#i did some major worldbuilding for this thing

[dreamsy990]

since wof arc 4 is coming out, heres some bullet point predictions and hopes

-a timeskip! after the mess that was arc 3 i kinda want to go a bit forward in time. not necessarily super far in the future, just a couple years would be fine. i want to see how the cultures of different tribes are mingling in the future and how pantalan tribes play into it yknow yknow?

-the hybrid prince is not peacemaker. i dont want it to be peacemaker. i dont care who it is, just not peacemaker. pretty please. i know tui could write it well i just dont want peacemaker

-speaking of, i really hope nightwings are more of a background thing in this arc. theyve had so much love and a lot of the other tribes are way less developed in comparison.

-while im on the topic of tribes i dont want to be a major focus, i think seawings and rainwings can take a backseat. i know we've only had one rainwing pov but they have a LOT of content and i think we're good on them for now

-i would loveeee a mudwing pov. specifically a mudwing who DID grow up with their siblings. i adore clay i just want more mudwings since theyre so underdeveloped

-silkwing democracy content. i want to know EXACTLY how they work. a silkwing pov would be nice but not even required

-some elaboration on the hivewings as ruled by jewel would be very fun too

-ALSO LEAFWINGS!! WHATS UP WITH THE LEAFWINGS I WANT TO WATCH THE LEAFWINGS. um so yeah i want more post arc 3 pantala content

-id also love to know a bit more about some of the other hive rulers if possible,,,, most of them never even appear onscreen and at best get a slight bit of personality through other people hating them so id like to see them. they dont have to be major at all but an appearance from like. idk cicada or tsetse or mantis or anything really would be fun.

-this is a bit random but id love a bit more on the sky kingdom if possible

no plot predictions over all these are mostly just worldbuilding points but yeah. wof thoughts

[rustyrailways]

Everyday I wish they explored the class/house system in Piltover further so we could see just how vast the differences in economic status and quality of life exists in the city. We know there is a house system at the very least, but to what extent does it effect things?

[cellarspider]

Rambles in Star Wars History: The extreme shenanigans that changed an Empire

Bioware games can absolutely fascinate me, in part because of their worldbuilding, and in part because of where the worldbuilding ends. I mean, I did a whole long series of posts on the grammar of Qunlat and I have at least a dozen essays worth of material of exegetical analysis of religion in Dragon Age kicking around in my brain, which I keep threatening to actually manifest.

But since I'm here with my worldbuilding hat on, I'm going to ramble about Star Wars: The Old Republic, focusing on some of the sometimes-hilarious drama that's implied by the plot, and the implications for how these shenanigans remade a major galactic society in the process. Involved will be a man who faked his death to get out of going to meetings, a wine uncle who might become emperor, a living scowl with dangerous shoulders, and other assorted animals.

Expect a lot of bonus rambles in the image alt-texts, which is where I store commentary and jokes that I can't fit into the flow of the main post.

———

Before I dig into the topic at hand, I have to set the scene for those who don't know the game, or have forgotten in the fourteen years since the game launched.

Spoilers in the post below for Act 1-3 of the Imperial Agent, Sith Warrior, and Inquisitor storylines, Act 1 of the Jedi Knight storyline, the post-Act 3 Battle of Ilum flashpoint, and for various expansions including Rise of the Emperor, Knights of the Fallen Empire, Onslaught, and Legacy of the Sith. Assume that all reference links to Wookieepedia contain major spoilers.

SWTOR is an MMO set 3600 years before the Skywalkers crashed through the ceiling tiles of the galaxy, though it's not to say anything was less chaotic back then, just different chaos.

(Pictured: Anakin Skywalker, circa 32 BBY-4 ABY)

In this time, the titular Old Republic is opposed by a Sith Empire, which is precisely as functional as one might expect. After a decades-long conflict that ended with a Sith victory but left both sides exhausted, a state of cold war began. The Jedi, their Grand Temple destroyed, left Republic space to settle on an ancestral world. The Republic, battered and reeling, tried to recover its stride through use of its superior size and resources, and producing a truly unhinged number of superweapons.

The Sith Empire, in some ways, tried to pretend everything was fine for quite a while. They had successfully forced the Republic into a favorable treaty to end the war. They'd gained territory, they had a lot of work to do there.

…But as things started to look more and more like war again, they were left with the uncomfortable realization that they had sorta kinda killed most of the Sith in the last war, and Imperial citizens in good standing weren't producing enough Force-sensitive kids fast enough to rebuild the losses. Might've had something to do with most of them being dead.

The Empire, of course, is an absolute clusterfuck of a society. Slaves toil to maintain its power. Children of a slave and a citizen will be citizens themselves—unless they're "aliens", a category that includes everyone that isn't a human or a Sith pureblood, the original Sith species.

Being a citizen isn't great either: The Force-blind face mandatory conscription into the military, and can never rise to the highest echelons of society. Above them, the Sith act as a semi-hereditary aristocracy of evil space-wizards that serve an immortal, eldritch Emperor, their living god who has also kiiiind of gone AWOL for reasons only a few of them understand. He's torn between doing his job or staring at a living paperweight, and the paperweight has been winning. He also recently got trapped by an evil hole in the ground, it's complicated.

With the Emperor incommunicado, the duties of the state fall to the Dark Council, a ruling body of up to twelve Dark Lords of the Sith. Each have their own sphere of governmental influence, which are, one can only assume, very dark as well.

Presumably, the Dark Council had something to do with the inevitable yet still surprising solution to their space wizard deficit: over a thousand years of laws were suddenly overturned. Slaves, aliens, and prisoners were not only permitted to become Sith, it was now mandatory that they report for induction into training programs if they possessed any hint of Force-sensitivity.

This is how one of the eight protagonists of the MMO gets their start: if you play the Sith Inquisitor plotline, you begin as a former slave who has survived basic training and made it to the Sith Academy, where your teacher dearly wants to kill you. Your first mission: survive school.

I'm sure this is very relatable to quite a lot of you.

Now that I've got my PhD with only a few gray hairs, I'm looking back at this premise and thinking: This would completely upend the social framework of the Empire. You'd have every established Sith Lord in the Empire scrambling to kill these threats to their power, or harness them against their enemies, or both.

This is actually canon, but canon never touches on the broader, systemic implications of what the new Sith would do, and who they were before—Sure, the overseers of the training programs seem to be doing their damnedest to kill and undermine the newbies while maintaining plausible deniability, but enough of them survive to reshape the Empire. We know that. You play as one of them.

How in the fuck did the Dark Council ever manage to get this policy implemented in the first place? Obviously they did somehow, but the specifics are never mentioned.

But the specifics have the possibility to be hilarious.

The Dark Council itself is composed of Sith who either killed their way to the top, or inherited their seat from their Sith master—who they probably murdered. Turnover on most Council seats is incredibly high. The Spheres of Ancient Knowledge, Technology, and Military Offense each have three different Councilors within a single year, for example.

This also means that whoever ends up in charge of a Sphere might be entirely unsuited for it. Who heads up the Sphere of Expansion and Diplomacy? The least diplomatic guy on the Council, naturally. He goes by Darth Ravage, which fits in well enough with the three different Darths whose names mean 'death' (Thanaton, Mortis, and Rictus). The player can even end up as Darth Nox--'Darth Night'. You get the title by killing one of the Darth Deaths.

So, which of these barely-domesticated evil goths probably voted to allow 'inferior' beings to become Sith, overturning a fundamental tenet of imperial sith philosophy? Probably not the guy in charge of Sith Philosophy! We never see him, but he seems to have been a traditionalist. On the other hand, Darth "Murder has no rules" Ravage might not be huge on tradition, so we can mark him down as a "maybe". But he doesn't seem to be an instigator for something like this.

But on the subject of instigators: Darth Jadus.

Darth Jadus is an experience. While many of the other Council members make it quite clear they're angry enough to chew on the furniture, Jadus unnerves all of them by being utterly calm and composed, as long as you don't count how intensely fervent and irrational he sounds when he starts talking about the Dark Side. He's unhinged in a distressingly hinged-seeming way.

Heading up the Sphere of Intelligence, Jadus is a noted iconoclast on the Dark Council, using his authority to open Imperial Intelligence positions to aliens. He chooses slaves and Force-blind citizens to be his advisors and agents, ignoring the traditional power structures of the Sith. He prefers his literal cult following of fanatical adherents instead, who see him as a visionary savior, a terrifying inevitability, or both.

This means he seems to have basically no interest in elevating other Sith. In fact, he hates the way the rest of them run the Empire. Making more of them might potentially be against his interests.

Or at least it would be, if he didn't have some long-running secret plans that he wants to keep the other Dark Council members from catching wind of. Advocating for slaves, aliens and convicts to become Sith would superficially fall in line with his philosophy, and just raising the idea in public could cause such social chaos that his true plans would benefit from it. Jadus is also the most genre-savvy sith in the entire game: he seems to almost be aware at points that he's neither the protagonist nor main antagonist, and thus his evil plans involve not messing with either of them. When he jostles up against the main plot and realizes he has no plausible means to derail it, he responds by leaving the plot entirely.

Given the tactical chaos and uncomfortably fourth wall-touching strategies Jadus makes use of, let's mark him down as a "yes".

But Jadus is an unpopular one on the Council. He's creepy. Sith HATE feeling creeped out. That's supposed to happen to other people, dammit, not them! And with his disinterest in politics and his deep interest in foisting his manifesto on everyone, he's not the most effective Dark Councilor.

He might be able to pull in a few—Darth Decimus, head of Military Strategy, seems to have been quite willing to exploit any advantage he might be able to squeeze out of a situation. Fun side note, his voice actor also played the First Order officer who was just so done with Hux at the beginning of The Last Jedi.

[Video Description: A compilation of Mark Lewis Jones as Captain Moden Canady from The Last Jedi, with the video quality partially encrunchified by YouTube. This includes all of his shots from the film, from arrival of the Seige Dreadnought Fulminatrix, to the extremely annoyed look he gives the fireball that kills him. Sound supervisor Matt Wood was apparently pretty sure "FIRE ON THE BASE!" was going to be used as an EDM drop, and I can confirm, I've heard it out in the wild.]

Who else have we got rattling around in this Council, who might have extremely ridiculous reasons to vote yes? Well, we have Darth Vengean, head of Military Offense, was all about the Offense. Who needs defense? That nerd Darth Marr? HA! No, Vengean wanted to restart the war with the Republic. More bodies for the war machine would probably be fine with him.

Speaking of that nerd Darth Marr, Darth Marr.

Apparently he designed this armor himself. Solid effort, my man.

Marr is in his sixties by the time the game happens. He's one of the longest-surviving Dark Councilors, and he sounds so tired of his coworkers in every scene he's in. Heading up the Defense of the Empire, Marr also is the de facto leader of the Dark Council, by dint of being the only adult in the room.

Much like Jadus, he distances himself from the backstabbery and rivalries among the Council members. Unlike Jadus, he 100% means it, and has been focused on not making the Empire explode. He eventually ends up as the unofficial leader of the Empire until he gets one-shotted so hard it makes his ghost chill out a bit. He keeps the spikes, though.

So, if there's anyone on the Council who might vote for this on purely practical grounds, and has the power to push others into agreeing with him, because so help him if they don't stop holding duels in the conference room he's going to turn this Empire around—

Nobody listens to him on that, by the way. Both the Sith main plots involve duels in the conference room.

In fact, one of those duels is egged on by our last suspect. Marr might be a contender for longest-running Dark Councilor, but there is another candidate: Darth Vowrawn, who seems to be having a much better time being on the Council than Marr. I suspect the only reason why he doesn't have a bucket of popcorn with him in the Council chambers is because somebody made a rule that he had to stop doing that.

Vowrawn is a surprisingly cheerful old bastard who seems to have turned his hobby into his job. He shows up 'fashionably late' to someone else's attempted coup, after lamenting he can't sell tickets to the clusterfuck that's about to commence. In the expansions to the game, he can outmaneuver and outlive all of the competition and end up becoming the Emperor, at the age of 87.

Vowrawn is also indifferent to against the Empire's policies--he supports the ascension of a Zabrak to the Dark Council, and takes one as an apprentice as well. Beyond that, Vowrawn would have to support this move, because he's instrumental in any large project like this, both politically and practically. While the others I've mentioned all have roles explicitly to do with the aggressive expansion or protection of the Empire, Vowrawn heads the Sphere of Production and Logistics. In essence, he's the one who can decide whether all these other bozos get to eat or not.

If Vowrawn didn't accept this change, then it would have failed. So, he's a definite "yes" by default.

Speaking of bastards who are still active well into their eighties, we have one last major figure who isn't on the Council that likely advocated for this: Darth Malgus.

[Video Description: The "Deceived" trailer, set ten years before the game. God, I love this thing. This was the first trailer I saw for the game, and it got me, it really did. The Sith are just as ridiculous as they should be, combined with choreography that feels a lot more crunchy than lightsaber combat had been before, with distinct combat styles for the two main fighters. It's quick, it's impactful, and it's got a memorable conclusion. Love it.]

Malgus is as anti-racist and anti-classist as Jadus is, but without the insane transcendental Dark Side philosophy. Instead, he has an insane philosophy of bettering the Empire through eternal war, which he believes everyone should have an equal ability to participate in. He is what would happen if a Warhammer 40k character had an inside voice.

[Video Description: The "Disorder" cinematic trailer, set before the Legacy of the Sith expansion. Malgus is 75 here. Man's held together by spite and screws and whatever nutrients you can absorb by being thrown through walls. He's fully given up on the Sith Order at this point and is trying to do his own thing, and he makes it look rad. The choreography has only gotten better, goddamn. Why did it take me three goddamn years to watch this. IT'S REALLY GOOD.]

Malgus is a big deal in the military, with a lot of support from both the Force-blind soldiers and earning the loyalty of a surprising cross-section of Sith. We know this, because he nearly hijacks the Empire at one point in the early expansions. He'd be into this idea, and he probably advocated for it. While he'd have the most direct interaction with the military-related Councilors we already have in the "yes" column, he also has a history of annoying the bejeezus out of other Sith on "his" turf, so who knows! He may have been more persuasive to the others we haven't dug into.

And we can't really dig into all of them at the depth we have with some. Despite how bogglingly huge SWTOR is and the two thousand four hundred and ninety-five named characters and "Additional Voices" credits in IMDb, we never meet some of the Dark Councilors. If you don't play all the eight main storylines, you won't see all of them in the game. I'll admit, I've never seen Darth Hadra, because I've never gotten that far in a Republic-aligned storyline! The Sith you encounter in their stories can often be more one-note, because they're purely there as antagonists rather than people you are legally required to hang out with, and thus have more opportunity to pester mercilessly.

[Video Description: A clip from my own Warrior run-through, featuring my big lad Rejalgar, his coolest friend Vette, and his boss, Darth Baras, who is presently having a screaming tantrum, which Rejalgar makes worse with the most delightfully straight-faced "Is there a problem here?". The Warrior plotline lets you play things sincerely evil, sincerely noble, or sincerely hilarious. Do you want to see Jedi bluescreen when a Sith just straight-up refuses to be violent? Do you want to sidestep a boss fight by offering a family a government pension, something your boss commends as being very devious and evil? Do you want to break up a fight between gangs by threatening to eat them? Come play the Sith Warrior storyline, and be the chaos you want to see in the galaxy!]

[Video Description, from a clip I uploaded to YT specifically for this post after I found out you can only upload one video per tumblr post wtf: A clip from my Inquisitor run-through, featuring my extremely shirtless lad, Sericus, playing coy and a little airheaded when called up by his Sith master, Darth Zash. Back in the day, Purebloods weren't supposed to be played as canon for this storyline, but there were tweaks later made to dialog that provided a canon explanation for how someone with visible Sith ancestry could end up in this situation. The storyline, however, unfortunately does not fully account for a character whose ideal job description is 'villain's beautiful and deceptively intelligent consort, the true power behind the throne'. It assumes you're playing a character who wants to go conquer and/or do mad wizard-science. Bonus points for eventually letting you marry your eight foot tall razor-faced cannibal thrall though, that's very fun.]

Why don't we see all of the Dark Council? Well, because they're ultimately not important to the story as a group. Events keep you locked tightly under the purview of just one or two of them on the Sith side of things, before the post-game and expansion plots launch you into the experience of being a major player in Imperial affairs, and Imperial affairs launch themselves at you in return.

Everyone realizes the Emperor wants to eat them. Then he dies, except he doesn't. Malgus takes over the Empire for a few weeks. Marr takes over, but half the Council is dead and the rest are still in orientation and are probably also dead, because their would-be successors assassinated them. The Emperor, only mildly inconvenienced by also being dead, eats a planet. Then things go completely off the deep end, and the Dark Council is no longer your concern at all.

It's economical storytelling to not belabor the rest of the Councilors, and playing through as an ex-slave Inquisitor, you continue to face enough challenges directly linked to your background that the resistance feels systemic, even if you don't actually see all that many others who are facing the same issues.

But I think there's a lot of potential for some really wild storytelling in there. Your character receives some level of basic training before they reach the Sith Academy, along with a whole batch of ex-slaves. What did that entail? How was it organized? What happens when folks from abolitionist movements start being trained as sith, gaining all the attendant legal authority over the life and death of others?

And what about the prisoners who were released for training? While one canon option is to play a character who was facing immediate execution for participation in violent anti-Imperial resistance, at least a fair chunk of Force-sensitive prisoners were probably serving longer sentences. What happens when prison gangs start gaining a foothold in the Sith Academy, where they're too dysfunctional to even form Mean Girl cliques? What happens when some of their members become full Sith? How many of them might have Hutt backing, or even funding from the Republic Secret Intelligence Service?

These are the sorts of things the Sith themselves are terrified of. This earns a very sarcastic thoughts and prayers to them, of course. Yet it truly is wild to think about the decision-making process that went into this massive societal shift that the game treats as simply a piece of inciting incident for two plotlines out of eight: Twelve unhinged people sat down in some extremely high-backed chairs one day and voted to give everyone equal access to lightning.

I love Star Wars, it's just the funniest shit imaginable sometimes.

[pineconepie]

Yan king???👀

I had a little fun with the worldbuilding because it gave me an excuse to use one of my old ideas.

I'll explain it briefly because I didn't do much explaining in the writing: there are five major kingdoms in the nation of Lepidoptra - Rosy Maple, Atlas, Luna, Death's Head, and the one where reader is from: Comet Kingdom. Everyone has wings that resemble a moth, along with antennae. (yes moths are a huge hyperfixation of mine)

Just thought I'd get that out of the way lol. Anyway, this is probably one of the most yandere characters I've written mwehehe.

TW: Attempted murder (kind of but not really), parental yandere, manipulation, implied gaslighting, infantilization

...

Ever since you could recall, your father had been very protective over you. He homeschooled you, didn't let you leave the house much, only allowed a few select friends, but those friends were also friends with your dad, and just getting paid to talk to you.

Your father would hold you as often as he could, making sure he was the first and last thing you'd see daily.

He had told you, ever since you were just a young mothling, your wings had been cut off by a robber who attempted to kidnap you, and thus, your father had to be extremely cautious in regards to keeping you safe at home.

You never left the house alone, and even if you did, you were monitored.

Sometimes, you'd get strange flashbacks. Almost like deja-vu, but these felt more vivid in your mind.

Once when you saw Castor, your father's, sword, you had a vision of yourself getting stabbed in the chest. Or when he'd look angry at you, you'd recall seeing that exact expression on his face before. But those thoughts went away as soon as they appeared.

Sometimes you'd get horrible nightmares of him. You dreamed he hurt you somehow. And yet, you'd always wake up feeling fine. Nothing hurt physically.

But mentally? Something just wasn't clicking right.

Recently you began sneaking out of the castle, not wanting to alert your father, and you began going to this little tavern at the edge of town to spend time with your village friends, ones you know for a fact your father would never dream of approving.

"Calliope, Osmond, hey," you greet warmly, walking over to their usual table in the corner, sitting down beside them.

"Hey," Calliope says, leaning her head against her hand. "How was escaping the palace? Almost got caught again?" Her bright golden wings flutter slightly as she grins.

"Nah, Dad doesn't suspect anything at all," you proudly state.

"Good, because he would have our heads," Osmond sighs. He shares an uneasy glance with Calliope, then glances back at you. "We wanted to speak to you about something unsettling we found. About your father."

You hesitate. "If this is about him and the Atlas Kingdom again, I told you already—"

"It's not about that," Calliope mutters. She pulls out a huge book from a satchel, one that barely even fits in it. "Okay, I'm about to warn you, this is weird as hell. Even Oz was weirded out."

"Well if he was unsettled by it, then I'm scared to see what it even is," you say with a breathless chuckle.

"We found it in the royal library," Osmond tells you quietly. "And well, this should explain it." He opens up the book and starts flipping through pages and pages until he lands on one in particular, pointing down at it for you to read.

It has your name and picture on it. Your full name, everything.

At first, you find it slightly strange, but think there may be some kind of explanation. Most of the pictures on the book show you when you were younger, being held on Castor's hip while he made speeches at ceremonies. He looks the same as he does now, except maybe with a bit longer hair.

Then you start seeing yourself getting older...

There's one of a memory you don't even recall, of a headline saying the "(Y/n), Child of King Castor of the Comet Kingdom, joins Arkema Mittrei, Academy" in which you're being handed over to the kingdom's most prestigious academy.

You were homeschooled, that never even happened!

Another one shows you using magic abilities, and you look older than you currently even are. And you have... wings?!

"That was our expression when we read it too," Calliope anxiously says. "We weren't supposed to be in the Royal Library since its always locked and guarded, but we managed to get in with Oz's magic. We were looking for more evidence to prove to you that your father is terrible, but instead we just stumbled upon this."

You don't know what to say. "This doesn't make any sense. I never went to any academy, and my wings..."

"And you look older in these photos," Osmond observes. "I don't know what is going on, but this is just further proof you can't trust him. I know he raised you and you love him, but he's controlling your life and clearly keeping things from you. I knew he caused a lot of meaningless wars and was incredibly paranoid about you, but this?"

"I'm at a loss for words, here," you murmur, shaking your head as you feel tears stinging in your eyes. "What the hell am I supposed to do?! Just confront my dad and hope for the best?"

Calliope puts a hand on your shoulder. "Run away with us," she proposes. "Oz's mom is in the Atlas Kingdom, we can find sanctuary there."

"No way am I just abandoning my dad with no warning," you argue. "Besides, he'd try burning down all of Atlas if he knew I was there! I'll just ask him for an explanation. I'm sure there is one."

"And risk letting him know you've been sneaking out of the kingdom?" Osmond scoffs. "Your death wish, not mine."

"Just give us at least a month or two," Calliope says. "Please. That way we can come up with a game plan."

You exhale quietly, your antennae twitching. "Okay. But no longer."

...

"Uhm, hey, Dad? I wanted to talk to you about something."

"Hm?" He peers his eyes away from the newspaper he's reading and smiles at you. "Of course! Come sit." You hesitate as he pats the seat next to him on the couch, and you reluctantly plop beside him. He hugs you closer to his chest. "So," he hums, kissing the side of your head, "what is it?"

"...have I ever went to Arkema Mittrei Academy?" You watch as his smile drops.

He glances off, contemplating a response before returning his gaze to you. "Oh, sweetheart, where did you hear that? Of course not! I think you'd remember something like that." His laugh sounds nervous. "Have you been having those scary dreams again?"

You bite your tongue. "No. I came across a book in the royal library. I know you don't like me going in there unsupervised, but I did. And I saw pictures of myself at the school, and another one where I'm older, and have my wings. Why do I have no recollection of those moments happening?"

His smile drops even more so, and now, his expression is unreadable. "Where did you get the book, baby?"

"I... uh, I got it in the royal library. I told you that," you stutter.

"How did you get in there unsupervised? There's always guards patrolling the library," Castor explains, narrowing his eyes. "Did someone help you sneak in?"

"What? No!" you lie. You start trying to wriggle out of his grip, but he holds you still.

"Baby," he soothes, almost condescendingly, "just tell Dad what he wants to know. I'm not mad."

He's lying. He's angry. You can't see the expression on his face because he's holding you so closely, but you can feel his rage boiling beneath his skin.

"No, I'm not lying. It was just left unlocked! But that's not my question, I wanna know what I saw in those! Why is there evidence of me doing and experiencing things I have zero memory of?!"

"I knew I should've burnt that damn book," he grumbles under his breath. "I thought you were doing so well this time."

"What do you mean 'this time'?!" you nearly cry, flailing so hard out of his grasp you fall to the floor.

"Oops!" Castor chuckles, standing over you with a cold grin. "Gosh, it feels like yesterday when you could hardly walk without tripping over your feet. Always so wobbly and unstable." He stands up and contemplates on something. "Alrighty, kiddo, since I'm so nice, you have two options. Bedtime and we'll forget about this, or you keep pushing me and we'll see where this takes us."

"What does that mean?" you rasp. "What will you do?"

Castor's bright wings spread out widely, as a show to intimidate you and make you feel smaller. "I really would rather we both just go to bed."

He's never hurt you in the past... "I just want to know what's going on."

"Well, for starters, all that information you think you know is irrelevant, it's been rewritten now," Castor replies nonchalantly, looking down at you. "All those things you saw happened, but you didn't experience them because that wasn't you. Not this you. The original you was too disobedient, so I had to reset and start all over again."

"Reset?!" you repeat incredulously. "What are you talking about?!"

Castor runs a hand through his hair. "Fine. Since you think an explanation is worth it. You can't die. You're immortal, just not in the same way I am. This is like..." He pauses. "...your nineteenth life or so, I believe? Once you die, you turn back into a baby. No injuries, no sickness, no memories. A clean slate. I try to avoid it, but whenever you start rebelling or growing too independent, it has to be done all over again."

"Nothing has to be done! You're killing me, just so you can what?! Watch me grow up again, exactly the same way?! What kind of twisted logic is that?!"

"Don't raise your voice at me," Castor scolds. "I'm not killing you, at least not technically. Besides, I love watching you grow, trying to find the perfect way to raise you. But it seems like no matter how I do so—whether I give you your freedom or make sure I'm the only face you see, you always end up leaving."

You shudder at his cryptic words. "Were you the one who cut off my wings?"

Castor waves a hand dismissively. "Only because you kept trying to run away with them. But they always regrow back once you're reborn." He pulls out a dagger, one you now understand why he always carries it with him.

"Dad, please..." you quietly plead, scrambling back in an attempt to stand up. "I'm sorry. We can let this go."

His eyes darken. "Not an option anymore, sweetie. You asked for answers, and you got them. Hey, maybe the twentieth time is the charm." He lunges for you, holding you down so he can lift his blade. "I'm so sorry, kiddo. I promise it'll just feel like a pinch, and then you'll wake up good as new!" His expression is sweet and adoring, but also crazed.

Just as he brings the blade down and you squeeze your eyes shut, all your hear is Castor's groan of pain.

"(Y/n)!" Calliope yells, grabbing onto your hand and yanking you up.

Castor wipes the blood running down his nose, glaring at the two of your friends. "(Y/n), you made some friends, huh? Must've been sneaking out behind my back for a while if they're jumping in their own graves for you." He gets back to his feet and starts approaching. "Step away from my child before you really regret it."

"Let's go!" Osmond demands, opening up a portal in front of Calliope after she pulled you to your feet.

The three of you tumble in, right before Castor tries attacking you as well.

Then suddenly, you're back outside, standing in the forest where your kingdom stood tall. You can hear him scream in frustration from all the way out here, likely calling for guards and barking out orders.

"He knows magic too," you whisper. "He won't be too far behind."

"I can only make portals so far," Osmond murmurs. "We need to run. Now."

[northern-passage]

what have i been up to?

i decided to do a little check-in type post just to let you all know what i've been working on. i know things have been quiet here, mainly because i'm just not as active on social media as i used to be (but especially here)

i have been working on tnp, though. i've been rewriting chapter 2 (what was previously chapter 1) and i know a lot of people complain about rewrites but the fact was simply that i had written myself into a corner; when it comes to IF, when you have a lot of stats and branching and variations to track, you get to a point where it simply does not make sense to try and force it, and i really needed to go back and fix my coding and cut a lot of variables. which is what i've been doing, and many of you have seen how that's changed the game so far with the rewritten prologue (now chapter 1).

with that in mind, i've also done a lot of worldbuilding. again, you've seen some of this if you saw the pantheon post i made a while ago (though some of that has changed already, too, along with more edits to chapter 1 😅) and i've put a lot more thought into the setting, how the world "works" and the different relationships between countries and cultures, etc.

i will be yapping about all of that under the cut if you're interested, but if not, just know i am still working on the game. i do not have an estimated timeline for an update, but i am trying very hard to get chapter 2 out this year.

anyways, my rambling:

one of the main changes will be how Gael and Adrania function. Gael and Adrania remain similar in essence but the relationship has changed, as has the source of their hostilities. i've also put a lot more thought into the way gender roles would work in this world, something that i've previously been a bit wishy-washy on. reading more fantasy and studying lectures on the craft and understanding the way oppression works in the real world has allowed me to brainstorm a better, more realized world with tnp.

that being said, i still stand by my original goal with this project, which is that i'm not really interested in writing violent/graphic misogyny, transphobia, or homophobia. but i am interested in exploring the way empires hold power, and for tnp, that has always been through money and trade. even in the very first iterations, the major cities like blackwater and king's harbor are designed with very clear and purposeful class divides, i've just put a lot more thought into how this would actually work.

and there is also the influence of the gods; when your major religious figurehead is revered as a "mother," as well as the enforcer of justice, what does that mean for the world and the women in it? when you have gods that are genderless or genderfluid, how does that change societies perception of trans people, and gender as a whole?

i struggled when i started tnp about how to depict gender in this world, and originally i simply chose not to give it much thought, and i used a lot of anachronisms rather than actually trying to explore what transness and gender within the context of tnp would look like (i think this was my biggest mistake with Lea at the start. if you remember that you're a real one lol). and i think that's a cop out and simply not how any society would work. Adrania is an empire; people will be forced to comply to various roles and expectations in order for this empire to retain control.

so this led me to 1. reimplement the tolls, something that was present in my very first draft but got scrapped before publishing for the first time. it's easy to control people when you have papers and tolls to track them (or restrict their movements if they don't have the "correct" papers). 2. expand on the relationship between Gael and Adrania. where did these two countries come from? when did they split? how has Adrania managed to grow in power while Gael has not? and how has the plague exacerbated the hostilities? etc. we'll see a lot of this explained in the next chapter (as well as some edits made to chapter 1 again), with Adrania's trade agreements and how they exclude Gael specifically.

and finally, what gender roles are people expected to play within society? if Adrania's main god is a woman (okay, a wolf, but you get it) and a mother and also known to be a ruthless dispenser of justice, what does this mean for Adranian men and women? if their god of death is genderless and also commonly represented as a god of dreams and transitions (from life to death and wakefulness to dreams and from one gender to another or beyond) how does this impact the trans people in this world? if the god of war and harvest is sometimes a woman and sometimes a man, who benefits from elevating one depiction over the other?

lots of fun questions! which i think has led to some interesting changes in the game which makes the world feel more real. it also gives me a reason (not that i "needed" one but, ya know *gestures vaguely*) for all of the women i have in combat leadership roles: Keres, Hadrien, and Merry, just to name a few, and why someone like Redwine would be disliked and challenged as a political, landowning leader instead (and ultimately replaced by a man). while all the warrior gods are women (Wolfmother, the Moon, Stormbringer), Adrania emphasizes the male depiction of the Sun, which leads to this divide of men seeking landownership and more administrative political roles, versus women who, outside of motherhood, make careers as generals and captains and knights.

with trans people, there are similar expectations, of course, but they are also pushed towards more spiritual roles due to their perceived kinship with the death god as well as the Sun (and this also means that while motherhood is revered in this world, there is a looser definition here than in our world, due to transness being acknowledged, accepted, and an integral part of society. what "motherhood" is and what it means to people will be explored heavily in game, you just have to trust me on this one!) obviously there is a real history of trans people being seen this way, and it's something i've turned over in my head for a while. beyond the spiritual, though, trans people are seen in every other role as well, and we'll see some trans people who have little to no relationship with religion or the death god (like Merry, Lea, Clementine, Rodrick, and Rafe) and others that have an actively hostile relationship with it (Noel. lol) and including the potentially trans mc, we see a diverse depiction of trans people, as hunters and watchers and captains and healers and bards, etc. i'm hoping this still gives a well-rounded, multi-faceted look at how trans people live in this world without pigeonholing them solely as "divine oracles," or othering them from their cis counterparts.

overall, i feel that i've matured as a writer since i started tnp and i want that to reflect in the world as well. rereading the original demo made me cringe and a lot of it just felt very childish and flat, and i feel like i really didn't have a strong enough grasp on the fantasy genre, nor the skills and knowledge required to do proper, intensive worldbuilding at the time. now i think the story and setting and characters have grown a lot and i'm more capable and confident to do the things that past me couldn't. anyways thanks for reading all this, this post was just an excuse for me to talk about everything because i'm dying keeping it all to myself LOL. i look forward to catching back up to chapter 3 and finally sharing it all with you eventually!

[writer-logbook]

How to get back into writing: a 5-steps guide

As someone who hasn't written anything in a decade, this is what I did to get back into writing seriously.

Identify which archetype of writer fits me better. You may have heard George R.R. Martin saying there are two types of writers: gardeners and architects. Whether you believe in that statement or not isn't relevant per se, but the actual meaning behind that point is that you need to get to know yourself as a writer, how you work, what you need, etc., so you can adapt your environment to achieve your goals. Speaking of which…Gentle reminder : you're a person not a robot. You are allowed to work the way you want to, and not to follow whatever pieces of advice that are linked to these archetypes.

Set a realistic word count/session I can stick to over the long term. When you're a 9-6 office employee, it's not always easy to find time to write and sometime our day at work got the very best of us. Having that in mind, I set my word count up to 200-500 words per session or 1 chapter per week (they're rather small in my case). Gentle reminder : babysteps are better than no-step at all.

If I'm not writing, fine, I'll do some research or anything else. Your story will always require something from you. When I'm not in the mood for writing, there are two options : forcing myself or doing what I call para-writing. For instance it's : reading articles or books about improving my writing style, improving my worldbuilding, drawing a map of my city etc. This are not things that would appear in the novel but it would guide me throughout the process the way a walking-stick would do for an injured man. Gentle reminder : you always find something useful to do but at the end of the day, you still have to write.

Have a general idea of what I want to tell. I won't lie, I've plotted my entire novel from the very beginning to the very end, which means I know exactly what to write and when. If you're against having a defined plot, I'm no one to judge, but having at least the key events or the major points will definitely help you. Like a lighthouse, it will help you navigate through the mists of confusion or hesitation. Gentle reminder : It's better to know where to go even if you end up losing yourself along the journey. Having the map doesn't mean you have to follow it, but rather when you can allow yourself to take a step to the side.

Write something I enjoy. A bit cliché I admit, but it's the best advice I could give. You'll spend hours, days, weeks - even years !- on that story so better buckle up to something you really want to write. Otherwise the risk is to abandon that hard-work you've done halfway through the process. No one needs that frustration and that self-doubting questionnings. No one. Not you. Not even me. Gentle reminder : it's okay to want readers and reviews but I promise you, your writing will be really different on something you trully want to share...Remember how pissful it was to write an essay for class you didn't want to ?

[valtsv]

regardless of its other successes or failures one thing i feel that the magnus archives did really well was create a narrative and worldbuilding that refuses to allow you to categorize its characters by the dichotomy of 'abuser' and 'victim' without ignoring major themes that define the shape and course of the entire story. despite one of its most central themes being that "we all get a choice, even if it doesn't feel like one" many of the characters we encounter are faced with genuinely horrifying ethical dilemmas that emphasize just how difficult that choice actually is to make, and allow the audience to sympathize with their plight even if not with their actions and decisions. many of the avatars are arguably just as much victims of the entities they serve as they are perpetrators of the violence they cause, and those who fight them in many cases choose to descend to monstrosity themselves in order to be able to keep pushing back - a choice some of them try to rationalize to themselves by arguing that the magnitude of the threat they face necessitates that the ends justify the means, but which is nevertheless a choice that they make, and one with a devastatingly high cost that is repeatedly, unflinchingly presented to both them and the audience. the human capacity to exercize our free will for better or for worse whilst taking into account the various internal and external influences that may affect the decisions we make is thoroughly explored with a great deal of care and nuance that i appreciate.

[anarcho-astromech]

One thing that's been really cool about Andor is it's the first piece of mainstream star wars that really knows how to world build.

and before anyone gets upset, not everything needs to world build. the original trilogy does almost no world building. it tells you what you need to know and nothing more. we don't know what entertainment looks like, we dont know much about the food they eat, we dont know what the wealthy of the galaxy wear, aside from maybe Lando and Leia. and that's good. it wouldnt serve the story and the structure didnt have room for that kind of filler.

the prequels did a bit of world building, especially in attack of the clones. we get to see a little bit of the different lifestyles etc. so did the clones wars. but overall, the main focus is the story and the worldbuilding is just extra.

some of the star wars books and comics over the years have spent time world building, but the majority of people don't read the books.

Andor is the first piece of major star wars media to really get down into what the world looks like. The Good Morning Coruscant show, the little iPad Syril uses to skype his mom, the spiders and textile production on Ghorman, the Aldani celebration, the Ferrix funerary traditions, the Chandrilian wedding ceremony.

there's so much time spent on the details of the galaxy and i love getting to see it.

(Admittedly the Mandalorian did a little bit of world building but not nearly as much.)

[fixyourwritinghabits]

No Such Thing As Filler

Okay, so yes, this is another post based on something I saw that irritated me, but it seems like this idea keeps coming up, so I need y'all to internalize this. There is no such thing as filler in good writing. None. Do not approach your work thinking you have to fill space in a story, I will beat you with this wiffle bat. Don't ask me where I got the wiffle bat. Don't even worry about it.

The idea of filler comes from a very particular place - when an anime or TV show has to fit in a certain number of episodes, but doesn't have enough content (hasn't caught up with the manga, the source material isn't long enough, etc) to cover those episodes. An episode has to be written, but the characters can't really progress, and so are given something else to do. Many a trope has come from these episodes, and they're sometimes necessary. Filler in this context is something that makes sense.

The dark side of filler is the idea that you need some space between Big Event 1 and Big Event 2 in your story, therefore you need throw anything in there to take up space and make your word count. This is a mistake I've made and I've seen plenty of other writers do it too, but it's a huge waste of your time. You do need something between those big action scenes, but you should always be writing to accomplish something.

Instead of thinking of that writing as filler, try to approach it with three things in mind:

Move Forward With Character Development and Backstory - Your characters barely survived a huge gunfight, and they won't encounter the big bad again for another few chapters. How do your characters decompress from that gunfight, and what does that say about them? Did a cocky character go in guns blazing, only to be deeply shaken by how a real fight works? Did that fight spark a moment of deep trauma for the main character that they have to reflect on afterwards?

Filling this space with meaningless scenes is a huge waste of opportunity. Think about how to dive deeper into your characters.

Move Forward With Plot and Subplot Development - The bad guy beat the heroes to the stolen gem, but they left behind a clue to why they want it. However that clue could reveal some painful truths about the protagonist's beloved great aunt... Carmen Sandiego???

A major goal following a big action scene is having the characters figure out what to do with what they've learned and what to do next. It's where romance subplots or secret relative subplots make progress, when truths are revealed and next steps are taken. You can absolutely do this in any setting - a flirty conversation while at the battling cages, a tense moment of feelings while hunting down a wayward chicken - but your main goal is making progress for both the characters and plot.

Move Forward With Worldbuilding - Worldbuilding has it challenges, believe me. You don't want to write a chapter on how an airship works only to have to cut it later. But you should still try to flesh out your world, and you should do so with the perspective of how to use that worldbuilding to your benefit. Maybe a critical scene hinges on the main characters knowing how that airship works, or that lake your main character often stares at is the setting of the big Act 3 Boat Battle. The weather can play into both perspective and emotions. Knowing what the main character's house and car looks like can reflect a lot on their personal character or backstory.

When you're struggling with a scene or a chapter, rather than writing filler, take a few steps back and think. What can you establish with your worldbuilding? What can you reveal about your characters through their dialogue and actions? What subplot could you explore or add in these between moments?

Filler from a fandom perspective - Now let me make this clear - if you're writing a fanfic just to have a cute moment between the characters you like, or you really want to force everyone to do that weird Twilight baseball scene, that's fine. You don't need a grand goal to achieve for every story, there's no need to justify your fanwork in any way other than you wanted to do it.

But I'd also argue fanwork doesn't fall under the filler label either - something you create, be it a character snapshot or a 'what if the gang meets Slenderman' parody, isn't taking up meaningless space. It's something fun you did that you and others enjoy, and there's nothing wasteful or pointless about that.

[elbiotipo]

There's also something about polytheism in D&D particulary but you also find it elsewhere, where characters choose one god to serve from a pantheon. This isn't exactly wrong but it's also very far removed from how real-life polytheism worked and works.

For starters that the term includes lots of unrelated beliefs, but as an example, Romans didn't worship one god, they worshiped all depending on the occasion, some were for political ceremony, others were for the home, for war, for luck, for businesses. Gods usually don't have a simple "portfolio" (that's an hilarious modernism if you think about it) but many, Poseidon for instance is god of the sea, but also of horses and earthquakes, as well as patron god of many cities. And that's very interesting too, gods that are especifically the patrons of cities and nations, which often shift (Mesopotamian religion is full of that).

And how do "pantheons" shift! One of my favorite examples are how the Inca, as they conquered the rest of the Andes, brought their own national deity or cult, Inti, to a higher level that the traditional creator diety Viracocha, and they also 'kidnapped' other dieties and holy objects and sites (huacas) for the Imperial capital on Cuzco. This is actually something very common on history, stealing or kidnapping holy objects (the Bible has lots of stories about it). The pantheon so many people in the West seem to know best, the Hellenic pantheon was never static either. Yes, legends did change over time but that's the least of it in my opinion, for one, it was syncretized with the Romans (no, they were not the same gods, though that's a matter of debate), but as Hellenic civilization changed, new syncretic gods appeared (Serapis in Ptolemaic Egypt), new philosophies appeared (that later had a direct influence in Christian and Western thought), things were always changing!

And I don't even feel informed enough to talk about the largest polytheist religions today such as Hinduism, which has such a depth of history and thought that I barely know the basics. Buddhism, also has an extensive tradition of divine beings. How about the case of China, where most people consider themselves 'irreligious' and yet there are extensive practices of traditional beliefs, some would be considered major religions on their own? And the many, many beliefs on what one would rather chauvinistically call spirits, saints, and so on (and really, what's the difference here? Don't get me started.)

Anyways, polytheism is so interesting I want to do a worldbuilding post on its own. I will have to research it thoroughly though.

(and monotheism has also lots of interesting cases but that's for another post. I KNOW the terms monotheism and polytheism are simplistic and rather outdated, but they convey things for this post.)

[sscardinal7]

Live stream happened, and we got some designs revealed! As well as a couple of information, but not anything major.

Miss conductor, not much of a surprise (but miss girl looks gorgeous as always)

And Node, who is sort of the main antagonist.

I made a prediction before, and April 21 hit,.. so I believe it is well due for an update by now.

While we did not receive nearly as much information as we were anticipating, a design still reveals much on the character itself when going through the lens of a general analysis. In this context, their abilities and name aid significantly in the status and essential depths of their character.

With what I can gather in my research, nodes play an important role in networking because they are the building blocks of a network, precisely the gateway for connection, direction, sending, creating, receiving, and storing data. It requires only software to connect to the network, and it can be run by completely anyone. Applying this knowledge with concept arts of the game and overall worldbuilding of the series itself—everything becomes a lot clearer.

So now, how can we apply this to Node?

Node's name is simple in itself, and it connects to their design as well. They are quite literally made up of nodes. One in their head and the other in their limbs. Their body is translucent.

Network nodes are categorical. Thanks to DJ, we got a helpful hint that incredibly reduced their types to a digestible and simpler layout.

Their name starts with i.

There are countless forms and types of nodes, the hint condensed it down to 2 answers, both starting with the letter “i”

Intermediate nodes

These include devices like routers and switches that help direct data to the correct destination while also receiving it. They don't originate or terminate data but instead pass it along to where it needs to go.

IoT nodes

loT (Internet of Things) Nodes serve as devices that establish connectivity to the Internet via a gateway, effectively enabling the integration of the physical world into the vast realm of the Internet. Within an loT ecosystem, these nodes function as crucial components for bridging the gap between the physical and virtual worlds. Taking charge of managing the entire loT system.

We had seen this ability before vía King's icons' staff, in which it only sucked in Minecraft mobs due to the strong force being their obligatory origin, overriding the game itself due to the overlapping icons.

In regards to King, he used this ability for the very destruction of the game itself, down to the code, reducing it to nothing but.. nothing for the sake of vengeance. Or at least what would have occurred if he did succeed.

way to go CG! Give credit where it's due

Despite this being marked with the intention of erasion and minimization, I think it's safe to consider this as receiving and storing data. The two icons combined created a horrifically dramatized version of the force with storing and receiving, which created an incredibly overpowered demolishing force.

In Chosen, we had seen this ability before as well, as the constellations are seen right as he creates the gateway from the Outernet, which sounds awfully familiar. This is what you would refer to as an "extension to the digital world"

I think I can be able to safely consider this as direction and creation.

From how I see it, it seems as though it's quite diverse in a fictional worldbuilding sense within characters.

And obviously, it won't be the last time we would see it. It seems as though we would be exploring this quite a lot.

In their cameo, Node is in an assumed line-up with all the major series antagonists.

But if you’re asking me, it seems as though our iconic antagonists appear to be rather victims of Node. Menacingly behind them, their abilities floating not far behind as they're stuck in a swampy substance. But that's just me.

Node's entire antagonistic ordeal is beyond my grasp, but I'm assuming their abilities and attacks surrounds the embodiment of network topology, which would mold and diverse into the connections of nodes. They possibly intend to screw up with the gateways that are responsible for the receiving, directing, and sending of data between various devices through communication links that are defined as network—with the basic visuals of concept art we were given.

(The gateway, ethernet tunnels, the train cough cough)

Node's goal and story behind that destruction remains anonymous, as the writing is still in early development. Regardless, food for thought.

[arolesbianism]

Oh yeah here’s my current progress for an extremely rough concept for the stalien planet map, ignore how fucked it’d look projected on a sphere (I checked btw it sure is a thing)

[germesthegenie]

Seriously what was this guy’s problem

Been wanting to do a drawing with how I imagine Victoria’s fear aura to look like and this arc gave a good opportunity for that. Thoughts on the arc itself below

Ended up with a lot of thoughts this arc so doing this now rather than waiting for Arc 9. Also started writing more of these comments as I read rather than after the chapter/arc.

Arc 8

Looking at the audiobook and thought, Chapters at a reasonable length? Maybe?

Yay Defiant and Dragon!

I liked the little scene of Victoria asking about Armsmaster’s plan during the Leviathan fight in the context of her family’s deaths. Usually thought about if Aegis got killed as collateral damage from the luring plan and how Defiant felt about that now, kinda forgot Manpower was also there

Huh yeah kinda funny how tinker personalities divide like that. Some of these segments of Victoria’s narration do feel a bit rambly or tangential (sometimes kinda feels like WB taking any opportunity to expand the worldbuilding on powers) but at the same time can be fun and highlight how Victoria’s more of a cape nerd to Taylor’s power munchkin

“Wow Kenzie you sure know a lot about lead poisoning!” “Thanks I researched it a lot” … :(

More things building up for Capricorn’s story. Guessing he’s our next focus this arc or the next? Having to timeshare a body with contrasting personalities does sound like it’d suck, even moreso with the sexuality stuff

Damn Monokeros is creepy. Casually having Birdcage tier capes sitting in the same prison as lesser criminals, especially ones with that strong of a Master power, is probably the biggest flaw of the prison system here. Not to mention it being accessible enough to be the target of any capable masterminds in need of minions it seems. I forget, did Khepri or Scion collapse the Birdcage or something to that effect? Or is it just because it’s on Earth Bet that they don’t use it anymore?

Kenzie highlighted the main theme of Breakthrough’s powers: They almost all have incredibly strong and potentially deadly powers, but for one reason or another they hold back, for the most part because they’re heroes. It’s interesting, but also makes me wonder how things will go when they face a threat they can go all out on (like an Endbringer tier or someone with a kill order)

Finally got to see the whole “everyone jumps the rulebreakers” thing Tattletale talked about in the whole cops and robbers talk way back in Worm, at least for smaller time rulebreakers and not S Class threats.

Also still reinforces my thought that Prancer is essentially a more villainous Skitter from an outside perspective. The Undersiders were playing pretty loose with the Unwritten Rules as well by the end of things

Cryptid continues to get weirder and more horrifying what do you mean he has a form that gives birth

(8.7) Wretch, kill Monokeros with hammers please. And Kenzie please don’t internalize what the creepy child killer thinks.

I’ve only had the Major Malfunctions for 1 chapter and if anything happened to them I would kill everyone in this room and then Carol

Ok actually Carol is being kinda cool here… how is she gonna mess this up? Aside from the probably unintentional bit where she assumed Tristan was straight

(8.9) The little secret the group’s keeping from Victoria… I’m guessing its Wretch related or Amy related

“We’re gonna show everyone we can handle PR” ok cool how will you do that Vic- “by telling everyone what happened in Gold Morning” what

(8.11) This is feeling like a high stakes version of 25.4… This won’t end with a 7th Endbringer, right? /j

(8.11) These hosts could never be O, J, and Koffi like they are just all kinds of awful.

That said, it makes sense Victoria is better with PR than Taylor, given New Wave basically depends on PR

Speaking of, Taylor mention! Love the ascension of her rep to “traumatized literally everyone”, and not even using bugs to do it. Wonder how she’d react to that if she somehow learned about it on Aleph.

(8.12) Actually can a 7th Endbringer show up and kill Hamza and John Combs? What the hell is their problem

Between these guys and the Martins, by comparison Carol might actually not be that bad- wait Carol what are you doing

(8.12) Oh ok that’s where Carol messes it all up. Sees Victoria forced to confront her trauma in front of thousands and went “How can I make this about Amy 😈”

Granted, Amy was kinda dragged into the spotlight as well with all that. Fuck Hamza, seriously. Still, not now Carol.

(8.12)…Speaking of. Well damn Amy didn’t realize you had game like that.

(8.x) Please take all of Kenzie’s suffering and give it to Hamza and John Combs

Awkward girl who thinks of herself as weird? Surprising calm confidence in dangerous situations? Incredibly down bad narration around a specific guy? Close enough, Natalie. Welcome back Arc 1-7 Taylor /j

Hookline and Kitchen Sink losing to an untrained civilian and a mostly techless Tinker they are never living this down 😭

(8.y) Every fanfic with Scapegoat in it should have him just randomly keel over with injuries from another Scapegoat’s healing (ik thats not how it works but it’d be funny)

Gotta love power synergies, even if it’s Teacher exploiting them. Also Valefor really does just keep winning (in terms of getting to use his power, probably not gonna be winning as Teacher’s thrall)

Dinah mention?? What’s she up to now?

And a Contessa mention. Not liking that Teacher has plans for her.

[dduane]

Stumbled across while cleaning out the Twitter account

...And now wondering how much more of this kind of stuff I should go prospecting for before the bird-place-that-was goes around the drain for the last time...

(Writer stares at Scrivener screen for a long time, drops down to already-open section, splits it at cursor, wipes the old title from the new title bar and types the previously unexpected words: THE ADVENTURE OF FREELORN OF ARLEN AND THE MEDIOREGNIC SILVER MARKETS.

FREELORN: We can absolutely get away with this.

DD: (weary eyeroll) Lorn...

(Inserting a cut. Warning for financial worldbuilding, mild m/m innuendo, and Things Having To Make Sense.)

F: Who's to say it wouldn't have happened anyway!

DD: That's not the point.

F: You know this happens every time two countries have a war. One of their currencies devalues. Then recovery becomes a nightmare.

DD: It's not always—

F: In an economic ecosystem this small, yes it is.

DD: How do you even know the word 'ecosystem'?

F: In case you haven't noticed, I'm in your head.

DD: (side-eye) Don't remind me.

F: And when the two countries are trading partners, it's a mess.

DD: Not improved by you stealing all that money from the Arlene treasury in book 1!

F: I was young and wild.

HEREWISS: You're still young and wild. I have the teeth marks to prove it.

DD: Please do not tell us where.

F: You might find it educational. When he—

DD: You two are going to keep this in the fiduciary mode or I swear to Herself I'll lock you both in the basement with Sker'ret and he'll show you what real teeth look like.

H: Is he cute?

DD: We'll discuss it later. Now please tell me what madness you're proposing.

F: Why should the four Realms suffer through a decade of pain after all the crap that just happened? Let's pump a pile of silver into the major markets and cushion the blow. Why should all our peoples suffer? None of this was their fault.

DD: A laudable sentiment, but silver doesn't just come out of nowhere.

F: It does if you say it does.

DD: Not going there, Lorn! Unlike what we laughably refer to as real life, this stuff has to make sense.

F: It comes from the mountains. All our silver comes from the mountains.

H: And the Bluepeaks got a bit torn up over the War, didn't they.

DD: True enough. Earthquakes and whatnot. (eyes him) You were involved, I seem to recall.

F: Well, mightn't some silver realistically come out of those terrain changes? New veins opening up due to the mountains coming undone?

DD: Might.

F: A fair amount, actually.

DD: And don't think I don't know about your little 'public works project' down in the mountains in the southwest. That new pass opening up for the Ladha people, a long long ways away from Steldin.

F: The Dragons have been very helpful.

DD: I just bet they have. (side-eye off his 'innocent look') Which we want to keep to ourselves, because if the Steldenes get their paranoia going it'll create more problems than it solves. You don't want them starting to get the idea that you and Darthen cooked up this war between you with some obscure money game in mind.

H: Oh come on, even Dariw Halfken wouldn't be stupid enough to think that. Damn it all, we nearly got ourselves killed saving the world out there!

DD: And there were almost no Steldenes around to see it happen. You guys aren't going to get a free ride on this. You're going to have to make this sudden money believable.

F: 'A wizard did it.'

DD: Wrong universe, smartass. They've got their own problems! Leave them out of this.

F: 'The Dragons did it.'

DD: Dragons are not the answer to everything.

H: That's not what Hasai thinks.

DD: (more eyerolling) Something else I have to deal with. ...Okay, listen, I'll take this under advisement. But you might have let me know about this, oh, I don't know, last year?

F: You were busy.

DD: And if I let you go ahead with this... Do me a favor? Don't get caught.

H: Leave it to me.

DD: Famous last words. But do I have a choice?

BOTH: No.

DD: (eyeroll)

SUNSPARK: There's a gent outside named Doyle. Says he wants to talk to you about titles beginning with "The Adventure Of...".

DD: Heat him up some pizza and tell him to take a seat. I need to talk to him about evil extradimensional rats. (hides face) My brains hurt...

F: And by the way, what exactly are 'Oscars?'

DD: ...Oy.

(below: the original art from the 2019 Twitter thread)

[olderthannetfic]

There is something confusing to me about older queer people (which is to say, older than I am, at a relatively young 24 years old) who get mad at original fiction whose worldbuilding involves neopronouns. I'm hoping maybe, ONTF, since you've been in queer spaces a lot longer than I have, you can explain why people have such a negative reaction to the idea.

Basically, I'm working on a novel based that takes white-throated sparrow biology and uses it for building blocks in the same way A/B/O takes (now debunked) wolf science and used it for building blocks. This means there are essentially four genders, the two viewed as more intelligent (brown-haired men and women) and the two viewed as more physical (white-haired men and women). Those two groups then get further divided along the lines of 'women are better at making smart decisions under pressure' and 'men are better at staying home and defending the children, as God intended'.

So it seemed natural to me that this worldwide quaternary system would result in at least some languages having pronoun sets for each of the four options. Some languages in real life have more complicated pronoun systems than that, particularly ones where there's a bunch of formal and informal pronouns. It'd also help the reader keep track of who was a part of what group without my having to turn around and state people's coloration constantly. Yes, these people are human, just as humans in A/B/O are, but society is fundamentally very different. I'm not throwing this in to just complicate things or sound smart or something. It's here because my minoring in Anthropology and majoring in Linguistics taught me language usage reflects the needs and values of a people.

The writing group I'm a part of IRL is mostly queer, mostly 40+, with some cishet women who are also present and active writers. The writing group I'm a part of on DW is mostly DWRPers, in their 30's and up, though no older than 50, and entirely queer. I did not expect these to be groups that were uncomfortable with the idea of "different world, different pronouns".

Instead the reception has ranged from suggestions it's pretentious or overthinking things to requests I reconsider doing it. I've been informed this could be seen as mocking the real life queer people who go by pronouns other than she, he, or they. One person asked if this was went to be me "artificially justifying" nonbinary pronouns and implying I didn't find them valid in the real world. That was an awkward conversation, to say the least.

In reality I wasn't really thinking about real life people who use nonbinary pronouns when I was writing. I was just asking, "Logically, wouldn't it make sense for things to work very differently under a quarternary than it does under a modern European binary?" and following my brain along to its' conclusions as it processed that.

I have gotten zero negative feedback from my queer friends my age regarding this. So obviously, generation and the experiences informing a generational context are key, here. I'm just... still lost on how anyone finds this objectionable.

Help?

--

Ahaha. Oh god.

Well, as a reader of sff in the 90s, the first reaction I have to such things is "IS THERE A CONLANG AND A MAP?" Because, man, the conlang people were some of the most tedious motherfuckers I ever had to deal with in sff spaces.

But broadly... I think the reasons queer people get annoyed about this stuff boil down to a couple of big factors:

Disrespectful children who don't know history

Idiot old people harrumphing about "history" they clearly failed to pay attention to while it was going on in the first place

I personally hate being asked to use new words most of the time. A few bits of fandom slang I'll pick up at once, but I'm usually like "Why would I call it 'spirk'? We already have 'K/S'!" *shakes cane*

If you're American, they're your "roommate", not your "flatmate". No, I don't care how much more precise this foreign term is, you pretentious wanker. (But then I'll use 'wanker' because fandom adopted that years ago...)

So my reaction to being asked to say aloud any pronoun not in very frequent circulation in my offline life is "Urrrgh. Do I have to?"

However, the reality is that people have been messing around with pronouns in English since forever. Do you see 'heo' in Modern English? No, you do not! (Not that it was gender neutral, but the point is that even words as ancient as pronouns have changed quite a bit.) The early internet was full of pronoun stuff in MUDs and the like. You had a choice of a lot more than just three in a bunch of these. People besides men and women have always been in queer communities.

So some people like to cry about neopronouns being actually neo, and they're just wrong.

As for the why do you care part...

There is a nasty habit in contemporary queer spaces to act like gay rights issues are solved. Bisexuality? Passe! etc. Gays and lesbians finally got a little mainstream acceptance only to suddenly be treated like the worst of the establishment by the queer youth. How dare?!?! It's even more egregious with bisexuality where the focus of a bunch of queer activism finally swung that way in the 90s... only to be sharply cut off in the 00s.

There's a real "You already got yours. Where's mine?" vibe to some queer discourse today, and it's directed at people who never got theirs. It shows up in demands for mentorship by people who've barely had a chance to escape a rocky start and figure out who they are themselves. It shows up in yowling about this or that bit of queer media we finally got not being progressive because it's the wrong letter of the acronym.

None of which has a damn thing to do with what pronouns you use in your novel, obviously, but I think some unresolved embattled feelings are why some older queer people are very weird about pronouns.

Some of them are also doing the old person version of throwing the weirdos under the bus to placate the normies. Respectability politics became a term long before the behavior was rife on tumblr.

--

If someone really does find it pretentious, though, and not just as a cover for crying about nonbinary identities being fake, I suspect they just remember how 1970s SFF was full of privileged anthropology students misunderstanding kinship systems from elsewhere in the world and then trying to tell everyone how ~deep~ their extremely contrived novels based on them were.

I'm not saying your writing is like this or that every one of these old sff novels was either, but when I hear "anthropology student", I groan internally. It's an instinctive reaction. It's less about the real fields and more about the bevvy of dilettantes I've run into over the years who'll say they study those things but really want to talk my ear off about Joseph fucking Campbell or the strong form of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis or something.

--

Those birds are a really cool source of inspiration. Like with A/B/O, the first thing I wonder is how queerness works in that context and how much people like to defy their designated roles.

Omegaverse started on porn logic, so "The one I say tops always tops!" makes sense. When it gets expanded to try to make it make logical sense as a whole world, I often enjoy it, but it can break down quickly if treated as biology is law. I don't know how often the birds veer off of their set patterns, but humans certainly would.

One place where I get a strong "Oh god, this again" feeling from people's plotbunnies is when they're trying to make up a sff society that strikes me as too rigid in a way that real humans aren't. I'll see people using fake wolf biology (not just for horny reasons) but never looking at what's going on with gender in contemporary Thailand or whatever. Like... Le Guin may have made sedoretus feel plausible, but nobody I've ever seen stanning the concept as something fandom should play with has. That's probably because Le Guin was using over-complicated social norms as a thing that breaks down and causes trouble, and "This should be the next A/B/O!" posts are treating it as something that actually works and is a good way to get the pair you don't ship separated while shipping poly.

"It'd also help the reader keep track of who was a part of what group without my having to turn around and state people's coloration constantly."

This, in particular, gives me that cold shudder of recognition from when Homestuck fandom was everywhere and everyone wanted to over-explain those stupid playing card suits and why I should care.

Your concept sounds neat, and I think a set of four pronouns could easily make sense there...

But I also think that if people need the pronouns to keep track of coloration, you haven't set up a system that feels organic enough or haven't given enough cues about how characters are treating each other or why. Use the pronouns too, but just keep that in mind. It's like the "m/m is hard because the pronouns don't tell me whose hand is where" problem. It's almost never actually a pronoun problem.

--

Anyone else have thoughts here?

[edgeray]

Custody Battle with a Dragon

(Arlecchino x GN! Reader)

A/N - Hi ���� anon! Accidentally deleted your ask when I did dragon! Arle part 3😅. Uhh… mbad. Reader just kidnapping three random human children is so funny to me, I will never not find this funny. Anyways, just wanted to say the only reason why I’m fulfilling both parts of this ask is because I already have to work on part 3. If I get an ask giving me more than 1 prompt, I will choose only 1 prompt to do. If you want me to do more, feel free to request from me, but with school starting soon, I probably won’t be able to get to many requests until I get used to the first semester.  By the way, since I’m lazy and don’t want to think of more/different worldbuilding, this will be like an alternative universe of my ‘dragon hunter mother' series and it will just be a role reversal. the lore with the hoth though is different from the series, i have a completely different backstory for arle and the hoth hehe. Sorry, this is really awkward and I didn't know how to not write it awkwardly since the reader decides to adopt them just impulsively and I doubt arlecchino would be happy about it. Naturally, they would clash but I tried to get them to get along. Not my best work... :( Content warnings / info - in arle's pov majority of the time, reader is referred as 'it' a few times, 1.6k words

Arlecchino likes to consider herself a successful and (justifiably) proud dragon hunter, among the best for the Tsaritsa. Dragon hunting has been in her veins since she was born into a well-known generation of dragon hunters. She's been trained and has performed the best out of her class in the kingdom’s most renowned dragon hunting academy, the House of the Hearth. Now, as the new head of the House of the Hearth, as ‘Father,’ she's able to change some things. 

For how rigorous and demanding the old House of the Hearth, underneath Crucabena (that despicable woman), it was also quite the precarious and perilous, though that was to be expected with what came with dragon hunting in general. It was easy to get into the House of the Hearth if you had enough money, and by then, you had basically paid for an early grave. Arlecchino remembers that the majority of her peers died, one way or another, before graduating. Families that were wealthy enough and had enough children were happy to enroll some of their children as an investment; being a dragon hunter paid immensely well given that they were paid by the kingdom themselves. 

Now, the classes were fewer due to the rigor requirements. Arlecchino has no need for people that want the job just for the money or to roleplay–with that mindset, they'll get themselves killed. For those seeking glory with none of the gore, for wealth without wear, dragon hunting is far on the list for what Arlecchino would recommend. It is daunting and never safe or relaxing. For this reason, the House of the Hearth takes very few individuals, often strays that she deems worthy and resilient enough for the task. A year is all it takes for her to train the small batch into formidable dragon hunters, about three times more valuable and efficient than the average hunter. 

This year's batch is particularly small, but that does make for more personalized lessons and unique opportunities. It's much easier to allow three children to accompany you on a dragon hunting mission than it is ten. 

Today is one of those days for the children to witness how a real dragon hunter deals with a dragon. Most hunters work in a group to hunt a singular dragon, though the best can do it alone. Today's dragon has been reported to have been killing some livestock occasionally–a few chickens here or there. At the very least, the dragon hasn't destroyed any other property besides the chicken pens, nor has there been any assaults on the people but the kill order is set in stone. Pity has no place among this job, but it is a shame to have to kill an innocuous dragon. 

“Children, maintain a good distance as we have always done. This dragon has been reported to be a two-paired dragon, so be cautious. I trust that you three will be able to handle yourselves during your observing?”

Lyney, the leader out of the three, nods. “Of course, Father.” 

The order should have been simple. It is. A two-paired-winged dragon is usually of little difficulty for Arlecchino, even with how volatile dragons are. Baiting them with fire as well as a large portion of fish is enough to draw the dragon out without waiting for it. With the help of the children, the preparations were done quickly, and all there is left to do is to ignite the fire and wait. 

Except, Arlecchino waits for quite some time. In fact, an hour has passed, and there are no signs of a dragon. Perhaps the villagers were mistaken on the dragon's whereabouts, though instances like these are rare. Nonetheless, it seems like that case, and the dragon hunter heads towards where she last left the trio. As she does, she hears a muffled outburst, recognizing it as Freminet’s, and rushes towards the direction.

Did the dragon target her children on the assumption that they were food? Did she make a mistake, bringing them here? Are their deaths on her hands once more, innocent lives lost because of her again? Her thoughts press her on as she increases her pace, fueled by fury and anxiety for her children. With each child she takes under her wing, with each soul she gently guides, with each hand she teaches how to wield a blade, a bit of her heart has parted and latched onto them. With the three, they are no different, except they are.

Lyney, the ever natural-born leader with a persistence like no other. Lynette, with a placid and rational demeanor to balance her brother's personality and fiercely loyal. Freminet, although timid, holds more potential and skill than he credits himself, and his kindness never fails to shine through even in his conscious actions. These three are endearing, as she has found all children she's taught in such a way before, but perhaps it is these children whom she'd like to call her own finally.

Drawing her sword once she spots the familiar silhouette of a giant, scaly beast, she approaches, only to halt as she takes in the sight. 

A sleeping dragon lays on their stomach in the middle of the forest, curled around Arlecchino's children, their tail hugging the children to the body. Instead of the two-paired-winged dragon that the villagers said, it instead has three-paired wings. That makes the dragon twice as dangerous. 

Against the dragon, Lyney, Lynette, and Freminet sit against the dragon's back. Once they spot the dragon hunter, they noticeably perk up.

Why the dragon is like this, the hunter is not sure, but she knows that it has taken her children. 

“Father!” They simultaneously cry for her. The dragon’s head lifts as they're awakened and turns their head towards the dragon hunter, snarling. They whip their tail upon the grass, and they stand on their legs.  

“Are you hurt in any way?” Arlecchino inquires as she prepares to lunge at the dragon. 

“Wait, Father, don't kill it!” Lyney states as he ducks underneath the dragon's tail, escaping from its vicinity quite easily. “It hasn't hurt us!”

“No? Then why did it take you three?” Arlecchino questions, her blade still pointed at the creature. Their slitted eyes glare at the swordswoman in response, also tensing for an assault. It spun its body the other way, this time standing in between Arlecchino and Lyney, and Lynette and Freminet. They maneuver their head to be beside Lyney, using their head to almost shield him from the hunter. 

“I don't know, but… it–they clearly have no intentions of hurting us. See?” Lyney hesitantly reaches out, running his hand on the underside of the dragon's mouth, and the dragon coos from the action, before opening their mouth to lick his hand. 

“I think…” Freminet states outloud, though his appearance is obstructed from Arlecchino’s view thanks to the dragon. “That we're their young. They have been offering us fish, and they're doing this right now.” 

Arlecchino contemplates the situation. The dragon had essentially adopted her children as their own, perhaps even imprinting them already, claiming them as their own. Trying to take the children away would not do any good, especially if it feels threatened, there is no saying what it would do to the nearby surroundings when enraged. But the dragon has been hostile, and given the children's defense for it… it seems that it is rather docile. The hunter narrows her eyes on the dragon, sending a nonverbal warning before sheathing her blade. The dragon relaxes. 

“Even though you three remain unharmed, you still are my children, and under my care. I cannot simply give them away to you,” Arlecchino addresses the dragon, placing a hand on Lyney's shoulder. “Do you not have any young yourself? Why take human children?” 

The creature growls, before shifting away from Lyney. Abruptly, the dragon's form is outlined with a blinding light, and when the light dies down, you stand in place of the beast. The three children gap at you, but Arlecchino remains unfazed, already aware that you have a human form. 

“I cannot bear any children without any mate,” you gruff, your tail flicking behind you in an agitated way. “Why can't I keep human children? They look so small. I can feed them better.” 

Arlecchino steps closer, her eyebrows furrowed slightly in vexation. “My children's diets are fine, and they are not in need of more.” 

“The little ones are tiny even for just hatchlings. You cannot feed your young better?” 

Never did Arlecchino think she’d have to fight a custody battle with a dragon. Should she kill you? No, the children have already rejected it. Though, she cannot deny that you are much more appealing now that you are in a human form…

“Children, what do you think of this?” Arlecchino questions, and all three, expectedly, hesitates. None of them could ever expect a predicament like this, and not surprisingly, a definite answer is hard to come from them.

“I will come with you,” you suddenly suggest, eyes gleaming with determination. “And you will feed me and not harm me. In turn, I will protect and parent the little ones, and I will not destroy another human’s building. Is that enough for you, dragon hunter?” 

“You will do that for human children you just met?” 

“I’ve been wanting children for over a decade. If they come in the form of another species, then so be it,” you assert, and your stubbornness only makes Arlecchino sigh. This is a headache. Though, it was nearly winsome of how protective you are over them, and Arlecchino can do nothing but surrender.

Arlecchino, proud dragon hunter, ‘Father’ to three, and now sharing custody with a dragon.