#other people's worldbuilding
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re: OC making and orientalism, when you're asked to read edward said's orientalism it doesn't mean to use the book as a guidebook or checklist to see if you "pass" or "fail". it means rethink your motivations for writing this character/culture altogether
#do you think you are bringing an element of mystery/unknown/'otherness' to your world by doing this?#are you looking for a group of people to fulfill a certain role in your worldbuilding? and so any member of this group has a designated job#job to maintain rather than be an individual?#etc
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i think a lot about how early-series, demigods are referred to pretty equally as "demigods," "half-bloods," and "godlings," - the last used particularly by gods at demigods - but after that "godlings" is almost exclusively used to refer to minor gods.
something something i am literally always chewing on the concept of the line between immortals/demigods/monsters/etc being thinner than it appears
#pjo#riordanverse#we should bring this back i want more ambiguity between demigods and immortals#and where they stand between mortals and immortals#ESPECIALLY with the TOA worldbuilding of ''oh yeah inverse of immortals fading - if enough people believe hard enough it becomes true''#and people canonically leveraging that to become immortal through that means#like WHAT that is FASCINATING WORLDBUILDING#and is potentially really cool for how the gods function#but also SO MUCH EXISTENTIAL HORROR POTENTIAL ON THE DEMIGOD END#jason and percy getting idolized so much they literally start to become warped by other people's perceptions of them...#jason being accidentally immortalized because almost everyone who knows him puts him on such a pedestal#AND INVERSE TOO. demigods who are so looked down upon they LITERALLY begin to be warped into monsters#tbh we just generally need more of modern demigods being turned into monsters#like how many myths are there of mortals and heroes being turned into monsters and animals#wheres that for demigods. its gotta happen sometimes. especially since we know other curses are frequent enough#also. how much we're told the greeks interact directly with the olympians (field trips to solstice meetings etc etc)#and how willing the gods seem to be to curse demigods/mortals#heck Mr D is constantly threatening to turn people into dolphins. he's gotta have made good on that at least once
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r/worldbuilding has a post that just knocks it out of the park for me like once every month or two
#my posts#it's such a valid worldbuilding thing to do I fully understand OP#not to be that guy that just posts a screenshot from reddit but I chuckled at this so hard and I want other people the opportunity to see i
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There’s a cherry tree in the middle of the redwood forest.
False isn’t sure what to make of that. She shifts her grip on the staff in her hand, its pale glow reflecting faintly off the fresh snow. She’s come out here for resources—the vault altar is demanding logs, and these giant trees are an easy source—but the incongruous sight of an enormous, blossoming cherry tree sending pink petals wafting on the frozen wind…
She wonders if this is what fish feel like, when they see a lure.
“Hello?” she calls, her voice echoing off the trees. The world stands in permanent semi-twilight here, and the deeper shadows hide the mobs that will venture out come nightfall. A sneak of creepers is bedded down in a sweetberry bramble just on the other side of the clearing, and False tenses when the lead boar lifts his head, but he apparently doesn’t deem her worth stalking so early in the day.
There is no other reaction to her call.
False is of half a mind just to head back home and farm her own dang trees. It’s not like the vaultar is picky about the kinds of logs—she could just as easily grow up a bunch of birch and throw those in there. But that will take so much longer… not to mention she’s not sure if there are even enough saplings in her storage.
She unhooks her enchantment-glittered axe from her belt and pauses to mentally poke at her mana reserves. Plenty high. Whatever’s lingering near this tree, it can hardly be worse than what she deals with on the daily in the vaults. Overworld dangers are barely a challenge anymore.
The logic of that doesn’t change the uneasy feeling that buzzes over her skin though.
Venturing further into the clearing. False’s gaze traces up the trunk of the cherry tree, following its branches to where they terminate in lush bursts of pink and white blooms. A sweet smell drifts on the wind. She wrinkles her nose, reminded of compost piles and fermented spiders’ eyes.
The tree’s branches stretch long and low—a canopy of their own, heavy with flowers and dark, glossy leaves. The space underneath is filled with falling flowers and a fog of pollen, the air moisture-thick like a lush cave.
Lifting one hand, False catches a falling petal on her fingertip.
It sizzles as it touches her skin, stinging and buzzing like live redstone.
She hisses through her teeth, shaking her hand and letting the petal fall to the forest floor. “What the heck?”
Another petal tumbles past her face, and she watches it with narrowed eyes—right until it fizzles out of existence a few pixels above the forest floor.
“Glitch,” she mutters. “That’s… not good.”
Iskall needs to know about this—it could be a bug from one of the new updates, or it could be something deeper in the code, but either way: this glitched tree is a problem. She’s probably lucky it just stung her.
She reaches for her communicator, raising it to take a pic of the cherry tree.
“Oh, hi there, False!”
False yelps, spinning around with her axe ready to swing.
Gem is standing behind her, a wreath of cherry blossoms tangled in her hair and antlers, leaning casually on a tall staff of blooming cherry wood. Her smile is wide, and sap flows over her fingers, pale golden, dripping down her arms to leave dark spots on the faded denim of her overalls.
“Gem!” False lowers her axe. “Oh my gosh, you scared me. I didn’t know you were doing Vault Hunters.”
“Hm?” Gem raises one eyebrow, and for a moment her eyes flicker to red and then purple before settling back on green. “Oh—I’m not doing Vault Hunters, False.” Her voice is amused, almost chiding.
“Oh.” False feels unexpectedly small—which is impressive, considering she’s nearly half a block taller than Gem.
More of the glitched petals fall, resting on Gem’s hair and slowly melting into it like snowflakes. The brief moment of relief when False had seen Gem’s familiar grin is fading into something like the sensation of freefall.
“What’cha up to?” Gem asks, and her face blinks from one expression to the next like a bad video message. Her clothes are blue—no, green—no, bloodstained and grey—no, blue. They’ve always been blue.
False takes a step back.
“Uh, not much…” she glances up at the redwoods. “Just doing some… resource gathering. You know.”
“Cool!” Gem giggles, and stands up straight. False tenses, but Gem only spins around her staff and waves a hand at the glitched tree. “I didn’t realize this was an occupied server—are there many people here?”
There’s a buzzing in False’s skull, and she blinks rapidly. A muscle twitches under her eye.
“Um…”
“I guess it doesn’t really matter.” Gem lifts one hand and grabs one of the lowest branches of the cherry tree. She really should not have been able to reach that.
Swinging herself up with the lithe, effortless strength of a cat, she perches on the limb and stares down at False. The grin is gone from her face now, and she looks down at False with bright eyes.
“Etho’s not here, is he?”
False opens her mouth to answer, the words yes, of course he is, I can take you to him heavy on her lips… And with effort, she swallows them back.
They taste of sweet rot.
“Why... why doesn’t what matter?” she asks instead.
Gem stares at her for a long moment, expressionless. The flowers woven through her antlers are growing of their own accord, twining up to caress their brethren in the branches overhead.
Then she smiles broadly, flashing teeth that nearly glow white in the dappled shadows. “Oh!” she exclaims. “No reason! I’m only passing through, is all.”
“You’re not… you’re not sticking around?” False tries—and mostly fails—to sound disappointed.
“Naaaaah…” Gem stands and walks along the branch, as secure and balanced as if it were a stone floor. The flowers in her hair flow along behind her, sliding from the branches and falling like a cape down her back. “Worldhopping is easy. Staying in one spot is way harder.”
False watches the flowers move and swirl, their smooth, strange motion ensnaring her attention. The buzzing is back, too. Like bees, drunk on honey and sleepy in their hive.
“World hopping…?” she manages. “With admin commands?”
Gem’s laugh is as brilliant as a knife and as sharp as a spark. “False!” she crows. “You say the funniest things.”
False laughs. It seems appropriate. She isn’t sure why.
“Anyway,” Gem continues, fading into one patch of blossoms and reappearing on the other side of it. Her eyes are sprays of cherry flowers now. Her antlers are branches. “Anyway, cherry trees are all the same. They make it easy to get around.”
“That…” doesn’t make sense, False wants to say. But her lips are heavy, and coated in sticky sap. Maybe it doesn’t really matter.
“Oops! Behind you, False!”
Gem’s chirped warning is flaked in glee, and False turns around, as slow as if her feet are buried in soul sand.
The creepers she had seen—the entire sneak—are standing behind her, pink flowers blooming from their eyes.
“Oh no.”
The boar’s blinded head snaps toward her voice, hissing. He starts to aggro, bioluminescent streaks flashing from his snout to flanks in increasingly-swift pulses of light.
“See ya in season ten, False!” Gem cries out cheerfully.
The axe drops from False’s nerveless fingers, trailing strings of sap. She smells the inescapable stench of burning gunpowder, overlaid with rot.
“...Dangit.”
[FalseSymmetry was blown up by a creeper]
~*~
Jerking upright in her own bed, False swipes wildly at her face, trying to smear away tree sap that isn’t there.
“What the heck, Gem?” she exclaims at her empty base. Her voice falls flat, swallowed up by the sky that surrounds her builds. The clock above her head ticks impatiently, and she huffs in frustration, pushing up out of her bed. All her tools, gone—her levels, gone... and after all that she still needs those logs for the vault.
Grumbling, she starts pulling backup gear from various chests, trying to cobble together something that can get her back to the redwood grove before her items despawn—assuming they hadn’t all been obliterated by a second or third creeper explosion. She glances at the vaulter, and freezes.
It’s been completed. The crystal floats gently atop the stone pedestal, gleaming with an inner light.
And, tumbled at the base of the vaulter—abandoned, more than was needed to fill the crystal’s requirements:
Half a stack of cherry logs.
#falsesymmetry#geminitay#red said eldritch gem rights#let her be cheerful and scary too she deserves it#also there needs to be more Vault Hunter fic in the world. and more False content.#this was inspired by a post of some enormous redwood trees I saw the other day with teeny tiny people at the base of them#along with Gem's tree building -- the cherry trees in her hardcore and s9 builds#and the headcanon from hc8 and empires that she's a worldhopper#anyway this is the first thing I've really written in (over?) a year so... I'm quite happy about it.#might polish and put it on AO3 later but for now it's just for the hellsite <3#redwinterwrites#oh also excuse for creeper/minecraft worldbuilding yaaay XD
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Minecraft feels like it doesn’t know what to do for big updates any more so they’re doing like small miscellaneous updates collected together. I wish they’d move on from trying to give them a theme bc I feel like that’s just confusing.
One thing I wish they’d do is do updates from time to time and go back and add pieces to old update. Like maybe add more fish or tree types.
Specifically what made me have this thought is that I’d love if they’d add more to the geodes. Like the amethysts are lovely but I’d love if there was a whole range of crystals to find in geodes!! I feel like that’s along the line of the archaeological stuff they’ve done recently! Digging into the earth for history and stuff!
Also if they ever do a forest update I’d freak out. I’d love if they revamped their nature bc I feel like that part of the over world specifically has been the same since the beginning era of minecraft. Like ocean, nether, caves, villages, NOW FOREST. And end.
Feels like natural progression of their universe growing! And I like feeling like the updates can have a “story” like aspect to me. Especially bc worldbuilding. Favorite idea when it comes to minecraft lore
#mineblr#Minecraft#Minecraft game development#Minecraft updates#minecraft lore#minecraft worldbuilding#minecraft caves#minecraft crystals#ROCKS ROCKS AND MORE ROCKS#like if they could add to the andesite granite diorite thing too with like limestone and other minerals#MINERAL ROCK UPDATE#GEOLOGY UPDATE#they could add like volcanic and igneous rocks to the nether??? l#I like this idea very very much#minecraft and game development are my special interests#and worldbuilding but that’s like a part of those and my storytelling spins#I feel like there’s some things in minecraft that people love to add thru mods that mods shouldn’t be necessary for#like more biomes! I get biome design or unique biomes but give plains and forests more flavor!#or forest animals! OR BUGS ADD BUGS#I get mods for dungeons or cute decoration but simple worldbuilding shouldn’t need mods#I’m getting frustrated with being dissatisfied with vanilla minecraft when all I want are more variability to blocks and biome expansion!#often times mods are too complex and add too much over vanilla minecraft when I like vanilla minecraft#it’s just after all this time especially with cave and cliffs added the nature feels behind and too simple
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Someone else.
#silver the hedgehog#blaze the cat#sonic 06#I was thinking about how Blaze isnt supposed to be from the future even in 06.#i think there was a scrapped plot about her still being from her dimension..#i had an idea for a drawing of her meeting silver and her colours are more saturated bc shes not from this world#and also u can think of this as worldbuilding#the game does not explain much about how people survive in the future or even how common other people there are#theres no context here to their poses bc i didnt feel like making a comic or something but that was the idea i started with.#so u can just make something up.
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< It's cold. That's how night works. The beach you are on is not lightless. Like home.
< It was dawn before. When you woke. That's how time works. You did not understand where you were.
< It hurt to stand. That's how exhaustion works. You struggled to get up before beginning to wander further inland, to try and find home.
< The heat blinded and stung. That's how the sun works. You headed forward until you saw houses alongside the water and beach. Almost like home.
< There was movement ahead, people seeing and rushing forward. That's how life and curiosity works. They stopped when they reached you, extending their hands.
< However. The strange ones only had arms to reach to you for, only legs to run to you on.
< You extended out your limbs to them, opened your mouth to ask where you are, why you're on a beach you cannot recognise-
< They freeze. The people stop and draw their hands away, their feet already ready to run.
< They do not recognise you as one similar to their kind, their strange, four-limbed existence, their flightless lives.
< The strange ones panic. They speak static to you, rising to show how they are afraid.
< You continue to reach, to ask, to understand. The closest figure raises their fists.
< You scream and fall back. That is how injury and pain work.
< You.
< Turn. And run.
< You do not stop running. Not for a second. This is how fear works.
< ...
< It's cold. That's how water works. It splashes against you, over you, around you. It's.... comforting.
< ...
< You realise.
< You do not know where you are.
< You do not know how to get home.
< You cannot remember where home is.
< You....
< Cannot remember home.
< You are alone, without name nor family nor memory nor home.
< This is how life will work from now on.
#lemon time#my art#art#digital art#isat spoilers#in stars and time#my writing#isat siffrin#isat au#angelfrin au#WOOOOOOOO. AND I WROTE AGAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME IN OVER A YEAR.#anyway context context context:#northerners have wings and shit on them. some have rings too. this is a northerner exclusive.#other countries know the island exists. they know people live there. they do not know that the people are physically a lot different to them#they keep their extra limbs and all that hidden under clothing even on the island. its a politeness thing.#you only have the extras out at home. and only around people you trust. these are sensitive limbs.#anyway. ill be back with more writing and worldbuilding. i wanna do designs for euphrasie and the king before i do anything else.#also please please PLEASE feel free to talk to me about this im feral but i dont bite.
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look. not to be too mean on main. the rightful heir thing. if you don't care about the intricacies of property law or legal writs and just want to focus on characterization and other aspects of storytelling, fine.
but it truly does look very goofy when you start "debating" this while lacking historical context and methodological tools. sometimes a constitutional crisis (that was already resolved in the 12th century and whose results you can always look up) can't just be settled by appealing to one's anachronistic opinion and accusing those who disagree of misogyny.
there's a difference between suggesting how things should be (i.e. prescriptive, i.e. women should never inherit the throne) and analysing how things were for a myriad of socio-political reasons.
also, trust me, the Dance being fictional is not the gotcha people think it is. it's plenty obvious. i'm sorry to say but the premise is so flimsy it would never have happened like that irl.
final idea: likewise, perhaps being condescending about people who do take the time to criticise the premise is veering a little bit towards anti-intellectualism. 'idc about succession laws ergo i'm more enlightened bc i've unlocked an edgelord-y way to enjoy fiction'. a medievalesque fantasy setting is going to attract commentators who are interested in medieval history or at least aspects of it. they may find copy-paste scenarios from real history and think it interesting to compare and contrast. it's not immediately equivalent to treating aegon and rhaenyra like your ballot choices next election, and, equally, they're not discussions without merit.
comparative analysis is a transferable skill! if someone doesn't want to partake, fine, but i think this attitude of turning one's nose at it is a tad coarse. there are many fans who take the time to write informative posts and contextualise this fictionalised universe and it's a shame to automatically write-off what is ultimately a rich tradition in internet asoiaf spaces
#*people with history degrees facepalming their way through the fandom*#everyone has a pet peeve and this is mine#my other controversial opinion is that it's also silly to say it doesn't matter from a storytelling perspective as well#if your intrigue is shaky then it brings the quality of the overall story down#one principle of writing is that your world needs to have consistent internal rules no?#if these rules flip-flop from one situation to the next then that would be a flaw in the worldbuilding#and one thing about grrm's dance is that the intrigue is one of the weak points#succession for the iron throne
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Idk if this has been posted here before but I just came across this extra and it's adorable. Justice for my adopted gnomes
#also love the way it interweaves worldbuilding#like of course gnomes wear those hats#but only in a specific cultural context#and we've seen the taller characters infantalise the smaller races so far#but of course it goes the other way and they'd assume taller people are older!#its cool! I like it!#dungeon meshi#delicious in dungeon#kiki and kaka#dunmeshi
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in love with batman 138. this comic was made for me personally <333
bruce and jason angst!!! dick and tim team up against bruce - a return to their traditional dynamic!! callback to dick's origin story!!! dick and bruce fight!! dick and tim tag-team - tim distracts bruce so dick can keep breaking in!! bruce and tim fight!! callback to tim's origin story!! dick and bruce fight again!! dick loses it and tim holds him back - a return to their other traditional dynamic!! bruce is losing it completely!! except!! for a moment he hesitates - will he be able to come back from this?? dick and tim "hug" (okay not really. they got squashed in a net. let me have this). bruce and damian angst!! tim and damian hug!! (sort of. tim hugs damian, and damian allows this and doesn't taze him. look my point is this is very affectionate by damian standards!!) and then dick being the guy in charge!! and more jason angst!!
everything perfect. no notes.
#batman 138#'bruce tries to mess with jason's mind' is a BRILLIANT thing to fight with other bats about#it's clearly 1) bad and yet 2) the thought process that takes evil!bruce there is understandable#excited to see what disastrous place this goes next <333#i hope the writers commit to this & drop the bizarre selina-solved-all-crime-with-one-weird-trick-but-bruce-is-mad plotline#because 'bruce tries to mess with other people's minds to protect them' is a much more in-character way for him to break bad#and it doesn't create all the ''what the HUH?'' worldbuilding nonsense that 'selina instafixed violent crime by becoming a mob boss' does#anyway i hope bruce tries to mess with selina's mind ''for her own good'' next#it would be So So Dark And Creepy but i would be Fascinated#dick grayson#tim drake
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Y'all I have to tell you, every time I see the term "Pyre" used as a name for blazeborn family units (like "flock" for avians), I do a little happy dance. I came up with it for a friend's Rancher fic like two years ago by now and I keep seeing it pop up in new Tango fics, and I friggin' LOVE IT. Keep it up guys, you're making my little worldbuilding heart so damn happy 🥰
#Hermitcraft#Pixie Rambles#TangoTek#Team Rancher#Flocks & Pyres#yeah I'll tag it lol it's a fave of mine#MCYT Worldbuilding#KEEP IN MIND this was back when people were trying to figure out a good blazeborn term for that#and lots of people were bouncing between Pack and Herd and other things#and my friend and I were like ''what if it was fire though'' because we wanted something better#blazeborns are so unique they deserved a unique family unit name
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little check-in for creators and worldbuilders!
if you see this and have the energy, what's the most interesting thing people can have as a pet in your wips?
feel free to use this as an excuse to infodump :>
#im working on organizing my bestiary rn for serpents quest so i honestly havent decided yet which one is the weirdest option#but thought it would be interesting to find out what other people have going on#writeblr#worldbuilding#infodump friendly zone
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"Are you finished with my portrait yet? Show me!"
"Cipacton, I can't draw you if you keep moving!"
#em draws stuff#em is posting about temeraire#temeraire#temeraire worldbuilding collection#did you like those guys from the last picture? here they are again :)#at this point I feel like I should have be oc tagging five deer and cipachcoatzin just for organizational purposes#but if I don't then I can pretend I can stop drawing them...#<- He Has Ideas For At Least One More Picture and Other People And Dragons They Know#if you want to see what five deer is drawing then turn your eyeballs to my previous drawing of them!#after finishing that one I wanted to figure out what cipachcoatzin looked like outside of the super stylized depiction - here he is!#also lacking any other ideas I've decided that's his name now. my classical nahuatl is So So So Beginner but I'm Trying#(cipactli [caiman] + glottal stop + coatl [snake] + tzin [honorific suffix]...#...or cipactli [caiman] + ton [diminutive suffix you might use for a kid])#haven't come up with a personal name for five deer yet but what with naming other characters they'll interact with my abilities Do run out#so that can be a work in progress#pretty pleased with how this turned out especially cipachcoatzin's little obsidian mirror-ornaments#the background and color scheme is Heavily based on luis covarrubias' 'view of the valley of mexico'#but maybe I can manage some more urban settings for them or the other characters in future pictures
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I don't know how to put this to words, but after seeing SEVERAL posts of late about it in my dashboard, I just feel like I need to drop my two cents here
Making albino characters who are considered to be divinely blessed compared to their normally dark-skinned counterpart is fucked up. Like I'm sorry but if you decide your white-skinned drow amidst dark-skinned drow is the one who is "blessed" and "chosen" by Lolth or whatever, you REALLY need to stop for two seconds and think about what are you doing.
I never see this sorta character concept for albino characters amidst white peers. Please think a BIT about the implications of making your special whiteboy be the blessed one amidst non-white peers (for the specific reason of BEING WHITE)
#i may delete this later but idk#like it's one thing to make an albino character be blessed for other circumstances#but i'm sure people CAN think about why making an albino character be blessed bc they're albino#when they are in a mostly dark-skinned community or society#it's kind of really fucked up#i follow the drow tag here on tumblr and the lore and worldbuilding takes i've been seeing from it are surely Something
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the difference between bleach and a lot of 90s/2000s shounen is that it had elements of truly excellent, subtle writing and compelling female characters who had interesting relationships between one another, which is what makes its downfall into the worlds most boring typical battle shounen that much more of a tragedy
#i dont expect good character writing or interesting deep female characrers from dragon ball or naruto or one piece or fairy tale etc#but like. bleach had these!!! i feel insane when i talk to people about it bc it feels wveryone forgot.#bleach in its early arcs had insanely fascinating worldbuilding and female characters who were interested and had complex relationships!!!#no other fucking 90s and 2000s shounen pulled off rukia crawling on the floor as she swears she'll save orihime!!!#it feels insane to me. kubo what the fuck happened!!!#soul society arc was like a careful purposeful deconstruction of so many shounen tropes it was so good!!!#bleach#eli talks
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Brief note on small worldbuilding things for my aus:
So, like the JnD wiki, I've been calling their species "human" this whole time because...well, because of one deleted line where Praxis says "we're only human" in the second game.
But it never fit right with the long ears high on the skull and the body proportions more like a Lombax than a human. So in my particular aus, I was inspired by what humans are called in Dungeon Meshi and have decided to call them hu'men instead. With the backstory being that when Precursors and Ottsel Precursors interacted with the sentient species on the planet, the Ottsels called Jak’s species "the huge men". And then over time, "huge men" became the contraction "hu'men".
Admittedly some of this is so I only have to make minimal edits to my documents, but I apologize for nothing.
#jak and daxter#my aus#my writing#worldbuilding#jak and daxter headcanons#this is just for stuff i write. I've seen other people call them a variety of things and they all worked well in my opinion#i just wanted to play with fantasy language evolution and word etymology while not having to make big changes to docs
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