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Psychopomps

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Yeah no actually this gender assignment tends to rely HEAVILY on things like that. Parts of the cultural shift towards intense paranoia about '''male effeminacy''' whilst simultaneously having a longstanding accepted gender space to be female post-'male' birth assignment has resulted in akoshos designations being made VERY early (like. 3-8 years old), usually by Parental Approval rather than pure self-identification, and in a very clinical fashion based on behavior. The idea is that an akoshos is someone with a male body and female soul (a notion which has lost the majority of its former cultural functions and is now mostly just 'a thing that exists'). This is now positioned as something that should be Strikingly apparent from early childhood, and is considered Verifiable.

So this assignment relies on things adults can point to as a sign that a child is actually ‘supposed to’ be this way and this is not the result of personal failings (once you're old enough that you're supposed to be in the process of becoming a man, which can be failed at), or of physical ‘abnormality’ (in the case of being intersex). People look for signs in early childhood like STRONG and HIGHLY VISIBLE self-alignment with modes of being considered essentially feminine. So like a heavy inclination towards ‘girls games’ and toys would be a part of it, along with pronounced interest in women’s work or clothing, and usually actively verbalizing not being a boy. Also stuff like the child being perceived as being more emotional, delicate, sensitive, skittish, and submissive than male peers their age. Many parents will just start their child's social transition once they feel confident that there's no point in positioning a self-evidently non-male child as a 'son', though others will insist on hard confirmation that their kid has a female soul, which entails extensive divination.

If you're a woman or a nonbinary person who has been given a 'male' sex assignment, and you Don't show a pronounced interest in girly things + act femininely enough as a little kid because you're inundated in a culture where the entire spectrum between 'gender conforming man' and 'gender conforming akoshos' is 'shameful male effeminacy' and therefore feel crushing pressure to hide this part of you (or you're just not interested in enough 'girly things') (or if the bones that were thrown in a fire to verify your soul gender re-designate you male, and your parents prefer to trust that over you) (or you're just too valuable to your parents as a firstborn male heir), you're likely to be socially locked in as a 'boy' around pubescence and it's much, much harder to transition without people who know you (and maybe you yourself) deciding that you're actually just a failed man. Most akoshos are transfeminine, but a large proportion of transfems in this society end up living as 'men'.

(As a note most of the discourses about akoshos designation are debates over what exactly the criteria should be, how early the signs should be apparent (so as not to confuse a boy behaving effeminately due to bad influences for an akoshos expressing an essential spiritual condition), should you punish your boy child for extra-pronounced feminine behavior to figure things out (because if she's actually an akoshos she cannot physically help it and Totally won't just start hiding it to avoid punishment), etc. And in academic circles, a lot of arguing over how the soul-body relation works in the context of gender, why the female soul doesn't Always turn a male body female (all fetuses are believed to start out 'male'), and how this relates to intersex conditions.)

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Is your toyhouse public?

Not yet I'm still working on getting character profiles made + updated. I'll probably be able to drop the link like, late next week.

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Refs of Janeys' two khait that appear in the story.

Jaimeti (right) is a 18 year old otadi gelding. This is a landrace type from the central grasslands that is preferred for cavalry for their good stamina + agility and hardy constitution. He's the grandson of an Apomalo Tlinya bull and would normally have been kept intact as a valuable stud, but was unmanageably aggressive towards everything around him and prone to injuring mates, and was ultimately gelded for use as a mount after producing just a few calves. He's since cooled off and has a steady and dependable-enough temperament, though manages to come off passive aggressive in a khait sort of way. He was brought on the pilgrimage as Janeys' primary mount but is eventually killed as a funerary offering for Faiza. His name just means "gazelle".

Hachate Hehaë (left) is a 28 year old feydhi/otadi mare that Janeys purchases for temporary transportation after stranding himself via killing Jaimeti. This purchase likely saved her from being slaughtered for food, though she probably would not be grateful even if she was capable of understanding these stakes. She's getting on in years (a khait can live to 35-40, though usually less) and her entire demeanor suggests that she is grimly awaiting her death. She is nearly unflappable, which is a blessing and a curse because it's extremely difficult to get her to do anything she doesn't feel like doing. Her name means "very old lady [as in noblewoman]". It was probably just "lady" at one point.

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Very small speedpaint practice. A creek bed in the northeast of the Wardin province, mid autumn, high drought conditions.

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Maybe this has been asked before, but what were the character's favorite childhood toys/games? Are there any common games for kids to know in the setting, like hopscotch/hand games/tag/ etc? (Also what do stuffed animals/dolls/ things of that sort look like?)

Generally speaking most objects children play with aren't necessarily going to be made as toys, and a lot of kids' default everyday toys are going to be things like 'stick' and 'horse jawbone'. Some of the common Specifically toy objects are wooden/ceramic animals with wheels that can be pushed or pulled, dolls made with cloth/grass/corn husks, and little figurines made with clay or carved from wood/rock/bone. Stuffed animal type toys are absent.

There is absolutely zero hard distinction between a sacred and mundane sphere so a lot of objects manufactured for the purposes of being votive offerings end up as toys for kids (either in the meantime before their intended use, or permanently). A good deal of kids toys intend to have qualities of spiritual protection for the kids who use them. Rattles made for babies keep them occupied and the noise also deters evil spirits. Little needle-felted guardian animals that double as toys are pretty much ubiquitous across Sub-Viper seaway peoples. In the Chenahyeigi sphere these protective toys are usually dogs (and usually made from actual LGD wool, goes hand in hand with making protective pendants for kids out of dog hair), in the Wardi sphere there's a like 30:70 dog:lion split, Cholemdinae figures are dogs/lions/hyenas, Hnaimale peoples trend towards 50/50 dogs:lions, Wogan peoples trend towards just lions. In all cases these are considered to be good luck charms against predators, snakes, and disease, while also just being fun toys for kids to play with.

The Wardi sphere in particular has the guardian lion artistic motif, which actually developed semi-separately from the aforementioned felted guardian animals (the felted tradition Probably started exclusively with dogs). Guardian lions occupy a wide range of positions and uses, but a lot of them are made as kids toys. You'll see some fancier variants that are fragile and intended for decoration rather than play, but the majority will be made from wood/bone/straw/fabric so the kids who are under their protection can also be throwing them around and stuff.

Very fancy ceramic khait on wheels. It has a hole through the mouth that can have a string drawn through it to be pulled. Wheeled animals (predominantly khait/livestock but you'll also see wildlife) are fairly upscale children's toys and are produced exclusively for this purpose. Wheeled chariots are also common as toys but are also produced as votive objects.

Needle felted dog and lion. These have protective qualities for their associated children while also being cute and fun to play with. The dog is made from actual dog hair, probably of a specific dog it was made to resemble. The lion is made from dyed horse wool. Needle felting is common but not a widely acknowledged or esteemed textile art form, usually a method of making kids toys or small votive objects from otherwise unneeded fiber.

This is a recycled older drawing of crop spirit dolls. A doll actually Used in this ritual would not be given to children to play with, but the exact same methodology is used to make toys for kids.

Ball games are really popular (played across age groups), with balls usually made with leather and stuffed with straw/fur/hair. There's two main ball game variants in the Wardi sphere. One is called awourinya, uses a larger and heavier ball, and is pretty soccer-esque and involves manipulating a ball to hit a goalpost/cross a goal line without the use of the hands and arms. Aworematsi (literally just means 'stickball') is a similar game played with a smaller/lighter ball and rackets (ranging from handmade rackets to just sticks). A lot of kids will play solo aworematsi which consists of running around streets and open fields hitting a ball with a stick. There are some ceremonial+metaphorical aspects to both (awourinya most explicitly, which uses solar terms for the ball and players) but this should not be mistaken for being Not Also A Casual Ball Game For Fun.

Variants of hide and seek and tag are present here. Hide and seek is functionally identical to many modern irl counterparts, with one person shielding their eyes and counting while the other players hide. The most common tag variant is called 'dog and rabbit' and can be fairly complicated. A predetermined 'den' (goal, permanent safe zone for the round) is decided prior to the game, usually a good distance away. Before play is initiated, the dog calls out a 'hide', naming an object within the field of play (boulder hide, oak tree hide, etc) that the rabbits cannot be tagged while touching. Any tagged rabbit turns into a dog and pursues the other rabbits. A rabbit is disincentivized from staying in a hide for too long, as being the last rabbit standing outside of the 'den' is at a serious disadvantage by being the center of attention, and is often outnumbered by that point. Some variants (particularly when played with smaller groups) do away with the hide system and it's more of a straightforward race to the den.

A lot of children's play is a matter of mimicking/learning about adult roles and developing social, motor, and other cognitive skills and specific behaviors that will benefit them later in life (just in general as a matter of like, child psychology) so there do tend to be gendered splits around play. It's rare to see parents outright prohibit co-ed play among prepubescent children but there's a definite notion of what can be 'boys games' and what can be 'girls games', with the kids themselves often acting as the primary enforcers of these barriers. Ball-games, tag, hide and seek, etc tend to be un-gendered (with any gender divisions being more of a 'you aren't allowed to play with us' thing), while mock-combat and and other play replicating adult sports that are open exclusively to men tend to be squarely 'boy games'. Girls are less encouraged to develop athleticism in most parts of the Wardi sphere (whether this is just not As Strongly encouraged as in boys or actively Discouraged depends more on class than anything) and are often given proportionately more toys (basic animal figurines as well as gendered domestic objects for the sake of 'playing house'). Obviously kids don't just Naturally fall into these preferences, and you'll see a lot of young kids crossing gendered game boundaries and only starting to be discouraged from this by adults as they approach pubescence.

A really common team boy's game is a type of capture the flag (this is also played as a mock-combat sport by adult men, including a mounted version) wherein an object (or occasionally a particularly tolerant livestock animal/a person) is a target that must be defended by one team and abducted by the other. It's also very common to see boys act out sporting events like foot races and wrestling, or pretend to be chariot racers or bullfighters.

Girls given toys for houseplay are Usually just given hand-me-downs of actual tools that have lost their usage/have been replaced, but there's a market for miniature implements exclusively made to be played with by children (cooking items, looms, etc). Types of figurines specifically made As toys for girls nigh-universally depict adult women rather than children (baby dolls aren't really a thing). They'll usually be carved wood/bone/stone, or clay. Many are made nude specifically as a learning tool for sewing/weaving/ropemaking, as girls can be encouraged to make simple rectangular bolts of fabric that can become cloaks/skirts/veils for the doll, and make rope/braid thread to make sashes, jewelry, and headbands. There's not a viable commercial market for Doll Clothing and most that isn't made by the child will be made by relatives, though you'll occasionally get rich people commissioning talented weavers to make ornate clothing for their kids dolls. A strong gendered division of labor is Idealized in the Wardi sphere but Impossible in practice for the peasant class (the textile work is endless and adult men will usually have to participate) and giving boys nude dolls as a part of textile instruction is pretty common.

Brakul would probably credit his favorite childhood toy as 'a stick'. He had some actual toys (mostly felted animals and straw figures) but the versatility of the stick would win out. He had a generally adversarial relationship to boys his age as a young child and mostly played with girls. The actual games would be mostly stuff like tag and swordfights with sticks and otherwise it was high-drama playing house/pretending to be animals/etc. In the winter the obligatory snowball fights were a big deal among children in his village and there was a tendency for it to develop (Mostly among the boys) into an arms race to see who could make the most painful/disgusting snowball (let it freeze overnight, put gravel in it, pee on it, put dog poop in it, etc) without getting into trouble. And he fucking HATED it. Got targeted with dog shit snowballs too many times.

Hibrides never liked social play that much and mostly played alone with toys. She had access to a bunch of good quality wooden animal figurines and would just act out elaborate stories with them that could span days or weeks. Her favorite toy was a REALLY nice silver wrought gazelle, in part because she was fascinated with a set of silver cups with gazelle scenes her father owned and pretended the gazelle figurine leapt out from the cup to go on various adventures. She also had numerous weaving-instructional dolls and really liked the weaving part but didn't really play with them much, they just ended up as decorations to display whatever she had produced. She made clothing for her animal toys too.

Janeys was really sickly until around the age of 7 and never really ended up getting into social group play. He had a phase where he wanted to be a chariot racer (not an actual job unless you're a really high caliber athlete who can make bank at official games, which is also not an appropriate job for a firstborn nobleman) and had an absolute favorite wheeled toy 2-khait chariot that he would run around with. He also wanted to be a bulldancer (again, not an actual job) and would act out these scenes with Faiza.

Faiza did and has always liked being 'one of the boys' and has felt tremendous disdain towards girl things, which ended up actively encouraged by her parents once it was looking like she could be an Odonii like one of her great aunts. She didn't play with toys that much past the age of like 6-7 and favored played group games (mostly with a combination of cousins, the children of servants, and sometimes various local peasants). Especially liked ball games and mock-combat sports like capture the flag. Also foot races she was very good at them.

Couya also didn't do a whole lot of social play and was very interested in acting out scenarios with human dolls, as well as solo LARPing as animals. Never was motivated to sew or weave when it wasn't externally forced upon her and she had a few teaching-aid type dolls that she actively kept naked even when provided with doll clothing. She didn't have a favorite among them per se but there was one she called Erub after the legendary king and smeared pitch on his face so that he would have a beard, and still kept always naked in spite of his position of dignity.

Tigran was from a 'we play with sticks and horse jawbones here' household for the most part and didn't have many toys he had a longstanding attachment to, though did have a Favorite stick that was the most perfect size and weight with excellent aesthetic appeal to boot (sun bleached white, sturdy, and near perfectly straight stick, great for playing swords) and he managed to hold onto it for about two years before it finally snapped. He was more into social games and his favorite was the dogs and rabbits tag game. Also got into playing gull from a very young age.

Palo favored wheeled toys and liked to run races with his siblings where they all pulled them down the road or would push them down slopes. (There was a specific hill on a dirt road near where he grew up that local children used as a racing slope for this sort of thing and kept meticulously clear of large rocks and debris). His favorites were two wooden wheeled khait and one khaitless chariot+rider (intended for the child to pull). The toys I mentioned him throwing into the fire as offerings when having a fearful meltdown over the concept of the sun never rising again were the two khait (has some specific logic, the winter solstice sacrificial rite offers 4+ actual khait, and he had learned that the most powerful things that can be offered are the most precious, hence an impulse to throw away his favorite two toys out of desperation. He regretted this so badly.)

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[post this is about for context]

-Faiza's is the only one that doesn't really have much going on with it that's informative of some deeper internal condition. Like you could find ways to psychoanalyze being scared of mice but I really just wrote it as a mundane animal phobia because people have those. Based it on my dad who is very scared of mice. She has other childhood fears that are more informative but they didn't hit the 'irrational' criteria.

-Palo's horse fear was just another animal phobia, one that could get pretty strong due to lack of Routine exposure (he's from a well-off mercantile commoner family living in one of the most urbanized areas, never handled livestock and didn't even see horses that often compared to the average person). The sun dying fear was a response to the clearest concept of an immediate existential threat within this cultural sphere, the notion that the sun Could, through neglect, never rise again was very hard to handle, and seeing how blasé everyone is about it (because the actual understanding is much more abstract than 'this Will absolutely happen and will have no possible relief if the rites fail') freaked him the fuck out as a little kid like WHY IS NO ONE TAKING THIS SERIOUSLY.

He doesn't have this specific fear anymore, but he is a person with VERY high affective empathy (to the point it can be distressing) and deeply impacted by the pain of others in ways a lot of people have just learned to be a bit detached about. An extreme mass-suffering scenario is always going to be something he gets deeply caught up in and will want to know that everything possible is being done to alleviate it. The childhood fear wasn't even so much about the 'end of the world' (the culture he was raised in has a cyclical time model and apocalyptic concepts don't hold As much emotional weight) but more just imagining how terrifying the circumstances of the sun never rising again would be, the slow starvation of thousands in the dark, watching his family and himself waste away in fear, etc. Extremely relevant to Whitecalf era given he's living through the worst drought/one of the worst famines on record and seeing something that Feels similar play out in slow motion over years, feeling helpless, not trusting that those with potential power to alleviate it are doing enough, being shocked and horrified at others who have 'yeah famines happen and people die' attitudes (Tigran especially), and becoming increasingly motivated to play a bigger part at his own expense to feel Some sense of control and that he can do Something to help.

-Tigran's are extremely reflective of who he is as an adult. He still has a lot of fears of supernatural threats and just general anxieties that some bad thing (ranging from vague to highly specific) will happen if he doesn't perform behaviors to avert it. I think I accidentally wrote him as at least Approaching some diagnostic criteria for OCD, a lot of his compulsive behaviors that seek to alleviate distressing and unwanted thoughts are Based in culturally typical actions but are way more serious for him and occupy more of his time. Like the average person performs gestures against evil and the like with basically the same gravity as saying 'knock on wood'; in most cases for most people it's just habitual + sometimes a social performance of 'I'm signalling I don't want a bad thing I evoked to happen' with a Little 'just in case' nervousness. But for him this sort of thing often feels very heavy and is accompanied by a sense of imminent dread of a Very Bad Thing Happening if he doesn't avert it. He doesn't invent as many of his own taboos and remedies as he did as a little kid. Still is afraid of being eaten by ants somehow. Like if both of his legs were broken and he was dying on an anthill or something. It could happen.

-Hibrides' is a very very very straightforward fear of being Observed which absolutely carries over into adulthood in more complex ways. Her childhood fear is this sort of voyeuristically-tinged implicit threat of something that Could harm you just watching (in this cased focused around a Scary Statue). She is extremely sensitive to feelings of being scrutinized, or of being ogled in a sexualized or otherwise objectifying capacity. Part of it is kind of an autism masking thing, desiring to slip under the radar and not call any unwanted attention to herself (there's no concept of 'autism' its just a reaction to Knowing she has social deficits and impulses to do things that will be received as strange), part of it is a strong feeling of being unsafe under a sexualized gaze, part of it is this in combination with concepts of the gaze as having legitimate metaphysical power to harm.

On a lot of levels it's just Human Standard to be uncomfortable with being stared at, especially in a way that is received as unwanted sexual interest + particularly as a woman existing in the context of patriarchy. There's also more culturally specific facets where the gaze is explicitly reckoned as powerful and capable of inflicting harm in of itself. She's considered very conventionally beautiful and had an ugly experience with pubescence where she was suddenly experiencing sexualized gazes from deeply unwanted parties and feeling very helpless, and the early-childhood basis of that fear solidified into something that heavily affected her behavior. She dresses VERY modestly even when it's not considered a requirement (SLEEPS in a skirt usually which is considered weird), also gets a feeling of safety from wearing a veil (signals I AM MARRIED AND OF GOOD STANDING AND SEXUALLY UNAVAILABLE) and will do it when it's not technically necessary (around unfamiliar relatives and new staff within the household, etc). This is also on top of constant nervous regulation of her behavior and making herself very small and quiet unless very comfortable to avoid being singled out for attention.

-Janeys' has some pretty straightforward throughlines into adulthood via the self-imposed consequences of misbehavior + specific fear that Parents will face the same consequences for the child's action (manifested externally as 'the animals on the wall might come out and eat us if I do bad things'). He has had a lot of shame and high expectations ingrained in him from a young age, we've been over this. Still has stress dreams that have similar themes. The undertones of this fear are Probably culturally common (above just a baseline 'worried about harm coming to adults whom you are utterly dependent on'), given how embedded 'your actions and their consequences reflect upon your parents' and filial piety in general is into the system of virtue. For the other one, being frightened by the dancers is just super common for kids and not really reflective of anything deeper than 'I'm skittish and am in an environment where there are people with scary masks and grass suits that make them look huge, and they behave strangely and will intentionally try to startle you'. It's like, Sort Of comparable to being scared by clowns in that the intent of this practice is lighthearted and comedic but it's people with obscured features behaving in loud and exaggerated manners. He's certainly not bothered by them as an adult but thinks it's a bit of an obnoxious tradition.

-Couya's sounds wayyyyyyyyy more like, Thematically Significant than was intended, I loosely based hers on hyperliteral interpretations I made in my brief childhood exposures to catholicism (got fixated on the mental image that the catholic church had the corpse of the historical Jesus Christ somewhere and were siphoning blood/meat from it for communion? I wasn't scared by this though) and was just like 'what would be a likely sort of frightening misinterpretation of routine religious practices that she'd be inundated in as a child but didn't yet understand?'. The thunder fear is more of just a phobia (and might verge on a little too rational for the sake of that ask, bushfires from lightning and flash floods a very real danger, it's just that most people aren't going to be anywhere Near that scared, or using very casual lightning wards that seriously). Her fears don't translate in super clear ways to her adult personality, I'd just say they have undercurrents of feeling overwhelmed and vulnerable to things much bigger than yourself + completely outside your control, and being driven to seize whatever sense of autonomy you can get. The one thing is she does have distressing intrusive thoughts of violent bodily harm happening to herself and others, and this was an early manifestation of that.

-The sort of surveillance anxiety with Brakul is just something he grew gradually more accommodated to. The notion that your ancestors can potentially witness anything you do is (among many, many other things) a method of regulating behavior and one of the main psychological enforcers of taboos beyond social consequences (it is Not intended to make you nervous about being watched while you piss, or other such things). Most people will absolutely not live their lives as if they're always potentially being watched by their dead relatives (even if they legitimately believe this is the reality they're living in). Brakul's method of getting there after the initial little kid "they're ALWAYS watching me???" phase was becoming mildly adversarial to potential onlookers. Once he got past the age of like, 7, if he felt the acute sense of being watched while doing something mildly bad/embarrassing he developed a habit of just staring into the potential direction of his viewers like 'Yeah. I know you're watching. What of it.' He's long since stopped doing that outside of very occasional circumstances where he strongly feels that he needs to defend himself to the dead because they're just People and might not get it (like "I know what the fuck I'm doing, this isn't even a real issue you can't get mad at me. You drank more than I do, grandpa."). The underlying anxieties about being Witnessed are there on some levels though. He's kind of existing in contrast to Janeys in not being very susceptible to purely internal shame but being Badly affected by social embarrassment. Is very focused on "what other people don't know can't hurt me" as both a source of comfort and a motivating fear. (also is VERY observant of taboo even when completely alone, but that would not be considered irrational).

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re: oc related questions- i would love to know what the main cast's highly specific irrational childhood fears were.

For the sake of this question I'm only including things that would be considered 'irrational' or at least 'excessive' by most people, rather than commonly held superstitions or inaccurate beliefs about how disease works or etc.

Faiza: Was and is scared of mice. She finds rats Unpleasant but its mice specifically that freak her out. They're just so small and so fast and move so freakishly and have weird wormy little tails. She didn't think that mice would do anything in particular to her (besides being particularly freaked out about the concept of them running over her feet, or over her body while she slept, which Would occasionally happen) it was just their mere existence in her proximity that scared her.

Palo was terrified by horses (remember, 2-3ft tall at the shoulder) as a little kid, but not any other livestock. Kind of a combination of their scary upper incisors and their pendulous udders that bear uncanny resemblance to human breasts. He felt like they would, by necessity, attempt to bite him if he ever got too close and that they could chop his fingers off. He was also DEEPLY shaken by the notion that the sun could Potentially not rise again after the night of the winter solstice (this Is rooted in religious belief but it's not normally experienced as 'every year we are under the literal existential threat of a sunless apocalypse should the rites fail') and had one year where he was up much of the night terrified and demanding reassurance that the priests were doing everything they had to in order to save the sun, not being satisfied with any response, and tried to help by throwing two of his toys into the hearth as offerings (something he became Very morose about in the days that followed).

Tigran had a strong fear (loosely based on some ghost stories he heard) of ghosts grabbing his feet/elsewhere on his body while he slept and developed a habit of completely covering his body in a blanket with only a little breathing hole exposed. (He still does this habitually as an adult but will expose his feet for thermoregulatory purposes). He lived in close proximity to an ancient burial mound and there are a LOT of superstitions + localized taboos about them and their associated ghosts, and they really set his imagination wild and he came up with a bunch of unique fears and methods to mitigate them. One thing he had for a couple years is that he needed to jump (rather than walk) through doorways or else something uncertain but very bad would happen due to the ghosts (the idea was loosely that they could cling onto his feet and enter his house if he didn't jump). He also developed concerns about being dragged into tiny holes in the ground by the ghosts and sucked into the burial mounds (not Completely culturally unprecedented because the ghosts Do live in the ground, but this was mostly a him thing) and was avoidant of stepping anywhere near little burrows or anthills or etc. He also had a completely unrelated fear about getting eaten by ants.

Hibrides had this thing about a specific lion statue near where she lived. It had a snarling face and was kind of poorly carved which gave it an uncanny, grotesque aspect, and as a little kid she became convinced it might walk around at night and SPECIFICALLY that it would come to look through her home's windows. She hated looking out ground level windows at night because she felt like that face was going to pop up at any second. She stopped believing the statue could move and menace her at some point but retained a fear of there being Something looking into windows at night for a long while (and is still a little creeped out by the notion as an adult).

As a little kid Janeys thought some of the animal frescoes in his home were able to move and might come out from the wall and eat him or his parents if he was bad. He was also fucking TERRIFIED by the masked new year's dancers (wear shaggy grass suits and huge masks depicting dangerous animals or evil spirits; behave in a comedic-menacing way towards + attempt to startle passerby to scare off misfortune in the new year. A fun part of the festivities for most adults and frightening for many little kids) and around that time of year would freak himself out at night imagining one might be hiding around a doorway or behind a corner to jump out at him.

Couya had a thing as a small child where she took the language surrounding prayer, evoking God being 'sung down upon you' or 'moving into you', very literally and pictured herself being crushed, or something gigantic pushing its way into little blood offering wounds and ripping her body apart. It freaked her out (even when she was certain that wouldn't happen, the mental image was too distressing) and she'd make a fuss about being a part of everyday prayer for a while. She was also scared of lightning storms and associated wildfires, which came in tandem with being Notably afraid of dragons (known to hunt during storms and spread bushfires from lightning). She would refuse to go anywhere outside if a storm was nearby, and had a period where she would yell a lightning ward phrase (widespread cultural practice) as loud as she could in response to thunder (just a her thing) in hopes of also scaring dragons away.

When Brakul was very little his immediate takeaway from the notion that your ancestors are actively watching over you was becoming upset and embarrassed that they're watching you go to the bathroom. His reaction included peeing in the privacy of the home like, on the floor (dirt floor so it wasn't always obvious and it took a while for anyone to figure out it was happening), or covering himself in a blanket to be obscured when using the latrine.

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Are the more explicitly magical elements of the whitecalf setting still cannon? (I remember seeing a description of a talking hound entity who helps travelers somewhere, though I may be confusing projects)

No I just gradually retconned all the supernatural elements out of the meta. A lot of the old supernatural things are still There, but as things people believe in/experience rather than things baked into the material reality of the setting.

I tend to present these concepts mostly as they are experienced by the people who believe in them, because I think subjective experiences are just as (sometimes much more) powerful in shaping social/cultural realities than hard material constraints (and in actual writing I want readers to be placed in the same space as the people they're reading about and not placed as distant outside observers. If that makes sense). But you can presume this universe functions the same way as our own and anything you can call 'the supernatural' is a matter of subjective reality rather than something that can be located unambigiously in the makeup of physical reality.

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Do you have any posts that explain what the odomache is? I'd love to understand fully what they represent

None that are like, current, so I'll make one now

(Also note that there is some conceptual difference between 'Odomache' (Face of God) and 'THE Odomache' (specific human person who acts as a living pathway for that Face, then dies and another takes their place).)

The general philosophy behind the concept:

God is the entity that all life emanates from and which contains the whole world. Everything you will ever see and interact with (in life and the afterlife) is part of God, or comes from/connects to God. The whole world (and heavenly bodies) is its physical body, its living spirit flows through universal pathways and manifests as cycles and forces that sustain life, and its soul bounds the world from the (abstract) empty cosmic sea and sky beyond. The concept of 'God' in entirety is functionally indistinct from 'the world' or 'the universe'.

There's a huge philosophical bent towards seeing structures as replicating themselves on every scale. A human/animal body and the entire world/universe ultimately function the same way. A body contains a soul that gives it identity, living spirit (blood, which is a type of soul) that animates and sustains it by literally and figuratively cycling throughout. The world is the same.

The "Faces" of God are ways to interpret key aspects of how God's living spirit interacts with Its body. The faces aren't actually discrete things in any capacity but this division allows for humankind to better achieve their duties towards God, and allows a more personal connection with the greater whole. This division of worship is comparable to how one treats a body- it's all one being, but if you want to treat a wound to the head, you don't bandage the foot.

The priesthoods devote themselves to certain aspects of this living spirit as such. (Note that these 'faces' developed in large part out of syncretism with old Burri polytheism, and thus don't Cleanly interact as if the model was 'these are parts of a greater body' from the ground up)

The present day distinctions are (in basic terms):

Mitlamache - the seasons, fertility as a whole, the moons, death and rebirth, the wellbeing of wild animals

Ganmache - agricultural fertility and health, the domestic sphere, the wellbeing of domestic animals

Pelennaumache - the ocean, storms (particularly tropical storms), wind, natural disasters, fortune

Anaemache - rivers/freshwater, rain, winter-spring, femininity/female fertility (human/animal/earth)

Inyamache - the sun, summer-fall, masculinity/masculine fertility (human/animal/plant)

Kusomache - stars and their interpretation, heavenly events, the space between life and death, disease

Odomache - right civilization, sovereignty, protection, war, childbirth

Odomache is the part of God that presides most dearly over human society and the things that ensure it can thrive. It is associated with warrior status, childbirth, and the safety of children- Protection of society and Propagation of society. It is framed as mirrored by the broadly perceived ideal + natural order of the family and civilization, with each household having a patriarch who is the protector and provider for their family, and society having a natural hierarchy that benefits the greater whole and prevents descent into barbarity/general chaos.

Odomache is both the patriarch and mother to the collective Wardi people and allows for dominion over their lands and destruction of their enemies, and the prosperity of their children in tandem (literal children and the collective people as children). The cult to Odomache is framed most heavily around warfare and sovereignty and collective might, a necessity for the social order to continue as-is.

As Odomache is the aspect most deeply connected with Society and the Social order, it is the one aspect considered to manifest within a human. Everyone has a connection to God, basic everyday religious practice maintains pathways between their living spirit and Its own, but the Odomache is a human who has devoted their body to being a permanent and complete pathway for this aspect of God. By having a person in this position, the collective people are directly under Its protection and there is a constant level of metaphysical defense of Society.

In the grander scheme, having an aspect of God inhabiting a human body is one point along a grander cycle. The Odomache isn't Directly involved in the welfare of crops or good weather, but is still part of the grander flow that enables these things. If you block off flow of blood to one organ or one limb, the whole body ultimately suffers.

The functions of the actual person in this role:

This person is the high priest of the Odonii priesthood/cult to Odomache, and functionally the most powerful priest within the organized religion as a whole. There is Ostensibly no singular 'high priest' in Wardi religion, (the separate priesthoods each have a high priest, all of which form a council that dictates state religious affairs More Or Less in tandem) and the Odomache having a disproportionately powerful role is more of an 'the arc of political history got us here' thing than anything (Odomache isn't a more important Face than any other, if anything most practice revolves around the agricultural-fertility Faces).

The present day duties of the Odomache are to preside at ceremonies held by and for the state, to dictate internal affairs of the Odonii priesthood (they make calls on all inductions but don't Usually make personal selections). They are also the general of the Houheteni warrior order (the existence of which outside of the core military structure being the result of catastrophic political errors by former Usomas) and functionally have tremendous sway over the other orders given how deeply ingratiated the Odonii priesthood has become with the spiritual protection/upkeep of combatants. They also set calendar dates for state holidays on the lunisolar calendar (all-purpose/practical calendar system) with input/veto power from the rest of the council (the elder Inwenii priest sets dates for the solar calendar, which is squarely a religious timekeeping system). There's some various other things (having some authority to make calls on/officiate ceremonial executions of war captives, attending annual presentations of tribute, attending coronations, performing personal blessings of pregnant queens, etc).

Their other duties are mostly just Existing and Being Maintained as a living icon. The sanctity and safety of their body has metaphysical implications for the sanctity and safety of the state/the collective people. They are celibate as with all Odonii, but also physically veil nearly their entire body in most public settings. This partly conveys an image of invulnerability and separation from humanity, and is partly a matter of protecting their body from spiritual harm.

They are simultaneously VERY powerful and VERY vulnerable, this is the one aspect of God that depends upon a human body and thus the one aspect that can be directly and BADLY harmed by human means. The role of the Odomache existing is historically new enough that there's not much precedent for what to do if That Actually Happens- every prior Odomache has died by conventional means and (most importantly) been able to have a proper funeral, allowing for a clean transfer to a new person.

While they are an aspect of God inhabiting a human body, they are not considered to be like literally God's Mind In A Human Body. Their original soul/mind, while inextricably changed, remains (their living spirit/blood is what's considered to be replaced) and they are not considered infallible or necessarily a supreme authority wrt interactions with God (God itself is also not considered 'infallible', though human terms like that don't cleanly apply to it to begin with). They ARE utilized for divinatory purposes and their dreams are considered to carry omens or other valuable information, and are routinely recorded for interpretation by other priests. (Dream-based divination has a wider space in religious practice, but in other cases it requires a lot of ritual to establish a state in which the signs can be trusted. The Odomache is perpetually existing in that space and all their dreams carry meaning, it's just very important that this meaning is interpreted correctly).

[serpentface]

Boring reference sketch of Haidamane Saijen and Lifya as they would have looked around the time of their deaths (age 55 (three years ago, fatally kicked in the head by a khait) and 52 (recent, dysentery) respectively).

Saijen was a type of official within the Wardin provincial government called a michlaba, which is hereditary lordship over a district as a representative for their locals before higher authorities. Their main functions are to assist in routine activities such as taxation + census taking, but they also are utilized to be jurors in official trials (and tend to have unofficial authority to resolve disputes among peasantry), to provide counsel on local affairs to high level officials, and to assist in conscription of petty footsoldiers in times of war. They have tremendous authority over their local peasantry (and are considered the legal owners and ultimate caretakers of land and crops under their jurisdiction), though are outranked by magistrates and governors (which are appointed by the Usoma) and can have their status revoked for failing their duties.

The title 'michlaba' is technically more of a subclass of the aristocracy than a discrete position, denoting hereditary landowner status while not being royalty (above 'petty nobility' who have hereditary status but no land ownership), though further distinctions can be made between Usoma-appointed government official michlaba (magistrates, governors, judges, generals- these Appointments are special and non-hereditary while michlaba status is) and ones with no additional appointment. Michlaba status in a given area usually stays within one family, with a clear line of inheritance passing from father to eldest son (though in practice it may be passed to younger brothers, middle children, or even nephews for various reasons).

Men from the Haidamane family have held this position on their land for a good century (it's one of the oldest discrete titles in Wardi society and existed in various forms long before the imperial Wardi state), and at least Claim to have come from chieftains who did basically the same thing for centuries before. They preside over a fairly large swath of land containing a mid-sized village, though the majority of this is uncultivated scrub (considered 'a bit shit') mostly used for the rearing of cattle and horses. Its chief value is having a land trade route connected to the province Erubinnos passing near its borders. Saijen formally inherited it from his father when he was 35.

Lifya was the youngest daughter of an appointed tax magistrate (VERY powerful position within a province), though this had little impact on her position given the most politically important marriages were taken care of by her three older sisters. Her father chose Saijen as her husband mostly due to His father's good reputation + notable diligence during the annual taxation tours, and his wealth in cattle and ingratiation with the priesthoods (having a brother who was a senior etadinii priest, and regularly donating some of his finest animals). Saijen would not inherit his father's title for a good while yet, but he was well-established and active in assisting his father's duties, and did an excellent job of presenting himself in courtship, and thus was deemed more than good enough. They were wed when Lifya was 17 and Saijen was 23.

[serpentface]

did brakul ever tell janeys that he has/had a wife and a son?

Janeys actually knew from like day fucking one but it stopped being relevant and he routinely forgets about it.

Some of Brakul's initial pleading upon capture was attempting to communicate "these aren't my people I literally do not care what happens to them, they stole my fucking khait and ditched anyway fuck them, I have a wife and one year old son who need me, don't kill me" in his very limited Wardi. And then later on when Brakul was finding himself at the other end of the "young inexperienced guy pitifully enamored with older man" dynamic (he initially thought Janeys was like 15-17) and very uneasy about it + getting burned in general, he'd be like "can't wait to go back home to my WIFE and SON when this is over. My WIFE and SON who I am very attached to and rely on me and live very far away from where you do. Can't wait. I LIKE MY IN-LAWS A LOT."

And then later on still when he was actually friends with Janeys and starting to reciprocate his interests and realizing he could/kind of had to Burn All Bridges he 180d to downplaying it like "I mean my wife is like, definitely remarried to my brother by now, he'll take good care of them. There's really nothing and no one left for me at home, all my living relatives don't even really want me around... I'm actually soooo unattached...kinda hurts idk......" and Janeys was like "so you can elope with me. Ok Yay" and did his best to forget about it.

(If Brakul was trying to hit from day one he Probably would not have told him and it would have come out at some point by accident years down the line.)

[serpentface]

can you talk a little bit about Couya's relationship with her family. While poor I presume, you've alluded to a lot of the abuse that she experienced as a child from her mother and Janeys? And was genuinely curious about how that informs their current day relationships.

Yeah so she was the product of an affair between their mutual dad Saijen and a young unmarried servant girl named Menyoti. He decided he wanted the kid, basically just dropped 'I'm keeping Menyoti's child and it's yours' on Lifya and strongarmed her into staying out of sight during the last few months of the pregnancy (so they could pass the baby off as being Ostensibly hers).

At the time, Lifya had a) almost died during Janeys' birth (got to the point of the midwife's recommendation being 'we need to bring the infant out in pieces it or else they're Both gonna die') b) had a near-term pregnancy ending in a premature birth of a boy who Would Not Survive and was euthanized c) had an early term miscarriage. So the affair and the fact that Saijen was intent on keeping the bastard felt even more loaded on her end, like 'you have fully outlived your usefulness and are damaged goods. I'm fucking the staff for more heirs/daughters now'.

Saijen actually wanted Couya beyond just saving face on his little affair (he could have just fired Menyoti while she pregnant and had nothing to do with his bastard and she would have zero recourse, much how he fired her Afterwords and she had zero recourse) and fully intended to treat her just like his other children. And his word is law in his household, so that's how it would have to be. So like Couya came into the world as like, a GUTTING insult to Lifya, not just an embarrassment but "I've been bartered like goods to a stranger I've never grown to like and don't feel proud to be wed to, pushed out two babies for him, almost died in the process, and when I couldn't do that anymore he goes and knocks up some little peasant whore and burdens me with the results, I am physically broken and nothing to him or anyone and have no choice but to live like this and This Kid Is A Constant Living Reminder".

This got worse because Couya was really difficult as a little kid, took a while to learn to speak, would have violent tantrums seemingly at random, did weird shit like flailing her hands around and hitting her head on walls and screaming and etc. Neither parent really knew what to do with this and Lifya had not the slightest grounds to respond to this with compassion and became very insistent that Couya was empty or at least half empty (terms for severe cognitive disabilities, generally ones that inhibit language acquisition, often interpreted as quite literally not having a soul or at least not a Complete soul). As Couya got older she got trained out of most 'acting out' due to it being responded to (even by those who Did care about her) with frustration + anger + confusion + being forcefed sedatives, and she kind of just became very quiet and sullen and willing to let herself be walked all over.

So like while Faiza was still in the home the dynamic was:

-Mom is at a Really extreme end of the culturally typical kinda coddling hyper-invested mother-son relationship with Janeys, she has Big expectations for him and has assigned herself the duty of making sure he can live up to them, is getting scared that he's possibly intersex and effeminate.

-Mom fucking hates Couya, sometimes talks to her like a literal dog, makes it very clear that she's unwanted and stupid and also probably soulless, outright tells her she's a bastard and lies that her mother was a prostitute. Mostly just ignores her, does bare minimum of care, only tends to acknowledge her in a negative capacity. (This wasn't outright Physical child neglect because they had servants for childcare lol).

-Mom adores Faiza. Faiza is the one and only consistent source of happiness in her life, and she uplifts her as the Golden Child, showers her in praise and attention, and uses this as a cudgel against the kid she's disappointed in and the kid she hates.

-Dad actually does like all three of his children and is fond of Couya, gives her basically the only parental affection she ever gets. Spends some time with her, Does treat her the same as his fully legitimate children, and makes sure she's included at events. But doesn't really know what to do with her, is very happy to be the Distant Fatherly Role Model and does VERY little to curb any abuse that isn't happening right in front of him.

-Mom and dad have an icy relationship at best, mom expresses her discontent in barely passive aggression and makes it very clear she hates him, dad has a habit of tacitly threatening her with violence a la 'a lesser man would respond to this disrespect by beating you senseless' and then mopes about how his ungrateful wife hates him.

The main factor that made this dynamic not As bad as it could be is that Faiza really loved both of her siblings and her golden child treatment drove her more towards "I have to look out for my lameass younger siblings" rather than outright adding to the abuse (though she like, still completely accepted the notion that she Was the best of them). The age difference between the three is pretty miniscule but Faiza took on a really pronounced Big Sister role and sometimes acted like a third parent to them, did kind of have to grow up fast in a sense. She would actively stand up for both of them, mediate between them when they were fighting and prevent Mom From Finding Out when they did something wrong, play with both of them, etc.

Faiza got initiated into the Odonii as a preteen and was out of the household after that point, which was when things got really bad for the other two. Saijen had kind of given up on his wife and was embarrassed by everything going on with Janeys and did very little to intervene, and increasingly took opportunities to be Absent.

Lifya was fucking torn up at effectively losing Faiza, and had also lost her golden child to use as a rod, and started actively pitting the remaining two against each other instead. She rationalized this in part as being good for Janeys because he was motivated to be more assertive in competition with his sister. She did not have any love for Couya whatsoever and any positive attention she gave her was usually (consciously or subconsciously) aimed at getting a reaction out of Janeys, either to drive him to be more assertive or to emotionally punish him for something or other by being like "look, even your [R SLUR BASICALLY] little sister can do this better than you". And Couya Was the one confusingly experiencing Shreds of affection from her mother for the first time and having things lapse between that and just abject cruelty.

This worked and they became VERY aggressive against each other. Couya usually had the habit of just shutting down and passively taking any and all abuse, but at this point she was discovering that Janeys was actually SUPER easy to bully and that she was also like, bigger than him at this point and could overpower him. They would get into physical fights, and started parroting verbal abuse from their mother. Janeys grew very intent on lying to her that she was actually a literal "whore"'s daughter (that their father had just adopted as an act of exceptional, near-senseless charity), was not actually related to them at all, and was [R SLUR BASICALLY]. Couya learned and utilized every available homophobic slur and insult.

They also learned to weaponize their mother by getting each other into trouble. The aforementioned situation where Couya snitched on Janeys for jacking off to art on A Vase happened and got him into deep shit, Janeys first responded by throwing her favorite blanket (security blanket type thing, she had it since she was a baby and wore it around as a cape) into the kitchen fire, let her go crazy looking for it for a few days, and waited to tell her until they were in public so she would freak out at him and get her ass beat for making a scene. Couya managed to goad him into climbing down into a drainage cistern on the basis of "bet you won't, pussy" and then closed the grate over him with a rock, it was raining hard and he was up to his neck in water by the time someone found him and got him out. Janeys' propensity for crying really pissed their mom off and Couya would take any good opportunity to set him off in front of her (and could do so openly, because it could Usually successfully prompt a "you cant even stand up for yourself without crying like a little bitch, huh" type response @ him). Etc. Shit like that. They were borderline trying to kill each other at some points.

Couya got out of all this because Faiza managed to pull enough strings with her higher-ups to get her into the priesthood as well. This was squarely just a way to get her out of her fucking Nightmare household (and into a position of esteem no less. She's Providing For Her Lame Ass Siblings) and not on a basis of perceived merit. Couya had some troubles adjusting initially but REALLY took to the new role, took it very seriously and allowed it to become fundamental to her identity. She Had somewhat internalized the notion that she was like, not a full human being, and started reinterpreting it in a semi-positive way as like 'she can fill the empty parts by performing her duties phenomenally and being a vessel for God'. She had a lot more opportunities to grow as a person and develop more self-respect and really started coming into her own after this point. Janeys was now alone in that household and kinda fucked, Faiza would fret over it sometimes and routinely visited home, and Couya was just like man whoooooo cares (though would actively meet with her father sometimes). And that was the end of them actually being together in a family unit.

After this point, Couya avoided her mother at all costs, and if forced to be in her immediate vicinity would not interact unless she absolutely had to. She had become able to stand up to Janeys but never got there with Lifya; she still would automatically just shut down and wait for it to be over. She had an amicable relationship with her father but there wasn't a lot Left there on an emotional level. As an adult she had developed some resentment for the circumstances of her birth and started seeing Him as being a major part of the problem, and a keen sense of wanting to distance herself from Every part of her childhood besides Faiza, so her connection to her dad was more the obligations of filial piety than anything else. She thought she'd feel real grief when he died, but when it actually happened it was just kind of a hollow ache.

ALL OF THIS still very heavily informs the present day relationships between the siblings. Couya and Janeys have been basically estranged for most of their adult lives and have almost exclusively seen each other at Absolute familial obligations + funerals where Faiza is usually there to mediate. Couya and Faiza have maintained their relationship throughout their adulthood (because they've been working in the same priesthood and mostly at the same temple) and they've been very close for most of it. They really do like each other as people and have a friendship outside of just kinship ties. But Couya is a grown ass adult in her 30s and very much more able to hold her own, and she's increasingly grated on by the way Faiza still treats her as a Little Sister, and is growing more painfully aware of the levels of condescension involved in this. Faiza is much more comfortable when both of her younger siblings idolize her and she can be their benefactor, and the fact that they don't Need Her as much anymore is causing some background tension (more severely with Couya than with Janeys because Janeys still 100% idolizes her, while Couya sees her more as a peer). She wants Couya to succeed in life, but not rally like, Without Her Assistance. She genuinely loves Couya but thinks she's Kinda Dumb and would never have been able to get to where she is now without her.

Couya and Janeys' present day thing is complicated because there IS enough distance from the Really Bad Times and both of them Have come into their own enough for things settle into something less awful. Couya came to visit his children on her own volition, mostly out of morbid curiosity but that's still a MASSIVE change. Both of them would be able to articulate Something along the lines of 'Yeah we were treated very badly and needlessly pitted against each other and probably didn't deserve that'. Janeys has stopped pretending he's not related to Couya and doesn't believe she's empty or slow (has switched tacts to the ultimately less harsh 'dumb bitch'). Couya is literally the only member of the Haidamane family that fully believes Brakul isn't fucking him and that whatever's going on isn't Really all that bad (besides the bastard children. that's pretty fucking egregious man lmao). They experienced a lot of the same things and have a lot more common ground than they would like to admit. Most of their interactions still range from 'hostile' to 'toothlessly hostile' to 'hostile in a vaguely amicable way' and they're NEVER going to like, be friends, but things are a little different now (especially now that both of their parents are dead).

Kind of have a relationship onion where on the surface they hate each other and then you peel back a layer and there's actually something resembling love in there, then you peel back a layer and no they actually just fucking hate each other, then there's obligation and familial duty, then there's more dislike, then there's bitter mutual understanding, then there's more dislike, and then ????. Couya goes out of her way to ensure that Janeys survives the coup and directly saves his life once. Janeys seeks Her out and Fucking Hugs Her (for probably the first time since they were like, babies and it meant nothing) for comfort when he's in an inconsolable meltdown over Faiza's unexplained and uniquely distressing death. They are now the only surviving members of their immediate family, the golden child is dead, Couya is the cause of this, Janeys has no idea and is treating her the most borderline affectionately Ever because she's all that's left, and Janeys and Faiza really Did look uncannily similar and now Couya sees her face whenever she looks at him. Etc. it's rough.

[serpentface]

You’ve established that:

Hibrides played a major role in Couya’s calf dream, which she interpreted as prophetic.

After Janeys, Brakul, and Faiza die; Couya becomes Hibrides’ “guardian”.

Hibrides’ oldest daughter, Erubi, is considered a strong candidate for the Odonii.

Given the above, does Couya later interpret (or justify) Hibrides’ inclusion in her “prophetic” dream as her being destined to be the mother of the next Odomache?

LOL I NEVER EVEN THOUGHT OF THAT THAT'S GOOD. She definitely would not have any inkling of that at the time of the dream (the dream itself shakes her and feels Important, but she's not even convinced its prophetic), but it could come together for her wayyy later on when she's more convinced of what Has To Happen and looking for ways to justify it.

It would also be in-character for Hibrides to Kind Of suggest this premise to her late in the game, not about the dream itself (she doesn't know she was in it) but like "yeah no you'd need some kind of secure line of succession for anyone to take this remotely seriously, and there's no precedent for a true monarch who's celibate. I guess old Wardi kings [kingship passed from a man to his nephew via the sister] were kinda close? But they had wives and..." and Couya would be like "ohhhhhh my bastard nieces.... Wait holy shit thats why you were in that dream and in the dream I was thinking about how I had to fuck you after I brought the calf into the palace.... It was symbolic. of you producing my heirs. Which are my bastard nieces I guess. Yes its all coming together" except she wouldn't say that aloud and would jsut make like, a Solid Snake type "hnnhh".

I'm not Totally set on how the succession issues play out [immediate endgame is that Amanti's nephew Areganne Hneya provides the actual muscle for the coup and becomes the new Usoma, allows for the resolution of the Odonii+military vs Royal house conflict to be settled with a sharing of power with the Odomache as high-priest with hard power, popular among the general public]. But any route would Likely end with Couya making a deal to marry one/both of her nieces off to Areganne's sons in hope of legitimatizing this new style of leadership via giving Couya blood-by-covenant kinship to royalty and having future Odomaches be functionally a more powerful replacement of the Usoma-Hittibe (kingsister, celibate, some hard power and ability to act as regent). With the declared intent being that in each following generation the eldest male and female child is heir-apparent as Usoma and Odomache respectively, each Usoma will take a wife and be the one to produce further heirs (combining elements of Old Wardi Kingship from the Good Old Days with modern patrilineal descent). Not sure if Erubi would actually end up as the next Odomache or not though (Couya would definitely be advised to marry her off instead and wait for the eldest granddaughter, but might feel compelled to overrule the advice on the basis of the dream + other personal factors).

(The succession will INEVITABLY be a crisis and it would take several more generations without this new dynasty being ousted in the meantime to fully iron out this kinship system).

[serpentface]

brakul has had sort-of other romantic/sexual relationships (dirgrani, kinda his ex wife, kinda hibrides) but for janeys, was brakul his first and only partner? wardi culture seems to have these requisites for an acceptable male object of (male) sexual desire and the forms with which it may be engaged; were these simply too disparate from janeys' own desire such that he couldn't fit into them, in spite of the whole fail hard masc performance thing?

Yeah Brakul is the first and only relationship he's ever had. Really lucked out in Happening to get with the one person in the world who is a near-perfect match for his various neuroses.

He DID have plenty of un-acted on crushes beforehand, and he Has had other sexual experiences- he made actual attempts at getting Hibrides pregnant (barely counts, was a nightmare, both of them treated it like they were going to war), and otherwise has solicited sex workers off and on over the years (at first would go for conventional targets of women and beardless young men and get Nothing out of it, later started hiring men closer to his type (who usually serve female clients) to top in a really bitter and rough 'proving something to himself' way) (he's a fucking TERRIBLE client btw).

It comes down to multiple factors:

-he is 100% gay with a VERY narrow type that kind of precludes his interests falling into a 'normal' range for a man. He pretty much only likes bigass hairy dudes who could fold him in half. He gravitates towards sexual submissiveness, likes the feeling of being small and overpowered and under someone else's control (so long as he feels safe and like, respected). Sex acts that are culturally Considered to be sexually submissive/degrading/feminine appeal to him. He REALLY likes giving head. He's never bottomed but is convinced it must be either the absolute best or absolute worst thing in the world and fantasizes about it a lot. He Also likes taking dominant roles in power play and Getting head and fantasizes about topping(/has topped people besides Brakul), but the fact remains that a vast majority of his interests + MANY things he's actually acted on are considered emasculating and shameful if you actually Do them (and are effectively such if people Know/suspect you're interested in them).

A LOT of dudes with the exact same spectrum of interests would not be in nearly as much agony about it, or experience as much social scrutiny for it. There are a lot of other things going on here.

-He did have a rough childhood in ways that informed these feelings. His mother had a lot of issues and prioritized him as her only son, put so much of her mental energy into trying to shape him into a good man, and becoming increasingly vindictive with him for not Getting There. He was sickly for the first 6 years of his life, and very timid throughout most of his childhood. As a 5 year old announced that he wanted to marry the cool bulldancer (middle aged bearded man) he saw at the games and had to have marriage explained to him. He had an unusually late puberty and a lot of his family was concerned he was a 'natural eunuch' (intersex) and his mother became VERY focused on this, in tandem with fears about him being 'soft' (encompasses a broad spectrum of behaviors considered 'male effeminacy'). Couya snitched on him for jacking off to ostensibly comedic m/m erotic art on A Vase once, which got him physically disciplined by his mother for masturbating (bad for pubescent development!) and started getting his mother ESPECIALLY paranoid about his health + uncomfortably focused on Masturbation Prevention (this also started a series of extremely cruel retributions @ Couya on his part but that's off topic). His dad wasn't aggro on this but also didn't intervene much, was extremely uncomfortable and didn't want to acknowledge it was happening. Kinda started avoiding him.

Both of his parents started keeping him mostly out of sight when he was 15 and still pretty tiny and not pubescent. He was given medicinal treatments hoping to induce puberty and a (cartoonishly big) hippegalga horn to wear all the time, which grew to be incredibly humiliating. Eventually once his mother had kind of given up he had to hear all about how he broke her physically while giving birth to him, and she offered to die having him cut out of her just so he could live, and how she's spent her entire life since doing everything she possibly could for him and This is how he's repaying her, maybe his dead premie little brother would have been a better man, Faiza should have been born a man, etc.

As a young adult who was finally like, pubescent, he was still being made to wear that stupid horn. He was given the go-ahead to get some experience with sex workers and had a fucking breakdown when he couldn't even get hard. Had a few ineffectual crushes on bearded older men and it was like, OH NOW I CAN GET A BONER. He was still getting comments from peers about him being kinda small and twinkish and girlishly emotional and a whipped little mamas boy. Etc. He didn't find women attractive, didn't find sexy Beardless Youths attractive, didn't find his wife (who basically everyone would comment on as notably beautiful, you're so lucky, etc) attractive. He was mean and terrible at commanding respect beyond social obligations of deference and cried a lot and etc.

When he first struck out on his own after getting a (minimally merit based) induction to the Odotsomale order he had an intensely spiteful crush on one guy there, hid it as best he could but other people picked up on it + his overall vibes. Got stealthily teased about it in plausibly deniable ways, had one guy (actually quite politely) come onto him in hopes of DL sex and freaked the fuck out at him, doubled down on being aggro masc and verbally abusive @ pretty much everyone around him. Then would occasionally overhear a few of the men that he'd particularly antagonized joking behind his back about things like fucking (contextually, raping) him to teach him some respect, No he's not gonna snitch to daddy he'll love it, etc. This is where he was at before Brakul got in the picture.

Bottom line: He feels things very strongly (especially negative emotions) and is VERY susceptible to feelings of shame. He BADLY internalized the notion that there are things physically/mentally wrong with him, that they specifically made him effeminate. He learned to associate his physical desires and acting upon them as symptomatic of these things, and associated acting on these things with GUT-WRENCHING shame of being caught and chastised. You're supposed to honor your mother and father and be a good reflection upon your family, DOUBLY so for nobility, and he's not doing a great job of that. He was a complete mama's boy and wanted to be like his dad, really wanted to make them proud, really wants the respect of his peers, and learned to blame being a disappointment/being disrespected on these things. His Aggro Masc demeanor has never been all that convincing as True Ideal Wardi Machismo, he's too emotional and it's all blatant over-compensation and it's also just like, pretty obvious he wants nothing to do with women (not JUST due to being a huge misogynist) and is frequently eye-fucking bigass hairy dudes (while thinly disguising it by just like, looking angry). He does not pass the sniff test, and makes it worse for himself by being a generally unpleasant and disrespectful person and making it very easy + making people very Willing to leverage cultural homophobia against him in turn.

He was in absolutely zero state to pursue real relationships with other men, or to be pursued by another man in any conventional way. The thing with Brakul only Happened because they developed a strong friendship first, and only then because Brakul strongly empathized with him, had been burned in the past and was also pretty nervous, genuinely just liked him as a human being and wanted to be around him one way or another, had a personality type that meshed well with/could handle Janeys being difficult, made 95% of the moves, and was content with letting things go very, VERY slowly.

(I want to make it clear that Lifya Haidamane was not just an Evil Bitch or At Fault for everything wrong with him, she's a full human being who had some severe trauma and a really bad marriage, never had the tools to handle any of this, coped by pouring all her emotional energy into her two biological children and projecting heavily upon them, and genuinely thought a lot of this for the best and an act of tough love. But yeah she WAS physically + verbally + emotionally abusive to him in a major way (AND VERY MUCH COUYA ALSO. THERE WAS NO LOVE THERE COUYA GOT IT REAL BAD) and the abuse was a shaping force in all this.)

[serpentface]

how well do the main whitecalf cast members dance?

YAY relevant rough sketch of Palo and Tigran having a moment of levity late in the game with a group dance

Tigran is a VERY good dancer and loves to do it. He's a near-complete natural (learned some priestly dances as a teenager but was already quite good at it as a child). He has excellent rhythm and can move Shockingly fast. Loves to show it off. Will be like "hey start clapping rhythmically and look what I can do" and just go off to whatever he's given. First time he did that on Palo, he tried to mess with Tigran by giving him the most fucked up beat he could and he managed to make it look good. There was a local variant of broader group folk-dance style (no name for it yet) that he only ever saw performed around the north Briya river where he was born, and he's very enthusiastic about teaching it to other people (that's what he and Palo are doing in that drawing).

Palo is pretty average but thinks he's worse than he is; is kind of under the impression he's too gangly to perform well. The majority of Wardi dances revolve around footwork and he Does struggle with attempting the faster ones, he has a very good sense of rhythm in theory but can't quite get his feet to cooperate. He came from a Big family (five siblings, a bunch of cousins by blood and marriage) and has been to a lot of weddings as such. ALWAYS had to be coaxed into joining in the dancing parts but Usually ends up enjoying himself and not wanting to stop so long as the atmosphere is good.

Couya isn't outstanding, but is better than people tend to expect given her demeanor is utterly graceless. She's strong at the martial dances that are part of her job and is taking them SUPER seriously in most cases so it tends to look imposing, as it's supposed to. She usually refuses to do any dancing that's just like, for fun. If you try to coax her she'll be like 'I'm not being shy it just looks kinda stupid idk what to tell you man......'

Janeys is a very good dancer. As a little kid he had a phase where he wanted to be a dancer as a job, (then refined it to bull-dancer, then switched tacts entirely to chariot racer). Had a little formal training (most aristocrat boys do) and took to it very well. It's one of few things he is not only Adequate/competent at but like, distinctly talented in, and he'll flaunt it pretty hard when he gets the opportunity (though needs persuasion if he's around his parents or extended family because at this point he wants to minimize any chances to draw their ire by not drawing their attention period. But then will go extra hard in a strange, vindictive sort of way if he gets over that hump. like "YEAH I CAN MOVE MY FEET SO FUKING FAST IM LIKE A FUCKING. GAZELLE IM SO FUCKING SMOOTH WITH IT FUCK YOU MA WAIT NO IM SORRY, NO IM NOT- WAIT-" communicated through aggressive movement alone).

Faiza is a pretty bad dancer (and VERY bad singer). Song, dance, and movement are pretty important aspects of religious veneration and Odonii do probably the most well-known and critical dances, so this has always been a problem for her and something she's a little insecure about. She had to work her absolute ass off to get to the point of being able to perform the lion dance/various weapon dances adequately, and what competency she's gained from that does not seem to translate to ANYTHING else. She'll still join in informal dances and usually have fun doing it. Gets internally heated when Janeys very amicably ribs her about it, because him actually being better than her at anything that she's Supposed to be good at is unsettling.

Brakul's just kind of middling. Competent enough to not draw any attention in either direction in folk dances where everyone's an amateur. He's pretty self-confident in general but has a few things that he gets weirdly touchy about and dancing is one, he usually needs to be coaxed into it and absolutely will not dance alone.

Hibrides tends to be extremely self-conscious in any situation where she may draw attention to herself from strangers, which includes the majority of scenarios in which she could be dancing. She has habitually sat out of dances at weddings and festivals and the like for most of her life, so has never really developed the skill to begin with. Will sometimes attempt to replicate dances she's seen when she's completely alone and be like 'yeahhhh ok no this looks dumb' and give up. There Was a point ~8 years back on where She + Janeys + Brakul were operating the most harmoniously they ever did as a (ymmv) throuple. There was one night where they were all a little buzzed, Janeys was fucking around on the lyre and attempting a faster song, and Brakul persuaded her into dancing to it with him. And it was SUPER rough on all ends and there was no rhythm to ground it, but they all thought it was fucking hilarious. Went at it for almost an hour. The moment passed eventually and the scenario never repeated itself in full.

[serpentface]

Anyone got any OC related questions for me . Would love to have prompting talk at length about inane or not inane details of their lives