood @thetruearchmagos @indecentpause @druidx and whoever else wants to play (no pressure)

Rules: Rate your OCs on how well they’d fare against a cockroach

(For this one, we're gonna get a main character from each of my WIPS >:) because i love y'all and you deserve it)

Piers: 8/10 They'll jump and maybe screech from being startled, especially if it's close by, but they can squash it and clean it up after a bit

Brigid: 0/10 They do not do bugs. Like, at all. Melody will have to come evict it from their dorm room. Alternatively, they'll panic and try to set it on fire and likely scorch a couple other things in the process.

Izumi: 2/10 oh god the way they move Izumi will scream and will make Lapis or Andy come kill it. If she's left to her own devices, there's a 50/50 chance she'll either smash it with her shoe or just cry until it goes away. She's forgetful enough though that she will forget it existed though after a few hours...

Garlan: 10/10 This woman will pick that bug up barehanded and toss it out the window. Her office is covered in papers and stray offerings so roaches (or equivalent in her world) are pretty common

Bithos: 9/10 Smash that fucker, no hesitation, but he might get a little grossed out trying to clean it up.

Cassander: 2/10 No thank you. He will actively call Felix, who is on a mission, to come get it. If it disappears, he will burn the entire house down rather than it come back. (He's not scared of them, but he finds them weird and unnerving).

Alyx: 5/10 Might have a hard time finding the roach (blind) and will absolutely panic if he loses it. If she does find it, she can kill it and toss it without a problem.

Jesse: -10/10 Screaming crying, Lucio has to come get it before he has a mental breakdown (again)

Carter: 10/10 Easy peasy, will pick the bug up and gently place it outside, much to the horror of his husband who is terrified of roaches

Hank: 7/10 Despite being a farming man, he does NOT like how they move. He can get it killed (eventually) but it might take him a minute or to to get the guts to kill it.

LeBlanc: -1000000/10 He opened a package of wafers once and there was one inside the box that fell on him and the poor man has never been the same. He will scream like a little girl and someone else (Micah) will have to come kill it. If it somehow goes missing, he will never step foot in that room again unless it is killed.

Alba Grey: 5/10 Depends. If she's trying to impress Mavi and/or Tabs, she can do it easy peasy, but if she's alone? She might have a slight crying session and have to summon all of her courage to smack it with her shoe. (Don't let the badass exterior fool you)

Karson: ???/10 Isn't bothered by bugs in his space. The only reason he'll even deal with it is if August sees it and gets scared.

Cal: 0/10 NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE this boy does not do bugs (although there is a chance he'll think it's a hallucination instead and just ignore it in hopes it'll go away....)

Eddie: 10/10 This man can deal with bugs so easily. Smashed and cleaned up before anyone (his daughter) notices

Last Line Tag

Belated thanks to @paintedbutton for the tag!!! Digging through my notifs, realized I haven't done this one yet! This is from the Traveling Bards (working title). The last few lines are pretty short actually, so I've combined three for a decent length.

"He was cute. Very cute. Which made her immediately suspicious."

Word count: 10

(Gently) tagging: @amaiguri, @fayeiswriting, @theunboundwriter, @da-na-hae, @cypriathus, @athenswrites, @anoelleart, @nemaliwrites, @justnerdy15, @the-down-upside-finch

reblog only if you’ve received less than 1000 boops! we can all get each other to “max”

Smash or Pass: OC edition

@garthcelyn tagged me in this a few days ago and I have the perfect character to throw at y'all. I'm going to tag @thetruearchmagos @rainbow-colored-writer @anyablackwood @sunset-a-story @heartofnovel and whoever else wants to play!

Rules: pretty self explanatory. include physical descriptions or pics, and propaganda. the “other” label can be used for “sexuality misalignment” (ie: oc is femme and you’re gay, vice versa or you aren’t into smashing but a specific thing you wanna do with them like perhaps hug or study them under a microscope idc)

The one, the only, Darcey Olson!

uses he/him pronouns (cismale) and usually presents pretty masculine

Gay, but has been known to be flexible in the past with his partners

former Navy, didn't last long because he couldn't follow instructions

Very sweet and quiet nowadays, but has a past history of being an utter asshole and causing murder

Youngest sibling

natural ginger (ew) (a/n I am a natural ginger)

Decides not to wear his hearing aid (only on one side) 75% of the time so you may have to repeat yourself 2-3 times

Big man, soft and good for cuddles

Loves cooking; you will be eating good

Has a pet snake who he treats better and babies more than he would his own hypothetical child

Mommy and daddy issues

Slight obsession with explosives and sometimes designs bombs in his free time

Also a slight obsession with architecture

do you see why this might be a problem.

In honor of Worldbuilding Wednesday... How do you present your worldbuilding to your audience without overwhelming or boring them? What techniques do you use?

Thanks for the ask! To be honest, it's not really a hard and fast rule that I work with. It's sorta just a vibe? But essentially "explain as I go". I don't reveal anything that isn't relevant until it is. For example, if the story is about a trek in a fantasy land, I don't need to mention the currency/bartering system until they're actively making purchases or bartering. And even so, I try to refrain from full-on explanations.

So instead of a scene like:

She pulled out a dalc- a round gold coin about 10 centimeters in radius with the previous queen's face stamped into it- and made the purchase. A dalc was the highest form of physical currency in their country, and the previous queen, Queen Annie XIII, was so renowned for her economic advancements that she'd usurped King John IV for the honor of her face on the coin. Cassie won this coin by yada yada yada

I'd instead do something more like:

She presented him with a round gold coin. "Would a dalc suffice, or is that still not enough for His Royal Stingy-ness?" It'd better fucking suffice. She doubted even Jack had a dalc to spare.

And just leave it at that. Frankly, none of the other bits of information means shit to a reader, at least not in that moment. So if it REALLY becomes important at some point, I'll just wait until that point to explain the rest of it. It helps to keep in mind that, while this is a book, and the reader is new to the world, no one else in the story is (unless you made a character just for that). While you still need to explain things to the reader, it's just as jarring for them if the characters act as if they're in an educational show for elementary school students.

If you made a character just for this express purpose of having someone else who also needs the world explained to them, I think a good measure to keep in mind is the kinds of questions you (or someone you know whose personality is similar to your character) would actually ask in this situation. Would someone drop-kicked into fae-land ACTUALLY give a shit about whose face is on that coin? Would they care enough to ask? Would it ever actually occur to them to ask how their irrigation system works, or how the monarchy was established, while they're on a cross-country journey to save the princess?

Yeah so that's it, lol. Long-winded, but the TLDR is "context only as context is needed." Thanks again for the ask!