Worldbuilding: Letter Rip

How does the mail work in your world?

Granted, this doesn’t seem to come up as a big thing in most fantastic fiction. The thrill of, “will our heroes make it in time?” is totally lost if the bad guys win because of a minion’s email.

Current Events: Writing Rewards

Like many of us, I am Very Disappointed in what comes out of Hollywood these days. So instead of turning on the TV I poke through YouTube for subtitled foreign shows with settings of interest and languages I’m trying to pick up bits of; generally Korean, Chinese, and Japanese. Which is how I stumbled onto a neat show from 1978, “The Yoshimune Chronicle: Abarenbo Shogun”.

Light Effects

Sunlight off water can give interesting effects!

Current Events: Downstream of Culture

When you look at a lot of the mess going on in current society, at the base of it all, what we have is a relationship problem. As in, people do not learn how to properly do relationships. At all.

Silken Shapes of Water

Sometimes I’m sure part of human fascination with silk is how its shimmer resembles that of water.

Stray Thoughts: Interstates

Okay, here’s an aspect of life that if you live in the U.S. you’re probably familiar with, and if you don’t, you may be very startled by. And that would be the interstate highway system.

Stray Thoughts: The Shapes of Water

There will be times when I’m watching a good escape/evasion sequence, and then suddenly want to heave a deep sigh. Because a lot of people seem to think taking to a boat or crossing where they get their feet wet makes them suddenly untrackable.

Some Thoughts on Isekai

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with isekai. On the one hand, I love the whole idea of the Portal Fantasy/Trapped in Another World scenario. Witch World, by Andre Norton, was one of the first books I ever read that used this setup, and I’ve had a soft spot for them ever since.

From Marsh to Sky

Background to this: I and an email pal some time ago figured out we have different base concepts of “blue”. Pal shades more toward true/dark blue, while mine edges more toward cyan. On due consideration (and examining various landscape pics sent back and forth), I suspect it’s heavily connected with what the sky looks like where we are.

Gradients of Water

Water is neat. Water has color, and texture.