#{Making Legends} worldbuilding

[x-i-l-verify]

Linked Universe Daemon AU Headcanons

WORLDBUILDING NOTE 1: The concept of daemons is borrowed from the His Dark Materials series. A daemon is a person’s soul manifested outside of their body in a tangible, physical form, which permanently settles into the form of the animal that most resembles them in character as the individual matures. Person and daemon are not separate beings, but two halves of one mental coin, which means that they each know everything the other does, thinks, and senses. Daemons are almost always the opposite gender of their person and have a distinct personality than the person to a certain degree, as person and daemon represent different aspects of the same whole. Touching someone’s daemon without their permission is taboo, considered a violation tantamount to rape in most cultures.

WORLDBUILDING NOTE 2: All Links have the same name for their daemon: Ellanharai (composed of the Old German elements ellan “courage” and heri “army”). However, because all the Links are their own person, their daemon’s form settles on something different with each incarnation. Just as the Links in the Chain go by different titles to differentiate them all, so, too, do their daemons. Links tend to settle early (12-13 years), as they generally know who they are and what they want from a young age.

WORLDBUILDING NOTE 3: The Dark World/Twili crystal magic combines someone and their daemon into one physical body. This new body has the form of the daemon but the gender of the person with size alterations or different markings/coloration and is controlled by the person, with the daemon part of their mind taking a backseat. For example, Legend is larger as a rabbit than his daemon usually is, and of course, her natural color is not bright pink. The lingering effects of this transformation only physically affect the person side of the person/daemon pair once they are returned to normal. 

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SKY + PSALM (RED-CROWNED CRANE)

Red-crowned cranes are renowned for their lasting and affectionate pair bonds, having come to represent longevity and devotion in many cultures; they are cooperative and low-aggression birds, quite tolerant and relaxed around other animals, and only really become territorial and protective over their nesting sites and chicks.

Psalm is impatient, mischievous, and fierce. Sky is more easygoing, considerate, and gentle.

Sky and Psalm are very outwardly affectionate with each other, and both can often be found napping together in a patch of sunlight, Psalm resting her head in Sky’s lap or draping a wing over him. As the physically tallest daemon of the bunch, Psalm delights in teasing fawning over her smaller daemon sisters, especially the younger ones. She will often sit on someone and happily brood, and while some may outwardly protest, everyone secretly enjoys it.

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FOUR + RHYME (ITALIAN HEBRAN HONEYBEE)

Four's daemon is an industrious, adaptable, cooperative, sociable species of honeybee, known for being assertive but not aggressive insects; they have a high threshold for what they consider threats, and will communicate using pheromones, body language, and vocalizations to make themselves as clearly understood as possible, but they will not hesitate to defend themselves if something is deemed a threat.

Four is empathetic, observant, passionate, and composed. Rhyme is the emotional, pragmatic, impulsive, competitive part of his personality.

Rhyme is usually kept in a protective case Four wears around his neck to prevent any harm from coming to her either in battle or out of it, due to her diminutive size, but he will happily let her out to stretch her wings when around people he trusts. While she is too small to outright cuddle with her sisters, Rhyme loves perching on their heads or burrowing into feathers or fur when it’s chilly, and she’s surprisingly expressive with her body language, though one might have to squint to see it.

When Four splits into his Colors, Rhyme also splits. Which means instead of one being in two bodies, they’re now one being in eight bodies. As in LU canon, none of the Colors is their own individual in this AU, merely a fraction of a larger whole. In turn, each iteration of Rhyme is an alternate part of each of the Colors, with Four’s soul fragmenting into smaller and smaller individual pieces the deeper you go down.

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TIME + MELODY (SPANISH FARON MASTIFF)

While menacing in appearance due to their sheer size and bulk, Spanish mastiffs are actually known for being protective, affectionate, quiet dogs, with a long history of guarding livestock; they are patient, easygoing, and surprisingly playful, good with children and tolerant of other animals, though their strong wills and stubbornness make them a challenge to handle for first-time dog owners.

Time is authoritative, jaded, and stoic, while Melody embodies his nurturing, hopeful, mischievous side.

Melody can often be found at Time’s side with one of his hands resting on her head or back. As the largest daemon in the group paired with the tallest person, they make for quite the intimidating pair and are downright deadly in battle together. Outside of battle, though, Melody becomes a big teddy bear, utterly content to let her daughters sisters use her as a pillow or mode of transportation, quietly communicating all the warm care and tenderness Time is sometimes too awkward to openly express. She is the one who introduced the musical motif the other Ellanharais also adopted when coming up with nicknames for themselves.

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TWILIGHT + ARIA (GRAY WOLF)

Twilight’s daemon is a social, cooperative, dedicated apex predator, who routinely work together to raise their young, defend their territories, and chase down their prey over vast distances; they are not overly aggressive and prefer to avoid conflict whenever they can, using body language, sent marking, and howling to diffuse tense situations and prevent costly fights between packs or individuals.

Twilight is focused, cautious, and opinionated. Aria is his easygoing, empathetic, people-pleasing side.

Aria instantly adopts most of the younger daemons in the group and dotes on them as much as they’ll allow. However, she turns into a big, besotted puppy whenever Time and Melody come into the picture and becomes adorably bashful around Malon’s pigeon daemon Rosamu. She is often found at Twilights right side, guarding his flank and watching his back while he focuses his attention on what’s in front of him. She also loves scritches and belly rubs and has nearly smothered Twilight more than once by sprawling on top of him too heavily while they sleep. While their initial transformation into Wolfie was traumatic and scarring at first, they have both grown to enjoy the occasional opportunity to truly travel, fight, and exist as one.

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WILD + TRILL (WEDGE-TAILED EAGLE)

Wild’s daemon is a loyal, resourceful, resilient species of raptor that is often found alone or in monogamous pairs, but will freely cooperate together with groups of up to 15 other eagles to take down larger prey; they are straightforward and communicative with their vocalizations and displays and also surprisingly playful, wrestling or playing food games with each other.

Trill is Wild’s dutiful, reserved, focused side, while Wild is the impulsive, playful, lackadaisical side.

Trill is rather choosy with and to whom she shows open affection. She can be very standoffish, preferring to let Wild do the talking for both of them, but once she trusts someone, she will often become very chatty and physically affectionate. It is common to see her riding around or napping on Aria's back, but she has begun opening up more to the others as well.

Because Wild lost all his memories in the Shrine of Resurrection, Trill had become unsettled when they finally woke up, taking the most basic shape a daemon can take, normally only seen with very young children: a small, floating, glowing ball of golden Dust. As they regained their memories during Wild’s quest and discovered more about themselves, Trill began taking on some of their old favored forms before eventually resettling for good as her original settled form, the wedge-tailed eagle. Despite physically being the same, though, there’s still that distance between who they are now and who they used to be, most evident in how their personalities have seemed to switch; Wild used to be more serious, focused, and responsible, and Trill used to embody the impulsivity, rowdiness, and wanderlust he kept tightly tamped down for the sake of duty and appearances. Both of them are still coming to terms with how much they have changed.

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LEGEND + LYRIC (EUROPEAN HYLIAN RABBIT)

Legend's daemon settled as a hardy, wary, sociable, territorial species of rabbit, able to survive and thrive in almost any environment; they are a keystone prey species, a vital part of almost any ecosystem they find themselves in, who must stay ever vigilant and rely on their speed, wits, and determination to stay alive.

Legend is blunt, private, and practical, while Lyric is the sensitive, sociable, sentimental side of him.

Legend has… a complicated relationship with his daemon’s form. He initially hides her away from the rest of the Chain out of paranoia and insecurity, keeping her in his pack at all times. What would Hyrule they think of the renowned Hero of Legend having a defenseless, soft little rabbit as a daemon? They would lose all respect for him, or worse, be disappointed. It isn’t until after the Twili crystal incident, and Twilight and Sky find out about Lyric’s form, that he starts to come out of his shell.

After the ice has been broken, Lyric leaps at the chance to interact with the other deamons more. She goads Aria or even Melody into games of chase, can finally properly pounce on Warriors’ daemon the next time she teases her, curls up into a little fuzzy ball with Hyrule’s daemon to nap, leaps up on Trill or Psalm or Wind’s daemon’s backs and coax them into giving her a ride, and holds Rhyme in her little paws to gloat that she finally knows a daemon smaller than her (Rhyme is not amused). She is the one who came up with the name for their group of daemons, which is a chorus, just like a group of Links is a chain.

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HYRULE + CADENCE (YELLOW-BELLIED GLIDER)

Hyrule’s daemon is a small, nocturnal glider species that is selectively social, close-bonding, and expressive, utilizing a number of chirps, whirrs, whistles, and growls to keep away intruders and keep tabs on each other; yellow-bellied gliders are incredibly active, hard-working creatures, spending up to 90% of their time awake foraging, and they can travel up to 2 kilometers in just 4 hours through a combination of climbing and gliding.

Hyrule is independent, wary, and agreeable. Cadence represents his dependent, connected, feisty side.

Cadence is generally quite a skittish daemon, who can normally be found clinging wide-eyed to Hyrule’s back, shoulders, chest, or arms, or hidden inside his tunic or pack. She has not interacted closely with many other daemons in her time (fairies do not have daemons), so she is still getting used to the physical affection the others offer. She does not dislike it; it is simply a lot. But she is gradually learning to love being nuzzled, cuddled, and carried, and she greatly enjoys riding around on the other larger daemons.

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WIND + SHANTY (MILITARY MACAW)

Wind settled just a couple months before the events of Linked Universe as a resourceful, gregarious, deeply loyal species of macaw; like all macaws, they can be quite loud, communicative, and expressive, and they have generally been described as having friendly, confident, playful dispositions, albeit with the occasional temperamental mood swing.

Shanty is Wind's meticulous, perceptive, down-to-earth side, while Wind is reckless, curious, and carefree.

As is befitting for a parrot daemon, Shanty spends much of her time perched on Wind’s shoulders or arms, though she does love being held and cuddled, too. She is still getting used to her settled form, and sometimes forgets she cannot shift like she once did, leading to some hilarious mishaps when she faceplanted on the ground trying to turn into a hermit crab, or one memorable instance where she nearly drowned while trying to become a yellowtail snapper. She gets very starry-eyed over the other demons and thinks all of them are the coolest for different reasons. She desperately wants to impress them and prove she’s just as badass as they are, so she can sometimes chafe under their well-meaning coddling.

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WARRIORS + BALLAD (RED FOX)

Warriors’ daemon settled as the confident, dependable, independent red fox, the most widespread and successful carnivore in the world, found in just about every available habitat, from jungle to tundra; despite being mainly solitary, these animals have a complex social hierarchy and can be seen in a wide variety of group settings, with vixens sometimes coming together during the breeding season to help raise each other’s cubs, and their mates bringing them food and also helping parent the new cubs.

Warriors is shrewd, charming, and diplomatic, while Ballad is more brash, cheeky, and candid.

Ballad, while generally friendly and warm with the other daemons (especially the younger ones), is also strangely skittish around them. She is fine initiating touch or curling up for a nice nap around or with someone else, but if touched unexpectedly, she tends to either bristle, growl, and retreat behind Warriors, or go very still and quiet. She shies away from any human hands except Warriors' (and even then there are days he doesn't touch her directly). They bring to mind other hands. Slim, small, elegant, painted hands that hurt, that took, that tainted- ...It’s fine. She’s fine. They’re fine. Everything’s fine.

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Resources:

Red-crowned crane analysis: https://daemonpage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=24990

Italian honeybee analysis: https://daemonpage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=23882

Tibetan mastiff analysis: https://daemonpage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=24552

Spanish mastiff information: https://dogtime.com/dog-breeds/spanish-mastiff

Gray wolf analysis: https://daemonpage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=23828

Wedge tailed eagle analysis: https://daemonpage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=26686

European rabbit analysis: https://daemonpage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=23718

Yellow bellied glider analysis: https://daemonpage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=24968

Military macaw analysis: https://daemonpage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=26591

Red fox analysis: https://daemonpage.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=24946

Art belongs to @/linkeduniverse

[thatonebirdwrites]

You can answer for Supergirl, Legend of Korra, both, or any other fandom you're into; I don't mind. And if you can't decide, just default to LOK (just in case). Questions: Fandom: 1, 2, 5, 8, 14, 17, 19, 20

(Also off-topic, so feel free to ignore but I am curious and its second season is just coming out. Have you seen or plan to watch "Arcane"? Any feelings on it?)

For Legend of Korra:

...the moment in the story that I started shipping my OTP from this world.

I honestly shipped Korra and Asami from the moment they meet. Korra does a double-take with Asami. And describes her as pretty to the Airbender kids. Then Asami does that dramatic and way too flirty climb out of the pool right in front of Korra just to ask Korra to come race with her. Like, okay, Asami, you are dating the wrong fire ferret.

Then Asami fights with Mako over him being a douchebag, and she outright says, "I like Korra." Asami, yes, you are very loud about it.

And everything she does in Season 2 -- 4 is for Korra. Like Korra asks for help? Asami says yes immediately. Korra needs transportation? Asami gifts her a whole damn airship. Korra is in the spirit world but her body needs moved to safety? Asami is ON IT. Korra gets kidnapped? Asami destroys all Red Lotus in the way to her girl. Korra asks for help again in Season 4? Asami is ON IT. Korra wants to go to the Spirit World? Asami is like, "YES PLEASE."

That girl was in love with Korra from the start. It just took Korra until Season 3 to finally realize she was in love with Asami back.

.2. ...my three favorite characters and why I love them so much.

Korra, Asami, and Jinora.

Korra is so wonderfully drawn. Like this girl grows so much throughout the course of the series. Her arcs are amazing, and I love that for her. I could go on, but I'd end up recounting the whole series as for why I love her so. (I honestly really love her PTSD arc, and thought the show did a very good job of doing justice. For someone who has PTSD myself, I related to it a lot.)

Asami was sadly not given the arcs she deserved. Most of her arcs happened off screen and were sort of told to us. (This is one of the many reasons I leaped into writing Korrasami to fix this injustice). I adore her though because she knows what she wants (Korra and engineering), but we also see her struggle with very relatable things (trauma, loneliness, trust, etc.). There's a lot of room for more depth that sadly the show didn't do her justice (partly due to not enough episodes. They really needed more episodes to dig into the side character arcs).

Jinora because she's such a fascinating teenager. We see her grow into an airbender Master, and see her come to terms with her Spirit World affinity. She also has some amazing arcs, and she's honestly a kind kid. We see her complexity with her siblings and how she struggles with being such a young Master Airbender. I honestly loved her arcs.

.5. ...the scene from it that lives in my head rent free.

The Very Dramatic Climb Out Of Pool Scene Asami does in front of Korra.

Asami did you really need to be that flirty? Like that was overkill. If this was Mortal Kombat, that scene alone would have been an instant KO on Korra. Asami cannot subtly flirt even if her life depended on it. Like how do we not ship them after that scene? It's unforgettable.

I swear, that scene will just randomly enter my head about once a day, and I'll once again be like, "Asami, you are so not subtle."

8....a quote from it that means a lot to me.

"Your problem is, you've been disconnected for too long. Disconnected from the people who love you and disconnected from yourself," Toph says to Korra in Book 4. I don't necessarily agree with what Toph says Korra can learn from her enemies, but I do agree with Toph that Korra was stuck in her mind fighting her old enemies as that is what PTSD does to you. So Toph then shows Korra how disconnected she is. How her trying to heal on her own has actually gotten her stuck.

It's only when she reconnected with loved ones that she makes progress. We cannot heal in isolation. We require the love and support of those around us. We must choose to heal, and choose to allow our loved ones to support us. Otherwise, we will become stuck and stagnate (or hurt ourselves in self-destructive ways as we see Korra do).

14. ..if I think the largest majority of fics I crave for it are fix-its, nobody-dies-everybody-lives, fluffy fics of my OTP, pining fics for my OTP, or plot heavy Gen stories?

I tend toward fluffy fics of my OTP to be honest. There's enough trauma and angst in my life. Adding to it by reading a very angsty fic often causes me to spiral in real life. I will sometimes rush through the angst to find fluff. I have to be in the right mindset for any angst.

Now, I do love a good fix-it fic, but there isn't much in Legend of Korra to fix. Ha, I say this, and yet I wrote a fix-it series with Shared Moments, where I rewrote seasons 2 through 4 (in-progress still) because I wanted Korrasami to happen sooner and to end Makkora sooner. I also wanted to give Asami the arc she deserved.

But beyond that, the only fix-it fics I read are ones that write out the comics. I can tolerate Turf Wars for the most part as parts of it are absolutely lovely (the Spirit World adventures I adored). I hate Ruins of Empire. Erase that one entirely please. I'll always read fics that write out Ruins of Empire and replace it with something that makes sense and isn't Kuvira-apologist nonsense.

Kuvira attempted a genocide. She had deadly work-camps. She tried to kill her so-called family and her boyfriend/fiancee, and started what basically amounted to a world war with a hell of a lot of war crimes. And I'm supposed to find her "redeeming arc" believable? Because she saves the Krew once and then admits she's guilty? No way, that's hogwash. That's not even redemption. That's bare minimum. She hasn't done any redemption actions yet. Anyway, the only good scene in that entire comic was the one page we got of Asami and Korra in the bedroom, where we learn they share a bed -- omg, yay! bed sharing! -- but beyond that, the comic as a whole should not exist.

17. ...the world-building aspect of the story I have the greatest admiration for.

To be honest, Legend of Korra suffers from too-few-episodes-syndrome. They rushed the story and world-building because they simply weren't allowed more episodes to really give us the depth the writers and directors seemed to want. This is entirely Nickolodeon's fault, as Nickopoopeon (as I like to call them), kept trying to cancel the show because Korra is a woman with brown skin. The directors fought tooth and nail to get all four seasons, and then fought to end it with Korrasami. (They couldn't get the kiss scene in so instead they have Korra and Asami mirror the wedding stance to make it clear they are now a couple).

So the best worldbuilding that we got in the show?

It's mostly a tie between Zaofu and the Airbenders. They did a really good job of exploring a communal-like society that is focused on science and engineering. The design of the city's domes is absolutely brilliant, and the train system is well done.

Now, up to this point, the worldbuilding is okay but doesn't dig as deep as ATLA had, but it's entirely due to lack of time. They still managed to pack a lot into the episodes via the details in the background and carefully written dialogue, so I have great admiration for what they pulled off considering their constraints.

I wish I could say technology as a whole for this question, but there's the... hummingbirds....

In the Art Book for Book 4, the creators admit that they made them up for the cool factor.

But if you look at the technology level of the show and what would be needed for the hummingbirds to fly, it would require tech that is so far advanced that it is legit not possible for it to exist yet in that capacity.

Asami may be a genius, but that is a lot of creating ideas from scratch with no known precursor tech. Generally tech has an evolutionary tail (for lack of a better term), so you can trace how prior ideas were expanded, retrofit, redone, and made anew based on new theories, new resources, experiments that reveal new uses, etc...

We don't see that with the hummingbirds. Asami just has an idea. Draws a great sketch. Gets annoyed at Varrick like always. And somehow magically makes it.

The amount of small parts to make those wings flutter like they did? In real life we did not have that tech until the 70s. But Legend of Korra is meant to have 1930s/40s equivalent technology. The hummingbirds don't fit the tech period at all. It was MADDENING.

I can deal with the giant mech as there's some precursor to that at Zaofu with the domes, and it actually moves slowly and honestly highly inefficiently. It doesn't have very good movements at all, and with its size, there's not a lot of small parts. So yeah, I can see it mostly fitting the tech period.

Anyway, point is, up to this point, the show had done a relatively decent job with technology and have it fit the lore.

But then we get the hummingbirds, and I facepalmed myself into the center of the earth.

Cool factor indeed.

19. ..one behind-the-scenes trivia fact I've learned somewhere and my thoughts on it.

Well. Um. I already answered this in the prior answer. The Art Book of Book 4 literally uses the term "cool factor" as the the reason for the hummingbird's existence. See above for my thoughts. LOL

20. ...exactly how little or how much headspace this fandom takes up in my brain at any given point.

It's honestly a little embarrassing. I think about Korrasami almost as much as Supercorp, and I think about that multiple times a day.

Like when I saw Legend of Korra for the first time, I was just obsessed with it and it dominated my thoughts and writing. It's actually how I began to heal from what my abuser did, where I was finally able to write again.

I may not be able to write my original fiction yet, due to that trauma, but I can write fanfiction. Which is all thanks to Korrasami and Supercorp.

Thank you for asking! :)

As for your question about Arcane, I actually cannot watch it. It's too triggering. I've only seen the first episode and part of a second but had to stop. I'm told it's good, but to be honest, I never liked the League of Legends universe (talk about triggering lore in those games). I do like there is a lesbian relationship that's canon in it, so I can appreciate that from afar.

[nickythehickey]

uprooted progress update i've finished ep5 and jesus the riverfolk company (see: otter mafia) is actually kinda scary

im ngl the scene with scampi and booker made me feel personally threatened somehow

[maulfucker]

I saw you had a post where you thought abt Dathomirian culture and I was wondering if you had any thoughts on how specifically Dathomirian queer culture manifests. I'd like to come up with things myself but I don't actually know a lot in general abt Dathomir yet, so I want other opinions. I've got two ideas tho

-Dathomirian queer ppl call each other "family" like some queer ppl did in our world

-Trans men might like earn their horns thru hunting and using animal bones and stuff as their horns? Idk like I said I don't know much

Good question! I haven't actually thought that much about queer culture in Dathomir despite having a gay nightbrother oc,,

I think the calling each other family thing probably wouldn't work very well since they already treat their clan as family and call each other brother and sister even without blood relation, but I love the idea of trans nightbrothers earning their horns! Dathomirians as a whole seem to be pretty open to body modifications, with tattoos being so natural in their culture, so hunting animals to use their bones or teeth or something to produce "prosthetic" horns sounds very fitting. It could be a whole thing for both trans and cis nightbrothers, using the extra horns as a way to show off their strength. plus it opens up the possibility of nightbrothers implanting horns in whimsical shapes such as smiley faces, stars or penises

I think as a people composed of multiple isolated communities, there's probably not a uniform queer culture across the planet. But also as people who tend to live in single-sex communities they are likely far more queer on average than what we see in the rest of the galaxy, like how cowboys were famously queer. They supposedly spend most of their lives around the same gender, so it wouldn't be unusual for that to be the gender they express attraction to more often. Though, much like how cowboys have been "reinterpreted" as a symbol of straight white masculinity, there's probably also a popular misconstruction of their culture as extremely straight, and/or extremely celibate. The "Nightsisters rule over Nightbrothers" reading of their culture is very obviously meant to show them as a reverse-sexist society, making the nightsisters a sort of "girl power" icon — they are strong independent women who can pick any man they want (implying that they do want men), which is like saying cowboys are strong fearless men who woo every damsel that crosses their path. which. sure, cowboys did have sex with women. sure, nightsisters do have sex with men. but more often than not they will be around other nightsisters, so they will more often than not have relationships with women (even if they're not really gay).

but I am not usamerican and my brain has the consistency of molten ice cream, so my knowledge of american cowboy culture is. basically just that. (the brazilian cowboy culture is quite different, especially considering there's like three distinct cowboy "sub"cultures, each with their different history, territory, and associations) So that's as far as I can take the cowboy comparison, but cowboys can be a pretty good source of inspiration I think. maybe look into that?

A quick look into medieval monasteries (another famously gender-segregated culture) says they were also pretty gay. And that the sexual persecution that is so commonplace in christianity today was not really a thing yet back then, which is also something to consider when trying to conceive the queer culture of a people who have nothing to do with our modern (overwhelmingly christian) society — do they have a reason to reject queer people and relationships, or are we just projecting our own worldviews and experiences onto a people who have none of the sociohistorical context that shaped our experiences?

I think homosexual/romantic and even polyamorous relationships would be pretty normalized, since there's not really any reason to only accept hetero relationships if they rarely ever live in mixed-sex communities. That said, there's probably still some expectation of heterosexual activity, in the form of the Selection and its implied procreation purposes. Dathomir is a very isolationist world, so to keep their population stable they need to procreate, even if it "goes against" an individual's sexuality. And this is where I think polyamorous relationships have reason to be encouraged: if a nightsister or nightbrother who already has a partner takes part in a Selection, why not bring their partner(s) into the relationship as well and increase the likelihood of producing offsprings?

As for the gender side of queerness.... well that's probably A Lot more complicated than I have time to discuss here. The gender binary seems pretty enforced in their culture from what little we see, and their sexual dimorphism probably makes trans and/or intersex people stand out A Lot more

I've mentioned this before, but I headcanon that the skin color difference is not a sex-chromosome-bound characteristic, but instead a sex-hormone-related expression of pigmentation, like in some birds such as peacocks. Both males and females are shown to have a range of skin tones, but in females it manifests as grayscale while in males it manifests as a color scale from red to yellow. So intersex people might have colors that are in-between, or that don't "match" their apparent sex, and trans people who undergo their equivalent of hrt might slowly change skin colors over time.

As for how nonbinary people work.... well as someone who is from a latin american country and speaks a romance language, I would like to imagine their "nonbinary" is a lot like ours — there is no "neutral" gender, they simply play with their presentation to be between one and the other, leaning towards whichever one might be considered more "transgressive" at the moment.

I don't think trans people would be forced out of their clans for being a different gender than everyone else, but it's possible their role in the clan might change to something more "befitting" of their new gender I also think there's probably a lot more contact between different clans than just the Selection, so it's possible for people who decide to start over as a new gender to take one of these moments of contact as an opportunity to "visit" another clan and never come back.

..... aaand it's almost 2 am so I gotta hit post

[cochineal-leviat]

I was just thinking about this, but in the Pokemon world, do you think there are zoo's?

This popped into my head because I was writing about foster care for Pokemon, but what would the point of Pokemon zoos be when you can own a dragon-type pet? Do you need a special licence for owning aggressive Pokemon? What are the laws around owning Pokemon in the Pokemon world? Are trainers exempt from an exotic pet-keeping licence? What are the exact recuperations if one of your Pokemon causes damages in both public and private settings? Is there insurance protecting against these possibilities?

Okay, but back to the first idea: zoos. Does the Pokemon world need them? Their whole point is to see animals you would never see in everyday life and to educate the public about them. That is why they are still allowed to operate today irl even though the origins of zoos started to gawk at foreign animals for the rich.

After all, if anyone can raise whatever Pokemon they want, as long as they take proper care of it, what is the point of a zoo? I suppose it could be used as a sanctuary for Pokemon that cannot return to their native regions. Since the modern Pokemon world is so Pokemon-friendly, I can see the governments of the areas only allowing these zoos to exist as long as they follow the rules to protect their denizens. You do not want a Gyarados to escape and make a lake close to civilisation its home.

I just think zoos wouldn't be as popular in the Pokemon world as they are in ours. With the Aether foundation from the Sun and Moon and Ultra games, there was an emphasis on rehabilitating Pokemon before it was revealed they were evil. I believe genuine work was done there since we have a character like Wicke who disagreed with Lusamine and took full responsibility for Aether Foundation's corruption. Still, with the experiments with Type: Null, it is hard to say how much of it was done to keep up good appearances. (honestly, the existence of Type: Null and its design is pretty horrifying if you delve deeper into it. I remember playing Moon and being hit by Fridge Horror while exploring the lower labs of the foundation. Say whatever you want about Pokemon, but their subtle sense of horror keeps me going).

However, there would be large support to help domesticated and wild Pokemon to find a home again. I can easily imagine a human making it their life's goal to rehabilitate Pokemon and help them find a new trainer. Since domesticated animals cannot return to the wild. Maybe Pokemon can since most are caught and have lived in the wild before. But there are plenty of animals in our world that cannot go back to the wild because of an injury or because they have gotten used to human contact. It is difficult, to say the least.

But what happens to released Pokemon that come from breeders? I am guilty of this as I used to shiny hunt the Musada Method (Gen 7 was the perfect gen to this with the Hot Springs. My favourite shiny Egg was an accidental use of this as I used to breed Dratini's to trade over the GTS, so I filled my Pokedex without needing a copy of Sun or a second 3DS). If you put even an ounce of realism into this mechanic, that means the breeding pool of that particular species is in danger if they are released in bulk. And that is not to mention if breeding a Pokemon with a Ditto has lasting side effects for that Pokemon's lineage. I imagine that if it is harmful in the Pokemon world, several laws would be laid out to prevent inbreeding in the wild and domestically. (Ugh, I got reminded of puppy mills)

To produce milk, meat, and other Pokemon (animal) products, there has to be a big industry for that too in the Pokemon world. It has to be done on such a large scale, too, since the Pokemon world doesn't consist of just the four regions of Kanto, Jhoto, Hoenn and Sinnoh anymore. They are more like countries now than the definition of a region.

Pokemon contests, especially, must be heavily regulated since they are essentially Pokemon-focused beauty pageants. I wonder if Pokemon contests are considered controversial, like irl beauty pageants. (BTW, I love Pokemon contests from DPP; I am not dissing them. This is just a thought exercise)

Idk, my brain kinda went on a tangent. All of these ideas would be fun to explore in my writing. If anyone wants to add to this, go ahead. I am curious what people think of this.

[oldtvandcomics]

Oh dear. I am a third through Legends and Lattes, and I already feel that this book is going to end up on my List Of Infamy for 2024. Like, the concept is so good?? You could do so much with this premise?? And then it doesn't.

Listen. There are, generally, two reasons why someone would do a "people doing mundane things in a fantasy setting" story. You are either there for the world, or you are there for the characters. The world, we still know close to nothing about, beyond that it has generic DND vibes. What is the climate? What species exist in there, and how do they interact with each other? What is the role of adventurers in this society? What even is the city we're in like, beyond having a harbour, a market, a university and a main street?? And the characters, they seem to have zero internal conflict. Viv just left her life of adventuring and killing monsters, and it doesn't seem to impact her at all? Does she miss it? If so, what parts? Who were the people in her party? Even the ones who already appeared "on-screen", we only know their names. You mentioned that there is some prejudice against both orcs and succumbi, are you planning to elaborate on that?? AT ALL???

Just. *frustrated groan*

[aufi-creative-mind]

How would Magic and Deities originate per say in your Botw-Totk worldbuilding project? Plus if the past games are canon in your stuff or not

Oooooh yes! I love these kind of worldbuilding questions. I have a lot to share for my BotW-TotK worldbuilding project (and this also relates to my BotW-TotK Family and Legacy series), so I'll try to break them down into three topics.

(I will also keep this spoiler-free for TotK lore since it hasn't changed much of my ideas)

--

Firstly, yes! The past games are canon to my worldbuilding. They all happened in the "Age of Myths" as described in BotW lore. I imagined that there was a cataclysmic "convergence" event when the multiple timelines were weaved together into one singular timeline prior to the events of BotW-TotK. Sort of similar to the Dragonbreaks from the The Elder's Scrolls series - where time was broken into multiple timelines before they somehow converged back together into one singular timeline. And everything that happened in each timeline are all true and did happened - despite contradicting one another.

So.....try not to think to hard on that one. Very few people in the BotW-TotK Hyrule know about the "Convegence" event. And most view the stories of past games as fairytales or folklore.

I had an idea that the story of Majora's Mask is a children's tale that a lot of kids would pretend-play as "Majora VS Fierce Hero".

--

Secondly, magic, I'm gonna be very honest. I haven't put much thought on how magic works in this version of Hyrule and sorta took the soft worldbuilding path of how magic works in this world Essentially, magic does exist in Hyrule but how a person can use it is rather unclear.

There are magic gifted ones like Zelda and her Sealing magic, Mipha with her healing and Urbosa with her lightning powers.

Then there are supernatural abilities like Link and his Flurry Rush which in my headcanon, is a time-based power.

And then there are abilities that can be taught. For example, the Yiga Clan's teleportation techniques and Revali literally created his own power of Gale through great effort and sheer will.

And then, there's the whole magic-tech aspect as well with the Ancient Sheikah tech and later, the Ancient Zonai stuff with TotK. So I can't really say much other than "game mechanics I guess?", without hurting my poor brain even more.

--

And finally, DEITIES.

The way I approached the deity / faith sytems of Hyrule is sort of like a softer worldbuilding version of The Elder's Scrolls' faith systems. The deities such as Hylia and the three Golden Goddesses are worshipped by the many peoples of Hyrule but not really present beings themselves (besides speaking via the Goddess Statues to the blessed few...and Link).

How they are being worshipped differs between different races and clans.

The universal Hyrulean creation story is about the three Golden Goddesses. Din, the Goddess of Power, created the material realm and the red earth. Nayru, the Goddess of Wisdom, created the laws and brought order to the world. And Farore, the Goddess of Courage, created the life forms to live on this new world. When they departed from this realm, they left behind a fragment of their divine essence in the form of the Triforce.

In the Hylian faith, they worship the Goddess Hylia as their chief deity who was blessed with the power of the Triforce to protect the land of Hyrule from the evil darkness. And so for the Hylians, they hold Hylia to a very favourable view as a Goddess of Light and divine protector of their homeland of Hyrule with the Queens and Princesses - many named Zelda - are seen as living incarnations of Hylia or even as her "daughters" with her divine blood. (Also my headcanon is that the name "Hyrule" is short for "Hylia's rule")

However for the Sheikah, my headcanon is that their faith follows a theme of duality that is not often present or spoke about by their Hylian counterparts. Perhaps for them, Hylia has "light and shadow" faces - she is the Goddess of Light that loves and protects her people, but she is also a Warrior Goddess that defends and judges those under her gazes. Thus, Hylia isn't seen as an "always good and loving" goddess and is instead recognised as a "benevolent but has a harsher side" entity. To love and to fear.

And this is just for the Hylian and Sheikah clans. The other races may have their own interpretations and pantheons - the Zoras may see Nayru as their chief deity as opposed to Hylia. Or the Gorons may put Din as their cheif deity. And heck, the Gerudo may have their own pantheons of gods or even ancestor worship that differs from Hylians.

(That being said, my Ordon worldbuilding project does has its own faith systems that is separate from the Hyrulean faith. And it focuses on the four Light Spirits as the divine guardians of the region. But that deserves its own post).

[the-au-collector]

@theauthorandtheartist you have enabled me, here is the brain dump:

So this post was actually a follow-up to an earlier post of mine (here) where I was considering the implications of Christianity existing in the LoZ universe, and was debating between having Mido or Four be the Jesus figure in a Christian-like religion for a fic (hence, "Four is Jesus"). I ended up choosing to go with Four though. It requires a lot of headcanons so I don't take it as true necessarily, but I like worldbuilding and I think the premise is funny as hell so I'm willing to overlook the likelihood of it. I don't have anything totally concrete yet, but at least I've jumped the hurdle that is who the Jesus figure is.

I got the idea initially because Sun is Hylia's Jesus already so she can't count, and Sky is too connected to Hylia. Time is absolutely hated in Legend's timeline in my WIP, so he can't be Jesus, which leaves the hero in-between them: Four. (I also considered Mido since I saw a theory that said he took became a heroic figure after Time died, which I really liked). In the end, I ended up making the decision to make Four Jesus because I thought of the idea of Four dying to save Shadow (which is a whole other braindump in and of itself, just know for now that Four saves Shadow from the mirror at some point, and sometime later dies saving Shadow). Which this could be equivalent to Jesus dying on the cross. The basic idea is Jesus died to save us from our sins = Four died to save Shadow, who represents Hylians/sinners as a whole. It's not 1:1 and I'm not trying to make it that way since I'm aiming for a more Christian-like religion than an explicitly Christian religion. That said, there are still saints (who are other important figures in the series, like OoT's sages) and God is explicitly named multiple times in my WIP.

This was originally going to be somewhat explained in my WIP but Legend's Uncle and Ravio are not being nearly as chatty about this as they were last night.

This headcanon also only works for Linked Universe, since I've moved FSA right after Four Swords for the LU timeline.

It's also somewhat tied to some Lorule worldbuilding so if anyone wants me to dump that can of worms somewhere, let me know.

[autumnoakes]

man... rhoam's "redemption" in aoc really sucked, huh?

like botw SHOWED us, several times, how much pressure rhoam put on zelda to unlock her powers, despite her telling him, several times, that it wasn't working. he got angry and banned her from doing not only something she saw as useful, but something that she was clearly very interested in and passionate about because she "wasn't dedicating enough time to her prayers." yes, his diary expresses regret for it, but at the end of the day, if zelda saw that it wouldn't mean much to her. the actions rhoam took, and the way zelda grew up under so much pressure that she nearly died as a child in one of the springs (this is in urbosa's diary, iirc) mean so much more than his regrets and his intentions. it took him nearly 10 years to realize that he fucked up, and by that point it was too late. the calamity had returned, and rhoam had lost any chance he had at making things right with zelda.

meanwhile, in aoc, all that's there is some half-hearted scene in the temple of time that's supposed to make everything better? yes, aoc had a very different and arguably better outcome than the calamity that led to botw, but the damage was still done by rhoam. it's still the same hurts and abuse and trauma that he put his daughter through all because of the prophesized calamity.

[asundering]

[spirit-tracks]

Manifesting 3 hour long Zeltik video going into depth about the Zelda series' religion and the pantheon of hyrulean gods

[mearchy]

Have I mentioned how much I love the neon holoadvertisements and signs in Star Wars!! They're shown on lots of city planets but my favorite is Nar Shadaa. Here are some mid-game screenshots I took in TOR, I love you outer space las vegas

[rivalkieran]

your red design looks cool tell me more about his lore

well. in short: red is Just Some Guy who happened to have the perfect combination of traits at the perfect time to turn him into the catalyst of a brand new cyclical story (that being the story of the lone protagonist) which continuously keeps growing in strength until it takes the form of heroboros at which point he (and the other protags) decide theyve had enough of that and kill it dead. at which point red splits into two (which I have been referring to in my head as red the guy and red the concept or character red and author red) and author red exits the story while character red goes on to live his life in peace and significantly less narratively aware

[corishadowfang]

Currently fighting for my life against plot bunnies. Send help.

[harvestcolonys-longestnight]

The Zenith

Legend of the Zenith: The cat who became Silverpelt

Legend tells of a cat, known as The Zenith, who became Silverpelt.

The Zenith was a strange cat. They were an almost white cat, with a bright white mark on their neck resembling the revival scars of leaders, who came from a forest and was an expert at climbing trees. Back then, the cats of the colonies stayed out of the forests, due to the wolves that prowled them.

The Zenith quickly started to be rumored as part wolf, due to their strange mane and affinity with the predators. It was said that they were capable of winning a fight against a wolf, with no weapon to defend themself besides their teeth and claws.

The leaders quickly began to see them as a threat to their way of life, while the warriors they led adored them. To the warriors of the colonies, they were a hero, assisting in battles against predators and even helping in the search for missing kits.

They gained their title as The Zenith when a pack of wolves left the confines of the western forest and attacked Harvest Colony. The Zenith was there when the attack happened, and is said to have fended off the wolf pack all on their own. They took a tooth from each wolf, turning themself into an angel with a bloody halo, which would harm you if you tried to rip it from them.

However, the leaders still felt threatened by The Zenith. For a while, The Zenith was the most powerful cat in the colonies, and the leaders weren’t happy. They wished to take back that power. So they took their halo.

An angel without a halo is just a corpse.

Their good deeds didn’t go unnoticed though, as when their spirit was judged, they were granted guardianship of the Stars, and defender against the Dark Forest, becoming known as the Silverpelt.

[wrenlywofau]

The Legends of how Pyrrhia’s Tribes got their Powers

(Shout-out to this video that I based most of this on!!)

A common IceWing legend tell of a great Ice Dragon (notably never referred to as an IceWing) flying up to the auroras in the frozen night sky and touching them in order to gain animus powers. This Ice Dragon would’ve lived just after the scorching, when the modern tribes were still forming. She’s regarded as the first queen of what would become the tribe, and though her real name has been lost, it’s not uncommon to hear dragons referring to her as Aurora.

The first SeaWing animus, Prince Albatross, was born as the result of an IceWing prince and SeaWing princess some 2,000 years later.

NightWings’ abilities come from the three moons, which they say were once brothers born with different powers; Perception could read minds, Oracle could see the future, and Imperial could do both to a much stronger degree. It was once said that they watched over the tribe, but this story didn’t prevail much longer after Darkstalker’s time, when the NightWings moved to a new kingdom and stopped being able to see the moons. Hope is working to repopularize this tale.

SkyWing dragonets with firescales have only ever been known to be born on the summer solstice. For a long time, all eggs set to hatch on this date were killed, but after generations of no firescaled dragonets hatching, the tradition fell out of practice. By the time Peril was born, the massacre hadn’t occurred in years, with egg instead just being kept out of the sunlight on this day. It’s said that the first firescales, a dragon named Solstice, tried to force his way into power, and that legions of dragons died trying to stop him.

There is no set-in-stone tale as to how SandWings got their animus abilities. Some say they come from an IceWing hybrid, or a SandWing who followed Aurora into the stars, while others tell of the moons stealing them from the IceWings to give to the SandWings. Though the latter is the basis of why the SandWings worship the moons, few modern SandWings are aware of this origin.

————

History is written by the victors, and often without the intent of telling the full story. Take these legends with a grain of salt, most notably how they could easily be misconstrued.