🧦☕🧸A Guide To Writing Cozy Fantasy

Urskan

Image by Steve Ellis, © Wizards of the Coast. Accessed at the Frostburn Art Gallery here

[Despite being a well-read kid, I somehow never even heard of His Dark Materials until I was a senior in high school, and didn’t know about the panserbjorn until publicity for The Golden Compass movie geared up a few years later. So when I first read Frostburn, I thought, “armored polar bears? What a weird and novel idea!” I’m onto your game, WotC.

The original urskan was a strongly overpowered CR 5–I bumped them to CR 7 and still had to tone down their offensive capabilities. No more powerful charge, no more rend. I also got rid of their cold subtype, because not every arctic monster needs it.]

Urskan CR 7 Magical Beast This white bear has a gleam of intelligence in its eyes, and a suit of armor on its body.

The urskan are a species of sapient, semi-aquatic bears. Due to their love of heavy armor, they are sometimes referred to as “armored bears” or even “tank bears” by outsiders. Although they resemble polar bears closely, they also have a notable feature of pandas. All urskans possess a mobile sesamoid bone in their wrist, acting like a thumb to help them grip objects. Although their grip is not as fine as a human’s—urskan writing implements more closely resemble fitted bracers than a pen—it is good enough for them to hold tools and weapons.

Urskans typically hunt in the water for seals, whales and large fish, and do so unarmored. Their armor is donned for territorial battles, displays and clashes with other polar powers such as frost giants. Their claws are exceedingly sharp, but many urskans wield hammers, picks or other dual-purpose weapons as well.

An urskan stands ten feet tall when it rears on its hind legs, but they typically walk on all fours. They get along well with dwarves, and are somewhat distrusting of humans. An urskan’s lifespan is short by humanoid standards—one that survives into its fifties is seen as ancient.

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Writing the "Mean Girl" Character

How do we write the "mean girl" without making her another shallow copy of the brainless, pink-clad, cheerleader we see in high teen dramas?

Of course, there's nothing wrong with such a character if you want them to be funny/light in the first place.

However, I can hear myself slowly losing my last two brain cells when I keep reading about such papercut characters for more than an hour - reading clearly requires more effort than watching a class B movie, so I always appreciate when authors put more effort to make the characters dynamic.

No "Mean for the Sake of Being Mean

The classic way to avoid this is to give them a sad backstory. They used to be overweight/ugly and were bullied, or their parents don't care about them enough, or they are too insecure. Obviously these plot points are quiet stale now, but the basic principle still stands - if your charcter is mean, she needs A REASON.

I love reading about a mean character's backstory then feeling, "actually, I would have felt like doing that, too."

Whatever their motivations may be, remember that bullies pick on the weak, not the successful/powerful. While the Mean Girl might feel jealous/inferior towards the protagonist, I hardly think that should be the sole reason why they picked their victim. There must be a flaw in your protagonist that happened to be something that the Mean Girl knows how to exploit, which makes them a target above others.

Give Them A Twist

There are two ways that I can think of: (1) A seemingly nice character is in fact a mean girlie, or (2) A mean character turns out to be kind and well-intended.

Personally, I love Mean Girls who are intelligent/ know what they are doing. They are purposely manipulative:"are you okay?" as if the victim has something wrong with them or providing "constructive" criticism. Or kindly inviting them to a party that she knows they wouldn't fit in.

The conflict deepens when everyone else likes the Mean Girl due to her manipulative nature, making the protagonist doubt themselves.

A Purpose beyond Providing Conflict

Think about what the mean girl aims to gain from bullying your protagonist.

Is she continuously trying to prove herself "superior" so that she can feel better inside? Is she an academic rival who just needs to be the first in everything, even is that means reverting to questionable behavior?

Overly ambitious/perfectionist characters can come off as mean when they feel like others fail to live up to their standards (which only they know about, and are usually up in the sky)

Give Them A Proper Redemption

If you plan on giving her a redemption arc, make sure that she has earned it! The worst thing you can do is make it sound like you approve of the horrible things she has done.

this transition doesn’t mean the character does a complete 180 and is suddenly all smiles and good favors. They can fall back on their old ways of thinking, but is trying to make an effort to step out of their old clothes.

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References:

https://writingquestionsanswered.tumblr.com/post/668302340882857984/how-would-you-write-a-mean-girl-character-without

https://www.writingforums.org/threads/how-to-write-the-mean-girl-character.160729/

Alright! Let's actually talk about this waterfall thing. It is an amazing showcase of many things that I adore from late 90s graphics. I am replicating this in Blender, through mere observation of the final game, so some things might not be exactly accurate to what the PS1 does.

First off, this is what I started off with, straight from the Noesis exporter into Blender.

"Looks boring!" "What are those weird gradient quads?!" Oh we'll talk about those too, don't worry.

Let's start simple, figuring out the Layers.

We've got the base level geometry, then two layers of water, each with a different texture.

Let's focus on the bottom Water layer first. A waterfall's water falls, and the age old trick to replicate that behaviour is to scroll the texture along the mesh by offsetting the texture coordinates every frame.

Simple enough. Not too convincing yet.

Let's do the same with the other layer.

Look at it goooo!

An often-used trick to enhance the waterfall effect is to increase the distance between vertices (or squash texture coordinates) as the geometry goes down.

This affects the scrolling velocity for the texture in each section, making it look like gravity is accelerating the water.

MGS pulls yet another trick on top of that:

Vertices are subtly animated to oscillate, making the water flow seem more irregular.

It seems to be something similar to what is done to geometry when the camera goes underwater in the docks or vents area.

One opaque layer of water on top of another is no good.

Alpha Blending is an expensive technique and it'd not give the desired effect.

Additive Blending is used instead. The lower layer is rendered first, the second layer is then rendered on top, adding the color values together.

Now we get to talk about those weird quads.

They are darkening gradients! Instead of using Additive Blending, they do the opposite, the color value from the texture is subtracted from the scene that was rendered below, effectively creating shadowed areas.

Who needs HBAO+ anyway?

Lighting pass!

I just threw a few point lights to try and replicate the original vibes of the scene.

MGS, instead, uses lighting information baked into the vertices of the scene to create this mood. And what a mood it is!

Here's an additional example of the same techniques used in the bottom part of the same scene. Although the game seems to be rendering that water mesh as (almost?) completely opaque, there is an actual floor mesh under it.

There, I fixed this post. If you enjoy my posts, shit or not, consider supporting me on Ko-fi, I will appreciate it a lot 💞: https://ko-fi.com/parametricpalta

I've been thinking more recently about wishing I had a big sister, or a motherly person to guide me through all this trans girl stuff. Someone I legitimately trust and who cares about my development as a girl, but can also teach me about this stuff and mentor me in it. I don't know. It's not really something I can search for. Just gotta wait until someone finds me.

I won't lie when I say I'm kinda disappointed in the quality of animation for this. It's just kinda "okay" lol, instead of being excellent like Astartes was or some of the trailers for new Warhammer+ content is. Like what was the point of hiring all those new incredible fan animators if you're gonna end up using animation that looks worse than Dawn of War 3 did, damn even Dawn of War 2. Feels like they just phoned this one in despite it being a HUGE launch.

Warhammer 40,000 New Edition Cinematic Trailer

I'm already 3 months on hrt but I need more friends to forcefem me in like. Mundane ways.

Learning how to use a round hairbrush to give my hair volume. how to dress cute/flatteringly for my body shape (tho its probably gonna change soon). I've never worn makeup before and that needs to change. Forcefeed me my estradiol/anti-androgen medications (don't forget my vitaminD). Please help me figure out the products I need for a proper skincare routine.

I'm dying out here. Being a first time girl on her own requires so much research. Though it is so rewarding

I’ve been on HRT for over five years now, and while my life may not be perfect, it brings me immense happiness that I’ve been experiencing the joy of being a girl for so long.

So the moral thing to do is find others to grant that joy to, right? They’ll thank me eventually!

Yeah!! Exactly!

Painted a bunch of little skulls for the Planescape: Adventures in Multiverse book, including my beloved childhood friend Morte and this funky guy all covered in stickers :)

Please notice little Mahadi, the Cassalanters' crest and Barovia postcards I allowed myself to slap on him :)

Plus the rest of the mimirs.

AD: Emi Tanji

I visited a market yesterday and picked a card from the Tarot that a vendor had splayed out at her table. I tried for the card most hidden, and eventually picked the second of two cards that were stuck together.

I flipped it over for the witch manning the table. She read it aloud. "The Candelabra." She thumbed through the pages of a Tarot meanings pamphlet, and continued her reading. "This could mean Crossroads. A Junction. Paths. A Journey. Whatever that may mean to you."

I don't take much creed in the magical, but sometimes it's fun to indulge. And I wanted to indulge. I didn't speak of it, but to me 'Crossroads' meant the choice to come out to my family that night. To do it, or not to do it. 'A Journey' meant that I was ready to take the path. Ready to tell them what and who I am.

I was excited, to say the least. My parents had invited my Husband and I over to watch TV that night. My whole family would be there, it would be perfect.

But it wasn't. My husband and I got home after a big day at a local comic convention and we were exhausted. We fell asleep.

It's now 11 after midnight. The next day technically. I know that the Tarot has no real hold over my life and the path I take, but it feels like I missed the opportunity. I didn't tell my family. I missed my exit off the highway, and I'll need to wait for the next turnoff before I can circle back. I felt so ready but I'm not so sure anymore. I've felt so euphoric lately but now all I feel is dread.

Maybe I should give it some time. That readiness will come back soon.

I have my own Tarot deck at home. It may be time to open it up and do my own readings. Maybe it'll tell me the proper time to do it, or maybe I'll decide against whatever doomsaying it tells me and I'll do it anyway. Whatever. Sounds fun.

Any tips for personal tarot reading?

Recently been struggling with very poor mood, sudden upsetedness (feels like a tantrum to me), etc.

Husband noted that all this started immediately after I doubled my dose of Estradiol. Good information to record.

Puberty was kinda okay for me the first time, this second ones gonna be a bitch.

Beasts of the Putrid Hills, II