Creativity

Way With Worlds: It Comes Apart – The Persecution Rests

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fence barbed wire

(Way With Worlds is a weekly column on the art of worldbuilding published at Seventh Sanctum, Muse Hack, and Ongoing Worlds)

Last column I covered bias and bigotry in the settings you’re developing. Not a pleasant subject, but one that’s important because believable characters have their biases and often their bigotries – just as we do.

To summarize my handy rules-to-remember on the subject:

  1. Everyone has Opinions.
  2. When opinions “solidify” they become Biases.
  3. When Biases become part of our identity they become Bigotries, sort of black holes of ideals that suck other things in.

Now when bigotries seize control of an individual, a group, a nation, or a galactic confederation, that can lead to outright campaigns against various people. Attempts to extermiate, subjugate, control, or drive out an entire identifiable group. In short, persecutions.

Which is the unpleasant subject of today’s column.

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Way With Worlds: It Comes Apart – Conflicts And The World

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war ruins city bombed

(Way With Worlds is a weekly column on the art of worldbuilding published at Seventh Sanctum, Muse Hack, and Ongoing Worlds)

So there’s a reason I covered humans (and human-alikes) and the psychology of conflict first. Characters and their institutions are often the causes of conflicts – and characters are the lenses through which players/readers experience your world. We have to think about them first in the case of worldbuilding because it gives us the right perspective.

But with that said, you need something to get your cast to engage in (or prevent) atrocities. What are he drivers and elements that create wars and conflicts?

Again, it’s often a matter of perspective. Which is the problem in fiction – and come to think of it real life as well . . .

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An Interview With Liz Gmaz Of Studio Cosplay

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Top Left: Sabrina (Katilist) Maizland Top Right: Liz Gmaz Bottom Left: Stefanie Hackenberg Bottom Right: Daria Medved
Top Left: Sabrina (Katilist) Maizland
Top Right: Liz Gmaz
Bottom Left: Stefanie Hackenberg
Bottom Right: Daria Medved
We’re familiar with hackerspaces and makerspaces here at Musehack – but a Cosplayspace?  Yep, meet Studio Cosplay, which is opening a community workshop in 2015, located in Washington DC.  An entire space for a community to cosplay, share ideas, and work together.  A fusion of geek skills and geek community?  I’m there with an interview.
Let’s meet Liz Gmaz, the president of Studio Cosplay, and one of the people making this dream a reality.

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