It may just be my impression, but usually when a story is set in a dystopian setting, the dystopia is played straight. However, when the characters encounter or start off in a utopian setting, they almost always will end up realizing that the utopia is actually a mirage, and in ...

In designing a good villain character there's a wide range of paths one can follow. From the grandiose villains that want to take over the world and live in volcano islands, waiting for the hero to fall into their elaborate death trap to humanized villains with complex backstories that ...

I'm not bitter, but I am melancholic.
My mind are tears turned to fabric
Reminiscent of the old and the new to turn
Out from the new horrid blackness to a seam
We are not bitter, but we are melancholic.
We are here for the purpose of trash.
Leaving ...

Last week’s post of the Fantastic Bestiary dealt with housespirits of ancient Rome. In this post we’re going to the far east, following up on another suggestion left by DD member marcorossi. We are going to study the Naga today. The Nagas are a race of serpentine beings ...

So we've talked often about how letting a character die in a story is something that should be used very frugally, because once death occurs, it should be permanent. In most settings, death shouldn't be something that is reversible. If not, it will lose its impact, and the ...

We live in a world of routine, predictability, and pedestrian problems. (2020 doesn't count. Much.)

Magic doesn't really seem to exist in our world.

Or does it?

Perhaps we live above a very thin surface, like floating on a tranquil lake, and just underneath it there are ghouls ...

I'm not a superfan of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but I read some of them, liked them, and I found a lot of the characters wonderful, and many story elements have stayed with me for many years.

In that series, travelers through the cosmos could run into ...

Having completed the (very quick) foray into the workings of motivations, ideologies and behaviors, the time has come for a look-see of all your amazing comments, from all three articles!

I haven't done this before so I'm not entirely sure how to present them. I'll wing it ...

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The entire gang is here this time again. This marks number 420 of the Quackcasts we've done. 420 is code among some for smoking dope, so ...

Stereotypes permeate our every day lives. Whether we like it or not, our brains are wired for making quick estimations and judgments based on patterns and pattern recognition.

This very pattern we're looking for to identify at a glance is what a stereotype is. And it's very useful ...