Mindscape

come back

There are actual tears in my eyes rn can you believe people are this stupid and walk among us all the time

oh wooow

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.

“They’re using golden valley coins!”

…didst thou mean dollars?

“Nevermind. They’re using some basic silver coin and then enough gold to be worth ten silver coins is called a ten-piece”

…Si, si, el Peso!

Trying over, they’re minted by the king so they’re called crown coins, or, these days, abbreviated, they’re just Crowns

Naturligvis, vi skifter Daler ud med Kroner!

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The Lesson Of The Day is that all the names are already claimed by IRL, and all the almost-good-names that you could invent to get around that were used by some SFF author in the seventies e.g. I bet you can’t do Suns and Moons for your gold/silver coins, I bet some author did that already.

My fantasy nation uses solid gold coins marked by the dental impressions of the reigning king, as a sign of their purity and authenticity.

They’re called Bitcoins.

oh you can go the fuck to jail that’s what you can do, where you’ll be shackled to a chain gang hitting the blockchain with a pickaxe

honestly i think it's disgusting that people still share that five year plan fuck it we ball image as a funny meme, as if it doesn't uncritically encourage self-destructive behaviors like starting a podcast

I have reposted this before but I am always impressed by how well-thought out every spot is. There is no good place to sit. “Oh, Eomer’s cool, I’ll sit with him” but then you will have to listen to Gollum and Bilbo the entire flight. “I’ll sit with Sam!” Pippin and Merry will be turning around the entire flight to talk to him. Sure, you can sit with Elrond, but you’re going to deal with him staring down Aragorn and Arwen. You may love Legolas and Gimli, but will you love sitting BETWEEN them? Just when you see a spot that seems okay, somewhere behind or across the aisle is a terrible option. This is so good. No good seats on the LOTR plane

no i think 17 looks good

bleh

Maria Skłodowska-Curie's notebooks are crazy once you think about it. They're so radioactive they have to be sealed in a lead box. Imagine a world where atomic theory is forgotten and a dude just goes "yea there's a book that details the secrets of the universe, the machinations of the creation of existence down to its barest essentials, but if you get close to it you fucking die. The more you read it the more your body slowly disassembles into mush." like wat excuse me

i’m very self aware. which unfortunately hasn’t solved anything