Charamei: I do wonder how Gallifreyan culture accommodates the fact that as a species they virtually all have some kind of really severe obsession, though
Charamei: like, I suspect the obsession-as-species-trait is related to the fact that they have obscenely long lives
Dromeianindistress: Well, they probably set their own work hours
Dromeianindistress: Except for politicians, whose obsession is generally politics
Charamei: indeed
Charamei: not that we’re looking at anyone in particular, of course
Charamei: any three people
Dromeianindistress: Not, not at all
Dromeianindistress: And yeah, it’s probably related to their lifespan
Charamei: yeah
Charamei: Gallifreyans don’t seem to have ‘old age’ as much as ‘I got bored of being alive and stopped getting up in the morning and then stopped breathing’
Dromeianindistress: XD
Dromeianindistress: This is the species that schedules their own death
Charamei: yup
Charamei: are legally obliged to, in fact, so they can get re-uploaded
Charamei: because they never actually stop existing, they just have a brief respite from being alive
Dromeianindistress: yep
Dromeianindistress: *side-eyes Pandak*
Charamei: XD
Charamei: but, like… someone like the Master, who develops an obsession with a person. There’s got to be some kind of system for dealing with that in people who aren’t complete homicidal maniacs in every other respect as wellk
Dromeianindistress: True
Dromeianindistress: But what?
Charamei: idk
Charamei: I’d say rehab, but they need *something* to focus on
Charamei: …this is going to get very Black Ribboner, isn’t it
Dromeianindistress: ….It would
Dromeianindistress: And of course there would be a very complex ritual involved
Dromeianindistress: I wonder if they ever tried to make Koschei do it
Charamei: probably
Charamei: that’s probably how he devloped the secondary obsession with universal domination
Charamei: slight backfire
Dromeianindistress: Slight
Dromeianindistress: He left mid-ritual
Charamei: needed a pee
Dromeianindistress: XD
Dromeianindistress: No, left Gallifrey
Charamei: ah
Charamei: well, you know what the queues for the toilets can be like
Dromeianindistress: XD
Charamei: one of the rules of Gallifreyan obsession, of course, is that it must be downplayed in public at all times owing to Reasons of pretentiousness
Charamei: and honestly, as long as you’re on Gallifrey this is fine, because everyone knows that when you say ‘small hobby’ you actually mean ‘consumes my every waking thought’
Dromeianindistress: XD
Charamei: then you get offworld and some aliens have things that they just… do for a while and then get bored of?
Charamei: and then they do something else?
Dromeianindistress: And they do it for, like, a year
Dromeianindistress: Like, why even bother?
Charamei: seriously
Dromeianindistress: You haven’t even gotten started until you’ve spent at least a century on it
Charamei: and during that year they don’t even learn everything there is to learn about the thing and write five monographs
Charamei: what are they even doing with their hobby time
Charamei: relaxing?
Charamei: …I wonder if this is why Gallifreyan culture seems to like paradoxes so much, because you can go round them forever and never get to the end
Dromeianindistress: oooo
Charamei: they’re the perfect timewasters
Dromeianindistress: Well, they do have several millenia to waste
Dromeianindistress: Also it’s not considered odd if a Time Lord takes a century off work to pursue something that’s caught their interest
Charamei: no
Charamei: in fact doesn’t Four say that? Admittedly he’s probably being a prat
Charamei: “I’m entitled to a fifty-year break every two centuries” or something
Dromeianindistress: XD
Dromeianindistress: I’d say it’s accurate, though
Charamei: Time Lords with silly little obsessions
Charamei: and just how far will their otherwise completely oppressive justice system allow leeway for this shit
Charamei: (Aliens must get so confused)
Charamei: (apparently ‘Well, knitting has always been a small hobby of mine…’ is an acceptable reason to commute a sentence from forced regeneration to a mere five hours of torture)
Charamei: (and for some reaosn it doesn’t work when the aliens try it)
Dromeianindistress: XD
Dromeianindistress: Leela figuring out the justice system
Charamei: omg yes
Dromeianindistress: And asking Romana questions
Charamei: yes
Dromeianindistress: and Romana doesn’t see what the problem is
Charamei: and Andred, and Narvin
Dromeianindistress: Yes, and Rodan
Dromeianindistress: Even Brax, on occasion
Charamei: and they all get more and more uncomfortable because nobody wants to admit the real reason for it
Dromeianindistress: It’s just not something you *talk* about
Charamei: there are some things you just don’t talk about with aliens, even friendly ones, and the major flaw inherent in Time Lord psychology is one of them
Charamei: no
Charamei: it’s just something you kind of… accept, and work around in your friends, and condemn in your enemies
Charamei: (Romana and Darkel slinging ‘Well she’s completely obsessed with being President!’ at one another and everyone just kind of smiles and nods like, of course you both are, otherwise you’d be doing something else)
Dromeianindistress: yes
Dromeianindistress: XD
Dromeianindistress: And Brax has ‘a small interest in art collecting’
Dromeianindistress: Which is why Romana hasn’t turned him in for breaking every law of time out there to build his collection
Charamei: exactly
Charamei: Narvin’s mild interest in astronomy probably translates to his entire bedroom being covered in star charts
Dromeianindistress: Romana doesn’t even blink when he points out an extremely obscure fact about a minor space phenomenon relevant to the discussion
Charamei: nope
Dromeianindistress: (…there probably isn’t a rehabilitation process for problematic obsessions. You just get mind probed a couple times as a warning, then exiled if you don’t find something else)
Charamei: (…yeah)
Charamei: (there are some psychic doctors who specialise in fixing this stuff but you have to go and actually find them)
Dromeianindistress: (and most people don’t *want* to)
Charamei: (no, because wanting to destroy the universe is perfectly harmless, it’s only a thought exercise, of course they’d never… oh, hey, a Doomsday device!)
Dromeianindistress: ( XD )
Dromeianindistress: (Well there was also Shada)
Charamei: (yeah)
Charamei: (on the plus side, it does probably mean that people give Leela more leeway than you might expect when it comes to going hunting etc)
Charamei: (Andred and Rodan explained it as a mild interest and everyone just kind of nodded knowingly and left her to it)
Charamei: (she has no idea why of course)
Dromeianindistress: (Most Gallifreyans don’t actually realize everyone in the universe isn’t like this)
Charamei: ( no)
Charamei: (that’s just what happens when you get interested in something)
Charamei: (then they go out there and start sabotaging fluid links so they can look around and the aliens are very unforgiving for absolutely no reason)
Dromeianindistress: (That’s what interest *is*)
Charamei: (exactly!)
Dromeianindistress: (Really, completely irrational. They’ll never understand how these aliens think)
Charamei: (nope)
Dromeianindistress: (The Rani was totally taken aback when the Doctor tried to get her experiments shut down)
Charamei: ( yes)
Charamei: (and every time a companion says something like “Are you enjoying this?” the Doctor gets utter culture shock)
Charamei: (of course they’re enjoying it that doesn’t mean they don’t also care)
Dromeianindistress: (this is what they *do*, this is what they’re interested in)
Dromeianindistress: (they can’t turn that off)
Dromeianindistress: (it doesn’t mean they don’t care about the people involved)
Charamei: (the Master enjoys trying to kill them as well but they don’t see the humans getting on their high horses about that)
Dromeianindistress: (really)
Charamei: (filling obsessions just feels good)
Charamei: (…we’ve just found Time Lord sex)
Dromeianindistress: (omg)
Dromeianindistress: (does that mean Time Lord marriages are ‘our obsessions both line up very nicely with each other right now, let’s be joined at the hip until they diverge again’?)
Charamei: (…quite probably)
Charamei: (Darling I very much enjoyed your paper on the inverse correlation of x and y please marry me and we should discuss this at every opportunity)
Dromeianindistress: (and they proceed to discuss it for the next 500 years)
Charamei: (yes, with occasional pauses to write papers)
Dromeianindistress: (…Gallifreyan conversations tend to be very long)
But I am afraid we must face the likelihood that he [Shakespeare] wrote bawdy, not because the audience insisted on it, nor his fellow actors, nor even the aristocratic followers of his work, but just because it amused him.
John Berryman (via howtotalktogirlsdialectically)
#…yeah this is new? #spoiler alert #shakespeare was dating a hot blond dude and the owner of a brothel #his bff got killed in a spy rendezvous/bar fight combination #he himself died by choking on fish after partying too hard #like #shakespeare liked dick jokes #(and probably also dick) #your attempts to attach modern standards of ‘classiness’ to him are wrong #(and also gross as hell bc he LITERALLY DIDN’T HAVE CLASS #HE WAS A GLOVEMAKER’S SON #IT WAS AWESOME) #shouts ‘stop trying to appropriate shakespeare for the rich academic elite’ into the void #i never writ; nor no man ever loved @swanjolras
(via festeringfae)
Someone finally articulated what I couldn’t
(via rinwolfy)
#it both amuses me to no end and pisses me the hell off #that there’s still this ever pervasive fucking myth #that good art can only come from some kind of prestigious wealthy or academic background #no #and that’s why art is wonderful #it mocks those stereotypes #you can posture all you want #but talent doesn’t care #and you can’t fucking buy it
(via tchy)
“I am afraid we must face the likelihood” oh I bet you’re afraid
be afraid of shakespeare’s infinite sex puns
(via jcatgrl)
People too often conceive of worldbuilding strictly as background research, as a sort of dry and exhaustive homework. Every tiny and immediate detail in a story can be worldbuilding. Every button and widget can imply or reveal something to the reader. You can replace pages of deadly boring infodump with a few comments in conversation, a few glances at what people wear or eat or venerate. You shouldn’t think of worldbuilding as something boxed off from the rest of the text. it can be intrinsic with dialogue, description, etc. It’s crucial (and liberating) to realize that every word you put on a page can and should perform multiple duties simultaneously. Description can be worldbuilding. Dialogue can be character development. Messages within messages, revelation within revelation. Also, remember that nobody can follow all these guidelines all the time without exception or flaw. The point is just to keep aiming higher. It’s art as well as craft. Some parts of it you can measure almost scientifically. Some parts are mad whack inscrutable alchemy. But chances are, if you work hard to lay a solid foundation of craft, you’ll strengthen everything that’s more numinous and subjective, too. There is no “one true way” to write anything, nor one true goal in writing/publishing. Treasure beautiful oddballs and weird experiments.
Scott Lynch, author of the Gentlemen Bastards series, on world-building and the craft of writing and publishing, as collated from a series of tweets I woke up to this morning, (via theletterdee)
