#doesn’t help that they’re 95% elves

[cactusapple]

really want to write out a coherent timeline for all my characters someday but conceptualizing time in the warcraft universe makes my brain implode

[silvantransthranduiltrash]

Okay listen, absolutely joining the Legolas is old af boat, love the vibe, but what if he is genuinely that old AND still considered ‘young’ by his people? I recon that the silvan concept of age is vastly different to the noldorians simply because they didn’t start shit and typically minded their damn business meaning more of them survived. So he’s essentially super old by noldorian standards but considered pretty young by silvan standards. Pretty much ever other elf he’s met just assumed he’s ‘young’ by their typical standard (joyful personality only exacerbates this) and vastly misjudged his actual age

Also hello I love your blog!! Hope you don’t mind me adding this!

OH MY GOD YES, WELCOME ABORD!! AND OMFG THAT’S HILARIPUS I CAN JUST IMAGINE IT:

Legolas: casually comenting on how he’s one of the younger silvans on occasion

The noldo/sonda: ph, so he was probably born in the third age then, and this is his first tussle woth sauron, and he’s never even witnessed morgoth’s bs woth his own eyes

The twins (yes, i will alwys use the peredhel s a medium for these bizarre reveals bc i feel like they’re more open to asking questions about the silvans: *trying to figure out if they’re older or younger than legolas* so when were you born then?

Legolas, after thinking for second: well i was born about 1000 years before the feanorians landed on these coasts, so about *counts fingers* only 8 thousand years.

Elrond, who’s walking past: HOLD ON, WHAT-!?!

Legolas, continuing: None of my peers ever let me forget it, when we’re off duty i’m always refered to as the “baby captain”. With my siblings i can put up woth it, but oh my god, assholes, get over it! If they can bitch about it, they can work on their skills. Then they won’t have to take such a youngen’s orders!

Elrond, slightly histarical: hold on hold on hold on- you’re how old?!? That’s older than me! That’s older than my parents! Or my grandparents! You could’ve known luthien-

Legolas: -i did know luthien-

Elrond: AND YOU SAY YOU’RE YOUNG!?!-

Legolas: i am young:

Elrond: what am i a baby in your eyes??? A fetus?? Or my kids just eggs??? Oh my god, does that mean that all the times thranduil refered to himself as one of the youngest of the avari/silvan rulers, that doesn’t actually mean he’s that young either? Wll, he’s your dad, so he’s at least older than you- *horrified gasp* *horrified whisper* does that mean all this time we commented on his “young age” he was looking at us like we were fucking morons???

Legolas: i mean, tbf, 95% of the avari/silvan rulers are all elves that awoke at the lake way back when, while my father was born the old fashioned way, so when sm1 says they’re younger than the avari/silvan rulers, it don’t mean much…

Elrond: wait, but how are you still considered young by your elves’ standard?? Aren’t there a lot of older elves that have died?

Legolas: well, for one we haven’t killed each other for jewelry.

—————-—————————————————————————

No, but it probably helps that legolas is the younger/youngest sibling, and all the elves just automatically assume that, bc he’s the youngest of his siblings, he’s young. For some reason, a lot of people have a bad habit of considering the “-er” and “-est” to mean essentially the same.

[idonthaveanyurlideas]

Bad Kids Social Media 2: The Sophomore Year Edition

because i have no self restraint, part one is HERE

Sophomore Year Spoilers Beware 

So yeah things got freaky during spring break.

The Seven Maidens were moderating the finale livestream chat. Just think twitch stream, but everyone has jumped in to the season finale without knowing anything about the show except for a couple compilation clips and the random photos of kalina that melted down the internet for a couple days

No one knows what the heck happened because it was from the point of view of Riz’s tie so a bunch of stuff wasn’t even seen on the stream, video essays are made trying to dissect and understand what happened, the Bad Kids explain NOTHING when they get back

A million memes are made of kalina’s death cause that’s one of the most stable and clear parts of the whole VOD since riz was doing his whole dramatic pose and one-liner before shooting

They will randomly reference things that happened (shrimp party, leviathan, how much fallinel sucks, chungledown bim, etc) but with no context so the internet is left to piece it together like increasingly sleep-deprived conspiracy theorists

Previous conspiracy theories end up overlapping so people decide Gorgug was the elven oracle the whole time since they’re 75% sure the elven oracle is SOMEONE in the group and someone calls Gorgug the greatest wizard of the age in a fantasy instagram live video or something. Gorgug visibly not being an elf does not stop them.

Thanks to all the nonsense their popularity skyrockets. Riz even gets to the double digits on his follower count.

Adaine still doesn’t get any social media. One day she gets on Fig’s accounts to do an ‘Ask Me Anything’ and just blatantly lies to every single question.

They pretty much all act like spring break was just a normal holiday, and their feeds go back to normal songs, flower pictures and musings about ice cream that it had been before.

Fabian’s Fantasy Youtube channel now includes dance tutorials. Riz still includes all the outtakes where he faceplants on the ground and tangles himself up in his sheet.

Kristen tries to get Cassandra’s name out there via the internet by just sharing selfies of her and an actual goddex just hanging out together. A lot of people don’t believe it until she follows up with videos of Cassandra performing various miracles

Vlog Series: Me and my new Goddex: Remaking a Religion and pranking my friends! (NOT Clickbait)

Fig helps Ayda set up some fantasy social media, she finds it fascinating. Doesn’t use it a lot but when she does she likes every single post Fig or one of the others have made, leaves comments on a lot of them, and makes massive threads about spells and other things she’s been researching recently, and lots of pictures of Gaf

Gorgug gets contacted by like, engineers and scientists about the satellite and how he got his crystal to work out in the middle of nowhere and accidentally wins the equivalent to a Nobel prize for it.

His acceptance speech is him thanking every friend and family member he can think of and then being like “i just wanted to talk to my girlfriend” [cue applause]

Aelwyn had social media but it went inactive like a year ago so people straight up thought she was dead, which she finds funny after a few weeks of therapy. Has a different story for why she disappeared every time she’s asked

Ragh and Tracker post pictures of their trip to Fallinel. 95% of their captions are dunking on elves

[sineala]

Queer novel recs

[A repost from my Patreon.]

By request of the one person who is pledging at a Patreon tier that lets them make meta/review requests of me, some recommendations for queer novels. Fiction-wise, I read pretty much exclusively science fiction and fantasy, with the occasional excursus into historical fiction, so that's what you're getting.

SF/F these days is, happily, getting queerer and queerer. As a general recommendation, a good place to start is the lists of winners and nominees of the Otherwise Award (formerly the Tiptree Award), which, according to their website, "encourages the exploration and expansion of gender." There's also the Lambda Literary Awards, which are awarded to both fiction and non-fiction LGBT books across various categories, including genre (mystery, romance, SF/F & horror). It's obviously not going to be a guarantee that you'll like any particular one of these books, but at least it means that somebody did.

A whole lot of the Hugo award nominees and winners this year coincidentally happened to be queer fiction, especially in the longer categories. The Best Novel winner, Arkady Martine's The Memory of Empire, is a sprawling space opera starring a diplomat who incidentally (very incidentally) happens to have some Feelings for her cultural liaison, and it's a really good book, anyway. I actually voted for Tamsyn Muir's Gideon the Ninth, which is billed as "lesbian necromancers in space," and it is pretty much exactly that. It's a murder mystery, which you'd think would be less mysterious in a book where half the characters are necromancers, but this doesn't actually help them much. I thought it was delightful and I have the sequel sitting here on my Kindle waiting for me to read it. But had Gideon not stolen my heart, I would have voted for Kameron Hurley's The Light Brigade. Everything else I have read by Hurley -- well, okay, that's just the Bel-Dame Apocrypha series, actually -- has starred kickass queer people, and this one's no exception. It's military SF in the vein of Starship Troopers or The Forever War with a really well-done time travel plot, in which the twists just keep coming. The narrator's gender is intentionally obscured for about 95% of the novel, and for added fun, they're bisexual. (Charlie Jane Anders' The City in the Middle of the Night also had queer characters but it didn't really grab me.)

(I have to admit I bounced off a lot of the Hugo novella nominees this year, including most of the queer ones, but Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone's This Is How You Lose The Time War (lesbian time-travel agents) did win, although it wasn't really my thing, and Rivers Solomon's The Deep (lesbian mermaids) appears to have gone on to win this year's Lambda instead, although that one wasn't really my thing either. Becky Chambers's To Be Taught, If Fortunate also had some lesbians and I liked that a bit better, but none of those got my #1 vote.)

I have not read it yet and cannot vouch for it but my wife is reading N. K. Jemisin's new short story collection and she says they're very good and a lot of them are queer.

Okay. So. What about less recent queer SF/F, you ask?

I started reading SF/F in the mid-90s, and there wasn't a whole lot of queer SF/F out there in the mainstream SF market, so I imprinted pretty heavily on what there was that I could find, which was basically, at first, the blink-and-you'll-miss-it gay dragonriders of Anne McCaffrey's Pern series. Pern is what The Youth these days would probably call problematic in several ways, but there wasn't much else out there. I also then read Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series, which is basically iddy iddy whump fic with magic telepathic animals who love you, so I'm not saying it's a complete literary masterpiece but Confused Baby Lesbian Sineala sure spent a lot of time wondering why she was identifying so very hard with Vanyel from the Last Herald-Mage trilogy. (I also really enjoyed Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover books, especially the ones about the Renunciates (the lesbian ones), Heritage of Hastur (the gay one), and The Forbidden Tower (the one where a telepathic orgy solves everyone's problems) but owing to the, uh, terrible things we all found out about MZB after she died, I don't think I can recommend them. Or read them ever again.

Other older queer SF/F that was beloved among my friend group: Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint and its sequels are about a duelist and his boyfriend and a lot of people liked this one, but I never liked it enough to keep up with all the sequels. The first few of Lynn Flewelling's Nightrunner books, however, punched me straight in the id; the protagonists are a pair of spies and thieves who are, more or less, this fantasy world's version of elves. There are a whole lot of grätúìtôūs dīåcrìtïcs and after the third book everything gets a little too horrific for me, but I really loved the first three.

But if I had to pick a top three list of authors who have written queer SF/F, this would be my list:

(1) Diane Duane. She is pretty much my favorite author ever, so I am biased here. I first discovered her work with her Star Trek tie-in novels (which, if you like Vulcans and Romulans, are amazing) and then her YA series Young Wizards, which is about teenagers who can do magic and use it to make the universe a better place and it's about ten thousand times more meaningful to me than Harry Potter ever was. But, anyway. She also has a fantasy series called The Tale of the Five, which is an everyone-is-bi-and-poly series started back before that kind of thing was even cool. Also there's a group marriage involving, like, six people, one of whom is a fire elemental. There are three books out in that series, she's still writing novellas set in it, and she swears that she's going to write the fourth and final book that we've been waiting about 25 years for.

(2) Melissa Scott. Everything I have ever read by Melissa Scott, either as a solo author or with her late partner Lisa Barnett, is queer as hell and has amazing worldbuilding. I first encountered her work when I randomly picked up Trouble and Her Friends (lesbian cyberpunk) at a used bookstore and ended up adoring it. Her other works include Shadow Man (set in a future where humanity has a whole lot more intersex people), The Kindly Ones (which has a protagonist whose gender is never specified), and The Armor of Light (alt-history involving Kit Marlowe and a demon). But my favorite series of hers is the Astreiant series, which is a Professionals AU with the serial numbers filed off, but they're filed off really well. It's a series of police procedural mysteries set in Fantasy Matriarchal Renaissance Netherlands, starring a m/m couple, and the fantasy gimmick here is that astrology is really real and really works. They're a lot of fun.

(3) Nicola Griffith. All of her books are about queer women. She has a few that are modern-day thrillers that I didn't so much care for, but I really love her SF. The first book of hers I read was Ammonite, about an anthropologist who gets sent to a planet of only women to try to figure out how they reproduce and ends up going native instead. I really adored it. I also remember really liking Slow River although I no longer remember the actual plot, except that the main character worked at a sewage facility. And it's historical fiction rather than SF, but she's probably most famous for Hild, a novel about Hilda of Whitby. I liked it a lot except for the part where it annoyed me that Griffith invented out of whole cloth the idea that women would have a special female companion and made up a name for it in Old English and everything, and most people who read the book probably believed it was a real thing. But, uh. I did really love Ammonite. I am so weak for planet-of-women books. (This is why I am so sad that I can't ever read the Renunciates of Darkover books again.)

That's about all I can think of right now. I hope some of those recs are, at the very least, new!

[gayvangeance]

Yo! As a fellow Patri stan may you please us with cute platonic headcanons or scenario between young Patri and Licht? I'm in love with the two's father-son-like relationship~ 💞 ^^

ABSOLUTELY!! I love these two sm 🥺. I started rambling a bit and added two scenarios since my mind started to flow WAYY too much aha 💞 Thank you for the ask! Enjoy!!

Disclaimer: We haven't seen Patri's dad so we're just gonna assume he got sniped before the series even started. Also I know you asked for cute, and I gave some but 🤧 slight angst for the last two bullet points,,, I had to-

// platonic headcanons between young Patri & Licht

When Patri had first seen Licht, at the time he was just PURELY amazed. I mean, a 5 year old seeing a four leaf grimoire?? Of course they're going to admire the person.

And Licht caught onto that. Not that he minded at all! He knows that Patri, a young and growing male, needs a father figure in his life. Someone to look up to.

These two definitely play thumb wars, just saying.

At 5 years old Patri wasn't allowed to leave the house as much and go the small events the older elves would host. So Licht made sure to go and check up on him to see how he's doing.

Though when Patri finally hit 14-15 he was allowed to participate in a lot more with the elves.

I have a feeling Licht is a great leader over his tribe. But he'd often forget what goes where and a few other abstract things that he doesn't often join in on.

"Patri, kiddo, now HOW do you know how to throw a knife properly?"

Licht is constantly breaking from his shenanigans

Save Licht 2020

So insert Patri in the background having to show Licht how to use certain items and technology the humans bring over. Licht cannot fathom HOW the young elf picked up on it so fast, but you hear no complaining from him!

Licht teaching Patri the elven way to use the utensils™

"Patri... You BETTER not throw that spork at Rhya! oH-"

Too late.

"oops"

Licht KNOWS he isn't sorry. But has purely given up

When going around the little shops the elves own, Licht would always bring Patri! Always making sure he has a little trinket or book to bring home.

Especially when it involves the history of their tribe! That's extremely important to know for when he gets older.

Licht knows when Patri is up to no good. He isn't necessarily a mischievous child, per se, but he certainly has that evil lab in his brain and Licht is very aware of it.

Whenever Patri gets sad, he may try and hide it but Licht's Father Signal™ spots the sadness IMMEDIATELY. No hiding from your father figure!

Patri also supposedly gets hangry when he doesn't eat. So Licht always makes sure to have a few of his favorite snacks in his kitchen or on hand.

Lots of comforting hugs! Licht knows how hard it was going through his own teenage years, so he can't help but feel a bit of empathy for the poor teenage elf.

Licht doesn't know young elf slang. His mind goes BLANK whenever Patri has other young elf friends over. He may be only 25 but he doesn't pay much attention!

Patri ends up using flashcards to teach Licht this stuff. Vetto, Fana, Rhya, and Ronne (pls i love ronne im srry) join in on this lesson. Rhya, of course scored a 95% and the rest pretty much failed.

Now just because this post is on patri and licht's father-son relationship, imagine: What if :(( Patri had lost his father because of some traumatic event and this was while he was hanging with the older elves. So he just completely avoids contact with anyone and everyone. But Licht, being the caring soul he is, is the first one to go up to Patri and ask how he's doing. To actually embrace him and not commenting anything extra. PLEASE. MY HEART.

And please accept: Since Rhya always comments on Patri's age and how annoying he is, what if one day Patri kinda snaps? Like "oh, is that so? Is that how you think?" And after Rhya clarifies, he's just like "Well thank you for the input. I'll take my leave now." RHYA SITS THERE, SLIGHTLY BOTHERED BY HOW PUNCTUAL HE WAS. Patri would've genuinely been hurt by this since he tries so hard to blend in. I mean, he can't bond too well with the younger elves so who is he to go to? The rest is up to you,,, 🤧

[ranger-report]

Review: THE WITCHER III: WILD HUNT (2015)

The Witcher III is too big.

There. I said it.

Imagine a huge meal. You’ve been thinking about it all day. Steak, baked potatoes, insert vegan options if you don’t eat meat, you know the drill. But you sit down and it’s glorious. Huge. Covers the whole table. A feast fit for a king. And now the insane task you find before yourself: eat the whole thing. No one’s gonna help you with it, it’s just you. A whole table’s worth of food. Eat all of it. That’s your task, eat all of it, or at least most of it, but don’t forget that if you get up from the table there’s still all of this delicious food just waiting for you to devour and going nowhere.

That’s playing The Witcher III.

You probably think I’m saying that in a negative way and that I don’t like the game, but I really do. I actually honestly do. I clocked in 95 hours on the main quest, side quests, and the first DLC Hearts of Stone. Before I played this one, I put in 48 hours on the first game and 35 hours on the second game. Bam, bam, bam, three games in a row, but somehow Wild Hunt is the one that felt the most of a slog. Even the first game, as tedious as it was, didn’t feel like it stretched on so long as Wild Hunt.

It has to be said that this game is a massive accomplishment for CD Projekt RED, or hell for ANY developer making a game of this type. Sheer density of worldbuilding and execution like this simply doesn’t exist in other games. Earlier this year I played Skyrim for the first time as well, and where that game felt like it was living, Wild Hunt felt like it was absolutely real. Ride in any direction and come across a village or a trader or a monster nest that somehow inevitably leads to the video game equivalent of a short story, multiply that by a hundred, populate the world with not one, not two, but three maps in-game, and pepper those alongside the main course which in itself is something like 50-70 hours, and you not only have a world that is easy to get lost in, but one that is difficult not to.

But where the first two games have a clarity of focus in their storytelling -- especially the second game Assassins of Kings -- Wild Hunt seems to wander back and forth between aggressive tension and meandering purpose; a game in which the primary staging is for Geralt of Rivia to go forth and find his surrogate daughter, Ciri, before the otherworldly Wild Hunt get to her and use her Elder Blood Powers to destroy the world, but stops to hunt monsters and help villagers and find treasure along the way. Open world games such as this have always been at odds with themselves when they attempt to tell a story in which the protagonist has a singular goal. Side quests and world traveling derail the intention of the plot. So, too, does Wild Hunt damage itself by providing such a brilliant, open world, one packed to the gills with things to do, and nearly require the player to go out and seek adventure just to level up enough to reach the level requirement for the next quest in the main storyline.

But that’s not to say that it isn’t enjoyable. Far from it: Wild Hunt has some of the most engaging, brilliantly written gaming I have ever experienced. It’s just that there is so much of it that I almost feel like I’ve gotten a little gaming PTSD as a result. Immediately after finishing the main quest, I uninstalled the game (ignoring the other DLC, Blood and Wine), installed Quake, and played through that in a couple days. I needed to run and gun. I needed a Boomer Shooter with focus. I needed to run from point A to point B. When I first started the game, I was in awe of the spectacle, of the scope, of the realization that this was the game that the devs had been wanting to make for years, but unable to because technology. And as I continued to gorge myself on the ever-expanding meal, realizing after a time just how much I was being told to consume, I began looking back at the lean, focused first two games, longing and yearning for their steady hand and dedication.

The Witcher III: Wild Hunt is a masterpiece. An achievement that few will ever come close to accomplishing, one that outshines Skyrim in nearly every aspect. But Skyrim does what Wild Hunt does not: it drops you into a world, free of charge, and says, “Go. Do whatever you want. You’re new here, and you owe no one anything.” Meanwhile, Wild Hunt says, “Look, your daughter is being chased by evil elves, your ex-girlfriend needs reconciliation, every single side character you’ve ever encountered in the other games (if they’re still alive) needs your help, and the emperor himself is watching over your shoulder. You also have monsters to hunt and treasure to find and people to help and witches to have sex with. There’s also exploration. Horse races. Fist fights. Gwent. There’s a lot. Make sure you stay on track. Your daughter needs you, like NOW. But do whatever you want.” 

Eventually, scoring this game became difficult. What began as an easy ten out of ten began to sour over time, unto the point where I wanted to give it an even lower score for simply being TOO much. At what point to we reward developers for oversaturating their games to the degree of them being all-consuming? That being said, I still have to recognize the effort, the achievement, the technical accomplishment, in spite of the game itself being far, far too much for one game to ever be asked to be presented as.

Ironically, I committed myself at the beginning of the year to dive deep into the fantasy genre to test the waters and see if it was a genre I enjoyed or not. Skyrim was the game that convinced me that I did. Wild Hunt is the game that’s convinced me to take a break. Final score: 8/10

[teganovak]

Sweet Elite’s D&D Campaign

Okay so Scholar is the DM and they’re either 1) super well-prepared, have all the lore and logistics down to a T, probably have like an entire binder with stuff idk, or 2) have only, like, the basic plot and lore figured out and improvise like 95% of the time.

The party’s favourite NPCs are the ones ‘inspired’ by the Arlington teachers. Including, but not limited to: Murcoc(k)* Bavis, the half-orc, Bob Chief, the friendly merchant in one of the towns, and Damelia Darlington, the ruler of one of the kingdoms in the campaign.

*There was an actual debate among the party on how to spell Murcoc, with over half of them writing it down with a k and Scholar later saying they’ve meant for it to be without a k. This caused a few of the party members to go on a little adventure of their own once their companions fell asleep to try to sneak into Murcoc’s camp. (The ones going were, of course, Ellie, Tegan, Tyler and Raquel.) They all rolled pretty high for stealth and actually managed to catch Murcoc sleeping so poor guy woke up to some nosy idiots he only met like yesterday snooping around his stuff (looking for their campaign’s equivalent of an id idk). They tried to intimidate him but that was a Nat 1 so he was actually about to whoop their ass when they were like ‘w A I T we just wanna know how you spell your name.’ Scholar, as Murcoc, once again tells them it’s without a k. ‘...iNSIGHT CHECK!’ go all four at the same time.

Speaking of Ellie, her character’s patron is the Darlingtonator. Half the party is convinced it doesn’t exist, half the party can swear they’ve seen the Darlingtonator help Ellie’s character in battle and are convinced it’s all legit. 

Randomly at some points throughout the game Ellie’s just like ‘I wanna send a quick prayer to the Darlingtonator. Something along the lines of Yo, sup, o’ Great and Mighty? I’m doing fine, I hope you are too, less than three.’ ‘...You can’t just say ‘less than three’’ ‘Why not? How do I convey a heart then?’ (Basically if you’ve seen Critical Role think Jester and the Traveller kind of thing.)

Tyler is that one player who’s always like ‘I wanna try to seduce them!’ ‘They haven’t even said anything yet.’ ‘Yeah but they look shady.’

Both Karolina and Tegan play elves but during character creation they somehow managed to create elves from opposing factions. (In the beginning of the adventure someone from the party asked them if they were related because ‘all elves look the same to me’ and completely stonefaced they were like ‘...god forbid.’)

Tegan’s the player who’s always like ‘what’s the name of this?’, ‘what’s the story behind that?’ etc. so Scholar probably has an entire notebook or sth titled Lore For Tegan where they just have like lists of random names and history bits.

Karolina always nails her intimidation checks. Always. It’s super weird because she’s never rolled below a 15 on an intimidation check but the party’s also like,,, yeah, alright, that makes sense.

Speaking of rolling, Tadashi does super well outside of combat but in battle he cannot roll above a 10 and That’s the tea. (He once rolled a 15 and the entire party lost they minds and were firmly convinced they were all gonna die.)

Claire is a Cleric, a shocker, and she’s a damn good one too! Sometimes after a battle she’d apologise for not getting the chance to do much besides healing and the entire party goes ‘No, that’s fine!’ ‘Your healing was superb though!’ ‘You did a great job!’ ‘Really saved my ass out there!!’. (Basically she’s loved and appreciated like she deserves to be. And That’s the tea.)

Axel is a Bard but his whole shtick is that he can’t actually sing so whenever he sings something to add flavour to the game, he has to sing off-key on purpose. (First time he hears it, Tadashi’s like ‘So that’s what you sound like without autotune’ and that’s the first of many interparty conflicts.)

Raquel flirts with all the female NPCs and frequently gets send small gifts and a bit of coin from her admirers. On one memorable occasion she even managed to get the party an entire castle thanks to a string of very high rolls.

Alistair is the leader of the party. (He knows Tadashi tends to take the lead in most situation but he’s already responsible for so much as it is and Alistair wanted to take some of the burden off his shoulders, even if it’s something as silly as a D&D game, so on purpose he made his character super reliable, honest, trustworthy, with tons of leadership potential.)

Neha. Is. A. Powerhouse. She’s great at combat (a hella smart fighter, uses all the tools at her disposal to the maximum), rolls amazing in battle and deals a shitton of damage and she’s like... so cool about it. Just like ‘yeah, I’m awesome, no biggie,’ but like... more dignified because she’s cool like that. Pretty much everyone wishes they could be that cool.

[lucalicatteart]

Nanyevimi Basics

Just a short bit of notes about timelines, trade routes/ land stuff, and going over basic concepts like the gap in history, global areas, blood incompatibilities between species, etc. Since these are kind of background details of the world that I may end up referencing a lot just when generally speaking about it, I thought it’d be good to have some general info about this stuff all in one place.     (info under read more)

----------------------------------------

This isn’t actually too long (or at least is shorter than some of the posts I’ve made), but I’m going to provide an outline of the sections (like a little table of contents), just because the topics are all so scattered and unrelated (since it’s really just.. “Random Misc. Things You May Need To Know About The World’), so that it’s easier to just go to the section you want to read lol...

Topic Outline (in order):

Main Info/ state of world

timelines/ explanation of the history gap

explanation of what ‘global areas’ are

current day travel routes and map stuff

interaction between species (blood incompatibility, mating, etc.) 

~

~

~

-- MAIN INFO / WORLD STATE  ---------------

Main things to note about the world: 

Humanoid intelligent species have existed in the realm for well over 500,000 years (though most history prior to the point has been lost due to a gap in history spoken about later in this post)

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That means a lot of stuff is old and a lot of things don’t make sense lol, or at least you end up seeing a lot of things like, species that seem to have no ancestor (because whatever they evolved from was so far in the past that all information on it has been lost), weird ruins that nobody knows the point of, stories and religions and things where nobody is even sure where they originated from anymore, etc.  (though this doesn’t actually impact too much since of course most average people just focus on what’s around them.. like if you’re just a humble little elf farmer or something you’re not really going to care about solving 40,000 year old mysteries, you’re just going to focus on events directly in your lifespan and your immediate surroundings)

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Currently in the world, many groups are disconnected. Despite efforts by a few international councils and stuff to establish worldwide trade routes and things like global areas, everyone still exists pretty isolated from each other and the realm can really come across more as many little distinct pockets of people scattered everywhere, rather than some broad interconnected network of societies. Though this is clarified a lot more in the later section about global areas. 

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magic exists, which impacts a lot of different things. If you haven't read the post on types of magic (HERE (link)), at the end of the post it explains how magic is used in daily life in Nanyevimi, common attitudes towards it, etc. Which may also be important context to consider when thinking about the world. I didn’t include anything about magic in this post since I already covered a lot of ‘The Basics Of Magic' type of stuff in that one.  But if nothing else, at least know: 1 - Magic is extremely dangerous and risky and mere exposure can cause health problems, especially with higher level magics.. 2 - 95% of people in the realm either can’t do magic or can only do it a little bit/low level magics (or are capable of higher level magics but choose to use magic extremely sparingly because... dangerous lol).. 3 -  magic is used in minor ways to occasionally help people with things or do things that wouldn’t be possible through any other means, but fully magically integrated societies that use magic for everything and etc. would be extremely rare.. 4 - magic has a lot of  dynamics to it’s use, and while it’s still partially mysterious/not fully understood, it does still seem to have  recognizable patterns/systems that determine how it can be used, whether something will work or not, who can use what type of magic, etc.,, even if these rules deal in vague concepts that are hard to figure (like someone’s “inherent magical energy level” is a super abstract measurement lol).  for much more detail than that, just read the post about magic lol

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NOTE: At the very beginning of planning my world, I did FORMERLY have the idea that Nanyevimi could be connected to earth (our real world) somehow (where it’s like, a secret realm existing technically alongside earth but very separate to the point neither really know about each other), but I’ve since decided that this is NOT the case.  The more that I planned other aspects of the world, the more that a connection to earth/our real world became kind of incompatible and nonsensical, so I’ve done my best to go back and change all of that (remove any instances it was referenced, etc.), but there may have been a few places that I missed it or something.  So just be aware that THIS post is currently the most updated TRUE info about the state of the world (updated last on September 20th, 2019), and ANYTHING in other posts that contradicts something written in THIS post, should be considered inaccurate. So if you see some old stuff about the human realm being connected to Nanyevimi or some other random nonsense that I contradict later, please disregard it (and maybe let me know so i can go back and edit what I missed!)    ANYWAY though, Nanyevimi has NO association with our world/earth/the human realm and is an ENTIRELY separate fantasy world!!!! 

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There are probably a little over a hundred unique humanoid intelligent species (humans, elves, jhevona, etc.) thought to exist in the world (if counting subspecies as separate groups. if not, then the number is a bit smaller). All of these groups have different lifespans and magical ability and biological needs and etc., so this can be another reason for the seeming disconnection through the realm  (like, the huge gap between species who live to be 8000 years old on average to those who only live up to 200, cultural/technological differences between magic and non-magic species, various groups having entirely different standards as to what climates they have to be in for survival/what resources they must consume to live (food, blood, magic, etc.),, as well as things mentioned  later in the post, like how blood of one species can be dangerous to another, and how pretty much no species can mate with other species (meaning like, merging their societies or something is less plausible)). Basically: there are massive cultural*(1), physical, biological (like “I’d literally die if I visited this climate”,etc.), technological, communication based, etc. barriers between many many groups, which overall makes it somewhat difficult to interact cohesively across the realm.   *(1) (By ‘cultural’, I mostly mean timescale based.. like all other cultural stuff like customs, language, etc. I feel like can be overlooked, since you can adapt to that sort of thing, but with varying lifespans and people’s entire societies literally operating on vastly different scales from one another, it seems like much more difficult to overcome)

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A few of the main things in the world that scholars are unsure of (not that there aren’t plenty others, but these are like, the Main mysterious things in the world that actually impact people in the sense that not understanding them makes everything complicated lol) :    ---- why the random history gap occurred 500,000 years ago and what it even was    --- basically everything about magic lol.. why it exists. what it is. why some rules apply in some scenarios and not others. why the hell it’s so dangerous that mere exposure to it can make people sick/infertile/etc. how it’s passed on from person to person. etc.    --- why blood is so weird and species have so many blood incompatibilities despite no physical properties of various bloods really seeming that different     --- what a soul is and what ‘’soul’’ magics really are, what is actually being transferred when souls are worked with or moved, and again like, whether souls have innate “magical properties “ or etc.     ---  what “inherent magical energy” really is (as well as why some species posses more than others, the means for how it is drained (when using magic) and restored (naturally by the body??), why you can seemingly grow it by means of soul absorption (and again, what are ‘’souls’’ and how are they linked to ‘’magic’’, etc.)))

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Species lean towards being taller in Nanyevimi.. like technically the ‘humans’ in Nanyevimi are pretty genetically similar to humans in our real world, but they’re taller in Nanyevimi. That’s kind of just across the board like, animals tend to be bigger, humanoid people tend to be taller, even stuff like plants tend to grow larger, etc. Of course there's plenty of tiny stuff, this isn’t a definite rule, but things do trend towards slightly larger rather than smaller. This is why the heights for characters/species/  etc. will probably seem oddly tall lol

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While there have been some myths and legends of this existing, the land has no magical properties. Sometimes in magical/fantasy worlds there will be stuff like, magic forests or magic rocks or other like, natural resources that somehow contain magic, so I just wanted to specify that while this is a magical world, this type of thing really isn’t seen in Nanyevimi. Magic is inherent in some of the humanoid species in the realm, but doesn’t seem to naturally occur anywhere outside of that.  Though there can definitely be like.. fake magical natural things. Like if a mage casts an enchantment over a forest to make it act in a certain way or serve a magical purpose, it could SEEM like a magical forest or etc.,, but natural parts of the land/world themselves are not inherently magical, in this case it would be caused to act magically by an external force (the mage). There are only a TINY handful of exceptions to this, usually in the form of water or gems (such as a lake that seems to contain magical energy itself, or stones that seem to hold a magical property), and by tiny handful I mean like... maybe 3-5 things existent in the entire world lol. And even for those, it’s hard to tell if it’s genuine, since there are probably millions of years of history of this land, much of which has been lost,.. Thus, who would even know if the “””genuine magical lake””” wasn’t just some fake-magical resource that a mage created 800,000  years ago and nobody knows the origins anymore so they just assume the magic is inherent, when again, it’s merely external. 

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Most species are fairly small. There are a few majority populations (elves, certain types of humans, certain subspecies of jhevona, etc.), but many groups make up only a tiny fraction of the world. So even though there is a wide variety of all different types of species and groups of people, a lot of them live in more isolated areas (which may have something to do with why they’ve got such different anatomy or abilities or etc, like they evolved in a weird niche pocket on their own for so long) So.... there is A LOT of variation, but often more powerful/unique/strange species tend to exist in more isolated areas and in smaller numbers and be more rare, so it’s not like EVERYONE in Nanyevimi is going to be some wild super all powerful mage god with 10 arms and 30 eyes and the ability to levitate or etc. lol.. The vast majority of people in the world are just... fairly normal looking humanoid creatures, who can maybe do a LITTLE basic magic or maybe even can’t do magic at all, that just kind of go about their day hanging out in their village or etc.  While species varied in abilities and appearance DO exist in smaller amounts in some places, and you’ll occasionally come across some 15 foot monster creature or some extremely powerful dangerous mage, like 80% of people you come across in travels or something are just going to be typical everyday folk who can’t like, destroy people’s minds with magic and don’t have any bizarre abilities or strange anatomy or etc. Most elves, humans, Jhevona, vampires, etc. aren’t out here doing anything crazy or growing into all powerful god creatures or getting into wild magical plots and etc., they just like.. hang out in the town they grew up in and farm vegetables or write books or something, maybe occasionally purchase an enchantment from someone or try to learn a spell.. etc. Basically: Though I tend to focus on the small pockets of people with wild abilities or write a lot about rare types of magic (since I find them most interesting lol), I still always want to stress that overwhelmingly Nanyevimi is definitely not some wild dangerous fantasy world where everyone is some variation of monstrous creature with impossible powers and ancient mystery plots ruling their lives. Just like the real world, while there are some unique fascinating things you can focus on, a lot of those things are much more rare/uncommon, and most people are just... fairly normal going about their daily lives. Though I’ll discuss a lot of smaller species and more rare/hidden away areas because it’s fun,  I don’t want to give the impression that EVERYTHING is like that universally or something lol

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Some areas have ‘’’’’modern’’’’’ technology (computers, smartphones, etc.), others don’t. Some areas have magical technology, others don’t. Some places have a currency system, others don’t. Some societies are collective/mutually share all resources, some buy and sell in a market style set up with currency, some barter, some do none of those things. Some places have kings and queens, some collectively rule themselves, some are ruled by religious figures, some have democracies, some have authoritarian dictatorships, some have something else entirely. Some places have binary genders, some places have more fluid systems, some have entirely different gender systems or exist in such a way that the concept doesn’t even apply. Some live in families (like parents and children in a house), some live in large collective community homes, some have entirely different societal organizations of living. Some have skill based hierarchy, some have money based hierarchy, some have hierarchy based in some other abstract concepts unique to the species, some have little to no societal hierarchy.. etc. etc. etc.  Basically, the world is extremely varied (especially with how isolated many groups are culturally and lack of outside interference, people don’t often share technology/religion/social systems/ideas with many others, so there are pockets of people doing entirely opposite things from one another even living with in the same general area, etc.), so I really can’t generalize much about it.  I wouldn’t be able to give much generalized info like “most people are ruled by royalty” or “most people have this economy”, because really ‘most people’ doesn’t really exist, since things are so varied. While some broad concepts can apply (like “most people in the world are not expert level magic users” or “most people know to avoid blood of unknown species because it’s proven to be hazardous in the past” or “most species average lifespans fall within the range of around 60 for the shortest living species, and 900 or so for the highest” etc.), overall there’s not really a Common or Typical way to be, or a general way most places in the realm function. 

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LASTLY , even though I do stress how disconnected things are, remember that all of this is like, GENERAL info. There are plenty of places where there is some amount of conflict or people trying to take over land or fighting their neighbors or etc. I don’t want it to seem unrealistic like “oh everything  is perfect and peaceful at all times and nobody talks to each other” lol, like.. obviously it’s a broad and varied world so it DOES happen, but here I’m just meaning to say like, GENERALLY, there are not as many conflicts as you would expect  there to be, for some of the reasons given, and especially broad scale huge conflicts barely ever happen. Like they haven’t had a world war really in the past 50,000 years, and they’ve only had maybe a few hundred conflicts that were like continent wide or between many neighboring nations in that same timescale (which sounds like a lot but like.. it’s spread out over 50,000 years lol..).  Most conflicts are between smaller isolated groups who actually have the basis to conflict with each other.  Like for example if two similar groups  actually want the same resource or etc. (since in a world where everyone’s at a totally different level of technology and societal organization and many people may not even live off of similar diets (if their species even has to eat at all), it kind of reduces the amount of people in direct need for the same things, unless those groups do actually exist in fairly similar ways).  And some groups do genuinely have a historical basis for conflict, such as the whole beef between some groups of elves (though of course not ALL) spreading general hostility towards jhevona for their philosophical beliefs, which has been going on in some form for like, probably like 400,000 years or something like, they’ve just historically had on and off periods of conflict about this. Or like between alliance elves VS. elves outside of the alliance (rooted when they split their belief system about 10,000 years ago, ). Or the specifically Fanyiniri elves’ historical basis of issues with the Avirre’thel (which is like 20,000 years old, AND is actually a good representation of how a lot of conflicts in the world are since it’s like.. They’re not fighting anymore REALLY and they haven’t been for probably 10,000 years, but the groups still have some degree of underlying tension. That’s a good example for how a lot of things actually play out in Nanyevimi it’s like... A lot of.. ancient stuff that happened forever ago but some societies still remember it since some people live to be like 10,000 years old, and some don’t, so there are just disconnected varying levels of underlying tension and confusion everywhere, yet not uniformly enough for ACTUAL conflicts to initiate.. More just for everyone to feel vaguely unsettled and afraid of the larger world and want to isolate and protect themselves from whatever magic and nonsense is out there, even if they don’t know why or only have the mythical remnants of ancient conflict in their culture.) ANYWAY, stuff still happens. There are still plenty of little issues and corrupt governments and internal conflicts and land disputes or whatever that can be focused in on a micro scale, like between two neighboring cities or between two groups of the same religion or etc. etc. I don’t want to make it seem unrealistic and disingenuous with the idea that “everyone keeps to themselves and nobody fights” sentiment.   But my MAIN point with stressing the whole “isolation and lack of conflict” thing above is really to just get across that broad, massive, wars and etc. are very very uncommon , and that this isn’t like an Epic Fantasy World where there are always Super Combat Death Faction World War Save The King Oh No Take The Throne And Uh Oh The World Is Ending And The Battle Between Good And Evil Is Such That It Can Literally Destroy The Entire World type stuff lmao. In Nanyevimi it’s usually more like:  “eh, these groups slappy hand at each other every few thousand years and this dude doesn't like that guy and there’s some really intense internal political infighting going on over here and uh oh, is that a cult? and oh well here’s some religions that disagree and a little clan of elves that doesn't like another clan of elves, But Overall None Of These Conflicts Are Far-Reaching Or Disastrously Broad To Be Able To Destroy The Damn World Or Cause An Apocalypse Or Whatever". I’m not necessarily trying to emphasize that the world is utterly peaceful, but more that none of the conflicts that occur in the realm are that massive or broad reaching, they usually occur with small groups infighting amongst themselves, or little historically based group conflicts here and there, but nothing is going to like, literally end the world or something. I know a lot of fantasy worlds will have like.. big World Destroying stakes involved and ‘super evil faction’ vs. ‘super good faction’ fighting each other to Determine The Fate Of The Entire Universe, so I guess I just wanted to explain like... it’s not Like That lol. The same underlying reason for emphasizing stuff like that a majority of people are not wildly powerful mages or etc. Like... overall I kind of aim for the world to be pretty average, with a lot of cool magic stuff under the surface and interesting topics and history I like to go over, but.. at the end of the day,  most everyone is still just.. a humble little elf hanging out on a farm picking flowers.. There’s no big world war or super powerful society destroying mage battle looming in the distance.. Of course there are plenty of historical/political conflicts here and there and a handful of ominous magical experiments and evil mages and etc., but overall it’s just.. an elf watching the sunrise holding a bunchel of flowers in a mundane magically enchanted bucket.. you know?

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Also, certain things are impossible to do with magic. You can’t do everything. Please see the post on magic to learn about those limitations. 

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-- TIMELINES/ HISTORY GAP ------

here’s an explanation of the image of the timeline (full sized/more visible image is in the photoset above, but i put a small one here too lol) 

- Unknown Time -  (any time prior to roughly 500,000 years ago) Nearly nothing at all is known about this time. There are like a few ruins/ structures and evidence of civilizations before this time, but  legitimate historical records or solid information is fairly absent (despite people being pretty confident that records must have existed). 

Other than a few small losses of information here and there, historical record in Nanyevimi has been “mostly” in tact for about 500,000 years (meaning, there is some form of continuous recording of at least most significant world events since that time.. Obviously some, if not a majority of, things will be lost to time, or not recorded, etc. but like.. in GENERAL, ‘recorded history’ is here being used to mean that there is at least some decipherable amount of information allowing scholars to piece together at least a VAGUE  world timeline, etc.), seemingly starting with some of the early societies of that period. 

However, history seems pretty nonexistent before that point, as if everyone began writing everything down all at once, or moreso as if something happened around that time which somehow destroyed all records, ruins, and relics across the entire realm prior to that point (yet somehow was never mentioned in these future writings... You’d think if there were some worldwide disaster, even if the past were entirely eradicated, those who survived would write about their experience of the disaster event, but there’s hardly any indication of anything like this. In the records we have from before this time, no natural disasters or anything are really mentioned, and no true explanation has been given. All we know is that.. SOMETHING, at some point, seemed to happen around this time, and many people forgot a lot of things. But since everyone forgot everything, nobody actually gives any clear answers as to what happened, or any sort of specific event or cause. )

It is known that advanced humanoid species (practically no different than those today) have existed in some form for far longer than 500,000 years, and scholars occasionally find things that date back to that time, however for the most part any knowledge or understanding of that world is absurdly sparse,  and basically anything that occurred before the ~Magical Point Where Recorded Nanyevimi History Began~ has been entirely lost. 

We DO have records and writings from immediately AFTER this happened (like, documentation of everyone being very understandably concerned to have  gaps in memory all of a sudden) but anything PRIOR to this point in time, is basically just a mystery. We know about the aftermath, but nothing about the event itself. A lot of history just suddenly picks up out of nowhere around 500,000 years ago, in vague texts written by massively confused societies that have huge memory gaps and basically are barely functioning,, but anything before that point just seems either suspiciously obscured, or gone entirely. 

- Faded Time - ( 500,000 to about 300,000 years ago) There are a FEW actual documents and things from this time, history was still recorded, but it is so long ago a lot of it has been lost or forgotten. Though unlike the lack of information in Unknown Time, the fact that so little is known about the Faded Time period is not seen as mysterious or supernatural in origin. It’s really just attributed to like... it being old as hell, and things naturally being lost over time and etc. Considering the time period, the amount of info we have is reasonable, and doesn’t seem to just abruptly stop or not fit together correctly (like is the case for Unknown Time). We have about as much information as you’d expect to have about this time period, nothing unusual at play, though it is still understandably sparse. 

- Ancient Time - (300,000 to 50,000 years ago)  Much more in the recent past. Though obviously still old and a lot of information from this period (especially around the beginning of the time period) is scattered and fragmented, there are a pretty reasonable amount of things known about this time. 

- Modern Time - (50,000 yrs ago to Current Day) Much more connected and  better kept info. Most things from this era are not vague or mysterious at all. Though obviously due to the isolation of the realm and societies keeping to themselves, there are plenty of secrets and mysteries and gaps in the information of scholars, but overall this is the most well documented period of time. There are a handful of beings that have actually been alive for most of this time (like you’ll hardly find  even one single creature that’s over 100,000 yrs old, that just really doesn’t happen,  but there ARE a small amount of 40,000 - 20,000 year olds in existence and etc.), which absolutely helps contribute to the better continuity and documentation of events in this period.

- Lost Era - (basically the same period as Unknown Time, anything prior to the memory gap roughly 500,000 years ago)  Everything is lost, there have been like, legit maybe, 1,000 artifacts or signs of past civilization found from this time period (none of which are actual written record or any form of information.. it’s more like ‘oh a random piece of a jar’ lol), out of probably billions, entirely gone , no history exists

- Disrupted Era - ( 500,000 to like, a little over 300,000 or so years ago) A period of time with evidence of lots of war and conflict. Most of which is thought to be driven by the mysterious occurrences and the fact that history just randomly evaporated, which obviously like... having a mass memory gap occur overnight can cause a lot of issues within societies lol.  This is probably the most similar thing to an apocalypse documented in known Nanyevimi history, where problems are just compiling on top of problems and everyone is running around panicking, basically everyone’s way of life is in upheaval or under direct threat nearly all at the same time, and of course some people respond to this badly.. It’s just like.. disaster upon disaster and nobody knows what to do. 

Like, groups and places suddenly seem empty as if they don’t even exist anymore even though nobody remembers exactly what it was , everyone has sudden gaps in memory and places and things that just feel off without being able to articulate why, societies are disoriented, infrastructure and etc. is suddenly missing that people assume surely must have been there before but they can't recall what was formerly in it's place, certain techniques for doing things have been lost and nobody can remember how to operate certain items anymore or etc., entire groups of people who were once pivotal to economies now seem to just be gone leaving nothing but an awkward gap in their place, etc. 

 It would be similar to if people in the USA suddenly woke up and there were no cars or roads  and all existence of them had been removed and nobody remembered what they were at all, but other stuff was till in tact. Certain things would seem totally off and impractical with nobody being sure why (like “Why do I have a job so many miles away from my house? I can’t walk that far... did I used to get there another way? It doesn’t make sense for me to even have agreed to work there..” or people seeing just huge gaps of land in the middle of cities (where car manufacturing plants or car dealerships used to be) and being like “What’s with this blank plot of land?? Shouldn’t something be here??”, people randomly missing members of their family and all evidence of them (because the family members worked in the auto industry or their identity was so intertwined with cars that when erasing all evidence of cars it was easier to just wipe them away entirely) and being like “Why do I have four seats at my table, and four beds in my house, if only three people live here? And how did I have children?? If I have no wife to have children with? Where did the kids come from?”,, (or alternatively not wiping away those members of the population and instead they’re still present but just suddenly have a massive amount of their memory gone) , etc. 

So like, take the above scenario of if all cars were missing in the US, but then add maybe 4 other major things (like if internet and electricity and etc. were suddenly gone as well) and then also just evaporate a few entire states out of the country, and also some of the wildlife, and also maybe 400 plants or something. Like it wasn’t just ONE thing, it was multiple seemingly significant things, places, people, ideas, technologies, entire societies, just... all of a sudden missing at once with no memory of that. Or at least this is the closest thing we can estimate that it seemed like, based on the few records that exist of the aftermath of this period. 

People of course didn’t forget everything, it’s not like everyone suddenly had no idea who their family was or how to walk or how to speak and etc., many things were maintained, but it’s more like everyone in the world just suddenly woke up from a slumber with random bits of significant information missing, certain groups of people and places and items entirely gone, huge stretches of knowledge (some of which were very important to certain cultures or societies to be able to function correctly), certain cultural traditions and ideas entirely lost, etc. 

 So of course, immediately after this happened, there was a lot of societal upheaval and reorganization, as people had to rework entire economies or learn new ways of doing things since their old ways had been lost overnight, fill in their gaps in systems and relearn certain knowledge as soon as possible. This strange erasure of history and etc. seems to have sparked a lot of land disputes, fighting over resources, and various other conflicts, which seemingly led to an entire age of general aggression and widespread issues until finally societies kind of settled back in place and found ways to restore the former balances that were going on. 

( Side Note: I make it sound like it happened all at once, but there’s actually no definitive evidence of this. Because the spread of information was slower back then, and additionally seemingly some technologies had just been lost, there was really no way to spread word quickly or send out messages like “hey, our population seems to be undergoing some sort of mass memory loss, is that happening with you guys too?”. The few records that do exist from directly after the 500,000 year mark (in Faded Time) do suggest that it happened relatively around the same time, as there don’t seem to have been cases of people who had lost memories interacting with those who still had them (implying that at the least if it happened in one area it happened in the next closest area soon enough after that they wouldn’t have time to communicate before the other area’s memories were messed up), but nobody is sure if it was actually EXACTLY at the same time, or if it was more like, over the course of a week or two. 

Scholars are also unsure if this happened to EVERYONE, or only certain people in certain locations. Every existing record from every location around this time period seems to describe the same phenomena (albeit sometimes in different ways/ various interpretations, depending on religion/culture of the group), but the records from this time are still very scattered and limited.

 Additionally, it’s thought that society was more concentrated to a central area around this time (or at least, the “main” society, like large trade cities and etc. where most of the population was kind of spread in just a few areas centered around huge trading routes or significant resources, there are thought to have been certain cultural hubs in various locations across the world), and also these larger societies were probably the main ones producing the records,, so it could also be the case that this event really only impacted certain areas or civilization hubs that were connected with each other, and skipped random groups who lived 2000 miles away in an isolated forest or etc. 

We know at least that it was extremely significant and impacted seemingly all record-keeping societies of the time, but nobody can be sure if this happened everywhere, as there were likely plenty of scattered smaller societies entirely disconnected from the main lands/cities/trade who probably didn’t even have writing systems or keep records, or maybe did them in different ways (like some random group of Jhevona that stayed isolated far in the mountains and only kept records with magical orbs or something, thus no evidence would really be found from them, etc.). 

So anyway! I just wanted to clarify that as well. As far as is known in the few existing records we have, it’s assumed this happened at the same time and affected everyone, but it also may be likely that it could have happened over the course of a few days or more, and there’s no explicit evidence that it actually affected LITERALLY everyone, only that it affected everyone who’s records have ever been found. As there is literally no indication anywhere for people to even remotely give a good guess as to what the cause of this was, what it was for, why it happened, where it came from, or what it even WAS (a spell??? a weird natural disaster that had strange effects? etc??), there’s no real basis to assume details of who it could have effected and who it wouldn’t have, or how long it would have taken, since it’s literally just,, we know nothing about it except that there are vague records and evidence to support it occurred. )

- Restful era - (roughly 200,000 years to Current Day) Everyone is tired of fighting and confusion stemming from the disrupted era, and just begins to isolate.  Communication and tech also helps allow for more  global peace keeping efforts and these groups additionally aid in reducing conflict. Obviously people, especially lower lifespan groups*(1),  still have issues,  but largely it’s pretty peaceful. Most people have also forgotten about or just plain moved on from the weird loss of history thing, and have now filled most of the gaps left in society and re-acclimated to life. Groups don’t even remember where their conflicts originated or that any history was lost, they just know they kind of want everyone to mind their own business lol. Large scale wars and interconnected multi-country conflicts and etc. are fairly uncommon from this point on, and people have seemed to really either just agree to disagree or move on. Things seem readjusted, most people have the resources they need.

Nanyevimi  (as a whole, of course there are plenty of exceptions to this but it’s just much less common now than it was in the past) is kind of at a weird  period of stagnant isolation between most people groups ( not in a hostile way), where like anyone who did have conflicts, after legit thousands of years of fighting just got tired of it or etc. It has to be considered that with lifespans being a lot longer for many species in the realm, conflicts are also happening on a different scale, if at 2,000 years old you’re still beefing with someone over some minor land conflict you had when you were 33 years old it’s just going to seem useless after a while and you’ll probably both give up on it.   

Especially with increased standards for international intervention in the past 30,000 years  and stuff (like having mediator countries step in if two others are about to go to war, programs to kind of foster some positive relationships and mutual terms of agreement between groups even if they’re wildly different, at least enough cooperation to not start shit, for the sake of the greater good, etc.), most people barely get involved with neighboring countries at all, and especially not in a negative context. 

(Another theory on the existence of so much peace currently is that extremely conflict prone societies may have all died out during the major time of conflict, and those societies that put more of a cultural focus on peace keeping or self-isolating are the only ones who lived through that period. Like, when basically everyone on the entire planet is blowing each other up with magic and wrecking the world and scrambling for resources, the groups who ran away and hid far in the mountains or snuck around trying to keep peace with everyone/cooperate as best as possible are probably the ones who made it out of that era alive, while the more conflict eager or uncooperative ones simply perished during the disrupted era, or dying age, right after the main upheaval.  Especially since from the few documents we do have from the disrupted era, it’s clear that hundreds (or even thousands) of groups died out during this time, entire species being killed off and societies collapsing unable to cope with the chaos of the memory loss event (and this isn’t even including the possible groups who vanished seemingly as a result of the memory loss event), so the idea of “many groups died out and only a few remained who possibly leaned towards certain societal characteristics that helped them survive” is not extremely far fetched.)     

( *(1): Typically groups with lower lifespans (60 - 200 yrs avg lifespan) tend to be known for having more conflicts, because their generations phase in and out so quick, and they’re not around long enough to get a real grasp of envisioning he future and deeply considering how they'll impact it. Whereas a species that lives 2,000 years on average will probably have like.. seen history repeat itself 600 times already, have had plenty of lifetime to level out emotionally and learn what mistakes not to repeat, to think heavily about the future and take time with decisions because they know they'll be around for a long time, etc. etc. 

Obviously there are exceptions to this but it’s like, a common idea (with reasonable evidence to support it) in Nanyevimi that people/societies tend to get a bit more relaxed as they get older, especially when people are living thousands of years, it’s unlikely that you’d live to 800 years old and still be going around starting petty drama with everyone you meet or something, since by that time your behavior has probably either gotten you killed, or you’ve learned not to repeat the same mistakes and found better ways to cope with the world, etc. So species with lower lifespans are generally seen as more conflict prone, though again, this is not ALWAYS the case. ) 

- Dying Age - (500,000 to about 450,000/460,000 years ago) This was the primary period where many of the conflicts of the disrupted era occurred, Right after the memory loss thing. Though the various conflicts and issues seemed to continue on until around the restful era, this period of time was like the WORST of it, many bad things seemed to spring up at once...  lots of wars and confusion, weird viruses, natural disasters that were maybe previously prevented by a certain technology which was now lost, seemingly entire species having gone missing, more issues with societal function after the loss of everything prior, a large reduction in the population of the world and shrinking or death of many societies, etc. 

(sidenote: most of the old records from the earlier periods of this time (since obviously during the latter bit of the era this was starting to fade out and people were getting their shint back together) are almost humorously dark like.. catastrophic to an absurd degree.. where some ancient elven scribe or something is just like:

“Well, ..hmm.. so.. I do not remember my name, nor my occupation, nor what I am doing in this town, though I am told it is my home. My father has died, I have no food, my house (I assume it is my house?) was lit on fire last night, and there are men coming from the east to kill us (those in the village I supposedly belong to), apparently.. Oh yes, also from the south and north (at least not the west, but that is because the entire west has exploded, or so I am told). I also have contracted a strange illness. I tracked down a fellow who claims to practice medicine, however he simply died in front of me as he was struck by a stray brick resulting from a nearby magic duel. There are still people fighting outside of my home currently, though the men from the east, north, and south, should not have arrived yet, so this conflict is unknown. Luckily, what they do is not my business, as they are outside of my house, and while in bad shape, the remaining walls shall protect me.   One of the villagers believes that we should start sacrificing children to their god, another would like me to cut off my toe for a spell, the other wishes to construct a dictatorship in response to the widespread conflict... I am not sure I trust any of them. I would seek religious advice, but a star fell from the sky yesterday and crushed the church (but it is okay, because everyone in the church disappeared a few days ago, anyway). My teeth are also falling out. There is a mountain in the distance shooting fire and smoke into the sky, but we are unsure what this means... 

Anyhow, I am leaving with my wife tomorrow to find a place to live far in the woods away from society, because everyone is blasting magic upon one another, and it feels unsafe so we-.. oh hmm.. My wife has just died by random lightning strike.. Well.. I suppose on my own then, I shall leave for the woods. Though, the woods is on fire also, and strange screams are coming from it, and the trees are oozing black liquid, I still think it shall be for the best if I can leave this area before those men from the east, north, and south get here. Perhaps I shall head west. If it has exploded, there should be no people there, correct? Ah well, my finger has just crumbled into a pile of dust and a hoard of rats are currently scurrying in through my fireplace somehow, they are now biting at my flesh (joke is on them, my flesh has been infected for 2 days now, so I hope it shall sicken them).. I suppose I should stop writing and deal with these matters. Wish me well on my journey.” )

- Time of Progress  - (300,000 to like.. maybe 100,000 or so, I know the timeline is inaccurately sized (jumping straight from 300,000 to 50,000 lol, but this is around the timeframe it would be) Technology and science grows (or at least, restores itself to a point of functioning past what may have been lost), and better travel allows people to communicate and share more wisdom and information with each other faster/more efficiently, which ends up helping  various areas of study and helps progress certain societies and systems in the realm (though everything is still largely isolated, and technology/knowledge  isn't anything CLOSE to evenly distributed (you can still be in a place with electricity and then travel like, not even 100 miles away and find people who have never even heard of electricity in their lives, etc.), this more just means that, the few societies and groups of scholars who DON’T want to be isolated, now have new ways to communicate with other people who are actually open to communication,, and there are less barriers to communication in general, were any of the isolated groups to wish to start acting more collaboratively.).  

- Elven Times - (roughly 30,000 years ago to Current Day) Period where elves became the majority group (by population size) in the entire world. Which like.. isn't really that significant, but is usually still counted in history books and stuff since groups like the Elven Alliance are still one of the most prominent political and economic powers in all of Nanyevimi, and even though their height was probably like 5,000 years ago, they still hold a LOT of influence around the realm. 

Also because this signifies the dying out of many smaller species, and the reduction of species that were more prominent on the world stage in the past (like certain groups of Jhevona). Which isn't caused by the elves, but it’s still of note that many populations have recently (like, in the past 60,000 years or so lol) seemed less able to survive, less able to reproduce, etc. and is something currently a good bit of scholars are looking into (especially since magic exposure/use  is known to cause stuff like infertility and health problems, even though magic has been around this entire time (so why would it start causing worse problems now?), people wonder if its somehow getting more dangerous/unstable, or more powerful, or something that would end up causing higher level magical species (like Jhevona and other obscure groups) to increasingly grow more and more infertile and unhealthy, while evolution starts to favor species with lower levels of inherent magical energy/non-magical groups (like elves or humans). Thus possibly predicting the eventual dying out of higher level magic species/stronger magic in favor of less magical or non magical groups (which also is supported by the general observation that species tend to grow less and less magical as they evolve over time), though this is of course all speculation. 

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ALSO IMPORTANT TO NOTE: most common people don’t know about any of this stuff!!! lol.. The 500,000 year ago collective memory gap is like... something a majority of the population doesn’t even know of, or really care about, since it is.. SO long ago, and history has picked up and continued since then. A lot of this is stuff that only the most obscure and dedicated scholars would get into. This information, generally, does not affect the world at large or really influence many current cultures or anything, since these issues are so ancient. Kind of similar to how a mystery on earth dating 20,000 years ago, probably wouldn’t impact your daily life, and you likely wouldn’t even know about it unless you were a scholar or something. 

Though since some species in Nanyevimi can have pretty long lifespans, they can tend to have a more lengthy view of what counts as ‘recent history’ (like humans may consider anything in the past 10 - 100 years to be Recent, whereas some societies in Nanyevimi may view ‘recent’ as more like 100 - 2,500 years or etc.), most average people in the realm really don’t care much about anything that happened over 20,000 years ago, and tend to focus more on modern history. 

So though I’m writing this information for context, I do want to clarify that it’s not like, it’d be common knowledge for everyone, you’’re not going to find the 500,000 year ago memory gap or something being brought up in casual conversation or etc.(unless you’re chatting with a scholar), a majority of people aren’t even aware of history any further back than maybe 5,000 - 20,000 years (depending on the culture/ species of the group in question.) 

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ALSO NOTE - there are plenty of other time distinctions, and individual cultures and groups of course have their own custom calendars and timelines, may mark different historical events or eras, etc. This is just like.. the broadest and vaguest possible way to categorize a few important historical periods but, is by no means comprehensive. In an actual history textbook or something there would be A LOT more detail and many more events and time-periods that are distinguished and marked on a timeline. 

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-- GLOBAL AREAS -----------------------

“Global areas” or “global cities” are a very specific type of area that is meant to cater to many different groups of people of various species, backgrounds, etc. They are often primary areas for trade (though there are plenty of trade cities and traveling hubs that aren’t in Global Areas), and usually have a variety of resources and housing types, as well as Global Learning Centers (a specific type of school, described more in detail in THIS (link) post about schools).

 Areas where many groups of people live in harmony have obviously existed in some form for hundreds of thousands of years, but the specific initiative of forming Global Areas (usually done by international groups promoting peace and unity in the realm, and more efficient travel/share of knowledge. often some of the same groups who will step in and try to de-escalate wars, or mediate conflicts between others, etc.) is more recent, mostly being established only in the past 15,000 years or so ago. 

The main thing that distinguishes a “global area” from a “normal place where a lot of different people happen to live”, is that global areas are specifically constructed with the idea of accessibility for as many different people as possible in mind. While a regular city or area can certainly have a wide variety of people in it, there is no guarantee that there are accurate resources available for all of those people. Whereas the very nature of a Global Area is such that it kind of makes a promise to be as broadly accommodating in every way as possible, and there is some amount of guarantee that no matter the background of the traveler, they will be able to find some form of comfort there. 

(similar to what separates a ‘global learning center’ from ‘regular school with a diverse population’. Global learning centers are making a GUARANTEE and are designed specifically to cater to anyone who attends there, whereas while normal schools can certainly introduce accommodations, it’s not promised that they will and they have no technical obligation to.)

Global areas often feature various types of climate controlled housing (since some species have to be in certain temperatures), a tremendous amount of language resources (as well as free magical technology for residents who need it, like enchanted earrings that will translate speech for you, in the case that your language is so rare they actually don’t have any other resources on hand for you, etc.), massive markets with such a variety of food and products that no matter your culture or species based diet requirements, you can definitely find something you’re able to eat,, have plenty of cultural representatives and diverse councils of people who represent their own species, so that no decision is made without considering the needs of like, nearly every group of people, and there are different things set up like resources and etc. to help people avoid stuff like culture shock or feeling alienated,, having many different versions of things (like a clothing shop that specializes in designing for species of various anatomy (people with wings, 10 foot tall species, 2 foot tall species, people with multiple arms, tails, animal legs, etc.), or having  multiple ways to get to the top floor of a building (magical lift system, normal stairs, non-magical lift system (for people who can’t use magic or who have trouble being around it, but also couldn’t use the stairs), etc.etc.) 

The reason that this is kind of strange/that global areas are rare in the context of how most of Nanyevimi is, is because : 

The way that everything is lined up is like,, in one country everyone is one specific  type of elf and they all mostly speak their own language and they use magical technology and have cell phones and computers and rooftop gardens and they use a silver coin with a star in the middle for their currency , but then you travel just a mere 300 miles away and suddenly EVERYTHING is completely different, it’s a country primarily inhabited by orc-like people who all speak a totally different language and use fire to light their homes, communicate everything by letter and travel on foot, they use dried animal pelts for currency and have no conversion for the currency you’ve brought from the previous land, etc. etc.

Things like language barriers and cultural differences are easily overcome, especially if in a group that can use magic, but sometimes things like people existing literally on a nearly different timescale than your own (thus processing the very nature and importance of events and perception of their entire existence differently than you), or having such vastly different biological needs from you (one can only live in the heat, one in the cold, one must eat metals to live, other is allergic to metal, etc.), the uneven spread of technology, and stuff like magical areas vs. non-magical areas,  can sometimes make it much harder to relate to or trade with others (at least harder than it would be if most people lived generally around the same timespan and had similar physical needs and the technology to effectively communicate across longer distances). 

Groups generally don’t isolate in a hostile manner or for negative reasons, and most cultures are generally pretty open to negotiation/trade/cooperation if prompted, but just in general societies in Nanyevimi seem to lean towards keeping to themselves in a neutral manner, generally just because they have so little in common with the people around them, have natural environmental barriers between them, or have no real need for things like expanding or invading other countries or forcing people to assimilate to their ways or etc. 

Like for example, if you’re a small  2 foot tall squirrel species that lives in trees and has a lifespan of just about 50 years old on average and your highest daily concerns are just making cool huts out of grass and finding enough berries and writing cultural story songs in your language to pass on to your offspring before you die, you’re probably not going to be very concerned with the giant 19 foot tall humanoid water creatures that live a little off the coast of your forest and live for 8,000+ years and spend most of their time building underground monuments to their group of 22 celestial gods and eating fish and that don’t speak any language you think you could even come close to understanding because you literally can’t even produce the same noises with your mouth anatomy. And yeah, they take small pebbles from the shore sometimes, but overall they don’t bother you or interact with you and they’re just so far outside of the scope of any of your most pressing daily concerns and you feel like you couldn’t even comprehend the way they’re living anyway so, you kind of just leave them be? And sure, if they were being killed or needed resources or something (assuming they’d even be able to communicate that to you), you’d help them out since, why not? You have nothing against them. But, for the most part you just don’t think of them, you’re busy with your grass and your songs. Maybe a few members of your squirrel group get curious and go out to attempt to talk to the others occasionally, or create a religion based off of these strange water beings and leave them flowers at the shore from time to time to maybe gain luck from them or something,,  but overall they just seem so abstract to you, never make contact with you, and aren’t causing you any harm so?? you just don’t think about them often.

Like almost in a way there’s SO MUCH variance in so many ways between different groups and species and etc. that it ends up being difficult to establish a more concrete sense of uniformity or unity across the realm. Small areas can group together, and plenty of species can exist alongside each other and etc., but the wide variance in biology and technology and inconsistent travel and communication systems and isolating environmental factors and etc. make societies exist more in little isolated centers and tiny civilization pockets around the world, rather than all being one huge interconnected system where everyone knows about everyone else and trades with everyone else and etc. 

( though there are plenty of global organizations and international councils that try to promote unity and safe travels and will help represent you or give you a translator or etc. if you have to be traveling between a lot of countries,,  trains that run between large areas and etc..  and a handful of  broad sources of global connection on a large scale that are present and available and at least somehow accessible from some areas. and of course, global cities and stuff. But these things aren’t present everywhere, and are not super widespread)

The current state of Nanyevimi is kind of just like, a bunch of little distinct pockets of people (towns,  cities, villages, etc.) within slightly larger distinct pockets of people (countries) all of which likely don’t really have much to do with the pockets of people beside them (with the exception of a few major conflict areas, or major areas of unity where there’s a lot of alliance between groups in the area) and just kind of sit alone doing things in their own ways, with the occasional like, interference of a global council or something asking permission to build an international railway through the area or asking if it’s okay to escort travelers through the lands or etc.  Other than communicating for only the most utterly necessary of trade or resource exchange, most groups don’t go forming political alliances with other groups or trying to integrate others into their culture or take over their lands or etc., they just want to keep to themselves. 

(Note: though you do see people more often connect with those of a similar species/lifespan/culture, due to having some sort of common ground with them (like a group of Jhevona having communications with another culturally isolated group of Jhevona in a city not too far away from them, since they evolved from the same society and speak a similar language or etc.), but sometimes even then people still  may not talk or trade with each other, or at least no more than they would any other group. And sometimes this may  actually go the opposite way and they have more grounds for conflict with another group, due to shared culture lol.. Like Group A and Group B who have the same religion arguing over who is right, while utterly ignoring/staying isolated from their neighbors Group C, D, and E,, , since they have so little common ground with the other groups that they couldn’t even find something to have a conflict over in the first place. So, SOMETIMES, if a group is in an area where there are many similar groups around them (a village of humans with a few other human villages in the surrounding area, or humans and elves, etc.), you may see less isolation and more connection and cooperation in the region, but even then, that’s not guaranteed and there are still plenty of places where people choose to stay away from others regardless (or cases where rather than unity, their similarities serve to  promote conflict instead)) 

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BUT ANYWAY, this is context on why “global cities” are kind of an actual distinct thing, since you would think like, “every city is a global city”, but usually cities are pretty much just the people in the area and not much else. Like for example, most large cities in Navyete still are mainly populated by vampires/avirre’thel, since the entire population of Navyete is like over 96% Avirre'thel due to them being an extremely isolated people generally. Even though they’re still large bustling cities with many inhabitants, those inhabitants are mostly all people who speak the same language and are from the same culture.  Then compare that to some of the major coastal cities in Asen, which,  though they are right next door to Navyete, have a massive variance in population and are usually places where you find businesses and schools and groups and species and cultures from legit all over the entire world collected in one place. 

(Asen is a very “global country” overall, despite being originally founded by the Fanyiniri and elves still being the slightly dominant population in the area by most measures (especially if you count rural areas), Asen has operated as an independent country free of the Fanyiniri for like 10,000 years, and it just so happens to be really conveniently located for hubs of global trade and etc).

So, yeah. Something being a 'global area’  (cities, learning centers, travel hubs, etc.)  is actually fairly unique and uncommon in the realm as a whole. Though there are many attempts to unify the realm (like people always suggesting ‘universal languages’ or like, having every living species classified in a registry to keep track of them all, or to have like, established communication networks or councils involving every culture/nation in the world, etc.), these usually, hardly ever work or even get off the ground as an idea (since with most things there’s a lot of criticism of if that should even be a goal in the first place, implications of that, doubting why everything needs to be uniform/standardized in the first place and why we can’t just let everyone have their own independent cultures,  etc. etc. It’s usually some professor brings up an idea and then his colleagues split into  groups of differing opinions on the matter and argue about it for a few years and then eventually drop it) , so , Global Cities and stuff are usually the closest thing to a unified society that exists. Little tiny pockets of the world where, at least on a smaller scale, you can find the extremely rare event of like 50+ unique humanoid species all chilling and trying to get along with each other in one space

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-- TRAVEL ROUTES  --------

This will be really brief but I just wanted to establish the information of this map for future reference lol. 

This is basically showing the MOST major routes for traveling and trade in Nanyevimi. Though there are of course plenty of smaller roads and etc. like, literally everywhere. The lines shown in pink are JUST the like.. commonly established, frequently traveled, very well known about, ways to get from one area to another. 

(note: This is in reference to routes for traveling between countries/continents/etc., not WITHIN them. Every territory of a group of people is going to have their own unique transportation system, and they usually travel WITHIN the interior of their own nation far differently than they would when traveling between outside nations or across the land. While some of these routes DO pass through pre-existing territories, they’re often (but not always) mutually agreed by all parties to be neutral land (since everyone collectively has a use for them), meaning trade routes may be somewhat plain and not have the same level of customization as the usual transportation within a country.

Like for example, there may be a group that lines the roads in their cities with gold and uses magical platforms to hover from place to place, but the trading road that passes through the outer edge of their territory is just a plain wide dirt road lined with bricks and a few tiny shops here and there. While some groups do see it as a business opportunity and set up elaborate cities and stuff around the trading road (even if they technically don’t own the road Itself, they may own the area around it), others think more like “well why would we dedicate resources and time to sprucing up some random ugly ass road, when we have our Perfect Beautiful Cities right here within our own territory? who cares what all those scraggly travelers see lol. We don’t need to show off.” And others don’t even think about it at all and it’s just a plain barely formed dirt path going through an unkept nasty forest (these are usually the more dangerous ones ghgh).

But anyway, the main point is that when I talk about how people travel or what roads are like, I mean the ones connecting territories and specifically designated AS trade roads. These same things generally do not apply for roads that native people use to get around in their own spaces. “Trading roads” are often given their own special designation, and treated differently by the locals depending on their culture (whether they ignore them, barely do anything, try and make them as nice as possible, line them with frightening row of armed guards, etc.), but overall they’re generally not as specialized or unique as the roads/transport you may find actually within a native area of a nation where locals spend all their time. ) 

It’s kind of thought of as one big road/route (referred to by many different names, depending on the culture) that connects most significant places in the realm all together. Though many parts of it are well maintained by local governments and etc., plenty of sections and areas are still pretty dangerous to pass through, or are NEAR dangerous areas, so traveling is still absolutely NOT easy or simple or anything just because there’s like.. a single vaguely established road network that many people use/know about. 

Establishing and maintaining this broad route around the world has been another initiative really upkept by groups that are for global unity and increased connection in the realm (similarly to people who worked to establish/maintain Global Cities/Areas, who are usually attempting to promote easier travel, increased spread of knowledge, etc.), and it’s become most established probably just in the past 15,000 years. Though plenty of the portions of the road and routes have been used for likely hundreds of thousands of years (especially ones which occur along coasts or natural resources, which early groups would have flocked to and been passing through/living around anyway), the attempt to connect them all and bridge gaps (making safe paths through previously dangerous areas, etc.) was started more recently. 

Despite these attempts to make travel more safe and systematic, the most common way to travel is still in large groups due to the possible dangers. Usually instead of just one or two people setting out alone, it’s more of a scheduled thing? Like a group may send letters and notices ALL around in as broad of an area as possible (or phone calls/emails/magic notes/etc. TOTALLY depending on the level of technology available in the area) saying “hey everyone, we’re traveling along this route in a month of two. anyone who wants to come, especially if you have valuable skills like medical or combat knowledge, please meet us at this place on this date, and bring as many supplies as you can!”. 

It’s common for people to set out on roads with 15 - 40 people all together, even if they’re entirely unrelated groups and not all going to the same place (like maybe 2 of the people there will duck out of the group at an earlier place once they get to their stop, and don’t intend to travel down the entire route, etc.). This can get complicated, since it can end up being SO many different types of people from all various cultures, religions, species, groups, (some who may even have a pre-existing conflict with another), but generally they practice road neutrality. You can get kicked out of a travel group for being disruptive, stealing, hurting others, etc., but GENERALLY the case is that anyone is accepted, under the premise of “we all have a better chance of getting there if we go together than alone, so put any differences aside and let’s just walk along a road for a few days without any of us being bastards, regardless of who you’re walking alongside”.

Some areas have established travel groups that can be rented (usually coming with a cook/food forager, a medic, 2 guards, and a general assistant), so you pay a certain fee and the trained group of professional travelers will accompany you to your destination, but this is more rare. Royals of course hire their own groups, but still will usually have 20 or so people with them when traveling. If you’re very strong and very bold you can travel alone or with only 1 or 2 people, but it’s generally seen as a sign of power (meaning: people will either see you alone and be like ‘oh fuck better stay away from that guy.. if theyre alone that means they must be SUPER strong’, or they’ll see you as a big target like ‘hey. who does that idiot think they are?? arrogant ass, too good for traveling company?? lets rob them’ ). Some places have groups of traveling guards that will walk with you for free, you just have to catch them on their route (so they walk the same area back and forth on a schedule, you just need to follow along behind them at the right time as needed). etc. etc. 

Like mentioned, every area is at a different level of safety and development, so this can be really complicated (especially the politics of the road, two groups of travelers with conflicting interests, people taking advantage of groups, local governments trying to take advantage of or control traveling groups, guards waiting until they’re in a dangerous area to suddenly demand ridiculous fees from the travelers and threatening to abandon them alone in the scary woods if they don’t pay, etc.etc.) and I could never explain it ALL in a short section, but I’ve mentioned most of the general gist I guess of some of what goes on. 

Explanations of map image: 

main route (pink) - this just represents the large international traveling/trade road/route mentioned above  

global areas (yellow) - these spots are supposed to show where all existing global cities/areas are. Though obviously they’re way large and not to scale, since if I actually made them the right size on the map, they’d be a tiny barely visible dot lol. Especially if it’s just a single city, I kind of had to make them huge looking so they were able to be shown lol.. Despite being oversized though, the locations are shown fairly accurately and give a general idea of where they are.

isolated (gray) - these gray portions are to show areas where the population who inhabits that area tends to be very isolated from others. This is significant in the context of the map since these areas are often avoided or more difficult to travel to, not due to the people being hostile to outsiders, but merely because they’re much less likely to agree to run giant ass roads through their lands lol. Many  cultures/species/people groups/etc. in these areas just kind of want to be left alone and don’t really want a huge center of trade or giant crossing areas going right through their country, since they feel it may attract conflict or interrupt their way of life. Thus, if you travel around there, you’re unlikely to find accommodations or lodgings, you’re probably just walking along a dark dirt road in unkempt wilderness, if you see locals they may just ignore you, you’ll have to sleep in a shelter of your own making and hunt your own food, etc. The area isn’t hostile and nothing there is out to get you, but they also don’t give a shit about you being there, so while they’ll let you pass through, you’re kind of on your own for food and shelter and etc. and don’t expect the roads to be nicely kept up or anything. 

avoided (dark purpley sort of) - these areas are similar to the ‘isolated’ portions, except it indicates that these are areas travelers and traders actively AVOID passing through, and are very unlikely to build roads through or travel across. Though this is often not even due to the people groups in the area, and is commonly more because of climate or wildlife (like for example the very northernmost and very southernmost continents are mostly colored purple, because it’s so cold and harsh there that travel is literally impossible for most people and the climate is extremely deadly). Though of course sometimes this is because of the people, like for example, the Thastanri (I write all about them in a post HERE (link)) have now taken to being actively hostile to outsiders and go through great efforts to shoo away travelers (even sometimes kill them) due to their history of having their lands and people destroyed by random adventurers trespassing in their settlements so they can hunt dragons (as well as dragons being nearly extinct because of this, and the Thastanri wanting to protect them). But I would still say  that in a good 80% of cases, the purple areas are colored that way just because of something about the land or climate in the area being inhospitable and extremely risky to travel to.

 And even the remaining 20%, probably a majority of that is just stuff like “there’s a war going on between two groups around here so it’s kind of a not safe place”, rather than random nonsense stuff like “the people who live here just kill outsiders on sight for no reason”. So the purple areas are similar to the gray, in that they both indicate areas where there are not many open trade routes or large maintained roads for travelers, but for the gray ones it’s more just due to the isolated culture of the people there, and for the purple ones it’s MAJORLY just indicating extremely hazardous climates or impossibly difficult landscapes (and,, occasionally, is because of hostile cultures/groups of people, but this is more rare). 

So yeah, there’s some context I guess on travel in the realm, and where certain things are located or etc.

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-- INTERACTIONS BETWEEN SPECIES ----------

And this is just a few general things about like, stuff that most people consider when interacting with other groups and etc. 

~ BLOOD ~

 Many scholars and cultures theorize that blood itself, has supernatural properties and something to do with the nature of magic, while others (which is a more common view) claim that though some blood can indeed have magical properties, that is more reliant on the already existing magical aspects instilled in the person themselves by their soul/magic/etc (as there’s still debate as to where precisely magic comes from and what indicators are present on a physical or tangible level). Some people believe all bloods to have differing special properties depending on the species, and some say they’re all virtually the same with little difference, especially when you look at them under scientific examination. 

Regardless of whether there are some secret magical properties or not, it is at least known that most species have a huge list of incompatibilities and harmful effects that can occur due to the mixing or accidental consumption of blood. Which is one of the things that has lead some people to believe blood contains magical properties in the first place, as it can have such varied reactions in others. 

Even if, when examined in a lab, two bloods have seemingly no large difference (like obviously blood will vary by species and all blood has normal variations in it, but I mean like.. it’s not like you’ll compare two of them and one is of such absurdly different composition that you’re unsure if it’s even blood, etc. Most of them seem fairly in the same range, and there are no currently recognizable properties that correlate with or account for the differences that have been noticed in blood, etc. ), they may still have wildly varying effects in certain applications, hinting at some sort of undetectable inherent properties. 

This is something that most people are aware of (despite maybe like, extremely EXTREMELY isolated cultures who have never interacted with anyone before), and though obviously your everyday person is not going to know EVERY single blood incompatibility that exists in the realm, they will still likely at least know the ones that affect them personally (like how their own blood and the blood of the few groups closest to them tend to interact). 

Since blood’s  harmful properties have been around seemingly since like.. forever, it’s of course become part of cultures in the form of myths and little nursery rhymes and stories to teach children to never play with blood or touch blood, especially from another species.  Even if your everyday average person in the realm doesn’t have a deep scientific knowledge of blood or species evolution or the properties of magic, they probably at least grew up hearing about avoiding the blood of others. 

Though it’s not always harmful, sometimes the blood of one species can be healing to another, or do absolutely nothing, or even get them high or put them in some weird state of goofy delirium, make them pass out, help them sleep better, fix their vision, etc. etc. But a good majority of the time, the blood of one species usually either seems to have neutral interactions with others, or entirely negative ones (ranging from mild sickness/nausea or light skin burns or something (if the blood is just coming into contact with the skin), to like, full on.. contracting progressive deadly diseases or having seizures or dropping dead on the spot). 

In rare cases sometimes just being AROUND the blood of another species can be harmful to one (like, you don’t have to ingest it or get it into an open wound, just having a drop smeared on your skin could hurt you), but usually blood actually has to  get into the body somehow to actually be harmful to a person. 

Again, nobody is really sure exactly what the properties are that determine this. It’s thought that it may have to do with inherent magical ability (like since magic itself is such a dangerous and degrading force, species like the Jhevona who naturally have much more magical energy than other groups, would have more hazardous, or “stronger” blood, due to their magic being more potent (maybe a mage’s blood is gradually poisoned by magic exposure just like the rest of their body?). Thus like, a Jhevona drinking a human’s blood (a non-magical species) may not do much, but a human even just accidentally getting Jhevona blood into a cut on their finger would become instantly sick and possibly die (due to.. seemingly.. magic poisoning??)), and while many blood incompatibilities seem to follow these rules (”stronger” blood harming “weaker” blood, etc.), there are plenty of exceptions to this rule that nobody can explain, so it’s really still a kind of uncertain thing. 

Especially since sometimes the effects of blood are just seemingly like, random and nonsensical (like “oh this very specific type of elf blood can heal wounds for certain species, but for other species it infects their limbs and makes them fall off” lol ), it’s really hard to get a grasp of what underlying mechanism is actually at play here. 

But anyway, so that’s a thing lol! I will probably reference this often in things, and I can elaborate more on details or specific or etc later, but for now just.. know it’s a concept that exists, like.. Blood is a big thing in Nanyevimi and there are a huge range of various effects and incompatibilities associated with coming into contact with the blood of another species, so it’s something many people are aware of and are likely always keeping in mind wen interacting with others (like “oh, am I incompatible with them blood-wise? Or are they one of the ones that’s okay? I just don’t want to be offering them a tissue for their nose bleed some day and then I randomly drop dead because I touched their blood. this is important for me to know before I interact with anyone” etc.). 

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~ MATING ~

A majority of separate species in Nanyevimi cannot mate with each other. While one race of elf could mate with another race of elf, or a subspecies of Jhevona could probably mate with another subspecies of Jhevona, stuff like a human and an elf being able to have viable offspring is pretty much nonexistent, because they are entirely different species*** and have too many genetic differences.  

Many  humanoid species (but definitely not all lol) do have compatible enough anatomy to like.. have sex, at least in some form, but as far as actual mating/producing lineage would go, it pretty much could never result in a child. Those that are EXTREMELY similar in anatomy and also genetics (such as being descended from the same ancestor species) can sometimes produce children, but the children are often deformed or have health problems, or are fairly normal but infertile (as pretty much all half-species children are) and will not be able to reproduce their family line any further than that. 

(like for example groups of elves descended from the continent of Aviinine could likely mate with Avirre’thel/vampires, since they literally have the same ancestors, and this can actually lead to pregnancy, but even still the children have many health issues and die early, if they even are able to be born).

But many are not even close enough to do that. Like for example a Ythrili and and Verrucalt would just have such different anatomy that they couldn't even have sex in the first place, particularly the Ythrili is the one who is the most different in this scenario, their genitalia don't necessarily even resemble that of many other humanoid species and thus they can't even mate (or even really engage in sex at all) with anyone other than their own kind in the first place. Or like, some humanoid species with more animal traits (like “cat people" or the Uvra Istill with their like.. furry hooved lower halves and strange body anatomy), are so different from other species there would just be no way for it to produce a child in the first place, as for some of them (like in the case with the ythrili) they just don’t even have the anatomy to do so, or whatever possible sex things they could vaguely manage, definitely would not lead to reproduction. 

Another thing to consider is magical ability. The more “normal” humanoid species (unlike more animal looking or bug related species), regardless of whether they’re magic capable or not,  could generally all be thought of as being at least able to attempt to mate with each other, as their anatomy physically is,, usually,  compatible, however there can be a lot of issues with magic vs. non magic species and carrying children. Particularly with a non-magic species carrying a magic child, depending on the level of magic. 

So for example, a humanoid demon (Jhevona)  is one of the most inherently magical species to exist. Even if a human were to be able to somehow successfully become pregnant after mating attempts with a Jhevona, they still could not carry a Jhevona child, they would just straight up die, and no amount of healing magic could save them from the processes that are going on internally. 

Though scholars and doctors are still unsure of the exact nature of magic and what physically is occurring when magic is done, how energy is stored, what exactly determines the effects magic has on  a person, how it’s passed down genetically, etc. etc. ,  they at LEAST know that, generally, a species with a higher inherent magic level does not do well genetically with species who are less magical. 

 One theory about this is that it could be due to the genetic transference of power. Like perhaps parents of magical children naturally give some of their energy to the child while it is being processed in the body, and if the parent carrying the child is non-magic, yet the child is magic, it is going to be expecting to receive a stronger energy than the parent even has to give. 

 So like, to use oversimplified video game terms again to help describe magic lol, say they need maybe 200 MP to develop, and the parent has 0MP. But since the child's life force is actually stronger than the parent (being that they have magic in their genes somehow), the parent (rather than the child) would actually be the one to die. As they would slowly (or in some cases fairly rapidly) be having whatever inherent energy they posses (if there’s no magical energy to feed from, maybe the child starts taking physical energy by degrading their body, or from the person’s “”soul”” or etc.) devoured by the infant in an attempt for it to nourish itself, since it has to get that 200 MP somehow. Likely though, the parent still wouldn’t even have 200 mp to give, so it’d be more like.. the parent’s entire lifeforce is drained away and it dies, but the child was only able to get 80mp from that, so it dies as well.

 Now if the Jhevona is the one carrying the human's child, then it doesn't seem to kill the parent, and usually will be fine (as power is more balanced), but in this case if the imbalance is severe (such as with demons (most powerful species basically) and humans (least powerful humanoid species)), then  now the child may die, as it is thought perhaps the parent's body is naturally trying to bestow them with more energy than they can handle, causing their system to be overwhelmed and they usually just get destroyed, though not as dramatically as the first scenario (especially since again, exposure to magical energy itself is thought to be toxic, especially for non-magical people, and especially for a weap unborn non-magical infant.. even just being within the magical parents womb may expose them to enough magical energy to kill them, kind of like exposure to nuclear radiation or something). 

So in one case, the parent is too weak for the child's expectations and they slowly but often violently and painfully suffer to death, and in the other case, the child is too weak for what the parent's body is naturally attempting to nurture them with, and so they die pretty early on and silently, usually before even being fully developed, often just resulting in a miscarriage. (Also, this would still apply even with other magical species, if the magical “level” of the species weren’t balanced, such as an elf with a Jhevona, perhaps the problems wouldn’t be as severe, but likely the parent/child would still die, and even if born the offspring would be deformed or infertile)

Then another example could be a human and a vampire/avirre'thel, as vampires originated as simply elves who had given up their magical abilities (before eventually evolving into something more genetically distinct), thus they technically are also inherently non-magical, just like humans, so you would think  there would be more of a balance.

 However, complications would still arise from them having stronger life forces/souls/whatever inborn quality it is that controls this sort of thing which experts still don’t entirely understand, meaning that though they would still be more balanced magically, an Avirre’thel child would require slightly more energy than a human may be able to bestow them with healthily, though it is much less likely to entirely kill them as in the case of demons/jhevona. 

The main issue in this case would actually be the differences in genetics.  Vampiric/avirre’thel  anatomy has some marked distinctions, especially in the way they biologically process food, chemicals produced in their body (having different types of saliva and also producing poison in their fangs, etc.) , how they intake energy, the vast amount of health problems (due to the original deals during creation of the species they did get all those disease curses, Avirre'thel have a 89% higher rate of disease and illness than any other comparable species, like 1 in 4 of them has some unique vampire lifelong condition, and probably one out of every 2 you meet is having some more minor health condition ), etc. 

Though either way it is (the vamp carrying the child or the human doing it), it is unlikely the the parents will die (though still much more probable than if they were both breeding with their own species), it is very likely that the child may die from complications, either during birth or soon after, usually revolving around the systems being incompatible. 

Like for example, humans need food to survive, while vampires/Avirre’thel only need life force in the form of blood, so to work that out, the child's body may require both and mix them, or may kind of have one but more of the other, or etc. Either way it is likely to be an inefficient mix (like they need blood (bc vampire) but their body is incapable of processing it correctly the way that a full vampire would and converting it into energy when they receive it (a trait from the human), therefore no matter how much blood or food you give them, the body is processing it wrong, and they starve to death even though they're being fed, etc. OR they have more of the immune system of a human but can still catch vampiric diseases, which are way too much for their human immune system to handle and they die, etc. The human traits cannot process the speed of regeneration that occurs in a vampire thus the cells begin to repair themselves incorrectly and the child just dies of some strange form of magic cancer, etc.  

While technically slightly more possible to be born, most of these children wouldn't make it past a year old, 4 if lucky. If there were somehow 10 million Avirre’thel + human children born, 9million would die, allt he rest would be born but die in a month or maybe a year at most, and perhaps FOUR out of those 10 million could actually live into maybe their 30s, still with health problems, and live into late adulthood or so (before likely dying of disease), and they would still really need to be helped by mages or something, like have constant healing magic or medical treatments every day of their life to help them with their body not being able to do basic functions, etc. (and of course, they would still also be infertile/unable to produce further offspring).

For a last example, a Jhevona who is of a subspecies that they have generally quite low level magic, and an elf that is of a subspecies with a higher than average level of magic, could possibly actually work out. As long as: 

1. The blood of both subspecies is compatible (beyond magic, another thing is blood (though blood is thought to be  tied in with magic somehow). Since a ton of species have a long list of incompatibilities blood-wise, sometimes even coming into contact with the blood of a species incompatible with yours can make you sick, so they would have to be sure that both specific sub-species of their own species that they are, are compatible types (though i'd guess you'd do that before having sex anyway) , and aren't just going to repel instantly once mixed (like the parents body rejecting the baby’s cells, etc.)

 2. They are definitely sure that their inherent power levels are fairly equal and one isn't extremely more magically capable than the other (since even within species there can be a lot of variation, some subspecies of demons/jhevona and elves are more or less powerful, other factors that affect “lifeforce”/”soul” strength, or whatever the hell vague concept determines all this magic stuff (scholars still don’t know), and like mentioned, if a baby is trying to take more power than a parent can give or vice versa, it won’t work well, so they have to be balanced). Which is... something so extremely vague that it’s very very very hard to actually measure and be sure of, so you’d likely not actually be able to test for this but, you could guess I suppose. 

 and  3. Genetically, whatever subtype of their broader species that they both are, their biology is not extremely different in the way they process food, or regenerate health or any other essential process (like some Jhevona process food directly into magical energy rather than physical energy or etc. which would mean competing biological systems for the child to have to genetically fall between somewhere). This also includes making sure there are no immune system incompatibilities or diseases that either group is prone to that would end up being disastrous for the child’s immune system if it were to be weaker/stronger than one of their parent species.

 Again, the child would be definitely infertile , but if it meets all conditions above it COULD, potentially, be born successfully and live a reasonably long and somewhat healthy life.  

 Also another example just to note something: a magic doing human and non magic doing human would be able to mate exactly the same as two non magic humans, as the magic of humans is not inherent. Humans can only use material magics ( energy borrowed for outside sources/through external means,, and ONLY if they trained for like 30 years lol) and its impossible for them to use abstract magic (since it draws upon inherent power, of which they have none). So even a human who has struggled through trying to learn a few tiny basic feats of magic despite their non-magical nature does not posses any more inherent power or a stronger soul or anything than a non magic using human. One is simply borrowing or channeling power from something else, but they biologically are exactly the same, so it would have pretty much no bearing on childbirth, outside of maybe if they had modified their own biology with magic somehow, which is mostly impossible through solely material magics anyway. 

So anyway: a majority of separate species can’t breed with each other, and even when they can, the children usually have many complications and can die or even cause the parent carrying the child to die as well. While relationships between certain species living closely with each other may be common in certain areas, childbirth and actually mating within those relationships is generally impossible, due to the fact that.. they are like.. different SPECIES lol.. 

***( I know a lot of fantasy stories have their groups be more connected or etc. but that’s just always seemed a little unrealistic to me? lol.. Like if you have two species (even though everyone calls them “fantasy RACES”, in some cases it’s obvious their biology or etc. is so different they would be like.. fully genetically different SPECIES) with such different anatomy and functioning and etc. and then you say they can somehow just like.. effortlessly mate and produce a viable hybrid offspring with no issue?? I’m not a biologist, but I thought that like, to breed and produce fertile offspring and etc., you do have to have some similarities? So like if one party is like a 10 foot tall bat winged animal person that harvests all of their energy from magic rocks and has 4 eyes and 2 hearts and other random genetic/biological differences, and the other is like a regular elf with an average humanoid anatomy that harvests energy from normal food and etc., I just feel like it’d be hard for the body to reconcile those differences when making an offspring and actually have something that functions? The same way that a human couldn’t mate with a dog, and a cat couldn’t mate with a horse, etc... idk..  Anyway, so I do define the different groups in my world as fantasy SPECIES, not fantasy “races” (though there are some species that have sub-species within them, or distinct ‘’races’’ or ethnic groups or etc. WITHIN their own species), and since they are indeed fully separate species with differences in genetics and anatomy and the way their bodies function/process things or the layout of their organs and etc, I feel like it makes the most sense to have a rule that like.. most of them can not mate with each other and it wouldn’t be realistic for that to be the case (especially considering things like magic toxicity and etc.)?? But, if this is unrealistic or something, let me know! Obviously since I have people who like.. feed off of magic energy or have random cat ears or whatever, I’m not going for absolute biological accuracy lol, but certain things like the classification of groups as different species and how certain things like that work, I do want them to at least seem like they make sense.) 

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And that’s about all of the essentials!!! Hopefully, at least lol. I’ll add anything new if it comes up, but I think this is most of the general context necessary to understand the world as a whole and what type of environment it is, and some of the main concepts I mention a lot in other writings (blood incompatibilities, the memory gap, global areas, etc.). But always let me know if there are any questions or if I need to clarify something! Thanks for reading, have a great day~ 

[captusmomentum]

You wanted prompts/ questions? I really enjoyed Inanallas getting help with her hair from Thenvunin in the marriage-verse; has he helped with hair/ make-up/ skin-care/ nails or anything else in the "A Mirror Darkly" verse?

YeS!!!

obviously there’s no shippy-ness to it in that verse since the age gap is Massive and there’s No Way he’d seriously entertain a relationship with any of the modern elves in that context. Maybe in a couple hundred years he’d consider it but they’re all barely out of childhood! (in his mind at least and you know, ignoring how that’s not how things work anymore.) 

but he cannot help but feel the need to coddle and nuture and coo and worry over all the younger elves. Some less so than others, the ones who are more obviously older or act very mature or things like that he doesn’t fuss over as much (tho they’re not scott free either).

but inan tends to look Young and is the one that looks the most like she needs someone to coddle mentor her so he latches on to her pretty quickly and does his best to make her into a proper young elf. Inan for their part is totally okay with this like 95% of the time, they like being coddle a bit and people doing certain, more domestic-y, things for them. And as the person who’s really spent the most time with him bc of their role as the first point of contact for all the Elvhenan elves for a while Inanallas knows the most about him out of everyone for a long time. 

they can tell he’s very lost on a deep level and that his deep need/urge to parent/mentor the younger elves is a great way to help ease some of that lost feeling and also give him new connections and relationships and things. So they give him so much leeway on all that shit that’d they’d never fucking give anyone else, part bc he needs it and part bc they do genuinely like hanging with him.

So they’ve gone shopping, all kinds of hair and makeup things, skin care, anything thenvunin thinks he can help them with/would be nice, you name it they’ve done it. Inan is infinitely more patient with him and lets him get away with all kinds of shit, like making her try on 5435845462045620475843 outfits.

  There’s also a lot of snuggling and introducing him to the best of the romance movie genre and him pretending he’s not crying bc their love is just so Pure and Beautiful while he holds his lil baby cherished apprentice in his arms.

[inlibrariusvenefica]

1. Are you solitary or in a coven?

Solitary for the most part, although I do meet up with a group for Sabbat rituals.

2. Do you consider yourself Wiccan, Pagan, witch, or other?

Wiccan

3. What is your zodiac sign?

Libra

4. Do you have a Patron God/dess?

Athena

5. Do you work with a Pantheon?

I find I gravitate towards the Greek Pantheon but nothing official

6. Do you use tarot, palmistry, or 
any other kind of divination?

Tarot and Oracle cards

7. What are some of your favorite herbs to use in your practice? (if any)

I don’t use herbs

8. How would you define your craft?

Mostly hearth/cottage witchcraft

9. Do you curse? If not, do you accept others who do?

I don’t curse, but I don’t have a problem with people who do

10. How long have you been practicing?

Coming on 9 years

11. Do you currently or have you ever had any familiars? 

Nope, no familiars

12. Do you believe in Karma or
Reincarnation?

Yes to reincarnation

13. Do you have a magical name?

Yes

14. Are you “out of the broom closet”?

Kind of, to certain people I know I feel safe with

15. What was the last spell you performed?

Pfft, I can’t remember

16. Would you consider yourself knowledgeable?

Sort of

17. Do you write your own spells?

Yes, when I don’t have a lot of things going on in my mundane life and I have the time

18. Do you have a book of shadows?
If so, how is it written and/or set up?

Yes, it’s kind of set up like how you do a bullet journal, just without the planner/organizer part

19. Do you worship nature? 

No, but I’m respectful of it

20. What is your favorite gemstone?

Sapphire

21. Do you use feathers, claws, fur, pelt, skeletons/bones, or any other animal body part for magical work?

Nope

22. Do you have an altar?

Yes

23. What is your preferred element?

Air

24. Do you consider yourself an Alchemist?

No

25. Are you any other type of magical practitioner besides a witch?

Nope

26. What got you interested in witchcraft?

I’ve been interested in general occult stuff since I was a kid, so it’s always been there, I just had to find my path

27. Have you ever performed a spell or ritual with the company of anyone who was not a witch?

No

28. Have you ever used ouija?

No

29. Do you consider yourself a psychic?

No, even though I’ve had a couple of premonition dreams

30. Do you have a spirit guide? If so, what is it?

No

31. What is something you wish someone had told you when you first started?

You don’t have to be super formal

32. Do you celebrate the Sabbats? If so which one is your favorite?

I do celebrate the Sabbats, my fav is Yule

33. Would you ever teach witchcraft to your children?

Don’t want kids

34. Do you meditate?

I should! But it’s just really hard for me to stop my brain from wandering

35. What is your favorite season?

Fall for sure

36. What is your favorite type of magick to preform?

Candle magick

37. How do you incorporate your spirituality into your daily life? 

I dedicate the housework to Hestia. It makes otherwise boring chores more meaningful

38. What is your favorite witchy movie?

Hocus Pocus

39. What is your favorite witchy book, both fiction and non-fiction. Why?

Harry Potter for fiction, but I don’t think I’ve read witchy non-fiction

40. What is the first spell you ever performed? Successful or not. 

I think it was a friendship spell and it was a little too successful, got warped thanks to some subconscious stuff on my part.

41. What’s the craziest witchcraft-related thing that’s happened to you?

Nothing crazy has really happened tbh

42. What is your favourite type of candle to use?

Chime candles

43. What is your favorite witchy tool?

Wand

44. Do you or have you ever made your own witchy tools?

No

45. Have you ever worked with any magical creatures such as the fea or spirits?

Nope

46. Do you practice color magic?

Yes, I pair it with candle magick

47. Do you or have you ever had a witchy teacher or mentor of any kind?

No

48. What is your preferred way of shopping for witchcraft supplies?

I prefer shopping in person, but the closest supply store never keeps to their hours, so I end up shopping online

49. Do you believe in predestination or fate?

Kind of in fate

50. What do you do to reconnect when you are feeling out of touch with your practice?

I read up on my practice, check out some blogs

51. Have you ever had any supernatural experiences?

No

52. What is your biggest witchy pet peeve?

I don’t think I have any

53. Do you like incense? If so what’s your favorite scent?

I like vanilla incense

54. Do you keep a dream journal of any kind?

Yes!

55. What has been your biggest witchcraft disaster?

My first spell going wrong, brought nothing but trouble

56. What has been your biggest witchcraft success?

I think it’s still in the works, we’ll see. But for sure in the past, I needed to get this lady to stop harassing me (pretty sure she didn’t have car insurance and was trying to get all she could get from me for a super minor accident). Did the spell, let the insurance company know about her contacting me directly. Poof, never heard from her again.

57. What in your practice do you do that you may feel silly or embarrassed about?

Nothing comes to mind

58. Do you believe that you can be an atheist, Christian, Muslim or some other faith and still be a witch too?

I haven’t really thought about it, but I guess so, if it works for some people.

59. Do you ever feel insecure, unsure or even scared of spell work?

Sometimes unsure

60. Do you ever hold yourself to a standard in your witchcraft that you feel you may never obtain?

Nah

61. What is something witch related that you want right now?

An athame

62. What is your rune of choice?

Wunjo

63. What is your tarot card of choice?

9 of Pentacles

64. Do you use essential oils? If so what is your favorite?

I did use lemon essential oil for DIY cleaning solutions when I rented a room from a relative for a year in order to be closer to my then work

65. Have you ever taken any kind of witchcraft or pagan courses?

I did start one 5 years ago but I didn’t have time like I thought I did so I dropped out

66. Do you wear pagan jewelry in public?

Only when I’m going to circle night

67. Have you ever been discriminated against because of your faith or being a witch?

No, I don’t let people know, as a rule

68. Do you read or subscribe to any pagan magazines?

No

69. Do you think it’s important to know the history of paganism and witchcraft?

Sure

70. What are your favorite things about being a witch?

Being in touch with the divine yourself and creating a relationship with them, as well as being in charge of your own beliefs and practice, and not having to be hovered over and being told what to believe by an “official” who acts as mediator between yourself and the divine

71. What are your least favorite things about being a witch?

The hostility from other people

72. Do you listen to any pagan music? If so who is your favorite singer/band?

No

73. Do you celebrate the Esbbats? If so, how?

Eesh I haven’t celebrated an Esbat in ages.

74. Do you ever work skyclad?

No

75. Do you think witchcraft has improved your life? If so, how?

I think so. It’s helped me figure out who I am and to listen to myself more for what I need in terms of self care

76. Where do you draw inspiration from for your practice?

Reading up from others’ blogs

77. Do you believe in ‘fantasy’ creatures? (Unicorns, fairies, elves, gnomes, ghosts, etc)

Not sure. It’s hard to say. But for ghosts, even though I’ve never seen one, it’s certainly possible for them to exist, human energy can do a lot of things.

78. What’s your favorite sigil/symbol?

Triple moon

79. Do you use blood magick in your practice? Why or why not?

No, not my thing

80. Could you ever be in a relationship with someone who doesn’t support your practice?

I don’t think so

81. In what area or subject would you most like your craft to grow?

Connecting to the God and Goddess more

82. What’s your favorite candle scent? Do you use it in your practice?

I like vanilla, but I also like clean scents (like linen or beachy scents). Nah, I use unscented candles for my practice

83. Do you have a pre-ritual ritual? (I.e. Something you do before rituals to prepare yourself for them). If so what is it? 

Just grounding and clearing my mind

84. What real life witch most inspires your practice?

Never thought about it

85. What is your favorite method of communicating with deity?

Just talking to them

86. How do you like to organize all your witchy items and ingredients?

I’m stuck at my parents’ house, so I got things hiding in the bottom drawers of my tv cabinet  and in cases I’ve bought at home goods stores. Hopefully, I’ll be in a new place by next year, then I’ll get like a buffet/sideboard to put things in

87. Do you have any witches in your family that you know of?

LOL no, they’re all Catholics

88. How have you created your path? What is unique about it?

???

89. Do you feel you have any natural gifts or affinities (premonitions, hearing spirits, etc.) that led you toward the craft? If so what are they?

Nah, no natural gifts or affinities led me. 

90. Do you believe you can initiate yourself or do you have to be initiated by another witch or coven?

You can initiate yourself

91. When you first started out in your path what was the first thing or things you bought?

Oh man, what did I buy? I remember a cheap chalice, a mini cauldron, a bell, and a metal cookie sheet to put candles on 

92. What is the most spiritual or magickal place you’ve been?

A lot of places in Britain

93. What’s one piece of advice you’d give someone who is searching for their matron and patron deities?

Research deities and find one you feel a connection to

94. What techniques do you use to ‘get in the zone’ for meditation? 

I don’t meditate, I try but it’s hard to turn my brain off.

95. Did visualization come easily to you or did you have to practice at it?

I used to be good at visualization when I was younger but now it’s pretty hard

96. Do you prefer day or night? Why?

Day, for no reason. I just do.

97. What do you think is the best time and place to do spell work?

For me, it’s at night at home with no one around to bother you

98. How did you feel when you cast your first circle? Did you stumble or did it go smoothly?

I definitely felt something powerful, but it wasn’t too intense. Surprisingly, it went very smoothly

99. Do you believe witchcraft gets easier with time and practice?

Oh yeah

100. Do you believe in many gods or one God with many faces? 

One God with many faces

101. Do you eat meat, eggs and dairy?

YES YUM

102. What is your favorite color and why?

Blue, it’s just so calming

103. What is the one question you get asked most by non-practitioners or non-pagans? How do you usually respond?

No one’s really asked me

104. Which of your five senses would you say is your strongest? 

Touch

105. What is a pagan or witchcraft rule that you preach but don’t practice?

Ummm.....can’t think of anything really

[authenticaussie]

if you're still taking prompts from earlier, how about headcanons for a NaVi AU where one or both can use magic? (witches, wizards, whatever term you like)

i loveeeee magic aussssssss. Or even just not AUs, just UAs, (sometimes UAs are even BETTER bc u get to see how it fits with canon hehe ;u;). JUST. MAGIC.

This is actually part of show me skies on fire !! Bc I don’t get a chance to talk abt the magic system and that thing is so indepth it’s. Yep. So complicated. And I don’t get to rant and I love it.

ANYWAY Witches in the skies world have magic that they imbue in objects!! They can get it to do different things, and layer magic to make the object more powerful, so like, Nami’s weather staff has been imbued with weather magic for years, basically ever since she was a kid. And witches have less instinctive/explosive power than fae but? If their imbued objects have been given enough time to collect power they can beat a fae? So it depends.     

Regardless, in Skies most witches form into covens! Bc then they are with people who are like them and they have more power together than alone and can share spells - because witches can create new spells but it’s Harry Potter style spells with specific words and gestures rather than just BAM! power like the fae - and Nami gooottttt. Inducted into one early? Like you’re meant to be able to choose but Nami got…shoved into it so she could get more power from the witches, and the witches she was pushed into joining weren’t the Best (most witches…aren’t?? They are very. “our opinions are right and yours are wrong and to prove it we shall kill people!” Which is. Shitty.)

ANYWAY Luf ended up breaking up the coven and beating people up bc he and Zoro got hired by the townspeople to get rid of the coven and Nami said she was going to tag along with them and Luffy was like oh. Uh. Okay then!! What can you do???

“Steer better than you, probably,” she says, but doesn’t reveal about all the magic she’s shoved into her weather staff for years and years until after Luffy refuses to let her go into a bar on her own to get what they need bc it’s Dangerous and she Obviously doesn’t want to do it. 

Vivi’s actually a princess from another land!!! They’re neighbours and so Vivi’s land kiiiind of have fae?? But they’re not like, exactly fae, they’re more like elves? Vivi’s an elf!!! She was meant to meet with the Council to go over trade agreements but they were Dicks and confined her ship to harbour when she got message that her father was in danger and so Luffy + crew agree to help her get over the mountains and the smaller sea to the other side of their land to get to Vivi’s and it’s SUPER dangerous but Vivi is Desperate ™

Luffy is like. Hm. U could help Ace. Cools. and agrees to help her and they travel to the mountains from the sea and Nami is Standoffish bc like….she’s not a fan of nobility??? A lot of nobility drive out peaceful covens and turn them cruel and she’s still…heard lots of shitty tales from her coven and even tho she knows they weren’t trustworthy they were still her family for years??????

So anyway they end up getting all seperated while crossing part of the mountains and there’s this forest that. Literally throws you together with someone/something you hate/fear and vivi and nami end up together and vivi’s like seriously?! after they escape the forest bc she hears about how zoro and sanji had to work together and luffy was all alone and. yeah stuff like that but DURING the forest they’re arguing with each other but also stabbing things and Nami’s trying to fight things back and then like growls in frustration and grabs Vivi and pulls her really close and then. Lets loose a lightning bolt. 

And vivi is like WHAT WHY DID YOU DO THAT WHY ARE WE SO CLOSE (why do you look so fucking beautiful with lightning in your hands????????/) and nami just huffs and tosses her hair back and daintly steps over a tree root or w/e they were fighting and is like do you want to die????? bc u would have if you hadn’t been close to me.

And Vivi doesn’t really know what to say to that bc like...she’s still Distracted by. How powerful & gorgeous Nami looked it Wasn’t good for her heart

so we start having like....pinning vivi??? a bit??? who knows she has an Aesthetic crush but nami is an asSSSSS omfg

But like......There’s Robin, Zoro, Sanji, and Luffy and Luffy and Zoro are always talking in shit that no-one understands and Sanji’s....ugh. And Robin is Cool but also not very talkative. So Vivi and Nami end up talking a little bit and slowly realising stuff abt each other and vivi ends up apologising one time to nami and nami’s like?????? what???? 

“for the nobility. for how you were treated. fo whatever I did to hurt you.”

“You haven’t- hurt me.” Nami goes cautiously, and doesn’t add but you might and knows Vivi can probably hear it anyway when Vivi’s expression softens with pain. 

Anyway they reach the sea that separates their land from Vivi’s and!!! Robin ends up being a spy and double crosses them ((but then later ends up double crossing crocodile?? uhhh, lots of double crossing, man))

SHE MAKES OFF W/ VIVI. Nami is Not Alright with this shit, for fuck’s sake, goddamn, sTOP, they were just starting to get along damn!!! it!!!

aND LIKE. STAFF TIME. NAMI USES LIKE. HURRICANE-ESQUE WINDS TO PART THE FUCKING SEA AND STORMS ACROSS THE OCEAN FLOOR BED (in defence of this show of magic like. It’s not a big sea lol)

Nami almost electrocutes Robin but the wind stunt took a lot out of her and Robin dodges until Nami runs out of power and faints and Luffy looks at Robin and looks about ready to fight her but then robin’s just like “sorry, captain.” and he kind of goes ohhh,,, and stays by Nami’s side instead

When nami wakes up it kinda like alabasta except it’s like. five ppl overthrowing the entire revolution/Crocodile in a very blatant. Rescuing Vivi and Nami like. Punches someone out

ummmmm Vivi ends up socking crocodile in the fucking face

Vivi gets her kingdom back and,,,,like Luffy and crew aren’t technically bad guys lol so they stay in alabasta and Vivi ends up showing Nami (well, technically everyone but’s 95% for nami’s sake) the city and her favourite places and exploring libraries filled with how their magic works (bc it’s slightly different to fae/witch/demon magic) and they end up becoming,,,pretty friendly?? bc nami can see Vivi really,,,isnt as shitty as most of the nobles and they hold their nobles accountable instead of like what the Council does but

Luffy ends up getting antsy again and they have to move on, and Vivi offers to travel with them and show them more of alabasta but she’s needed to help repair the city and stuff and so nami promises to send her letters and that’s what happens for about a yeaar ish??? With na/vi slowly,,,getting closer to each other in letters,,,,missing each other bitterly, unhappily-

But then Luf always celebrate’s ace’s birthday at the tower so they pass back through alaburna to say goodbye and Nami feels so happy to see Vivi again and Vivi feels the same way and when Nami half-picks Vivi up in a hug when they see each other she doesn’t end up letting go and so they’re pressed super close and nami’s heart is beating super fast and she’s like oh. 

“So I know this would be a bit late, but heroes can usually score kisses from damsels in distress.”

“I’m not in distress, and you’re no hero.” Vivi says, and when nami’s face falls quickly adds, “You are good at stealing what you like, however. And I wouldn’t put up much of a fight.”

and she grins and Nami looks at her and then grins back and quickly kisses her and viVI LIKE,,,, TOTALLY ENDS UP FLUSHING A LITTLE BIT BC AH. WOW. THAT WAS. NICE. RLLY QUICK AND SOFT BUT JUST SHE CAN’T STOP SMILING

They still send letters back all the time and Nami goes to visit her whenever Luf passes by the mountains, and travels back that way occasionally by herself to see,,,vivi. Vivi sends ships to pick her up bc it’s Faster ;u; and safer lol. 

[mixtapekings]

Listen Review of Run The Jewels’ ‘RTJ4’ Album by djbooth.net

“…a shotgun blast to the face.”

Run The Jewels thrives on the spirit of rebellion. The duo, consisting of Atlanta rapper Killer Mike and New York rapper/producer El-P, has grown from indie one-off to one of the most impressive second winds in rap history. Their music finds the middle ground between cartoonish purist rap thrills and anarchic grit. At their very best, Mike and El-P will have you ready to burn everything in sight.

While RTJ’s music has always maintained an anti-establishment bent, the aggression on their 2016 album Run the Jewels 3, in particular, was channeled through the prism of revolt. In the wake of the deaths of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown and the election of the 45th President of the United States, RTJ’s lawless spirit made them, however unintentionally, uniquely suited to address a world coming apart at the seams.

In the face of Armageddon, RTJ’s message hit differently. Four years later, with another wave of protests taking place in response to Black death looming large over the world, Run the Jewels are offering their fourth album, aptly titled RTJ4. 

The public needs music directly speaking to the times. Mike and El’s timing is perfect; the stakes have never been higher. Let’s see if the Jewel Runners are up to the challenge.

In usual 1-Listen fashion, the rules are the same: no rewinds, pauses, or skips—a straight shot through followed by my gut reactions. Let’s ride.

1. “Yankee & The Brave (ep. 4)”

Killer Mike opening with DaBaby speed. Man, these drums are THUMPING. “I’mma terrorize the actors playing like they want some drama.” No holds barred. Mike and El-P play rap hot potato like no other. El is floating. “I’m ready to mob on all these charlatans.” The beat sounds like a John Carpenter score stripped for parts and hooked to some boomers. “I can’t let the pig take me, I got too much pride / I meant it when I said it, never take me alive.” This exact energy is what I was hoping for. Revolt music right off rip. No brakes, all nitrous. “Yankee & The Brave” is how you open an album.

2. “Ooh LA LA” feat. Greg Nice & DJ Premier

Did El-P source his drums from fucking mortars? These boys are monstrous. El’s beats are big enough to walk through. I don’t like this hook. Greg Nice’s voice is grating. “When we usher in chaos, remember we did it smiling.” They may be smiling, but Mike and El sound pissed. “Ooh LA LA” isn’t playful music; it’s angry. This song doesn’t leave me shaking the way “Yankee & The Brave” did, but it’s still a nice jolt of catharsis. Premier scratches are always a plus. I’m glad he’s still so revered by rappers across generations.

3. “Out of Sight” feat. 2 Chainz

El-P made a beat out of jumping vocal cuts that would sound at home on a post-apocalyptic workout tape. He never fails to impress. I love hearing references to Public Enemy’s “My Uzi Weighs A Ton.” Mike and El are trading off lines. “I’m only doing what I want by hocking loogies at the swine.” I see why they wanted to push this project up two days. Forget “F*ck The Police,” this is FUCK THE FUCKING COPS. Mike caught a CRAZY flow and held onto it forever. The energy is stabbing me in the chest. If you’ve ever downed a bag of Pop Rocks with nails inside, then, and only then, will you understand the power of “Out Of Sight.” Here comes 2 Chainz. One mention of growing up in poverty, but the rest of his verse is just soulless flexing. It’s not 2 Chainz’ fault, but I’m not tryna hear his verse right now.

4. “Holy Calamafuck”

A reggae sample to start things off. And everything just devolved into a 404 error. The beat is actively falling apart. A line about jacking Supreme jackets and calling out hypebeasts. Are those record scratches or Windows 95 program glitches? I can’t keep my head straight. A line about drones and time elves. “Every other goddamn year I’m brand new / It’s been 20-plus years, you think that’s a clue?” TALK YOUR SHIT, EL. Since the Def Jux days. Mike and El stood the test of time, gotta respect it. These two were born to rap together. “PTSD, streets did the damage.” Mike is pouring his heart out. If the streets run red with blood, “Holy Calamafuck” will be the soundtrack.

5. “Goonies vs. E.T.”

These drums and synths were sourced from space. Mike and El are rapping for their lives. “Goonies vs. E.T.” is pure fucking chaos. How did they keep their heads together recording over this beat? E.T.’s healing touch couldn’t help them. The hook’s not doing much for me—it feels like dead space—but the beat is breathing. Man, this shit is manic. I’m on a sugar high. “The revolution is televised and digitized.” All facts. Mike has one of the most potent rap voices. I can’t see his face, but I know there’s fire in his eyes. “This is people with an attitude in Beverly Hills.” Making people uncomfortable is progress.

6. “Walking In The Snow”

A nice crunchy guitar riff to incite more chaos. The beat just cracked open, and now it sounds like a fucking Tesla coil. I feel more compelled to type the word “fuck” than I ever have during a review. “All oppression’s borne of lies.” El has been talking that talk all across this shit. El sounds like a preacher. “Just got done walking in the snow / Goddamn that muhfucka cold.” Who’s rapping on the hook? OH SHIT, IT’S GANGSTA BOO. Nice surprise. OG needs more love. “Every day on the evening news, they feed you fear for free.” Mike is laying everything out. “I can’t breathe.” That line really hurt. “The most you get is a Twitter rant and called a tragedy.” He’s just talking at this point. Brutal. I know he was fighting back the tears rapping this one. The beat is mutating like crazy. I can’t keep up—breathless rap music at its finest. I love love LOVE this song, holy shit.

7. “Ju$t” feat. Zach De La Rocha & Pharrell Williams

It’s the famous four-count! Pharrell must’ve had a hand in production along with El-P. Pharrell’s voice doesn’t fit into the cracks of this hook; it’s distracting. “Look at all these slave masters posing on your dollar.” Mike is doing call-and-response with himself. He’s talking about corporations co-opting marijuana and pedophiles in high places. “Confuscious say you’d better thug out.” That got me. El has a thing for turning voices into drum patterns. These beats are fun but they will also turn around and rip your throat out if you try them. Here comes Mr. Rage himself, Zach De La Rocha. His voice cuts through everything. I love how analog his voice sounds. He sounds fired up. I’ll take another Rage Against the Machine album, please. Without Pharrell, “Ju$t” would be close to perfect.

8. “Never Look Back”

A little techno bounce to start “Never Look Back.” All I can see in my head is Tron light cycles burning digitized vapors. Was that a Pop Smoke bar? His death still hurts. Mike and El managing to rap about current events and not sound lame is amazing. No other rapper their age could pull off a TikTok bar. Mike is rapping about his mother. Did she pass? Man, that’s heavy. So that’s why it’s called “Never Look Back.” “All that matter is gratitude. Gratitude is everything.” Who’s speaking right now? Can’t make it out. El is talking about how he never saw class or race as a child. Mike follows with, “Never look back, you’ll only be bitter / If you get bitter, you’ll never get better.” They’re confronting demons. RTJ4 feels as immediate and punchy as Mike and El’s respective solo work. Ending with a ticking timer, always coming through with the relief.

9. “The Ground Below”

Is this nu-metal I’m hearing? These guitars and smashing drums are super silly, even by RTJ standards. They rapping, though. “Screaming fuck the world and you can drink what’s coming from my urethra.” El always knows how to rap familiar shit differently. “Not saying it’s a conspiracy but you’re all against me.” Funny. A weird melange of sounds and images, and I’m not sure what to make of it. The raps are crazy, and the beat is kinda growing on me. Easy to believe them saying, “The money never meant much” when they’ve been giving out their albums for free since 2013.

10. “Pulling The Pin” feat. Josh Homme & Mavis Staples

Okay, last two tracks. If you’re gonna name a track “Pulling The Pin,” there’d better be an explosion. Ominous marching and some warbled vocals. “These old foxes got a lot of plots to outfox us.” El hit that Aesop Rock flow real quick. Those chorus vocals are ghostly. Josh Homme is a name I haven’t heard in a long time. Shout out Queens of The Stone Age. “Every cage built needs an occupant.” Is that Mavis Staples? It is! Her vocals are so rich. Staples finding space in this interstellar mayhem is wild. Mavis is my favorite feature so far. There’s much less frivolous shit-talking this time, especially from Mike. “Kicking and screaming while watching the demons collecting the gold and the diamond residuals.” Career-best rapping from Mike. More Mavis, thank God. “There’s a grenade in my heart.”

11. “A Few Words for The Firing Squad (Radiation)”

RTJ4 has been a ride. Ending with the firing squad can’t be a good sign. El starts with a short tribute to his wife. Touching. Mike back to rapping about asking his mom to cling to life. His kids, his wife, and his craft have made him a better man. These are death-bed confessions set to music. Mike and El must be rapping blindfolded, standing in front of the wall and the firing squad. Heartbreaking. “Last word to the firing squad was ‘Fuck you, too.’” Kicking and screaming. It sounds like we’re going out with a big instrumental explosion—saxophone, brass, and reverbed synths and choirs. This is BIG.

Where do Mike and El find the energy to keep expanding their sound like this?

Oh, we’re not done yet.

A narrator is laying down the story of two rebels forced together by the odds. They’re still running with this Yankee & The Brave angle. It’s playing like an end credits song. So… The whole thing’s been a TV show? I’ll admit, this takes away some from the immediacy of Mike and El’s message.

Final (First Listen) Thoughts On Run the Jewels’ RTJ4:

Run the Jewels dropping their fourth album in the middle of a global pandemic and a nationwide uprising is perfect.

The duo crafted a potent mix of braggadocio and political and personal reflection set to beats made for video game boss battles. Both Mike and El deliver career-best work behind the mic, and El-P’s production has only grown more expansive.

Golden-era boom-bap (“Out of Sight,” “Holy Calamafuck”), and murky synth-scapes (“Never Look Back”) are flayed and split open to create digitized warzones. They’re as frantic and restless as the rappers pushing them to their limits.

From beginning to end, RTJ4 is a shotgun blast to the face; an album to turn up to 11 while the precincts burn. Pent-up emotions shoot through every bar, every beat, and every second of breathing room. The anti-police sentiment couldn’t be more timely.

The only time the momentum drags on RTJ4 is when other voices cram into the frame. Several features are either inappropriate (2 Chainz on “Out of Sight”) or distracting (Pharrell on “Ju$t”).

Unintentionally, the running motif of the Yankee & The Brave TV show stifles some of the immediacy from Mike and El’s best verses to date. Maybe the TV show angle will age better in a world where the president didn’t just declare war on his fellow citizens.

Minor missteps aside, Mike and EL understand the stakes at hand. RTJ4 mixes the punchy and the profoundly personal with cartoonish zeal, EPMD by way of Adult Swim’s Superjail! 

Politically and musically, Run the Jewels are done asking for favors. RTJ4 is five-finger discount rap at its finest.

from Listen Review of Run The Jewels’ ‘RTJ4’ Album by djbooth.net

[recentanimenews]

This Week's Episode Of Black Clover Gives Us All The Details We Need

  THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS, SO IF YOU HAVEN'T WATCHED THE LATEST EPISODE OF BLACK CLOVER, PLEASE DON'T READ IT. 

  On last week's episode of Black Clover, Wizard King Julius Novachrono died, entrusting Yami with the future of the newest generation of Magic Knights. Meanwhile Licht, having collected all of the magic stones, is preparing to use them and also seems to be preparing to double cross Valtos and some of his other Eye of the Midnight Sun teammates. Asta gave a big speech and due to the magic stones' affects, it appears that Yuno is growing...elf features. Hopefully this episode explains what's going on with that.

  To start things off, we got a new opening "sky & blue." It seems a little lighthearted for what's going on in the anime right now, kind of like when One Piece was neck deep in the story of Luffy trying to save his brother from a torturous underwater prison and every episode kicked off with the breezy "Kaze wo Sagashite." But I liked that theme and I like this one, too. 

    We're immediately treated to the flashback of Licht receiving his four-leaf grimoire. Patry, in the audience, says "He's so cool!" and then goes to talk to Licht and Raia as they sit out in a field together, probably discussing magic stuff as one does in this universe. Patry and Licht talk about the probability of humans attacking them, as even though elves have helped them out in the past, humans are still scared and weak-willed and prone to violence. But Licht says that they're just scared and that "we should be able to understand each other...", a statement that's gonna look pretty ironic coming out of Licht's mouth by the end of this episode, I imagine.

    But then Licht and the Gang notice a woman that's seemingly being menaced by a small twister created from mana run amok. Licht uses his light magic to stop the twister at the same time as another mysterious wizard uses his light magic. Then, Licht catches the woman, Tetia, in his arms and for a second gets his own traditional Superman moment.

    Turns out Tetia is the little sister of the other light magic wizard, who has a grimoire just like Licht's. OOOOOOOH, THE SYMBOLISM. I CAN FEEL IT IN MY BONES. All of the elves have differing opinions about Licht hanging out with humans so much, but this dude seems nice and wants harmony between elves and humans, so we're all pretty Pro Whoever This Guy Is. 

  Flashforward a while and Tetia is pregnant with Licht's child, and we're treated with the international sign for "Whoa, everyone sure is getting along! I sure hope nothing awful happens!": A picnic. 

    Licht is pretty sure that this child will bridge the gap between elves and humans. Pretty sure. And the wedding ceremony goes off great....only for the elves to be attacked by humans soon after! 

    Patry assumes that it's the work of Tetia's older brother, and before he passes out, he sees what appears to be Licht lifting Tetia out of the field of bodies. Patry then wakes up and finds himself in the body of a human that looks a loooooot like Licht.

    Patry feels the souls of the elves from his village and thinks that Licht must have activated a reincarnation spell in those last moments in order to rescue them all. Patry/Licht then goes to retrieve his own grimoire and promises to bring back all of the elves, while vowing to destroy the humans. We then see Licht reincarnating Raia in the body of a human, among others that Licht has resurrected like Vetto and Fana.

    Licht then starts a plan to gather all of the scattered magic stones and we leap to the future where Valtos, Sally and Rades are still in a state of shock, which turns into a state of partial disintigration as they become sacrifices for the foundation for the resurrection.

    Aaaaaand we end with the exact same shot of Yuno that last week's episode ended with. Petit Clover then shows Sally, Valtos and Rades being silly and I gotta say this: Too soon, Petit Clover. 

    Okay, look: I know that to some viewers, this episode might have been a bit frustrating because outside of Valtos, Sally and Rades getting betrayed by their leader, we're still left in the same spot as we were in episode 94. And we were on such a roll with the fight between Licht and Julius and the Magic Knights storming into the center of the Midnight Sun's base, too. However, we have gotten way more hints as to what Yuno's elf-ification might entail, and it looks like he's being resurrected as someone. Who? We don't know yet, but I imagine that the reveal will be pretty cool.

  We also absolutely needed this episode to fill in some of the story about the relationship between elves and humans. For the most part, it's been one side talking about why they hate the other side, or one side talking about why they all need to get along, and giving them the foundation of this episode now lends more weight to all of those conversations, rather than framing them as a standard "Oh, these two magical groups just don't get along for vague whatever reasons" trope that is so common in the fantasy genre. 

  Also, the more we know about Licht, the better. I know that there are some evil villains that benefit from having a mysterious backstory. For example, the less we know about the Joker, the better, and finding out that he was, like, a Home Depot warehouse anager/part time comedian that Batman made fun of one time or something doesn't make him any cooler when he decides to start telling us chaos metaphors later. That's just the nature of his character. But Licht, who harbors such intense hatred, is greatly improved when we know the intricacies of his life. We need to know where that rage comes from and how it's evolved. 

  Anyway, I can't wait to see where the next episode takes us. But what were YOUR reactions:

  the episode was good!

— erin ♡ (@daydreamwariors) August 6, 2019

   Ya know, I'm inclined to agree. 

    This show is already on episode 95? It makes me feel old, lol

— Netflix Anime ???? ???????????? (@JoJoTheModern) August 6, 2019

  Soon we'll be on episode 100! And at that moment, I will wizen into dust, as per the prophecy.

  pic.twitter.com/vOZBPs1LHj

— Wolfencreek (@wolfencreek) August 6, 2019

   Same.

  Opening fire as always ????

— DripOz???????? (@osmandel1) August 6, 2019

  Black Clover really does have some of the most underrated openings in anime right now.  

  Too late, watched it already

— Raden (@dmncalux) August 6, 2019

  My favorite kind of competition is people competing to watch the newest Black Clover episode first. 

       What did you think of the latest episode of Black Clover? Let us know in the comments!

    -----------------------------------

  Daniel Dockery is a writer and editor for Crunchyroll. You should follow him on Twitter!

  By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[dfarchaeologist-blog]

The story of Sula Famousdiamonds Part 2

The year is 52, Sula is 47 years old. She steps up to do the sword throwing competition, alone this year so its really just a performance. She doesn’t participate in music this year, though her still does. However, she does return to the wrestling contest. She greets Imi and is defeated again, and they take the time to catch up. After the festival Sula returns to her village of Shortcoast and creates another work. It is known as “Nobody Mourns”, but outside of praising Lelgo, the human god of love. No other information is available unfortunately. The elf Tira Oilcherished visits Shortcoast, asking for apprenticeship. Sula, still slightly bitter from her rejection by Alala, denies her. She uses the same excuse that she prefers to work alone and Tira would be better off going elsewhere. In 53, Sula forgoes the wrestling competition, wins the swordthrowing competition, and in the musical competition, sees her neighbor Oma Portentsplashed coming up. She knew he was a musician but never thought she would see him in the competition. Sula remained the victor, but the more people joined the more she worried about being surpassed. The next year was the same, other than her participation in the wrestling competition, and again losing to Imi. And the next year, was the same. The year after that however, was the year Rope Neorelieved joined the musical competition, aaaaand was crushed. The next year however, her fears were realized. Rope defeated Sula at her own musical style. This was repeated the next year as Themsol defeated Sula. And the year after that was Rope again. You see, these repeated losses wore on Sula, and she dove into practice for a year straight, constantly training and working on new compositions. This paid off in the end, as in 58 Sula was back on top once again. After this, Sula decided to relax, and admit that she was aging, and could peacefully compete without obsessing. The year after, Rope won again. So, to recap. The musical competition is no longer won solely by Sula, it goes back and forth now. The sword throwing competitions are where Sula shines until the day she dies, and Imi continues to win in wrestling. This continues unchanged for an extended length of time. In 66 Utesh Jumpdance asked for an apprenticeship, several times. However, Sula turned him away. In 71, Sula took Utesh in as an apprentice. In 72, Sula was dragged into the Scorching Conflict against the elves. A renowned musician, she was a prime option for helping keep morale high. Musicians are usually kept far away from the fighting, and she was. Until the line got pushed back farther and farther as she held her ground, trying to keep everyone from panicking. Imere Entrybird was an elf marching to attack her with his spear. What to him seemed a helpless old bard was actually a well trained and strong champion. She reached down and grabbed her comrades hammer, facing away from Imere. As Imere began to strike she deftly sidestepped him, and swung herself to her left and up, spinning. The left side of Imere’s jaw shattered, and he collapsed to the ground, dropping his spear. She calmly smashes his head in and resumes playing her music while retreating with the rest of the troops. In 73 her apprentice was mauled by a bear and died. In 75, Rope won the musical competition. in 76, Rope did not appear. He had died of old age. Sula won and took Oma and Themsol to the tavern to mourn and remember. In 82, Sula wins against Imi, finally. She pins him down and laughs triumphantly. Sure, they’re both 77 at this point and getting a bit old for this, but when has that stopped her? In 83 Imi didn’t show up. No, he isn’t dead, he’s just training. In 84 Imi wins yet again, but Sula keeps high spirits. After all, she had proven she can do it right? Also in 84, Tikes Innballs joins the musical competition. Sula learns that this is Oma’s grandson. Sula wins. in 89, Imi died of old age. Sula always wins in the end. Oma died in 92. Tikes won his first competition in 93. in 99 Sula won every competition she participated in, though notably did not participate in her normal musical one. In 100, Sula dies of old age at 95 years old. Thus ends the story of Sula, victories and Defeats, she lived though the loss of family and friends while keeping their memories alive. And then she died.