The worst part about writing fantasy is being keenly aware that you’re writing fantasy, which means that you always have to straddle a thin three-way line between anachronism, cliche, and clunk.

Take money, for example. You can’t just have people in a fictional fantasy world walk around using Euros. You consider something generic, like ‘silver coins,’ but before you know it your world starts sounding like a shitty ren faire.

So you think about the world you’ve built and its needs and its history to come up with some unique and relevant terms. But if your terms are too unique and relevant you wind up writing “yarr, you’ll be ransomed for a hundred Trade League Silver Gyrblonks” and realize your worldbuilding is now getting in the way of basic readability.

The beast looks in horror as it sees the weight of its sins

I'm not phone addicted. I'm friend addicted. It's not my fault that for some cruel and senseless reason my friends live in my phone

hey it’s ok if you lost your ai virginity back when you were uneducated. a lot of posts go like “reblog if you have never ever used generative ai and never ever will!!!” but it’s ok if you have used gen ai before and it’s even ok if you used to think it was cool, back before you understood what it really was and how it worked, either because no one had taught you about it and you discovered it on your own or because the only education you had received about it was from the tech bros. you’re not a burger with a bite out of it for having used ai. ok

hey
dont cry
Autism Creature speculative biology

Tiktok post by @ erik_cavanaugh (he/him).

I live by the motto, “if you can’t buy what you want, make it.” And this motto came to life recently in the form of a floral mosaic dining table for my back deck.

Our deck table had been showing its age already when the wind caught the umbrella and cracked it. I wanted to replace it with a mosaic table because I’d been enjoying that art form recently. But I couldn’t get one the size I wanted so I got creative.

I spent a few weeks looking for tile and figuring out a very loose design concept. I started by picking a limited set of tile shapes and a color palette.

Once the tiles arrived I had a piece of particle board cut to size for the base and I experimented with different motifs until I settled on a selection of floral shapes that gave me plenty of variety to fill space without locking me into one repeating pattern.

And then I was off! I basically doodled my way around the table, attaching tiles with Weld Bond (I went through 4 full bottles!) and rocking out to the K-Pop Demon Hunters soundtrack.

Once the florals were done it was time for the background…

Over 3,800 1cm glass tiles make up the not-design part of the design. It went pretty quickly though because I just had to fill the space, leaving room for grout.

Once I had the tile done, my husband assisted with disassembly and reassembly. We used the legs off the original table for this one (waste not).

One huge bucket of black grout later…

She is finished.

I enjoyed making it and just looking at it makes me so happy - I can’t wait for all the dinners we’ll have around this table 🌼❤️