Expand what you already have before you add something new.

If I were to ask you about Superman’s magic, you’d probably talk about his ability to fly, his super strength, the lasers he can shoot from his eyes. You may go from there to his invincibility and perhaps some of his lesser (and more inconsistent) powers. But if we stick with those four, we’ve got a pretty strong setup for what Superman is capable of doing.

However, is this what makes Superman interesting?

I’d put forth that it is not. There are lots of people with magic powers who can fly and who are invincible. There are a lot of strong, fast, or smart people. What makes Superman interesting, then? Two things: his code of ethics and his weakness to kryptonite.

Sanderson’s First Law of Magics: An author’s ability to solve conflict with magic is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said magic.

Since the WordPress archives are far from the easiest thing to navigate and it can be difficult to find what you are looking for even though it is, I am putting together a couple of ‘index’ posts linking to things I’ve written on this site on a given topic.

Future timeline, a timeline of future events, based on current trends, long-term environmental changes, advances in technology such as Moore's Law, the latest medical advances, and the evolving geopolitical landscape.

The following list of questions is meant to aid authors of fantasy fiction who are seeking to create believable imaginary settings for their stories. While many of these questions may be helpful or crucial to certain stories, they will not all apply to every story. It is not necessary for an author to answer all, or even any, of the questions in order to start writing, (or to finish writing, either). The idea is simply to provoke people into thinking about the ways their settings and backgrounds hang together … or don't. If it's useful, use it. If not, don't.

A suite of calculators and guides to aid in the creation of life-supporting planetary systems

Some links that are useful for the creation of new worlds or for information on real ones.

This encyclopaedia provides latest detections and data announced by professional astronomers about exoplanetary systems. It is about objets lighter than 60 Jupiter masses, which are orbiting stars/brown dwarf or are free floating. It provides also a database about planets in binary systems, and a database about circumstellar disks.

Generate Analemma for any planet

Create an idea for your next fanfic.

Word-tracking spreadsheets and more.

WordGrinder is a Unicode-aware character cell word processor that runs in a terminal (or a Windows console). It is designed to get the hell out of your way and let you get some work done.

Joplin, the open source note-taking application

Obsidian is the private and flexible note‑taking app that adapts to the way you think.

A markdown-like text editor designed for writing novels and larger projects of many smaller plain text documents.

It is designed to be a simple text editor that allows for easy organisation of text files and notes, with a meta data syntax for comments, synopsis, and cross-referencing between files, and built on plain text files for robustness.

Zim is a notepad like desktop application that is inspired by the way people use wikis.

Yon is a little UI for knowledge designed to be used every day. Add your notes, write your diary, and connect thoughts with bidirectional links. Explore your text through an acme-inspired 2-column interface to dive deep or go wide and always find your way back. It's contained in a single html file with no dependency, so that you can open the lid and tweak any part of it and make it your own.

Text editor - Notes & ToDo (for Android)

Available on Mac, Windows and Linux

Pluma is the official text editor of the MATE desktop environment. While aiming at simplicity and ease of use, Pluma is a powerful general purpose text editor. It can be used to create and edit all sorts of text files.
Pluma features a flexible plugin system which can be used to dynamically add new advanced features to Pluma itself.

Kate is a modern text editor built on the KDE Frameworks and Qt.

Writing Morse code as sheet music emphasizes that the rhythm of the letters is more important than their visual representation.

A musical description of the tones produced by telephone buttons.

The tones produced by telephone keypads are part of a scale that divides the octave into 14 pieces.

This Mario Paint inspired composer tool is easy and fun. You can create simple and beautiful songs right in your browser and share them with the world!

Official homepage for Little Sound Dj, the ultimate Game Boy music editor.

MuseScore's core library (libmscore) in WebAssembly! Read mscz data, and generate audio/MIDI/MusicXML/SVG/PNG/PDF sheets right in browsers. - LibreScore/webmscore

JummBox is an online tool for sketching and sharing instrumental music.

Cacophony is a minimalist and ergonomic MIDI sequencer. It's minimalist in that it doesn't have a lot of functionality MIDI sequencers have. It's ergonomic in that there is no mouse input and a very clean interface, allowing you to juggle less inputs and avoid awkward mouse motions.

BeepBox is an online tool for sketching and sharing instrumental music.

A browser-based generative music environment based on octave-repeating microtonal tuning systems and their subsets (scales/modes).

Flexible level editor

Create point-and-click text adventures

A free and open-source 2D game engine.

Pulp is a click-and-place, fun, quirky game studio for Playdate. Make a game with no code, or maybe a little code.

A free, open source, project oriented level editor made for indie game developers by indie game developers.

a tool for drawing and assembling graphical hypertext games

GB BASIC is a retro Fantasy Console that generates ROMs compatible with the popular handheld game console.

A quick and easy to use drag and drop retro game creator for your favourite handheld video game system.

Downpour is the best app for making games on your phone. Collage together photos, drawings and text, and then connect them into an interactive story. It's genuinely quick and easy to use — you can make a game before your tea has gone cold. Once you've made a game with Downpour, what then? You can share it with your friends inside the app, or post the link for anyone to play.

bipsi is a tool for making small games where a character explores a world and interacts with its inhabitants.

Some clarity in an increasingly noisy world. This blog is focused on applying a critical eye to the vegan and animal rights world, and help answer questions that may not be found elsewhere.

Black Vegans Rock was founded by Aph Ko after she wrote the first list that spotlighted 100 Black Vegans for Striving with Systems. She decided to research and compile a list of influential Black vegans who were doing incredible work to dismantle the stereotype that veganism was a “white person’s” thing.

by Rachel A. Rosen and Zilla Novikov || Food you can make so you don't die.

Discover easy vegan recipes on It Doesn't Taste Like Chicken, your go-to food blog by Sam Turnbull, 3x bestselling cookbook author.

Discover easy vegan recipes on It Doesn't Taste Like Chicken, your go-to food blog by Sam Turnbull, 3x bestselling cookbook author.

Stirring up magick in my vegan kitchen!