With the end of the school year, I’m not having a lot of time to prep stuff for Sundays. I said long ago that those animal posts require some research to the point where making one of them takes an evening. I’m also running out of beasties, so feel free to give suggestions in the comments. I don’t know every animal in the world and would love to look into some I haven’t done or heard about.
Anyway, today is Donald Duck Day. He’s always been my favorite of the Disney characters and I loved his outbursts as a kid. Who was your favorite Disney character from the older school? (Yeah, I know it’s weird for me to do this since people may have picked up on me not being a fan of Disney. Donald Duck might be the only soft spot I have for the company these days. Maybe Stitch too.)
As the title says, this was a really rough week, which was the last full one of classes for the local schools. It also meant last time for field trips, beginning of world language tests, and a whole slew of reasons for people to be busy. That meant we had to cover others, so I was working for 9 periods straight for almost the entire week. Had to wolf down a lunch when there was a lull in a period like with our meditation time. I was really thankful when someone said pizza was in the faculty lounge. Snagged a slice and ate it while hurrying back to my class. By the end of the week, I was wearing a Snoopy t-shirt and running off fumes. My brain can’t even comprehend all of the things that happened.
My son had his first ever regents exam, which was in Algebra. Won’t know what he got for at least another week. Really hoping that he gets into the 80’s. The only other regents exam is Living Environment (formerly biology), which is Friday. That’s a bigger challenge even though math is his weaker subject. A lot of information to absorb and we heard that this one gets factored into his final grade. He’s usually really good at science and we’re studying for half of this weekend. The other half will be Pokemon Go, sleeping, and some food shopping. The main goal today is to find his weakest topics, so tomorrow will be more focused.
Let’s see . . . My son got an award for participating in All County Chorus. Can’t really say more about that one since it’s pretty straightforward.
As far as writing goes, I managed to edit 3 chapters of Darwin & the Avenging Elf. I was hoping to do more, but I went out to enjoy the weather longer than expected. A big part of this was caused by the Cricket World Cup tournament that has taken over the nearby park. If I saw it was open, I went there to walk around for an hour to enjoy the good weather. This weekend won’t be the same since it’s a lot of big games, so I wanted to get my exercise and Pokemon Go time in when I could. Didn’t always go smoothly since I got blockaded into a parking lot that was open when I arrived. An out-of-towner went in for a jog and they closed up his exit too, so I had to tell him where I knew he could get out. It’s a mess with helicopters overhead, cops everywhere, bad traffic, and feeling like I’m banned from a section of my own town. All of that to say that I hit my minimum goal of editing 3 chapters last weekend. I’ll get more done once the school year winds down and might even finish editing the whole book by the end of June.
I did get some good news in regards to my health. Stress, anxiety, and everything else aside, my sleep apnea is practically gone. This is only because I use the CPAP machine every night, so it isn’t like I’m cured cured. Still, this means my blood pressure has gone back to healthy levels or only goes a point or two higher. I don’t wake up feeling like I almost died or wondering if I have Covid. My energy is better as long as the heat and other factors don’t wear me down. At least it isn’t the same time of tired that I used to feel, so definitely improvement. For numbers, I used to have nearly 200 apnea events per hour and now I usually have less than 1. The doctor was really happy with that.
With everything going on at work, this week was primarily about survival. Just glad to make it to the weekend. My back, shoulders, knees, and lower intestines aren’t in great shape, but we all made it. I’ll be fine for when it’s time to go out and catch some Pokemon or do the food shopping. Weather is in our favor too. Need to cook dinner for us and multiple lunches for myself too. Figure I should get it all taken care of tonight since I’ll be cooking one thing already. Not very exciting, but it’s adulting and I need to do it. Things should get easier after this coming week.
I won’t be able to touch Darwin & the Avenging Elf until Friday. Not ideal, but I might get more time with it during weekedays after next weekend. So, I’m going to finish up the August posts and maybe even start in on September. Found some interesting post ideas with one of them being able to span 2 weeks. As usual, I’m not sure what to do about Tuesdays, so I might just revive the teasers. Sunday will be either animal posts or holidays for the rest of the year. Might throw in a few other topics if they come up. This isn’t very exciting.
Oh, the only other victory I had this week was figuring out what this mystery CD I’ve been listening to in my car was. It’s a burnt one from my college days and there was never a name put on it. Finally remember to look up a lyric, which led me to ‘Have a Cigar’ by Pink Floyd. Only it wasn’t Pink Floyd singing it. Thought it was the Primus cover, but it ended up being Foo Fighters. This whole thing resulted in me learning that CD #6 in my car’s player was a burnt copy of the ‘Mission Impossible: II’ soundtrack. Not sure why I didn’t realize that when the first song was Limp Bizkit doing the them song. My brain is just not braining this week.
So, goals of the week:
Help son study for tests.
Cooking food.
Finish August blog posts.
Pokemon Go fun.
Try to finish puzzle to make space for summer Lego work.
I think the comic sums up me trying to write these posts, but I felt I had already dedicated enough brain cells to it to keep going. Now, I’ll just hand off the end of the week to everyone else.
What would you say is a very important primordial force of the universe?
Which primordial force would you want to control?
If someone asks you if you’re a god, do you say yes or no?
(I hate ties. Used to be okay when they were clip-ons. After that, I didn’t like the sensation of something being tightly wrapped around my neck. Can’t get used to that feeling at all. Also, I don’t really care about the origins of the tie. I’m going to stick with what I made up with here.)
A failure at the noose
Tool of his chosen trade
His victims always lived
To meet a better knotsman
He pondered every night
Ignorant of his mistakes
Believing himself a genius
And the masses merely fools
They did not understand
How silk was better for the throat
Leaving fewer burns
Upon the swinging corpse
His knot was smarter
More efficient than the noose
When time-consuming coils
Though weaker he admits
He countered the problem
By putting knot to throat
Instead of back of neck
To make a breaking twist
Yet his flare was his undoing
With victims falling to the ground
Eyes looking with confusion
When they should have closed for good
The hangman quit
On a sunny day
Filled with a heavy heart
He trudged out to the public
He wished to hang
By his own knot and hand
Dangling from a tree
Dressed in his finest suit
His attempt failed once more
As the branch snapped quick
And he tumbled to the grass
Hearing laughter all the way
The laughter stopped
When he stood once more
People looked at him perplexed
Whispering of his creation
He smiled in wonder
As people ordered his nooses
Calling them the latest craze
The newest style upon the scene
So the tie moved far and wide
As gents believe they’re worth
These failed nooses made of silk
Will strangle men for all eternity
This topic is pretty tough to research since I kept coming across different lists of primordial forces and systems. Maybe one can’t really stand up and say here is the definitive list. Doesn’t help that primordial gets used a lot. For example, you see above are the Primordial Demons of ‘That Time I was Reincarnated as a Slime’. They are based around colors instead of natural forces. So, what can an author do?
Just decide on what your world’s primordial forces could be.
That’s all I could come up with. Want a bit more? Here are some ways I’ve seen primordial forces used in fiction:
The Living Physical Manifestation
There are beings walking around as the aforementioned powers. They may be gods or just roaming entities that remain neutral. That doesn’t mean they are safe, but they might show up just to make everyone nervous. Using a system like this solidly defines the forces and can bring up a dangerous question: What if one of these beings was killed or controlled by a mortal? That second part can be used with just about any system that involves the forces being controllable.
The McGuffin/Relic
Yes, this is where you will find the Infinity Gems. Unlike the previous group, these items aren’t alive and wandering around. They aren’t the embodiment of primordial forces either. They are more like conduits that can allow a person to utilize the energy they are attuned to. Of course, their existence will cause strife, battling, and all around problems because people will want them. You can make these a collection of anything as long as you have one for each force. Probably a good idea to figure out what happens if one of them is destroyed too.
Magic Schools
This one is easy because it’s common and not usually seen as primordial. Basically, a spellcaster can utilize these forces with spells. It could be more advanced that the elemental ones, but it gives them power over gravity, time, space, or whatever the forces are of the world. I guess superpowers can be put in there as well.
No Impact Whatsoever
You heard me. The forces are acknowledged and exist, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to play a part in anything. Do we always pay attention to those of our own world? No, we have gravity and electromagnetism, but we don’t think about them every day. They exist and keep things moving. So, you don’t have to feel obligated to make them a big thing in your own world. In fact, I think most authors don’t bother, which kind of undermines the topic of the week. Oops.
The inspiration for Quest of the Brokenheartedwas ‘Castlevania’. I loved the games where you played as a Belmont or Alucard to get through a castle full of monsters. Your goal was to defeat Count Dracula. For a long time, I wanted to write a story like that, but I couldn’t figure it out because the games were primarily platformer explorations games. Didn’t make for a good story. Then, I was nearing the end of Legends of Windemereand came up with an idea.
Now, I had already come up with the concept of Lacarsis. This was a city of monsters, which moved around the continent of Ralian. I tried various stories with different heroes delving into its depths to fight for . . . something. A few times it was just to destroy the castle and be a hero. Others wanted to take control of it. Some looked for missing loved ones, but the whole thing felt empty and lame. All I really had was a great set piece with no characters or story. So, I kept tinkering with Lacarsis and seeing if I had any heroes who I could throw into it. The one that caught my eye:
Kira Grasdon
Part of it was that her weapon was a kusari-gama, which is a chain connected to a sickle. It is similar to the whip that the Belmonts use in the games. I thought that would add to the homage concept and create more interesting battles than a more common weapon. A higher level of agility and cunning would be needed, which Kira was heading towards. So, this was turning out to be a good match for her character development. I threw her into different scenarios, but the goals and reasons weren’t matching up. Something was just off about things.
The issue was that I was trying to plan Quest of the Brokenhearted around who she was at the time instead of who she would be. This would be where I came up with the title and jumped the timeline seven years. Kira was no longer a happy heiress to a wealthy merchant house who was in love with a heroic champion. Now, she was alone, broken, depressed, and working in a brothel (not in the way you think). Her reason for going into Lacarsis was that she felt she had nothing left to live for. Kira no longer cared if she died, so she sets off to take on the challenge. It brought a darkness to the story, which I could gradually alleviate as she grows stronger.
Of course, all of my other ideas couldn’t work with the broken Kira. I came up with the demonic ruler of Lacarsis making a challenge to the outside world. Heroes would enter and never be seen again, but nobody knew why. Kira shows up to find that the ruler is hosting a competition with the intruding hero as the guest of honor. They go one-on-one with various monsters at any moment while being treated like nobility. It was all for the monster’s entertainment until the hero died or did well enough to earn a battle with the ruler.
Going this route, allowed me to flush out Lacarsis into a more self-sustaining society instead of a castle with roaming creatures. There were artisans, businesses, hierarchies, and things you could find in other cities. I was able to create a better supporting character system without having to depend on other humans. Lacarsis now felt alive and complex instead of being nothing more than a backdrop, which is why I tend to look for reasons to bring it back. Not sure if Darwin will go there, but Sin has a visit planned in one of his books.
Quest of the Brokenheartedis also where I started the storyline of Rayne. This was an amnesic elf that someone played in my college DnD game. I had a complicated backstory for her that became convoluted and no longer worked. She would have a connection to Luke Callindor, which gave me a reason to have her debut in Kira’s adventure. This set the stage and explained a lot of Rayne as well. Her odd luck, which could be both bad and good at the same time. I mean, she was a child who was abandoned in Lacarsis (bad), but ended up being raised as a servant by the monsters (good). It explains why she seems to attract creatures too. Given that Rayne was slated to be a major player in Windemere, I liked that she would be drifting through other stories until she finally lands in her big adventure.
Looking back, I might have leaned harder into Kira’s depression. That’s really it, but it would have been tough since each chapter revolved around a different monster battle. I was able to fit character development and relationships in there to build up to the fight or be around it. Yet, I never gave Kira a chapter of total downtime and reflection. I felt that having a chapter with no action in this kind of story would kill momentum and feel very out of place. Must have been some way to fix it though.
How about some questions?
What do you think of people making homages?
What would you do to make yourself feel alive and no longer depressed?
In fantasy, you may come across the term ‘primordial forces’. It shows up in other genres too, but it tends to pertain to ancient powers. Some may think of ‘primordial soup’, which was basically the goo that started off life on Earth. That’s close to what we’re talking about, but still very far often. So, what would be primordial forces?
Primordial forces existed before everything else and are considered older than the universe or whatnot. They were here at the beginning of time and will exist for all of eternity. This can include reality, matter, energy, magic, space, time, and many other forces. The point is that they have to be something that existed at the beginning of a world’s existence. So, you do have some limitations depending on how the story’s world works.
These forces tend to be what keeps the world together or birthed it as well. This can allow life and death to be included since one could say primordial requires there to be living things. Same goes for time, which would need beings to exist for it to be noticed. Much of this depends on your personal definition and the building of your world though. You can see that there is a lot of flexibility. Still, they all share the traits of being ancient and becoming a building block for the world itself. This is probably why the genetic soup gets the name.
Science has some primordial forces too, which are: gravity, electromagnetism, strong nuclear forces, and weak nuclear forces. Those last two cover a lot of ground, but that does simplify things. Makes sense to me too. These are the forces that keep our universe together, so they had to exist at the start. Otherwise, the universe would never have formed and everything else wouldn’t be created. Space and energy might be the only other forces I could see coming before them, but that might not be scientific enough for this group’s use.
Another possible primordial force is change. Everything changes at some point, so one could say it’s a force. It could be defined as evolution, but that doesn’t include non-living things changing. So, the general term could be change, which explains how the original components of the universe become what people see during the story. Maybe this falls under the strong and weak nuclear forces.
The interesting thing is that I kept finding different sets of primordial forces depending on the world. So, I don’t think there’s a clear set. Science does have the 4, but fiction tends to be different across the board. Yes, the Infinity Gems could count as would DC’s seven forces of the universe. I know at least the first one would be mentioned in the comments if I didn’t do it first. It does prove the variation of systems and how there tend to be stories about people trying to capture all of this power. Makes sense since one who controls the primordial forces of a world would be able to change that world to whatever they want.
So, what do you think of the overall primordial forces concept?
Legends of Windemere 