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medievalists_rss_feedjoshreadscomics_feedSix Chix, 1/10/26
You ever wonder why bad things happen to you? It’s probably because someone with interests different from yours prayed to God, and He said, “Enh, why not.” Sorry, I don’t make the rules! The omnipotent Creator has actually embedded the rules into the very nature of existence, of which you and I are a tiny part.
Beetle Bailey, 1/10/26
A question I’ve often had reason to contemplate: Is Cookie a soldier, or a civilian Army employee? I don’t think there’s a “right” answer, since the world of Beetle Bailey does not have an immutable reality; probably in the days when the strip launched he would’ve been an enlisted man (my grandfather cooked for hundreds of his fellow soldiers when he was stationed in Los Angeles during World War II) but today he’d work for some Halliburton subsidiary microwaving flash-frozen food for the troops. His status would be a relevant piece of information for today’s strip, as his rank vis-a-vis Sarge would determine who Beetle should obey under the UCMJ, but I think everyone’s facial expression makes clear that this is a story more about personal duty and personal fear than it is about anything so straightforward as the military chain of command.
Pluggers, 1/10/26
Pluggers want a clean sidewalk and frankly they don’t care how many children have to die to make that happen.
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reblogarythmnanila posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
awesomeersypqgaladhirSo, I've started brainstorming a cozy fantasy and am discovering that I have many questions about the genre. Chiefly worldbuilding. So far all the cozy fantasies I've read (a grand total of two of them) seem to be set in generic Dungeons and Dragons world.
I wonder if a lot of the appeal is in the safety and familiarity of that setting. Do you think it matters if I try to do something vaguely inspired by Ancient Babylon?
Knowing myself, I know that I am going to want to know where they get their water from, how they cook, who makes the laws and how they're enforced, what the basic theology is, why exactly the 'evil' forces are evil etc. And I will want that to be something other than standard D&D, because that's half the fun of fantasy.
Do you think a slightly more intricate focus on worldbuilding will turn the end product into something that isn't cozy enough?
I will want a little bit of peril, but I think I can keep that down to the level set in Legends and Lattes, the touchstone of cozy.
But I'm also not planning on including a romance. I had enough romance writing in the ten years of writing m/m, and that part of my writing soul is still recoiling in dread when I think about going back. (I hope to go back eventually but I'm so not there yet.)
Is it possible to be 'cozy' while just concentrating on one woman's failing out of wizard school and finding a new career in a fantasy hot country very loosely based on ancient Babylon?
My narrowboat novel has a similar issue of being one woman's rediscovery of herself while on a river journey and resolutely refusing to be in a romance (even though one is offered.)
These are, I think, the fruits of romance burnout, but they certainly don't make either book more typical of their kind.
ypq
eve_primeeve_primeypqtielansoemandExperiencing musical frisson is associated with increased connectivity between the sections of the brain responsible for processing auditory information (specifically the anterior insula) and for reward processing: in other words, the greater the volume of white matter connectivity between those areas of the brain, the more likely an individual is to experience chills. Experiencing musical frisson is also associated with openness to experience.
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