Worldbuilding Wednesday 5/25/22: Let’s Talk About Dumbledore

 

As I’m sure every fantasy fan already knows, Dumbledore (full name Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore) is the mysterious but kindly Headmaster of Hogwarts, the magical boarding school Harry Potter attends. In the movie series, he’s depicted in full-on Gandalf mode, with hippy-style long gray hair and a like beard he keeps tied in a frontal ponytil over his chest. He wears long pale gray robes with Celtic imagery and instead of a pointy hat, a round crushed-velvet pillbox hat.

What I never knew about Dumbledore, however, is that his name — actually his last name — is an Old English word for bumblebee, Rowling stating she chose it because she imagined the character humming to himself as he “bumbled” around the Hogwarts campus. While this may be a sort of retcon (as Dumbledore’s homosexuality was) it’s true that the name itself invokes a cozy, homey feel. Dumbledore is approachable, and someone you’d want to have a cuppa tea with. Say what you will about Rowling herself, or her creations,  it’s undeniable she had a knack for names.

Want to name a character like Dumbledore, but who’s not Dumbledore?

 

Variations on Dumbledore

Grumblebone

Dambledare

Dimpledore

Trumbledora

Dumplingdote

Crumblegor

Sprigglegor

Darbledove

 Schumblefell

Dustyodor

Speddleroar

Dumblefairy

Mumbledot

Shamblehole

Hufflefast

Kressjolly

Worldbuilding Wednesday 5/18/21: Comic and Crunchtastic Cs

The letter C, plastered with comic book images.

The letter C has an identity problem: it doesn’t have a distinct sound of its own. You can pronounce it with either the sibilant hiss of the letter S (as in censure) or the harsh spit of the K (as in cocoa.) Only when paired with an h does it come into its own: church, Bach, chrysoprase. It’s a copycat of a letter. Even from first grade, when I started to read, it came across as dishonest.

Yet, it has a certain elegance. That shape, for one thing, which lends itself well to cursive and creative ornamentation. It’s associated with wealth and tradition: chandelier, champagne, celebration, Chesapeake. It’s also insanely onomatopoeic. Click, clang, crickets chirping, catastrophic caca, ch-ch-ch-ch-changes.

Here’s some randomgened fantasy names that start with C.

 

Character names beginning with C

Male

Clytis

Cutrian

Chasrin

Claudvere

Chansar

Curmas

Caeestian

Cithernt

Cheffald

Camguy

Cavnu

 Female

Clopha

Chloine

Clythene

Cleorabia

Cirvissa

Chrysique

Chyrlethanwe

Clarfavette

Ciranda

Cleirama

Catendra

 Surnames

Crefflod

Canishfield

Cressmonk

Cantreece

Clabittern

Chessblue

Caraboss

Cadplum

Cassilk

Cranbeach

Chipton

Worldbuilding Wednesday 5/11/22: Random Playlist Songs

 

Elf ear earbuds are now a Thing.

Sometimes, when you’re writing, you need an imaginary playlist, or a song from someone’s playlist. Here’s a few that were originally randomgenned as spells, but didn’t make the sense they should have. I intended these to be in the Song – Artist format (Hey Jude – The Beatles) but you could reverse the order, I guess.

 

Random Songs from Someone’s Playlist

Speak with Men – Manateez

Control Dirt – Pterosaurs

Super Intelligence – Tame Monkeys

Transform a Faun – The Grab Dragons

The Exorcism Dancers – Wrack Room

Grease Fire – Blacksmith

Pulverize – Bison

Whisperfly – Defense Shield

Size – Animate

Act Like a Dancer – Keep Paintbox

Invisible Whip – Telepathy

Eternal Youth – Cauterize Skeletons

Summon and Weaken – Create Blindness (f. Rebel Phoenix)

Melt – The Pro-Mushroom Men

Ultraseven Vintage

Some vintage Ultraseven record and publication covers from Japan done in that inimitable colorful 1960s style, heavy on the primary red, blue, and yellow.

Look closely at the first image, where Ultraseven has a mouth with a lower lip, and it is open! He also has human eyes behind his hexagonal ones. I wonder if the illustrator wasn’t paying attention, or it had been painted early in the production process where the details weren’t ironed out yet.

Worldbuilding Wednesday 5/4/22: Canadian Provinces

The imaginary Canadian province of Kaskatama, by KMT

Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Yukon, and Nunavat are some of the most colorful names in North America, with origins in the languages of the Native peoples of Canada. They, along with the names of certain cities (Saskatoon, Athabasca) are easy for those in the U.S. to make fun of and for years served as comedy shorthand to indicate a place of birth for a backwoods, slack-jawed yokel (not true). But you shouldn’t. They are fascinating names in their own right, resulting from a cultural mix very different from the U.S.  The creator of the map above, for example, created a whole imaginary province around the mix of French, English, and Native names, setting it amongst the never-never land of lakes and mountains in what I take to be the current Northwest Territories.

Examine the map in full view and you’ll see such town names as “Blackadder” and “Blithering Owl.”

All Native names mean something, of course. Nunavat, for example, is “Our land” in the Inuktitut language, and its coat of arms is one of the best ever, featuring a reindeer and a narwhal, a stone bowl of fire, and a Native stone monument, the whole crowned by an igloo with a crown. Even the script below also belongs to the native people.

And speaking of arms and flags, Canada has gone through a few before deciding on its current red maple leaf, at the bottom right of the picture below.

This proposed flag of Canada is also attractive.

If you’re looking for a new Canadian province, or even just a city or town name, see below.

 

Canadian Provinces

Sasnookit

Yukawak

Monaswan

Nunkaniss

Kanmou

Mintoosko

Athiabask

 Wippanakawa

Shuwasko

Kiksko

Chitkwai

Nitwakum

Molatcheen

Sipaya

Ultraseven Sneakers

Ultraseven’s sweet marketing deal with Converse!

Ultraseven [Review]

Ultraseven

Tsurubaya television series
1967 – 1968
Originally shown on Tokyo Broadcast System (TBS) and later syndicated

I was eight years old when I was introduced to the original Ultraman, which ran midafternoon, after school hours, on a now-defunct UHF station from Philadelphia. Ultraman was a creation of Eiji Tsuburaya, the special effects guru who did the monster suits and disaster sequences for the original Godzilla movie. Tsuburaya founded his own production company in 1963 and became a tokusatsu (Japanese live-action movies or TV shows, usually SFF, that featuring liberal use of special effects) pioneer. Ultraman debuted in Japan in 1966 and was an immediate hit. It was syndicated widely, which was how it crossed the Pacific, with English dubbing, in the early 1970s to wind up on American TV.

But little did I know while watching it that other Ultraman series had already come and gone, each having its own Ultra as the hero, with different monsters, plotlines, attack teams, and visual style. If I had, I would have watched the hell out of them, too. My love for Ultraman ran deep.

Over the years I gradually discovered the existence of these other shows but they remained inaccessible to Americans. Only in Hawaii were they ever broadcast, and that was because of its high Japanese population.

When VCRs came along it became possible to buy bootlegged tapes, or, if you lived in a large city with a Chinatown, rent the video releases from Japan. I actually did that when I moved to Seattle, but since they weren’t dubbed or subtitled, I had no idea what was going on. And while that same Chinatown’s Uwajimaya store had a Japanese bookstore I couldn’t read the Ultra guides or manga, either, and had to pester my Japanese friends for translations.

So imagine my delight when ShoutFactoryTV  bought the rights to stream almost seventy years of Ultra shows and movies, in subtitled versions, and there was me, with a Firestick and Amazon Prime. Ultra-ecstasy had begun!

Continue reading

Worldbuilding Wednesday 4/27/22: The Best of Twittersnips (Cocktails)

Pointy breasts = Fun Time

Cocktail parties still haven’t come back yet. But here’s some that have yet to be concocted, culled from my Twitter feed.

 

Cocktails

Smashing Sheila (this originated in Sydney, Australia)

Guinness Lemonade

Golden Mickey

Goose Sucker

Glass Slipper

Ballbuster

Orange Slum

Muddy John

Juicy Jackson

Vengeance from Hong Kong

Rocky Surf

Sleepy Cobra

Pumpkin Nipple (Seasonal)