#HAPPY 2024 WINTER SOLSTICE YOU GUYS!!

[thefandommind]

Thoughts on the Sphere: Spoilers for the later books and Spirit Oath ahead

Headcanon at the end.

So in the universe of Eli Monpress, the world described has some interesting key points-and I'm not talking about the magic system, or at least not rn. Here's a list of my points of interest and then I will expand.

There are three main continents mentioned: the main landmass the story is set in which isn't named but is of course known as the Council of Thrones. Then there is the "unknown continent" from which the Empress conquered and came from. And then lastly the "Northern" continent that is entirely ice tundra, where only packs of ghosthounds thrive. {side note, what the hell do natural ghosthounds hunt, they are huge canines that hunt in packs, and they only eat meat. Mammoths? Gin has a greatly described love of pigs, headcanon there are giant woolly boars in the ice cliffs of this world. In fact checking this post, I was reminded there's singular mentions of things called "black armored pigs", a" feathered lizard", and an "enormous red and gold stripped cat" that is some sort of crossbreed. I love it.}

was gonna try and make this list from most normal in fantasy worlds, to most interesting, but I've already run out of normal-THE SKY IS A LIE.

The sun and moon exist and have purpose. First, while I can't find any mention of the moon being noted as in crescent (i could just be blind), at some points it is described as "full", meaning it does have proper cycles. {I found it later, it does at one point get described as half moon, I was fucking right.}

The sun rises and sets, that's obvious, but the moon helps dictate the months. but then again, the sky is a lie, its just the inside of the Veil, the Weaver made it so. We see that not only is the blue sky part of the Veil, but the sun too as it gets torn by demons. (shout out to the poor lady who overheard me describing this phenomenon to my friend as "the sky is tearing itself apart in fear")

Now this is obviously the Weaver remembering the "before times" with the Creator. {don't worry I'll circle back to this.}

Moving on, the Sphere itself doesn't have stars in the sky, it's explained-"before times" and all that, but it obviously has a "sky". it also has a fucking "bottom".

Now you may have picked up on the fact the spirit world is effectively Flat Earth, now, I am no expert on flat earth, and spirit world is of course not earth (see; all of the spirits, the animals, and yk its fiction). But here are some notes I have regarding flat earth and the Sphere.

First, the Sphere is described as having a bottom, via the bedrock, and magma, this is when Benehime's watching over it. Then Slorn at one point is described as looking down-through the ground, through the mountains, through the bottom and he looks at the dome that is similar to that of the sky,(duh its a sphere its in the name. SO unlike flat earth, isn't a fucking coin with a sky dome, its more like a complicated Minecraft skyisland inside of an orb that is of course later revealed to be the last haven of Creation floating in a sea of demons which have devoured the universe.

Breaking up the text to make the horrible explanation, that instead of it being high fantasy skyblock, it's instead like if all of Creation is Earth and the Milky Way and every star in the sky being its own galaxy-was the world of Horton Hears A Who, and then demons ate everything in the world but Horton and the Speck, and that Speck and all those Whos is the Sphere and the spirit world. Then that Speck gets knocked off its flower and finds it's way to a snowflake and that's how you tie in Jim Carrey's Horton the Elephant being the Creator and Jim Carrey's Grinch is Benehime metaphor for the Spirit World being so tiny and depressing in the larger scope of the universe of demons.

now that's all just to over explain the world building that's presented to us in the books, plus a silly ramble that came to me in the first hour mark I spent typing up until this point. but here's the actual post.

The concept of there being a dome to the sky, is a very medieval concept, very fun system, but I bring you the concept of seasons.

Seasons don't exist in the Spirit World. Source, chapter 7 of Spirit War, when the Shaper Mountain tells Miranda he remembered back when there were seasons and stars in the sky. But you can probably sus it out by the then as months pass in the story, yet no descriptions of the change of weather or daylight associated with time passing.

I find this deeply depressing and so so beautiful. The implications.

Humans in this world are younger then the seasons!

That means the sun doesn't change even with the moon changing, the Weaver lets the moon wax and wane from memory or on vague description, but the sun doesn't change. There's no solstice, imagine solar eclipses happening because the moon is preprogrammed but the sun rises and sets with absolutely no inconsistency.

With no seasons, there is no Harvest. Yeah there's farmers and crops, but they don't have a deep freeze of any kind to prepare for. So no reason for fall festivities. No winter solstice, no darkest day of the year, no winter festivities.

With this world being kept in memory of a normal creation with planets, the Northern continent is tied to a pole that doesn't exist. There is no reason for it to be so cold, other then the frozen spirits that live there need to be cold. Same with every other climate. The weather is decided by the Wind Courts and only them, because they need to function.

SO. There are people, in this world, who haven't traveled. And they have never known the climates then the borders they live in. And then there are our main four characters, who are all very well traveled.

Imagine their first trip to the Sleeping Mountains, their first time seeing snow. Because it doesn't fall anywhere else in their entire world.

My personal headcanon involves Josef, because while he is obviously well traveled by the storyline, I like to believe the first time he saw snow was that first trip to the mountains. Eli had been there before, he already know what snow was like, and by then he has his lava spirit. Josef is from the tropics, and Eli is a teasing jerk (little shit). And what adds onto this idea is that him and Eli had made camp in the mountains (perhaps not the Shaper Mountain but its neighbor hooding slopes), and Josef had made his way to Nico when she crashed.

I'd like to emphasis that moments (hours maybe?) the mountains had been screaming, the entire League of Storms and the Lord of Storms was in battle with the Daughter of the Dead Mountain. The noise, the freezing rain, the panic. It goes quiet when Nico is defeated and laying on the mountain. And then Josef shows up, and then brings her back to camp, Eli nowhere to be seen.

You can infer from this that Eli heard the demon panic, or at least knew the mountains were shaking, there was a hell of a thunder storm (Eli has also met the Lord of Storms many times, he could probably recognize that spirit just a Nara could being the Favorite and all), and then in the echo of the worst of it, something crashes loud enough for them to discern where it was, and Eli was like FUCK NO, if you want to go out there and find out what that is, it's your funeral, you'll be lucky if i go searching for your frozen corpse in the morning. And he stayed at camp with his nice warm dry spirit.

And then an hour later Josef came back with a bleeding naked lady. That was somehow out there, and related to the huge fucking crash. And Nico's demon had abandoned her completely so it could hide, so say they found out she was a demonseed a little bit after she recovered from her wounds, which she also has no memory of. So Josef went out into the snow and came back with just a random girl with brutal injuries and no memory, probably freezing, and Eli canonically didn't press for information or question it. And then the rest is history.

Now again, we're imagining this happens in the same trip in which Josef experiences snow for the first time, and Eli has been giving him shit for it constantly.

Cut to Eli using Karon to warm up a strange girl he has no explanation for meeting, and he has to just be nice to her and give her all the attention he can, cus the only other option is look at Josef and he can't. How is he ever going to recover from this night. Josef is sitting there, concerned but also glaring I told you there was something out there, you said calm your tits Josef it's just the snow you don't understand you'll freeze-and I told you so every time Eli catches his eye.

thoughts?

[an-idyllic-novelist]

Hey guys, hope you have all been well during this winter solstice! :) I do apologize for not posting anything on here, I know it’s been a long time, and I am becoming more active on my yandere blog, @forbidden-sunlight.

As we get closer to the end of the year and towards 2024, it’s a time of reflecting. And I realize that I’ve come a long way; making friends on here, discovering new methods to writing, adjusting deadlines with my work schedule, etc.

Thank you to everyone who has supported the content on this blog via leaving a note and reblogging, or showing patience and kindness when I drop off the grid to travel or suffer from writer’s block. I really appreciate all of you :)

Stay tuned for more content in 2024, and if you’d like to request anything, check out the rules before sending them over.

To those who have sent questions to my inbox, I will be writing Record of Ragnarok content once we ring in 2024.

With that being said, happy holidays and I’ll see you after New Years! Bye bye!