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Weirdcore Inspiration by Knight AnNi
Other - Premise.
(Additional info on type: My seed is a combination of text and images. It is a series of four weirdcore images that I made. Each contains text to inspire a potential story. I find weirdcore images with text to be very inspiring for stories, so I decided to make some, too.)
CC-BY.
Content Warnings: Some Eyestrain
Project Page
Blurb:
I’ve always found weirdcore images to be very inspiring for my stories and games, so I made a few images to inspire you guys!
Each of these images is a personal photo that I edited in Photoshop.
You free to use these images in your next project or as inspiration. I only ask that you give me credit and a link back to this page.
Submitted as part of the interactive fiction SeedComp! jam, planting round.
Seed (Reminder- Some Eyestrain):
Image: Grainy image of a wooded roadway with a starburst centered over where the road disappears in the distance. In the top left corner are the words “i have loved you more than anything”. In the bottom right corner, are the words “i will miss you” repeated several times, sometimes overtop of each other.
Image: There’s an outdoor entrance to a brick building of some kind, municipal or commercial, perhaps a school? It appears to be a secondary or back entrance under an overhang or shelter. The metal door is highlighted by a prominent question mark. In the foreground, there appears to be another entrance down some steps, highlighted with the words “you forgot about this part, didn’t you?”. In the bottom right corner are the words:
Image: A dark hallway lined with cinderblock walls and metal firedoors stretches forward before it disappears into the distance. Perhaps a hospital or an asylum? At the bottom of the image are the words “I can’t tell you how long I’ve waited for this moment.”.
Image: A solid image of greenery and trees only broken by a glimpse of blue sky near the top is hard to place; deciduous, but whether tropical or temperate is impossible to place. In the bottom right corner is the silhouette of individual. Besides a basic humanoid shape, no details can be discerned. They appear to be made up of blue and purple striations, similar, but distinct from the texture of the background greenery. Next to the individual, in a way that suggests attribution, are the words “Now listen carefully, because I’m only gonna say this once.”.
My favorite of the four, to cut to the chase, is the hallway scene. There’s something terribly familiar and awful in that scene. It feels like every faceless public building built by the lowest bidder I’ve ever encountered. It’s ominous, and the words, innocent on their own, read decidedly ominous in this context.
They are all wonderfully ambiguous, leaving the reader with more questions than answers. My second favorite is the mystery door with the second entrance down the steps. The sarcasm indicated by the strikethrough and the dread induced by suggesting something awful already happened here, and might happen again, is palpable. I would happily make a game from any of these weirdcore images and I’m excited to see what directions people might take them.
Crystal Sprouts by ilustreco.
Text - Worldbuilding.
CC-BY-NC.
Project Page
Blurb:
This is a setting in a distant land, with floating islands, ancient stories and sprouts.
A small worldbuilding piece (a seed, you might even say), with two of my original illustrations. This was made for the SeedComp! Jam - planting round.
Feel free to use it in whatever this inspires to, I hope it can serve as a little seed for imagination to sprout, to create stories, games or whatever pieces creativity allows.
Seed:
seeds!comp (1).pdf (215.3 KB)
I’m including the text below, but be aware there are 2 small illustrations included on the PDF, even if the text is the main thrust of the seed:
Crystal Sprouts
In these far away lands, rare plants on the top of
floating islands are said to sprout tiny crystals within
their roots. Legends and myths roam the valleys,
promising magic and endless possibilities to bend the
fabric of reality for those who can harness the energy
from these crystals, which most people have never
even seen.
There are rumors of foreign merchants, who claim to carry magical goods and
potions made from crystal dust, and even some who claim to have caged the
energy itself, being ready to use by those who offer enough in exchange.
Other rumors, even older, tell of strange creatures who inhabit the floating
islands, and seem to care for the plants, acting as guardians of the crystals.
Cautionary tales for children present these guardians as having a civilization of
their own, as old as time itself, living through means none of us can
comprehend. ‘Maybe they are the weavers of reality’, some say. Others shush
these foolish ideas, as ‘they are simply from another dimension’, as if that was
more belivable.
Now it’s up to you. Take these sprouts and create.
What do these crystals really do?
What are they?
Who are the guardians of the floating islands?
Do the merchants really own crystal powered
goods?
How did they get it?
What do they want?
We hope these seeds allow your imagination to
sprout adventures and stories in these distant
lands.
Ilustreco
Images: Two small illustrations. One image is of a faceless individual in a cloak standing on a small floating island grasping a plant sprouting from the surface. A glowing lantern hangs from the plant. The second image is of an individual in a clock, with long braided hair, pointed ears, and a delicate face of indeterminate sex. They carry a lantern and a stick over their shoulder serving as a sort of hobo’s bindle. The difference is, instead of a handkerchief, crystals and a larger lantern hang from it. Small leafy branches appear to hang from the bottom of the larger lantern.
First of all, I love how much this entry leans of hearsay. Rather than tell the reader something is or isn’t so, they instead refer to what some people say, even including the refutations of others. It leaves it so very ambiguous and open to interpretation. Are the merchants exploiting a rare resource, or are they frauds? Perhaps they’re both! Good choice in framing.
Next, the illustrations. There’s a simple whimsy to it that fits high fantasy but would also be welcome in a children’s story. Like the illustrations from Shel Shilverstein’s books meet the illustrations from the E. Nesbit’s Five Children and It. I’d be highly interested in seeing more artwork from this creator.
I realized this time around I wasn’t being accessible to those using screen readers. I corrected for that and will circle back around to add image descriptors to my first post as well (as best I can; Amanda’s image will prove difficult to summarize).