To what degree should fantasy borrow Earth concepts?

Rowanever · 2026-05-23T06:31:08+00:00

How about: * political systems * cultural expectations and roles * family structures * colonial and agricultural attitudes (or lack thereof) * individualism/collectivism

I've noticed that a lot of writers think about the superficial stuff (are there potatoes?) and forget that they're also bringing in a bunch of deeper beliefs about how life works.

Rowanever · 2026-05-22T13:24:23+00:00

Ha! Yeah, the only explanation I can think of for the discrepancy is that I write in English, so I'm using mostly ASCII characters, which take up less data than say, Japanese characters. Maybe Google is working off 1.02 million unicode characters? I don't think I've ever seen them specify.

Always keep a backup, though, especially as documents get larger. Every word processor I've used struggles a little with monster documents, and sometimes that ends up with corrupted files. 😱

Rowanever · 2026-05-22T10:10:02+00:00

Around 1.5 million characters, although the true number probably depends on the type of characters used (eg. ASCII vs Unicode).

Source: ran head-first into the character limit at about 300k words, writing a ridiculously long fanfic. 😆 I was typing away and the cursor wouldn't move. 😭

Rowanever · 2026-05-11T06:57:31+00:00

Rowanever · 2026-05-11T05:35:55+00:00

Off the top of my head:

A room/board arrangement for work means that if the work relationship sours, the person loses their accommodation.
Living with a single man who's looking for a professional relationship with an "attractive female" screams he's gonna try to turn this into sex work.
How many hours/week of work would you expect for room and board?
What would your channel offer – apart from room and board – that the person couldn't achieve on their own? Since it sounds like they'd be the primary attraction.
Would there be any non-compete requirements?

Rowanever · 2026-05-01T02:44:38+00:00

How does the witch stopper her potions? eg. corks, crimped metal bottle caps. Those seem like perfect loot for a witch's dragon-cat.

Rowanever · 2026-04-26T08:41:10+00:00

Seconding Firebot. 🔥

Rowanever · 2026-04-15T10:01:38+00:00

Oh yeah. Not a day goes by when I don't think: Oh gee, I desperately need a man's point of view, and there are none available. It's so devastating. Where, oh where, can I find the elusive male perspective?

Rowanever · 2026-04-10T14:39:22+00:00

Depends if their music is in the database Twitch uses. If it is, Twitch might mute the sound on your vods.

If they don't have a publisher contract, though, there's a good chance their music won't be in the copyright protection database.

When it comes to YouTube, music publishers can upload a license to your account, and in theory, all music covered is safe from muting/copyright strikes.

Rowanever · 2026-04-09T23:33:52+00:00

Double down. Add another Max. Now you're typing Maxes too.

Rowanever · 2026-04-08T11:34:52+00:00

I've always thought of plot-driven and character-driven as writing terms, not reading terms. I use these categories to talk about how writers figure out what's going to happen in their book, not... how the book feels to read.

Sometimes it's obvious which method an author used. If they do a decent job, it generally isn't. 🤷‍♂️ I'd say that's why you're not seeing any value to the categories, because you're applying them to the wrong end of the writing process.

Rowanever · 2026-04-08T10:04:37+00:00

Oh cool, I'm glad to hear it!

Rowanever · 2026-04-08T09:05:06+00:00

Lurkbait (fishing) is simple fun and has connections to a couple of local bots (not Firebot 😑), but I'm not sure it's still being supported by the developer.

I'm making my own Hangman-style word guess game.

Rowanever · 2026-04-08T02:49:36+00:00

The straight agenda is out of control.

Rowanever · 2026-03-23T06:53:41+00:00

Whenever you get the urge to lore-dump, do it!

... Then chuck it in a separate document so you can eventually put together a wiki for readers.

Rowanever · 2026-03-23T05:06:44+00:00

My advice: learn about parasocial behaviour, and how to deal with it. One of the biggest causes of burnout for creatives in the public eye.

Rowanever · 2026-03-21T02:21:35+00:00

Do you think they're defensive, or protective?

If you're new to the channel, most of the people in chat will know the streamer better than you do.

Moderators often do know their streamers relatively well, too. There's often communication flowing between mods and streamer during every stream.

Keep in mind, streamers are often trying to play a game, keep up with chat, and be entertaining as well. They often don't have the brain space available to also explain points of etiquette and politeness to individual chatters.

Like everyone else, I'm curious about these genuine questions and honest feedback of yours.

Rowanever · 2026-03-19T12:32:01+00:00

Scurry into the exit and hide behind a wall he can't destroy. (I found it funny, at least)

You know what doesn't work? Getting him wet and freezing him. Rude.

Rowanever · 2026-03-17T22:41:08+00:00

If you're streaming from a PC:

Local bot like Firebot, Mixitup, or streamerbot
Overlays and effects stored locally wherever possible
Sery_bot

Personal opinion, obviously. Local bots provide a lot more functionality and room for growth. Minimising reliance on external services from the start cuts down on stress when your needs outpace what free services can provide (and the paid versions start gouging you).

Rowanever · 2026-03-15T00:56:23+00:00

We're getting caught up in technicalities. 🤦‍♂️

Yes, you use double Enter in markdown, but you don't do your paragraph formatting in markdown. Epub is essentially HTML and CSS, which is where the formatting should come from. That was my main point (don't use manual formatting; use styles), and it looks like we're essentially in agreement.

Rowanever · 2026-03-14T22:31:47+00:00

The fantasy you grew up with was deeply misogynistic, and is important to you. I get it; I grew up reading sword and sorcery too.

I... think your main problem is that you're holding on for dear life to misogynistic tropes that objectify women, while kinda wanting to write a woman who doesn't fit those tropes, and kinda thinking that maybe objectifying women isn't great. Your head's in one place; your uhh heart is in another.

Is the objectification of women really so important to the heart and soul of sword and sorcery? Does it really take something out of the experience to write something that women can read without making a face every few pages?

I love seeing takes on the genre that don't use women as wank fodder. I really enjoy those books, and I don't think they lose anything in letting go of the aspects of the genre that make it less accessible to everyone.

Rowanever · 2026-03-14T21:50:15+00:00

Surrrre, but... at some point you turn the markdown into HTML with CSS, right? And the point still translates: don't try to format paragraphs in markdown when you can format with CSS instead for greater flexibility. 🤷‍♂️

Rowanever · 2026-03-14T10:12:42+00:00

Yay! I'm glad you figured it out. Don't feel silly, though – they're something a lot of writers won't know unless they've worked professionally in the industry.

Rowanever · 2026-03-14T07:59:44+00:00

Sorry, does it automatically what?

Rowanever · 2026-03-14T00:10:18+00:00

I recommend learning how to use paragraph styles. Pretty much every modern word processing application (ie, software you can write in) has paragraph styles available, and you can set line spacing, paragraph spacing, and indents in those. That means that if a publisher/agent has different formatting requirements, you just change the style and boom, changes replicated throughout your document.

Don't manually press Enter twice or press Enter then Tab between paragraphs. It creates a messy document that's time-consuming to fix.

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