#World-Building

[allastoredeer]

My Hellaverse Writing & Drawing Resources (Masterpost) & Blog Tags

(A lot of this is for me, but feel free to use if you want.)

(Is updated as I stumble across more or make my own resources)

Blog Tags

#Undercover Angel AU (for my Angel Alastor au)

#allastoredoodles (my art tag)

My World-Building, Character Analysis, and Lore

The Hierarchal Power Structure in Pentagram City + Royal Family Character Analysis

Lucifer's Religious Trauma - Character Analysis

Why I Don't Include Dante's 9 Circles of Hell in my Hellaverse World-Building Lore

More About Dante's 9 Circles + Imp City and the Goetia

Hellborn and Sinner Similarities and Differences + Classism

Hellaverse Canon Lore Tidbits

Note: Some posts may have repeated canon lore

Post 1

Post 2

Post 3

Hazbin Hotel Facts Part 1

New Information Revealed By The Hazbin Playbill

Art Resources

Alastor

Alastor Drawing Guide

Alastor Cane Drawing Guide & Hand Reference Sheet

Alastor 3/4 (right) Expression Sheet

Alastor Side Profile Breakdown

Full Body Breakdown/Poses

Lucifer

Lucifer Drawing Guide

Demon Form Lucifer Drawing Guide

Vox

Vox Drawing Guide

Husk

Husk Drawing Guide

Rosie

Rosie Drawing Guide

Angel Dust

Angel Dust Drawing Guide

Character Designs

Sinners From the Show (Collection 1)

Backgrounds

Heaven Embassy (Exterior)

Post-Extermination City-Scape

Writing Resources

The 5 Senses

75 Words That Describe Smell

Descriptive Words for Scents: List of Smell Adjectives

200+ Words to Describe a Voice

How to Describe a Smile in Different Ways

600+ Words to Describe Smiles

What a Decomposing Body Smells Like

300 Creative Words to Describe Hair

General Writing Help

How to Write Immersive Stories Using Description

World Building Tips: Writing Engaging Settings

Writing Action Scenes

Adjectives for Description

Dialogue Tags to Use Instead of Said

6 Seconds, 6 Months - Writing Advice/Challenge

100+ Architecture Terms to Help Describe Buildings

Body Language Cheat Sheets

23 Essential Body Language Examples and Their Meanings

Writing Sex Scenes: How to Heat Up Romance

Miscellaneous

How to Write Realistic Injuries

Explosives and Blasting Agents

BOM: The Next Generation of High Performance Explosives

Burning Points of Various Fabrics

English to Shakespearean (Perfect for Zestial! Thank you @witch-of-the-writing-desk)

English to Old English (Perfect for Zestial! Thank you @witch-of-the-writing-desk)

Fantastic Post About Louisiana and New Orleans (Great for writing Alastor!)

The Complete Butchers Guide to Different Cuts of Meat

What Are the Different Sections or Areas on a Casino Floor?

Casino Design - The Sneaky Tricks That Make You Spend More

A Walk Through the Casino

Radio Scripts from the Golden Age of Radio

Golden Age of Black Radio (Part 1)

Glossary of Early 20th Century Slang in the United States

Historical Slang For Having Sex, From 1351 To Today

Collection of Clothing References for Writing

Portraying Mixed People

Sexual Intimacy During Cancer Treatment

Helpful Websites and Writing Programs

Random Character Generators

Websites For Writers (Collection)

Pacemaker Planner

Hiveword: The Search Engine For Writers

StimuWrite Desktop

OneStopForWriters

LibreOffice (Free Microsoft Word Alternative)

Scrivener

Fighters-Block (Designed specifically to combat writers blocks)

MyNoise (Immersive and customizable soundscapes to help with focus or creating a specific writing atmosphere).

WorldBuilding.StackExchange (A website for answering specific world-building questions)

WordsNStuff (FANTASTIC blog for your all your writing needs)

My Ko-Fi

You know. If you wanna (◕‿◕✿)

[likegemstone]

I am curious to see how many people work like I do~

[doggoboigaugau]

Omegas' Dystopia

This story is based on this post.

Pairing: Alpha!Male Reader x Omega!Ghost / Submissive top!Male reader x Dominant bottom!Ghost

Tag: A/B/O, world-building, dystopia, historical fiction

Summary: Alphas are the victims of society's hierarchy. Ghost finds the medic of his team in a building and in heat.

Word count: 2129 words

Distant noises of men screaming and shouting were piercing through your brain while continuous explosions almost deafened your ears. You tried to urge your brain to work on recalling what the hell was going on at this very moment, but it was inundated with too many noises for analyzing to make room for another matter. Helplessly, you turned to your body, internally screaming for it to function as you found yourself unable to open your eyes, move your arms, or open your mouth. On top of that, you can feel your whole body burning uncomfortably as if you’re put on a cross and burnt alive like the Omega ‘witches’ in medieval times, and the burn feels the worst in your stomach. 

Your heat arrives. Worst, it arrives in the middle of a gruesome battle, and you are the only medic alive on your team. 

“Fuck.” You mumble. It won’t be too bad if you have your emergency kit containing scent suppressants with you like always, but during the ambush earlier, you dropped it while running for your life. If your enemy finds that kit, they’ll know there is an Alpha somewhere on this battlefield.

That won’t be of the gravest concern for you right now. Because you are in heat, your scent will soon flood this whole compound, and any Omegas that can sense it will blow this place up and search every corner to find you. A weak, lonely, delicious, and especially rare Alpha. It’s scary to even think about what will happen when they find you. Given that only 2,9% of the population now are Alphas, and most Omegas are likely to live their lives without experiencing Alpha scents and intercourse with Alphas until their very death, once you are found, you’ll never be found again. You’ll be kept in a cage, whether it is a room in a military base, a luxurious mansion, or a literal cage, and your only job from then on is to be a pretty little thing for the Omegas to cherish and sexualize.

“I have to think of something…” You mumble to yourself again. But what thing? Without scent suppressants, the Omegas will soon locate you and ‘eat you alive’.

Suddenly, the sound of heavy boots echoes on the first floor of the building whose second floor you’re hiding in. Who is this? You ask yourself. Are they on your side or on the enemy’s side? Either way, if you don’t think of an escape plan right now, your life as a free individual will end abruptly. 

You look outside the window of the room, looking down at the ground below.

“Too high…” Even if you escape from this building, your legs probably won’t be good enough to run from potential predators later.

Much to your horror, you can no longer hear any sound anymore. The sound of the heavy boots just earlier appears to vanish into thin air, since now the only noises your fuzzy head under the influence of the heat can make out of are from gun fires, explosions, and screaming. Where does that person go? The inability to locate the potential enemy and the fear of losing freedom forever, subjected to hungry men’s wishes, makes the burning in your brain and stomach worsens, scared of your own active imagination.

“Doc?”

You jump. It’s a familiar voice, belonging to the person whom even in the middle of a crowd you can always recognize.

“L.t…” You mutter, turning your head back to what is supposed to be the door of this room in this dilapidated building. Ghost is standing there. His expression is hard to tell as always because of his skull mask, but you can easily guess his eyes are widened in surprise.

“You- you are an Alpha???” The massive man exclaims. It’s a piece of information that renders even the most unimpressionable man like Ghost speechless.

*****

Since the first record of humanity on Earth, there have been three genders: Alpha, Beta, and Omega. At the beginning of mankind, according to prehistoric parietal art, drawings on vessels, bowls, or potteries, and earliest writings, Alphas were described as the dominant individuals of the communities, leaders and decision makers of all trades, and the biggest contributors to growth and advancement in every field of the early societies. Betas and Omegas were by no means members of no use, but their roles were rather more passive and behind the scene, and when outright wars threatened, it was the Alphas that were powerful enough to withstand successive tortuous days of fighting and sustaining horrendous injuries. Portraits of Alphas were often men of tall and muscular build and in powerful poses, such as riding on horses with weapons in hands, or standing before a throne and overlooking a kingdom. Archaeological evidence suggested that during the early time, Alphas, Betas, and Omegas lived in harmony and each gender had specific roles to play in society, as Alphas–the gender bestowed with physical advantages–were in charge of diplomatic activities which also included wars; Omegas, with their slender frames, delicate hands, and exceptional reproductive abilities, were creators of the majority of arts, as well as the housekeepers responsible for educating offspring; Betas, who seemed to be the most “ordinary” of all since they were without any exceptional traits, would do anything necessary that Alphas and Omegas didn’t have the time for to keep the society function properly. In short, all genders were important parts of the early society, each represented a strong link in the chain of the prehistoric generations. 

Regarding attraction and reproductive activities, humanity functioned mainly based on scent. Alphas and Omegas, as the most sexually active ones, had very strong and unique scents, and as a result, their scent glands which were located on the back of their neck were more prominent. Betas’ scents were much weaker, so the glands on their necks were not as noticeable. Another notable characteristic of Alphas and Omegas was heat circles. This varied across individuals, but on average, every three weeks or a month, they would experience heat, the time during which their reproductive capacities were greatest, and contrary to popular early belief, both Alphas and Omegas needed gentle care and constant scent reassurance from their mates. In order to mark someone as their “mate”, Alphas or Omegas would bite the scent gland on the back of the mate’s neck and inject their own scents into the individual through it, although historians agreed that Alphas were often the ones to do this kind of gestures due to their more dominant role in the early society.

However, the harmonious relationships among these three genders started to show signs of deterioration when mankind began expeditions to other territories in search of safe trading routes, both on land and at sea, to boost their economy. As trading exploded on various continents, bestowing great wealth and luxury to men, the consumers’ needs also brought about the emergence of new commodities. Omegas were one of those. Slavery became immensely profitable, and Omegas were abducted, captured, and forced to leave their homes. Since then, the value of Omegas was reduced to that of property that Alphas could own.

That part of the dark history was not taught in schools to children nowadays. The details of that time are only known to the historians, and are protected by the governments, which are now mainly run by Omegas. In fact, more than 90% of the people in power now are Omegas. 

What brought about such a chance? The Omegas never accepted their place as slaves. After several generations of slavery, which could amount to some centuries, Omegas had become stronger, larger, and more muscular in build. They secretly connected to each other from all countries, and with the help of many progressive Alphas who opposed slavery, organized revolts against the governments. Victory ensued, and a society of equality was slowly being built again. The progressive people hoped to rebuild the balance of the old societies, but the majority of Omegas in power, who feared that history could repeat itself, had another plan. They slaughtered Alphas in secret, even the ones that used to help them regain their freedom. And when the brutality meted out to the Alpha population could no longer go unnoticed, they continued their quest of complete decimation despite opposition and warnings from the forward-thinking. 

Only until there was no trace of the Alphas did these men stop their barbarity. But then they realized why the so-called forward-thinking were so scared of a future without any Alphas. 

The heat circles.

Both Alphas and Omegas needed care and reassurance from their mates during these times, and an Omega without the scent of an Alpha, just like an Alpha without that of an Omega, would turn into a berserk monster blinded by the instinctive and primal needs. Thousands of men were turned into such a state every month, as the governments were now desperate to find any Alphas that had been lucky enough to hide from their blade, as well as fund projects that could produce remedies to this instinctive desire. Some Alphas were found, hidden away by their Omega and Beta relatives who truly cared for their wellbeing, but these poor boys were vulnerable and subjected to serious health problems, and even death, as they had to care for too many men.

It took the Omegas various decades and millions of deaths of men who craved Alpha scent but could never have it to produce types of suppressants strong enough to prevent further painful deaths. Still, the Alpha scents are what men have always sought after, and since below 3% of the world population now are Alphas, only the wealthiest, most successful men can lay their hands on an Alpha.

Alphas are now treated like Omegas in the old societies, the pretty little things that offer men pleasure and help to show off their status, but obviously, the Omegas are not very proud of what they have done to reach this stage.

*****

“I’ve always thought you’re a Beta…” Ghost says, his voice surprisingly so much softer than usual as he looks at the trembling Alpha in the corner of the room.

“It was…thanks to the scent suppressants…” You stutter.

“Then you’ve hid it well, haven’t you?” The man with the skull mask asks. You hiccup helplessly as you can feel Ghost radiating his strong scent which quickly wraps around your burning body like a warm blanket.

Scotch. His scent smells like Scotch. It’s funny enough because it’s also the man’s favorite drink.

“What are you doing…?” You ask, curling up into a ball in the corner, looking like a weak, newborn wolf pup who has lost his pack, alone and vulnerable in the middle of the vicious wild.

“Helping you to hide your scent, idiot.” The man chuckles, which is even more strange. He kneels down beside you, his strong hands grabs your arm, forcing you to open up before him.

Your self-defense mechanism kicks in as you try to struggle against this unrivaled Omega, “Let me go! What do you want?”

“Shhh…” Ghost whispers to your ear. His eyes narrow as he loosens the collar of your white coat, revealing your swelling, reddened scent gland. The poor little thing is twitching constantly, which is a clear sign of the individual being in heat and desperately needing suppressants or their mates’ care and scent reassurance. 

“Let me mark you.”

“What???” You exclaim, unable to believe in your own ears what the man just says.

“I said, let me mark you.” Ghost patiently repeats, “As in I’ll bite your scent gland and inject my scent into you.”

“What??? No way!!” You protest and struggle again.

Ghost easily suppressed your weak attempt to get away with his strong hands and arms, “This is your only chance to get out of here safely, Doc. If I don’t mark you, your scent will reveal to every man here on this battlefield that you’re the rare Alpha that they’re supposed to have no opportunity to meet during their entire lifetime. You can imagine what happens after that, right? To them, you’re the delicious little prey that they wish to have at least a bite on. But, if you let me mark you, my scent will act like the natural suppressants, and you can go back to the base without fear of being found out and then take care of your heat later. What do you say, huh? Little Alpha?” 

Seeing that you’re still indecisive, Ghost lowers his head to your neck again, “Or if you like, I can help you to take care of your heat as well…”

“I don’t need your help with my heat!!” You exclaim, then try to stay calm despite your furiously blushing face, “F-fine…Mark me…”

To be continued...

New series lmao...Also my surgery was delayed :) There will be smut in this one, but rather with a darker theme because this is a dystopian society after all lmao 👍👍👍

[blerp-22]

Apocalypse! Yuu-

Zombie apocalypse happens then yuu is sent to twst. Is very flinchy, traumatized, and cautious. I like to think they're from the beginning stages of the apocalypse before they're sent to twst. So they aren't as hostile and distant from people because they haven't really seen the horrors other people are capable of. Do you think they would get really attached to Crowley cuz he gave them a roof over their head and a (relatively) safe place to stay. Despite the unintentional trouble they cause. I know for a FACT that grim is their emotional support monster. He doesn't have a choice. Or if they are from later in the apocalypse timeline they would be pretty jaded, hostile, and always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Grim would still be by their side 24/7 not only for emotional support but since they don't really have way to protect themselves they default to grim. I think that unlike begining stage yuu, this yuu is very handy when it comes to repairing clothes and building in general. How do you think they would deal with ace the night he gets hit with riddles UM?

How does everyone react to this dirty little food hoarding, obviously traumatized gremlin? What about world building wise, is this apocalypse au set in the idea that everyone is infected. Or do you have to get bitten or zombie flesh or fluid get on your wounds to actually turn? Do we know how that everyone is infected? Do we accedentaly infect others? Do we spread the virus? Or does it not spread because of some magic imbued immune system of Twst denizens?

[blueeyedrat]

Sanim script, revised.

For years my old conlang and conscript projects have been sitting in a file somewhere, copied over from computer to computer, but otherwise untouched. Lately I've found the motivation to revisit the old hobby, give it a fresh look, and perhaps try out some different approaches. (Also at some point I realized that creating interesting-looking scripts and writing systems was the part I enjoyed the most about creating conlangs, so that's the part I'm going to focus on going forward.)

I'm starting with Sanim, since it was the simplest script and the one that needed the least revisions. This time around I'm hoping to flesh it out more, beyond just the base letters — grammar, math, even different writing styles. Here's a handwritten sample:

Eventually I'd like to revisit all of the scripts I've made, and perhaps make some new ones? Maybe even return to the larger world-building project they were attached to, and some of the places and characters I left hanging. One step at a time, though.

(god it really has been over a decade, huh)

[toboldlywrite]

idk if others already know about this but anyone writing a story on another world, this is fun to play around with!

[gallusrostromegalus]

Something that you might have discussed that I just missed for AEIWAM - if Hell is basically Soul Rehab for souls that aren't Contributing Properly, then why does having high spiritual energy mean that you're more likely to go to Hell? Are they basically bleeding off excess energy from those souls, or?

Yes and no?

1. Hell is rehab for Souls that would damage the cycle of reincarnation*specifically*. People only go to hell for two* reasons: they do a lot of harm to others (aka Bad Karma), or when reincarnating them would throw the balance between worlds off (High power)

Basically, there needs to be... Approximately the same amount of spiritual energy in the living world, spirit world and Hell. So when an exceptionally powerful spirit like say, a Captain, dies and moves onto the next plane, there sort of needs to be 'room' for the incoming powerful soul. There usually isn't, and also the Life Machine that generates reality needs to eat, so Hell solves both problems by having really powerful souls come to hell and vent power for a while until they are only about as strong as a regular soul, and then send them back to the living world.

2. So, yes, the more powerful a soul, the more likely they are to go to Hell, no matter how they behave in the living or spirit world.

For people on the level of Gotei-13 captains, it's pretty much guaranteed, unless they manage to do something bizarre like drain all of their spiritual energy into a magical barrier or leave it stored in the Family Cursed Artifact (looking at you, Tsunyashiro clan). Lieutenants stand an estimated 50/50 chance (unless they learn Bankai in which case, again, guaranteed), and all seated officers are at some increased risk.

3. How they behave while alive still makes a difference though.

See, Hell in AEIWAM isn't *necessarily" The Bad Place. Souls cause harm to other souls for TONS of reasons that aren't evil: mental illness, getting caught in terrible circumstances, genuinely trying to make the world a better place and severely fucking up, and sometimes it's just bad luck. Hell isn't there to punish, it's there to figure out what went wrong that this soul hurt so many people, and try to fix it.

Sometimes that's things like "magically removing the ego and putting a different sized one in", sometimes it's "cognitive behavioral therapy" sometimes it's "you're not a bad person but you did fuck up so you gotta do a really boring and gross task that helps restore the ambient vibes of the universe for 400 years to balance out the damage" sometimes it's "actually, we can trust you to do good deeds, here's a visa to the living world to dole out minor miracles to anyone who needs it".

In AEIWAM, the only difference between a devil and an angel is that the angel does field work and the devil does back office.

So sure, all the captains are going to Hell at some point. But if they did their best while alive, they more or less get to skip rehab and have Free Time until they're weak enough to leave. It fun, actually! Captains and the like get assigned a Demonic Personal Assistant and told to go have fun, don't break anything, and are turned lose to go adventuring, get married, take up farming and/or stamp collecting or whatever they desire.

*note from above: there is a third "legitimate" way to enter Hell: Superlative Karma.

It's RARE, but once in a while a soul so vastly improves life for everyone else they end up with such extremely good karma that they run the risk of unbalancing the planes just by sheer vibes clash. Superlatives are plucked out of the cycle of reincarnation by Hell to help the spend some of that karma having a very literal HELL OF A GOOD TIME.

4. And so, all the planes of the wheel lived in harmony, UNTIL THE BOURGEOISIE ATTACKED.

Problem is, about... 1500ish years ago, a bunch of the noble houses got together, tricked The Monk Who Speaks The Name into letting them into the house of the guy that maintains The Life Machine, they very literally butchered The Divine Tech Support, and used parts of his body to jam up the wheel of life, because they thought they could be God better than God.

Dumbasses.

One of the things they jammed was the Exit from Hell, so now only a few people can leave at a time and the backup is threatening to unbalance the entire wheel now, so Hell is also being VERY VERY CAREFUL to not let any of the Captains die until they've gotten enough souls out that there is effectively 'room' for the Captain.

So yes. Higher spiritual power means a soul is guaranteed to go to Hell, at least for a while-but it also means they won't be going there for a long, LONG time.

[exobiotica]

Brand new website!

Check out Exobiotica.com for all your weird alien needs. Get prints, read new content, and go in-depth into the project. Enjoy!

[spinosaurusaegypticus]

Beyond Trolburg [04] The Feralis Ottercat, a fierce chimera that's a relative to Ottercat's OC, the Ottercat!

P.S i can't find you so sorry about this ;-;

Edit: If you wish to all see Ottercat's beautiful works please check out the Hilda Discord :>.

[novella-november]

World-building Exercise #1

Since I've had a lot of people ask about tips for worldbuilding in the ~4 months that this blog has been around, so as they occur to me, I'll be posting some writing prompts / world-building exercises :)

So, here is the first in a maybe-series ;)

Say you've got a fantasy empire, scifi space station, alternative history where Rome never fell, what-have-you, and you find yourself struggle to build up and flesh out the world of your story to make it more interesting and realistic as we follow around behind the main protagonist.

So, how do you start building up your world in a story where the main character is the chosen one or going on a fantastic cross-country quest to save the world?

Simple!

Sit down, and just start writing a day in the life...... of the lowest common denominator in your world! What does life look like

Is your protagonist a royal princess with a flaming sword and a rare dragon steed in a medieval kingdom on the cusp of war?

Write what a regular peasant worker experiences in their day to day life , in a farm , in a factory, at a market, etc. In a world with dragons, what other fantastic creatures are there, and how often do regular people encounter them? Are any of them sentient? What is it like to live outside the protection of the protagonist in this magical Kingdom?

Is your protagonist a robot on the run from a fascist government that wants to re-enslave them in a highly technological space age scifi series of world-hopping and aliens ?

Write what life is like for a regular passenger or crew member on a star-liner, or someone who lives on one of the planets that your main protagonist visit, etc! Write what First Contact was like in your universe! What was it like for those making First Contact, and what it is like for the average working class person going about their life as it is occurring?

Does your world have mermaids, or other fully-aquatic sentient beings?

Write what life is like under the sea for one of these aquatic folk, and what kind of measures would they need to take if they wanted to visit land cities without river access?

[allastoredeer]

TONIGHT'S A WORLD-BUILDING NIGHT! WHO'S READY TO DEEP DIVE INTO PENTAGRAM CITY AND ALL THE COMPLICATED SHIT THAT MAKES IT RUN!!!

EDIT: First bit of world-building has been shared, see post here: World-Building, Character Analysis, and Lore Dumping Part 1: The Hierarchal Power Structure of the Pride Ring.

[jomiddlemarch]

And whilst our souls negotiate there  

Chapter 6

“I love what you’ve done with the place,” Theo said, flicking his robe so it billowed quite Snapeishly, a trick Theo had learnt during their third year but only started using consistently after Snape himself had died, which Draco knew was equally a matter of respect and Theo’s disgust at seeming like an acolyte, when Snape had barely given him the time of day.

“I haven’t done anything new,” Draco said, frowning. Fizzy was making them something for tea, a proper cream tea Mister Draco not a cuppa, and that rune Hermione had used in the seventh chapter was troubling him, and Theo was looking at him with something like fondness? Dismay? It was hard to tell and Draco had used up Neville’s bilberry tonic already.

“I know that. I was being facetious. You’re a wreck and the place is nearly so, except that you have an exceptionally fine House-elf, and I can’t help but wonder why?”

“I told you, there’s an Incurable case I’m working on,” Draco said.

“That explains nothing. If it’s an Incurable, why are you wasting your time? And you don’t think Hermione is Incurable, so why are you repeating that nonsense?” Theo said. He settled himself in the chair across from Draco, louche and elegant and Draco thought that’s how you could come out of a War when your family didn’t throw you to the wolves.

And also, how the hell did Theo know about Hermione?

“Harry told me, I can see your little brain spinning wildly about like one of Luna’s mechanized fluxydunnarts, but I would have known by looking at you,” Theo said. In case Draco had not understood, he gave him an exaggerated once-over, shaking his head slightly at the state of Draco’s collar and tie, collar loosened, his four-in-hand knot askew, before returning his gaze to Draco’s face. “You’ve a certain expression when you’re thinking about Hermione that I recognize from fourth year, when you realized you fancied her and she was too smart for you.”

“Salazar’s ruddy prick—”

“I know you can do better than that. Fizzy, if you could make Mister Draco some cassoulet, I can get him to eat an actual meal for once, ta,” Theo said to the House-elf, who’d just set out the cream tea. 

Draco was too tired to argue. And at least Theo hadn’t asked for bubble and squeak.

“I don’t believe she’s an Incurable but this isn’t about belief. It’s about facts,” Draco said.

“It’s about magic. And if I’m not mistaken, love and friendship and winning against impossible odds,” Theo replied. “Facts are a distant fifth.”

“Witty quips don’t reverse massive spell damage and cascading neuro-idanic collapse, Theo,” Draco replied as Theo prepared him a scone with lashings of clotted cream and raspberry jam, all wandless work, with nary a crumb gone astray. 

“I’m touched you find me witty,” Theo said. “Eat that first and then we’ll talk. Or rather, you eat and I’ll talk. I’ve some experience with massive spell damage repairs—”

“You?” Draco said, unable to manage more of a retort without getting cream on his fingers or jam on his cuffs, his mouth already full in a manner that suggested he’d been raised by Weasleys.

“Just because you haven’t kept up with my career doesn’t mean I haven’t had one. I might be genuinely hurt except that I know you’ve been grinding away at Mungo’s and barely seeing daylight since well before Harry and Nev came to you,” Theo said. He smiled broadly, which Draco first took as a sign of their long friendship until he realized the grin was directed at Fizzy, who’d arrived with a steaming tureen of cassoulet with a freshly baked baguette tucked under her scrawny arm. “Lovely work, that, Fizzy and it’ll do him a treat, I’m sure. Draco, I know what you need—”

“To gain three stone at a meal with you?”

“A Pensieve. You need as much access to Hermione as you can get and her journals and the reports from the other mediwizards won’t suffice,” Theo said, ladling out a generous portion of the fragrant stew and then ripping off a chunk of the bread.

“You know she went to Lalibela,” Draco said. “Lalibela, Theo.”

Theo had the grace to blanch before he shrugged and raised an eyebrow.

“They haven’t your animus. And Harry would never have given them everything they needed, simply because he can’t,” Theo said.

“He can’t? Or won’t?”

“Can’t. Hermione saw to that as well. But she didn’t think to account for you. Let alone me,” Theo said. 

“What does Harry know?” Draco said.

“It isn’t what he knows, it’s what he observed without noticing,” Theo said. “It’s not enough to use a Pensieve, we’ll have to stack Legilimency and quite frankly, he’ll struggle to allow you in. We’ll cast tandem and we can use some of Hermione’s stored memories as a filter—”

“I’ve never heard of anything like that,” Draco said.

“Of course not. I invented it. On my way over,” Theo said. 

“Will it work?”

“By Salazar’s ruddy prick, it bloody well better,” Theo smiled. “Finish that bowl and I’ll dish up seconds. You really are in a state—you don’t want me to, how do the Muggles say it, call in the big guns—”

“You wouldn’t call my mother,” Draco said, aghast. Some things simply weren’t done and Theo should know that. Draco’s relationship with Narcissa was tenuous at best; there were myriad reasons he was not suffering the same fate as Hermione and most of them were related to the choices his parents had made for themselves and for him since before he was born.

“Silly Draco. I’d call Minerva. Andromeda. And Neville’s gran,” Theo replied.

The Big Guns indeed. Draco took an enormous bite of cassoulet and mopped the bowl, then handed it to Theo to be refilled.

“That’s a good lad,” Theo said. “You’ve got some color back or in any case, what passes for color given your complexion.”

“I thought Harry had sent you over, but it was Neville, wasn’t it?” Draco said, accepting the heaping second bowl of cassoulet. “You’ve always been a chameleon, and you sound like Neville now.”

“There are far worse things,” Theo said and took a sip of his well-sugared tea. He failed to clarify whether he meant being a chameleon or emulating Neville Longbottom which meant both and given the current state of the Wizarding world, Draco could hardly argue that Theo was wrong.

“Do you think she’s hibernating or is Hermione occupying herself with reciting Shakespeare’s sonnets from memory, do you think?” Theo asked.

“Shakespeare?”

“She’s named after a character from one of his late romances. It stands to reason she’d have memorized the entire catalog, but she’s never been good at voices, so I think she wouldn’t start with the plays. Nimue help us if she’s onto ‘Much Ado’ by the time you get to her,” Theo said.

“I just hope she hasn’t gone mad,” Draco said.

“Mad? Hermione Jean Granger?”

“She’s always had her convictions to carry her through,” Draco said. 

“And now?” Theo asked.

“She doesn’t need them. She saved her parents. She saved Harry Potter and the whole bloody world. What’s left?”

“This is why you need the Pensieve, but unlike every elder wizard in our childhood, I shan’t make you learn some lesson by withholding critical information,” Theo said. “What’s left is her curiosity.”

[oh-shtars]

The Astral Realm ✨

(aka infodumping RFTS!AU stuff for fun)

I remembered saying at one point that I’ll do a post just spatting out my ideas for the universe that Wishing Stars reside in and well, here’s that post!

First and foremost, I want to clarify that since the stars live in a completely different universe/reality, the terminology used here is not going to be completely accurate to space in real-life. This is really just my imagination running wild. 😅

Without further ado, here’s stuff under the cut ⬇️

The Realm:

I was inspired a bit by the “In Between Realm” that was featured in The Owl House. (LOVE that show btw 💖). And I remembered Disney attempted to make ‘Wish’ the starting point in a Disney interconnected universe with Asha being the first Fairy Godmother and all those references. And stuff-

Sooo, I kind of played with those two ideas. :))

The Owl House described the “In Between Realm” as the ‘connection of worlds’ or the ‘cosmic glue in between realms.’ Somewhere where its inhabitants can look through places of different realms. So my head clicked and I thought, what if the Astral Realm is like the “In-between Realm?”

The Astral Realm is the cosmic space found in between multiple different Disney universes. After all, presumably everyone looks up to the same sky and see the same stars, right? Let me explain it a little more clearly.

In TOH, each cube is a way to look into one realm. Papa Titan mentioned that they can look into more places than just the Human and Demon realm. In the RFTS!AU, it’s like that but at a much bigger scale.

I was thinking that instead of small cubes, it’s galaxies and they’re like the size of islands scattered across the black ocean space of the Astral realm. Each galaxy is a seperate Disney universe. (One for Snow White. One for Tangled, etc.)

The stars can fly or swim in between these islands and can land to rest on any of them if they’d like. But they’ll always have a sense of where their home island/galaxy is. But mostly, I think they’ll just be zooming around and floating around in the vast space, playing with dust clouds and space rocks.

Btw, Wishing Stars can move around freely a lot in the Astral Realm to their heart’s content. But humans from their realm will still see them as unmoving regardless. After all, they’re in seperate realities.

In a way, the Disneyverse is sort of interconnected but also not really?? They’re still separated by this ‘cosmic glue’ in between them but they’re pretty close by in a sense. Wishing stars reside within this “cosmic glue” and they’re the very same stars that listen to people’s wishes no matter what Disney universe they’re in.

………

Within One Galaxy:

As I’ve mentioned, one galaxy is like one island surrounded by the ocean of space. (An island that looks like the above pic ⬆️) And one island is a seperate Disney universe. Stars could choose to land on an island and just really chill there or whatever.

I think that the outsides around it when zooming into what it looks like within, is just a forest similar to what Disney likes to set most of its stories in. (Ex: Bambi, Sleeping Beauty, Robin Hood.) In contrast to the mortal realms, I like to think the Astral realm is leaning more onto a nature-themed home instead of built villages and castles that humans have. Take these images for example but make it more nebula-ish and sparkly.

There’s forests, caves, “Water” bodies and all that on each island. But in the very middle of each ‘galaxy’ is a more special place:

………

The Wishing Meadow:

The place is exactly as it sounds. In the very middle of each island is a lake(?) where most rivers and creeks often originate from. But all ‘water’ bodies are the stars’ way of looking down at the living mortals that belong in this specific island’s universe.

Only every time the sky is clear at night does the water turn transparent, and they can people-watch.

But surrounding the main lake in the middle, is the “Wishing Meadow” where all wishes made from the heart go. Simpler ones grow into flowers that litter around the area. Glowing brightly and in different sizes depending on what kind of wish it is. The more complex ones grow into fruit among the leaves of the few trees in the meadow.

(My sister commented on the meadow sounding like the “Echo Flowers” from Undertale, and honestly? That’s pretty sick-)

Wishing stars can either listen to the music emitted by the flowers that only they can hear. (Because I like to think each wish has a unique melody. Like “How Far I’ll Go” is more determined with a stronger beat, compared to “Part of Your World” is softer because they each have different emotions.).

OR the stars can choose to harness a wish from a flower and use magic to guide their wishmaker from the sky through some magic intervention. (What powers their ability to magically assist is passion derived from the wish itself.)

Complex Wishes as fruit from the trees are only allowed to be picked by more mature stars since they have more experience. (These are also the only kind that will allow a star to travel down to the mortal realm if needed.)

Doodles: 🎨

I’ve made some of my own art as a way to brainstorm this concept and the ideas I’ve mentioned above.

I spent way too much time thinking about something that won’t be a major part in my story anyway. Lol. Oh well, this was fun either way.

So yeah, basically, this is Sueño’s home realm everyone!! If you want to ask anything about this, feel free to do so. I’m just rambling again and still sort of developing stuff anyway.

[the-collector-series]

question

are there any dragons aside from the ones that aren't on Mount Nester anymore?

YES

and there's one that's gonna be part of the main gang named Wy (pronounced like the letter y)

see what's going on is everyone thinks that they've gone extinct, but in all reality, they've just gotten better at hiding because they were hunted almost to extinction

there's different types of dragons that are hiding in the northern most parts of the world, the ocean, caves, etc etc

Alsoooo I've been thinking that maybe the dragons on Mount Nester aren't actually extinct, but the dwarves who live there are just telling people that. Meanwhile the dragons are actually living in what is essentially a nature preserve :D

[nazmazh]

Okay, so I'm firmly on the side of fantasy worlds that just have all the various races/species of sapient beings fully acknowledging each other's personhood and living amongst each other without it being a whole big deal (and in this, that doesn't mean all areas have to be fully heterogeneous - Regional/ethnic origins and communities still exist within the most pluralistic of societies, after all).

But one thing I am an absolutely huge fan of, if the world is much more divided into nations that are primarily one race or another, or if there are some races considered "Demi-Human"/"Beastman"/whatever the term used in-story is - If this is the state of the world, I absolutely *fucking* love when there's just one inexplicable "normally-considered monsters" race that is without question fully considered normal amongst the standard fantasy roster of Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, Gnomes, etc.

I think my favourite race that gets this treatment is ogres.

Like instead of horrible man-eating monsters, they're just big guys, hanging around. They might still have the "not-overly-intellectual" stereotypical trait, but it's not treated with the same malice as when they're bog-standard big mooks/monsters.

And, yes, of course the example that springs to mind most recently is Dungeon Meshi/Delicious in Dungeon.

Like, on first pass, I just figured Tade was like Izutsumi - A beastkin taken in by Shuro/Toshiro's family and trained as a retainer because they were willing to look past at least some of their prejudices (y'know - Keeping Demi-Humans as sort-of-pets/sort-of-indentured-servants. How noble of them).

And it would have been easy enough to just do it this way. I don't think any other Ogres are mentioned at all, let alone seen.

It was only in reading the supplemental materials that I saw that not only are Ogres not thought of as monstrous/beasts - They're fully considered Human - One of the short-lived races alongside Tallmen and Half-Foots.

[For the unfamiliar, the setting uses "Human" to refer to any sapient non-monster/non-beast race. "Tallmen" is their name for regular humans as we know them, and Elves, Dwarves, Half-Foots (their term for Halflings), Gnomes, and yes Ogres/Oni, are the Human races].

The extra materials detail how Ogres are rare, scattered as a people, and their numbers are further dwindling over time. But as far as I can tell, all the other Human races view them largely with sympathy and respect. And I love that sort of setup for Ogres here.

Another setting that had Ogres as otherwise somewhat-normal presences in Human lands, surprisingly enough, was Warhammer Fantasy. At least, it sort of did back when I played in high school, which was like, 20 years ago, so I'm not sure how the lore has changed since then. But, I remember back when there were stirrings of a Warhammer video game - An MMO, in the vein of WoW, iirc - The rumours were that the PC would be expressly an Imperial citizen, from one of 4 races - Human, Dwarf [I'm not 100% on them, but they make the most sense], Halfling, or Ogre.

And that was where I looked up the lore on Halflings and Ogres in Warhammer - To the best of my recollection, Halflings lived in a Shire-but-with-the-serial-numbers-filed-off vassal province within the Empire's borders. They generally weren't really represented in the playable units for the tabletop game (I think there may have been like one Dogs of War/Mercenaries company of archers? Maybe?), but in-lore they sent troops to Imperial causes on the occasions they were called upon, just like any other loyal province.

Ogres were mentioned as rare, but not wholly-unwelcome residents of the Empire. Sure, there were still many that joined up with Greenskin armies - But it's not like there weren't also Human raiders out there. I did actually have the one Dogs of War Ogre unit, myself. And yes, they were decked out in kinda-barbarian-looking armour and weapons - But consider that they were expressly a mercenary unit, the same as any other that conducted business in the Warhammer world - Not just dumb brutes.

Of course, roughly around the time I started drifting away from Warhammer, the Ogre Kingdoms actually became their own fully-playable faction - Not just a Greenskins/Orc + Goblin or Chaos offshoot - But a fully-fledged choice for an army on their own. They were an interesting addition to the game in terms of having base infantry/etc. that are expressly bigger and stronger than the basic units of every other race - Which is of course considered in the point-buy system for army building.

Interestingly enough, rather than being evil, or even evil-inclined, they are expressly neutral, in the "I only look out for my well-being" flavour. Sure, they're still portrayed here as brutish barbarians to an extent, but the fact that they're not just lumped in with the expressly evil races is definitely a choice that stands out compared to many fantasy worlds. I mean, Warhammer is expressly a crapsack world, and all races succumb to "grim and dark" flavouring in terms of what their roles are. They're again, not overly-intellectual, but understand business dealings quite well, and at least capable of being fully literate with regards to other races' writing. They're flavoured, somewhat, as the various peoples around the Silk Road in western China/Central Asia during the Classical-Renaissance eras - They're perfectly willing to trade in regular wares, not just warfare. They even have Ogres who expressly adopt cultural norms of various nations they serve as mercenaries in (though, that might largely be an excuse to have units that are essentially Ogre-in-costume - Which, hey, a fun concept is a fun concept)

The last one that came to my mind as I was sitting here writing was a race that's not expressly named as Ogres, but shares some traits and role with them in their setting, but are also very different than stereotypical big Monster-Races: The Qunari of Dragon Age - Specifically the race of horned giants that first developed and adopted the philosophy of the Qun - Qunari refers to any follower of the religion, regardless of race. That race's true name has apparently been lost to the ages, but might be known as "Kossith", which again was a reference to a philosophy they had followed, or "Vashoth"/"Tal-Vashoth" - But that's their name for those who were either born outside their religion or expressly renounced/rejected it. There's also the derogatory "Ox-Men" name that some Humans will call them by. But for sake of ease, I'm just gonna stick with "Qunari" to mean this race from here-on. And yes, "Ogre" is the name given to the darkspawn that are born from corrupted Qunari - But that kind of serves to reinforce what I'm saying about them fulfilling that kind of traditional "Civilized Ogre" role, here.

Now, unless the previous couple of examples, the Qunari are about the furthest thing from a vaguely-characterized rabble of barbarians or mysterious dying race. The Qunari have a vast empire north of the main setting region of Thedas - That, and they specifically have a highly organized philosophy/religion that's not just insular - In fact, they zealously spread it to all races, and any who become part of the religion/society are full members of their society - They may be used tactically, but they're no less members.

And I do mean "used" - The Qun philosophy is one of realism (they eschew, and indeed, by-and-large hate magic) and practicality/purpose. Children are not raised by their birth parents and romantic relationships are not permitted - There should be no strong familial ties that would supersede duty. Mating is determined by the priestess class, to facilitate ideal pairings (and prevent potential incest, since blood ties are not known by individual Qunari). Societal roles are clearly delineated for men and women, and Qunari personal names tend to be descriptors/titles rather than a true "name", as we'd recognize them.

While they remain a Proud Warrior Race, and quite martially adept in the vein of other Ogre-type races in fiction, it might be more accurate to describe them as a Proud *Soldier* Race [Much like the Charr in the Guild Wars universe - They're an interesting playing-with of fantasy races tropes unto themselves, but a discussion for another time] - They're highly trained to fight as units, not individuals. They're among the best mariners in Thedas, with distinct ships that lean into their technological prowess. The Qunari of Par Vollen are indeed Imperial conquerors, rather than horde-like raiders or Noble Savages, as many Ogre portrayals fall into. And they're not just a faceless enemy either - They're a full-fledged nation-state that must be treated with, the same as any other. In fact, I'd say Par Vollen/the Qunari fulfills a role that would otherwise almost exclusively be a Human Empire's role in most other fantasy works.

Heck, they apparently have halted outright invasion of the other nations, because they believe the death toll and suffering of civilians would be unacceptable - A huge waste of resources.

Like I say - Possibly the most unique take on an Ogrish race in mainstream fantasy works. And - Bonus points for being fully-playable in Inquisition.

Anyway, within the other nations of Thedas, yes, the Qunari stick out a bit, but they're generally not treated like if a Darkspawn had just rocked up into town. They're a known people - One that happens to more likely be an enemy or rival than not - But they're not monsters.

So, yes, as a whole, I tend to think that the trend of moving towards "All races contain multitudes. No one race is fully good or evil, and race does not predict morality-inclinations in that objective sense." is fantastic and creates so much more opportunities for storytelling. If an "always chaotic evil" enemy is needed, hivemind-creatures, undead, or extraplanar/alien monsters work better for this, while letting enemy armies of sapient races otherwise still be capable of reason and not being irredeemably evil cannon fodder for protagonists to chew through without even the slightest tinge of guilt.

But I admit that if you feel that your setting needs to have only a certain subset of races established as sapient be "good"/"not evil/monstrous" - Either truly, or just in how society is organized, I'll be interested in seeing how that distinction is made. And if it's just traditionally-pretty / very Human-like races that get a pass, that's not only rather shallow and uncreative, but also just plain boring anymore. If you throw in like, just 1 or maybe 2 traditionally "monstrous" races as being totally normal members of society, it makes it much more fascinating to examine - What prejudices are at play if it's not just "looks mostly like us" that grants personhood in your world? Ogres, as I've mentioned, have been one race that this seems to be recurring with, and seems to be done very well/interestingly at that a lot of the time.

You could explore some interesting space playing around with this idea too - For instance, what if Hobgoblins in the D&D sense were totally accepted as a race on equal footing, but neither Goblins (or other Goblinoid/Goblinkin) or Orcs (similar tendency for a reputation towards violence) were? Is it that Hobgoblins formed a proper nation-state historically, while Goblins and Orcs tended to be tribal and largely nomadic? Does this prejudice carry over to, say, Humans or Elves that are nomadic herdsman and/or warrior tribes, then?