#a heritage of stories

[usernoneexistent]

Autumn 1895: Ravenclaws and Gryffindors play a friendly game together while Glenn plots on how to distract the opposing team's keeper and his rival, Nolan.

Characters featured: Nolan Miller @hogwartsmysteryho, Oliver Gerard @kc-and-co, Ethel Hexley @the-al-chemist.

Characters mentioned: Selene Fraser @lifeofkaze, Lysander Mercury @slytherindisaster, Daniel Gibson @catohphm, Siobhan Llewelyn @kc-and-co.

Warnings: mentions of Sethel

"That was a foul!"

"Not again, Miller," cried his teammate. Ravenclaw looked like they were having a tough time with their reserve keeper. Glenn minded little, except for Nolan Miller's incompetence which was getting on his nerves. He wanted a nice clean, and fair game, which shouldn't be a hard ask. Especially since Hexley and Fraser made the least amount of trouble on the quidditch field.

As all the quidditch teams have completed their tryouts and added new members to make up for the lost ones, his friend and captain, Oliver Gerard, made a deal with Ravenclaw to share the pitch for a quidditch friendly due to an accidental mishandling of the reservations. It allowed the reserves to keep up with the practice.

"He wasn't haversaking Miller. Sorry guys, let's have a rematch." The Ravenclaw captain called with the quaffle under his arm, returning it back to the referee. He was getting all the different balls back in the box before re-releasing them.

Both the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw team groaned out loud before flying back into their respective position.

"Augh! I wish Miller wouldn't spoil the game so much. He's worse than Lys and Hexley." Glenn groaned.

"Miller may be annoying but he is also their weakest link, Rosewood." Oliver flew beside him. "Besides you know how to get to him fumble better than anyone else."

"Well, he is only a reserve. It's not like he will affect the big matches."

"And so are you." Oliver retorted back, almost in a backhanded way. Glenn groaned at him before focusing back on the game.

"As much as I would love to give my sole attention on quidditch I have other duties to attend to."

"Ah yes, becoming the number one prefect that Gryffindor has ever seen. You're doing a great job at that." He teased.

"Be quiet, Gerard."

Oliver laughed before everyone was finally settled and ready to go. The referee opens the box of quaffle, bludgers and snitch, and the opposing team grabs the quaffle first.

Oliver and Glenn swerved to either side of the chaser, trying to hold her in. Hexley followed behind, blocking the other Ravenclaw chasers.

"Scatter!" Hexley yelled. Glenn took a quick glance to see why. A bludger was incoming at a rapid speed. There was no way that any beater could come in time to defend the chasers.

Glenn and Oliver abandoned the chaser. The bludger came at lightning speed before almost knocking the Ravenclaw chaser down. He dropped the quaffle just as Glenn had hoped.

Hexley was sharper and quickly swooped down to grab the quaffle before any of the Ravenclaw chasers had a chance. She shot straight towards the hoops, already crossing the midline of the pitch.

Glenn and Oliver followed quickly behind. Fraser and Daniel Gibson were in a chase below them for the snitch. Glenn was hoping they would stall a little more. It would be annoying to end the game so quickly without even putting in a score.

"Rosewood!" Hexley yelled as Glenn got close. He saw it too. Siobhan Llewelyn was ready to swing the bludger towards Hexley's broom with her stick, and he knew what she wanted to do. Oliver swooped in and blocked any other chasers interrupting her pass.

With a good throw, the quaffle landed heavily on his hand before almost dropping the ball. He groaned slightly in pain when he saw Hexley give a slight smirk. 

Nolan looked ready, prepared for Glenn to come. He swerved about, trying to cover all the hoops.

"I would take a heads up if I were you," Glenn warned, but Nolan smirked.

"I'm not falling for it this time, Rosewood." He shifted lower to block the bottom hoops.

Perfect.

Glenn made his arm look like it was going to throw down, but at the last second, he made an overarm throw at the tallest loop.

Nolan swiftly moved his broom up, but it was too late. The quaffle smoothly sailed through the hoop.

"That's ten points to Gryffindor." The commentator stated.

Glenn smirked broadly at Miller. The Ravenclaw pretended not to be shocked by Glenn's tactic and muttered excuses about why it wasn't his fault.

"Well done, Rosewood." Oliver complimented. "Figure you would be able to fool Miller."

"He's a fool." He said. "Which is a shame. If his incompetnece weren't in the way the game would be more interesting."

[puppyeared]

filipina miku!! my mom helped me with her outfit ^_^

[branwinged]

seeing some prophecy discourse which has once again reminded me why i personally find the prospect of dany as the prince that was promised really compelling. and it makes the targaryens so much thematically richer. like, they only survived the doom through the power of prophecy and then the visions marked them forever and this thing, this blessing which gave generations of targaryens some existential meaning eventually morphed into a curse which brought so many of them great misery—"my brothers dreamed of dragons too, and the dreams killed them, every one." (aemon, affc) and in due course almost ended their line once again with rhaegar. but then dany happened.

almost four hundred years since the doom when prophecy saved them and nearly killed them again on the trident, dany was born. dany who carries echoes of all her targaryen ancestors within her. she's aegon the conqueror come again but she's also maegor the cruel when she promises the khals who had hurt her khalasar would die screaming. she's rhaenyra in her struggles to wield power and establish legitimacy as a woman, she shares her sense of egalitarianism with egg, and she drinks from the cup passed from rhaegar, i.e. inherits (what he once thought of) his narrative destiny to help defend the realms during the long night.

dany who is both their beginning, since she's the first targaryen created and introduced to us on page and the narrative end point of their dynasty. which reflects all the way into her arc being cyclical by design as it calls back to the foundation of the valyrian empire in essos—during the fifth war the freehold torched old ghis with dragonfire so nothing would grow there again and centuries later this girl, the last dragon, is going to help plant trees there again. it's not about retreading old ground or rejecting her house words but about redefining what it means to be the blood of the dragon. which is not to say all that came before her was meaningless since this recontextualisation is only possible through the three centuries of ancestral history weighing on her. and dany's very existence echoes back in time because the prophecy itself has influenced the lives of generations of targaryens. three hundred years of history, all the glory and the horror concentrated in this one person-point. the prince that was promised not simply as a figure of the long night but as someone who is the apotheosis of their house. dany as both their beginning and their end, because the iron throne is presently a symbol of stagnation, a world in stasis, and it has to go. no restoration, instead the old world dying in fire and a new world being born in the aftermath.

[kittybricks]

Do You Love the Colour of the Sky? (Or: This Must be the Place)

(I apologize for the resolution in advance. Still troubleshooting.)

[tales-of-wocdes]

Demo update 2.5: Heritage Features overhaul

Guess what? The post about the heritage features overhaul was in the post queue for a good few days :D I have been working on it.

The demo has been updated:

There is no new story content. Instead this update is about the heritage feature system.

By popular demand, I have overhauled the heritage feature system to allow for multiple features (at the moment, up to 4 which may be too much). This also allows for mixing of different features from different races.

There is one new heritage feature: face fins. And a pretty beefy codex entry for races (WIP like everything) of about 3.5 k words. The codex etc. have not been included in word counts. In total the codex entries are ~ 5k words so this new one makes up most of it :D

This required the editing of all instances of a feature being mentioned! So I am sure I missed some. Therefore, I would like to ask for people to test it out, and report instances of odd behavior to me with details of their choices! This is why I am making this a separate update instead of just waiting until I have more story content! If this is not properly implemented now, then it will be a huge pain in the future.

To see the most amount of heritage feature mentions, when looking in the mirror in C2, do the feature customization before focusing on just your face!

Being able to choose a number of features may result in clunky text where there is a sentence about each feature in a row. For example

This I have no idea how to do any other way, I cannot write combination specific text, that would require far too much fiddling. Also with the amount of individual features, that would be an eternity project since there are dozens of combinations.

Other things/specific notes:

Questions at the end of C1 can now only be asked once. A bug relating to if a question has been asked has been fixed which could affect flavor text in C2.

C1 bug fixed (Havard infinite approval)

Some typos fixed all over the place.

Word count: Slight increase in total new words ~600+ due to new heritage feature, but I also edited out about ~500 words worth of repetitive bits from inspecting them in the mirror so I don't think this does much. I am not changing the total word count.

However, the word count per play through will have gone up slightly since each feature has their own inspection scene, that now you can do up to 4 times instead of just one.

The beastkin heritages are the most complicated since they need also the type of animal specified. In the previous version, at least the horns were bugged and the choice did not register correctly. I have implemented a solution but it is clumsy and requires the player to click on an extra bit of text. I may return to this, I think a widget could make this easier.

The menu after choosing your features has been overhauled since it needed to work entirely differently.

[tf2heritageposts]

by the way if anyone gives us shit for making 9/11 jokes, please know our birth was a direct result of 9/11 so we can reclaim

[redtippedfox]

All characters in this AU are aged up and adults

Well we can all guess who won the Poll! Here’s the new version of Celine Titania! I cleaned her up a bit and now she’s all ready to go! Now Celine Titania looks immobile and vulnerable but she isn’t, in fact she has more knives and sharp objects to stab you with than Titania does.

Also she has sharp long nails so be very careful when trying to attack, she can fight back. Just like Titania’s and Bleu Celines dress her bottom part can be torn off for combat. She can strangle you with her see through shawl and her shoes hurt when kicked with. She always has her fan covering her mouth as she speaks to her senticreatures or her champions, it also hides the mouth that knows all secrets of the future.

Also her roses are definitely a symbolism.

I’m gonna be honest, this was a small doodle that turned into something really pretty, I was a bit upset that Celine Titania’s original design had no Chinese aspect to it because I could never figure out how to design something that added both parts of both Miraculouses. But I took OG Celine Titania’s colors and mixed it with this doodle. I really like it and am FINALLY satisfied with it.

Not all Miraculous designs are going to be Chinese themed unless they are unified with the peacock and butterfly and we will definitely be seeing more main seven unifications since I’ve decided that those should just be the main Miraculouses Marinette uses instead of using the Chinese zodiac ones(Because we still have the power ups and that just is too much designing man). Don’t worry the rabbit, mouse, dragon, and snake will be seen and used but only those ones.

Anyway I’m home for Christmas break so chapter 4 will be updated soon!

[uwmspeccoll]

Staff Pick of the Week

My staff pick this week is the trade edition of The Tale of the Shining Princess by Japanese-born writer Hisako Matsubara (b.1935) and Japanese-Canadian artist-printmaker Naoko Matsubara (b.1937), published by Kodansha International LTD. Tokyo, Japan in 1966. 

As a artist-printmaker and bookmaker who makes woodcuts, I am greatly inspired by Naoko’s prints. Naoko Matsubara’s work carries on traditions of Japanese printmaking while having its own contemporary flavor. Her woodcuts are ecstatic, they are vibrating with movement. Her use of bold shapes and the white line of the the carving tool makes the most of what woodcut has to offer. In the book form, the active images carry the reader’s eyes through the book space. Her use of negative space activates the page. Additionally, her woodcuts have translated beautifully to commercial printing. 

The Matsubara sisters are daughters of a senior Shinto priest, and were raised in Kyoto. Both studied, lived, and worked in the United States. Hisako received her Master of Arts degree from Pennsylvania State College, moving to Germany where she continued her studies and became a prominent writer, publishing her work in Japanese, English, and German. In the 1980s she moved back to the United States, this time to California where she worked at Stanford University. 

Naoko received her Master of Fine Arts from Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, now Carnegie Mellon University. After her studies she traveled across Europe and Asia. She returned to the United States and became the personal assistant to the artist and wood engraver Fritz Eichenberg, an artist who has been featured many times on our blog. Naoko taught at Pratt University in New York and at the University of Rohde Island. She also lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts for a time. Naoko is currently living and working in Canada in Oakville, Ontario, where she continues to work and exhibit nationally. 

The work of both Hisako and Naoko have had great influence inside the United States and around the world. So lets celebrate their accomplishments! 

This book has end sheets of mulberry paper with inclusions of Bamboo leaves, the cover is a red textured paper with a gold stamped design by Naoko. 

View some of our other AAPI selections for this month.

View our other Staff Picks.

- Teddy, Special Collections Graduate Intern

[jesncin]

How terrible and/or unloving Lex Luthor's childhood is a sliding scale with every interpretation of him. In his twisted mind he probably rationalizes that he did Conner a favor by having him never be vulnerable and small. I think no one would be more qualified than Lena Luthor to blow that idea to smithereens. Because she would have been there during the worst of their childhood; whatever you decide what 'worst' consists of.

Truly! I wanna do more Lex research because I really want to flesh out the Luthor side of Conner's family. I fee like it gets pushed to the side in hand-wavy "Don't worry Superboy you're not like him!" plots. And it leaves his thematic mixed heritage unresolved, especially since there's been stories where he tries to find the good in Lex.

The tension between them would be so much more interesting if it didn't constantly end with, "well Lex sure sucks, I'm not gonna be like him". The idea that even though Lex recognizes Conner as a means-to-an-end-chess-piece, he can't help but also impose twisted generational parental trauma on him is so fascinating to me!

Part of why I prefer having Conner move in with Lena (instead of the Kents) is that she's the missing nuance in their family story. Conner's often talking to Clark about Lex since they know each other as rivals, but imagine how much insight he could have if he talked to someone who knew Lex personally. Lena's (at least her CW Supergirl version) someone who survived much of what her brother did and didn't come out the same way. Conner would be intrigued by that, surely.

[agnesandhilda]

thinking about debbie grayson having to insist to both her husband and her son that regular nonsuperpowered human beings (read: her) have important, meaningful lives and experiences, and how heroic epics like the iliad only trace genealogies down the patrilineal line, this conflation of divinity and masculinity and power that erases the women of these families from historical memory and narrative importance

[usernoneexistent]

Summer 1895: Euphemia's father makes a huge and life changing announcement for Euphemia at dinner.

Warnings: terrible parents, arranged marriages, victorian idea of women.

Euphemia dreaded this day would come. It was one she knew she had to be prepared for, but yet her heart was not in it. Her mother and father's smiles were filled with deep joy, while her five older brothers cared more for the food on the dinner table. Her father, Orvelle, hitted his spoon against the wine glass for everyone's attention.

"Attention, everyone. Boys, behave!"

He stood up with great pride. Holding his red wine. "We have a very important announcement to make, and our little Mia will be soon engaged to Glenn Rosewood."

She had heard of him before. The youngest of her brothers, Clyde, complained loudly of Glenn that the Gryffindor cheated on his test and it was impossible that he could score higher than a hundred percent. Their parents soaked in every word of their youngest son's complaints and coddled them by praising her brothers endlessly. A complaint from Euphemia would earn a scolding from her mother.

"Isn't it wonderful?" Her mother, Marguerite, seemed to be the most excited about it. She looked at Euphemia, and on command, she smiled.

"Glenn Rosewood?! Of all the people you could have chosen papa?" Clyde cried, almost whining like a baby.

"Hush, Clyde!" Elmore, her eldest brother, commented. He was always the most reasonable of them. "Surely, father has his reasons for this arrangement."

"Yes, Elmore, as you know, the Rosewoods are loaded with cold, hard, silver dragots." Her father seemed to revel in the fact of the Rosewoods' wealth. Everyone knew they were one of the wealthiest American pureblood families, and the Fawley's let everyone know that.

"And with Euphemia, we will have access to it." He looked at her like a prized cow. Euphemia knew it was fate to be married off in her family, but now more than ever, she wanted to make a scene.

The girl imagined pulling the tablecloth and spilling all the food and drinks on everyone. The shocked and appalled faces and Euphemia taking pride in it. Though this will only remain a fantasy in her mind.

The dinner proceeded with everyone excitedly talking about an engagement yet to take place in front of Euphemia. Her sister-in-law, Elmore's wife, even congratulated her and started talking about married life.

Euphemia desired to be married one day but not with someone who didn't love her; even if they did, she could never love them. Her heart yearned for the impossible. A boy far below her status, Colin Moss. She missed his french blue hair that would usually get into his hazel eyes and the way he unknowingly sticks out his tongue as he plants or weeds. She always remembered the day when he said at the gardening club that her eyes were like forget-me-nots.

It filled her more than dinner could as of this moment. Her mother noticed but said nothing, only giving a flattering look. She often made comments about her weight and figure.After dinner, Euphemia excused herself and retired to her bedroom. She got ready for bed though her mother entered her room.

"Have you brushed your hair already?" She asked, words dripping so sweetly, it almost made Euphemia sick."No, I haven't, mama."

"Here, let me do it." Her mother picked up the golden brush and started unknotting her chestnut hair. "You know Euphemia, you should show a little more appreciation. You had not once thank your father for this opportunity, and he went to great lengths for this engagement."

"Yes, I know," she said softly and quietly. "And I am grateful for it."

Her mother tugged hard with her hair as Euphemia winced in pain.

"Then look more appreciative about it. We will be meeting the Rosewoods soon, and they can see right through you if you continue on like this."

She could feel her eyes water from the pain. She wasn't sure whether it was from her hair being pulled or her mother's words, but they pained her all the same.

"We are relying on you for this, you know. Many girls would have killed for this engagement." Her mother contiuned. Euphemia knew she should be grateful, but everything inside was screaming like a dove trapped in a golden cage.

However, Euphemia put on her best smile. "I know, mama. I was just tired so I'm sorry if I didn't seem too joyful."

"That's alright, Mia but when we will be having dinner at their house next week. Please, show me that you actually want to be there." She said quietly as if it was for Euphemia's ears only. "That's your hair thoroughly brushed and shiny."

"Thank you, mama."Euphemia climbed to bed as her mother put out all the candles.

"Goodnight, dear."

"Goodnight, mama."

Next story: The Art of Engagement

Instead of falling asleep, Euphemia couldn't but think and fear for next week's dinner. She knew she would have to play the role of the perfect daughter.

[fistfuloflightning]

Memory is a fickle thing

[kindaorangey]

dude assad zaman is a good actor. did u guys know this

[nhlovesadri3]

adrianalima

Grateful for every step that led me back to this stage 🤍

[jillvalcntines]

━━ THE TITLES & NAMES OF KATHRYN DAYNE

"Sand. Dayne. Frost. If I learned one thing in this world, the name you are born with does not hold much weight. It's the names you're given during your life, the names people either love or fear, that count as much as any coin or land." —Kathryn Dayne

(inspo 1 & 2)

tag list: @mandalhoerian @kingsroad @idohknow [you want to be added? send me an ask/chat ❤️]

[tales-of-wocdes]

So i have a question, when picking only one heritage feature i.e. only lets say dryad, does that make us half-dryad and half human?

And now when picking lets say, dryad and elf, does that make us half-dryad and half-elf, or part dryad, part elf and part human?

Thanks for the question! The heritage features are all supposed to be traits passed down from somewhere far back. In the context of this story, MC is always part-human and part something, so even with just one heritage feature, you would be part dryad, mostly human or part dryad, part elf and part human for your other example.

Not that the half dryad and half human or half-dryad and half-elf can't exist, but I introduced the system with the purpose of saying that this world has a ton of mixed heritages, especially around Firgrat.