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captainmeowvelwrites · 4 years

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You Times Two (Ch.10)

Pairing: Marinette/Ladybug | Adrien/Chat Noir Words: 3950 Summary: Ladybug knew this was necessary. She was the Guardian. He had the Cat Miraculous. But when his suit evaporated in a glow of pale green, she sure hadn’t expected him to have something far more precious: her heart. Cross-posted: AO3 and FFN

Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | ...

Recap: Previously, on You Times Two… Swagdrien showed off his killer dance moves, Marimoo considered tuning along to Sonata The Hedgehog's song, and everyone but Foxy Lady, Turtle Boy and Chilluka was a jealous wee bean. Upon seeing Golden Boy's apparent discomfort at Pastrami's hands-on approach to her envy, Maribug tripped mid-dance and busted her poor ankle. And of course, after a week of no akumas, Mr Perfect Timing's back at it again. What doth the author hast in store for thee?

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Chapter Ten

The boings of Alya and Nino playing Super Penguino only somewhat muffled the soft and mellow strums of Luka’s guitar. It was a nice melody, Adrien wouldn’t deny. He’d thought the same thing a week ago, when they’d all sat by the Seine with André’s ice cream in hand.

But back then, he hadn’t known Luka had composed it just for Marinette. That it was supposedly her song.

How could he have known?

It was soft, but not nearly sweet enough. And laidback, rather than lively. And while it was pleasant, it lacked the passion befitting of his friend.

Her passion for sewing.

Her passion for helping others.

Her passion for standing up for what she believed in.

Adrien watched as she drew out a breath from her freckle-dusted nose, as her pink lips curved into an easy smile, as her bluebell eyes fluttered shut. Her elbow brushed his own as she tipped her head against Luka’s shoulder.

He felt pressure on his hand—a reminder that he still held Kagami’s. His eyes met hers, and the question that clouded her gaze was enough to spark surprise in his own. Someone had squeezed the other’s hand, but that someone hadn’t been her—

A gasp stole his attention. “Dudes!” Nino’s left hand clutched half of Alya’s iPad, while his right jabbed toward the TV. “Check out the news!”

Adrien did just that.

And sucked in a breath at the sight he beheld.

The concerned face of Nadja Chamack filled the screen. Live footage appeared of an offensively coloured tower that soared into the sky, its abstract surface jarring against the bygone architecture of the buildings around it.

Adrien knew the area. At least five minutes away by baton.

Alya lunged at the coffee table. “Unmute!” she screamed, snatching up the remote with a crazed look in her eye. One fierce jab of her finger—

“—in Montparnasse, where a new villain is turning Paris into an abstract nightmare!”

The screen flicked to a series of clips. Fleeing Parisians. Multicoloured beams. Anything they touched – people, buildings, buses, pigeons – transformed into an eye-achingly colourful and contorted version of its former self.

“As always, authorities advise all Parisians to stay indoors until Ladybug and Chat—”

Zap!

Colour swarmed across Nadja’s body. Her lips swelled. Her nose went freakishly thin. Her left eye bulged and climbed a good three inches up her face. And although her body was off screen, Adrien had a sneaking suspicion it looked just as ill-proportioned. With a gasp, she stumbled out of frame.

A figure dropped from the sky, his body as obnoxiously bright as the tower that loomed behind him. He skulked toward the screen, a sneer scrunching the enormous, triangular nostrils on his severely misshapen face. “I am Putricasso!” The footage faltered at the hands of an unseen cameraman. “And soon, all of Paris will be as breath-taking as Picasso’s fine creations!”

With narrow eyes, Putricasso aimed an oversized paint brush at the screen.

The TV went static.

Adrien’s knee bobbed. Their first akuma in a week. Of course, it had to happen mid-group gathering. His eyes zipped around the apartment. He needed an excuse—

Marinette flew to her feet. “Actually—” A wince warped her face as she reeled back onto the sofa, hunched forward with her hand around her ankle. “I’ve – uh – changed my mind.” She stood again, this time slowly and with greater success. “I should definitely see a doctor. Just in case.”

He sprung up beside her. “I’ll take you!”

“NO!”

By the sheer desperation in her voice, one might’ve thought he was dragging her into danger right along with him.

“I mean YES!” She slapped her hands together. “Take me now!” Her eyes flew wide. “To the doctors! Take me now to the doctors. Please.” He didn’t miss her limp as she looked between Nino, Kagami and Luka, an apologetic smile at the ready. Her eyes lingered on Luka especially.

Alya was too busy frantically tapping her phone screen to pay them all any mind.

“Sorry I couldn’t stay longer, guys.” Marinette’s fingers drummed against her pink, flowery clutch. “Injury aside, it’s been fun!” She was already hobbling toward the front door.

Adrien scooped his grey messenger bag off the floor, threw it over one shoulder, and turned to Kagami. He was met by a question:

“Can I come along?”

His shoulders shot to his ears. “Err – No need, Kagami! I’ll, uh, be quick.”

Her gaze swerved to Marinette, then back to him. “Okay.”

“Hey, Marinette?” Luka’s voice drew Adrien’s focus. “Are we still on for tomorrow?” The musician smiled at her from the sofa, guitar propped in his lap.

She was halfway to the exit, but stopped to beam at him all the same. “Of course! No way am I letting my clumsiness ruin our movie date.” For the second time today, she winked at Luka.

Adrien’s smile felt forced.

Until her attention turned to him.

“Ready, Adrien?”

He nodded and, after a brief farewell to his friends, rushed to her side. “Let’s go.”

As she continued to limp toward the exit, he identified a glaring flaw in his escape plan. He needed time to take her to the doctor’s. And time was something he had none of right now.

…

Crap.

Adrien could think of several reasons as to why he couldn’t ditch her.

Reason one? It’d be a terrible thing to do.

Reason two? It’d be awfully suspicious after offering to take her in the first place.

Reason three? She really did need his help.

But damn it, so did Ladybug. And all of Paris for that matter. Maybe he could speed things up somehow—

“Hold the fort, Nino!” Alya, who Adrien was sure had been on the sofa just a second ago, flashed by them in a blur of orange and blue. “Your girl’s gotta bounce!”

“Babe?!” Nino sputtered from his seat. “You’ve – You’ve got guests!”

Alya swung the front door aside, revealing a public stairwell of wooden steps and copper railing. “Montparnasse is, like, a twenty-minute metro away. If I jet now, I might make the end of the battle!” She threw Marinette a one-handed finger gun. “Rest that foot up, girl!” And with that, she was off.

Marinette frowned at the front door, still ajar. “I swear she has no sense of self preservation.”

“With Ladybug protecting Paris, at least we know she’s in safe hands.”

She met his smile with one of her own. “You mean Ladybug and Chat Noir.”

His lips parted, a merry “thank you” at the ready, until he realised that’d be a pretty odd response from Adrien Agreste. “You’re right,” he said instead, following her through the front door. “I’ll be back soon, everyone!” (He hoped.)

While he clicked the door shut behind him, Marinette limped up to the first set of steps in their way. With her fingers around the handrail, she put her right foot forward, gauging her weight on step number one as though testing the temperature of a swimming pool.

Hold up.

Did she plan to scale these stairs on her own?

He stepped forward. “If you’d like, I can—”

“No.” Her answer was short, but not impolite. More like she was on a mission. “I’ve got this.”

“You sure?”

The front of her ballerina flat touched the first step. Seeming satisfied with the level of pain, she ventured forward.

“Yeah, I’m—”

Her ankle buckled.

He lunged after her.

One hand clutched the curve of her waist.

The other gripped her shoulder.

“—totally in need of a little assistance.”

A little giggle followed her words and he couldn’t help but smile. He levelled her onto her feet. “Say no more.” Knees bent, he eased one hand across her back, while his other reached down to loop behind her legs.

A thought made him pop back to full height.

Was it socially acceptable to carry her bridal-style?

“Err – With your permission?”

The question hung in the air. And was it a trick of the light? Or were her cheeks a little rosier than usual? Maybe he needed an ice breaker. The kind of comment she’d expect from Chat Noir. He’d carried her bridal style on more than one occasion.

“No altars, I promise.”

“I – I – Uh—”

Mistakes were made.

Her eyes darted every which way. None of those ways crossed paths with his own. And— Oh no! Her cheeks were definitely rosy now. Had he just made her more uncomfortable?

“Sure,” she squeaked, much like the sound that had inspired the nickname ‘Marimouse’ last night. “Fine. Totally fine. Like, one hundred percent A-OK.” She placed her right hand across the nape of his neck, emphasising her words.

With a quiet sigh of relief, Adrien lifted her from the stairs into his arms, and her left hand slid behind his neck to join her right. He hadn’t started out his day expecting to sweep a cute girl off her feet, but here he was. That joke rode the tip of his tongue, barely withheld, because jeez, his last attempt at ice breaking had gone just splendidly.

As he began their descent down the stairs, Marinette spoke up again. “Sorry if I’m heavy...”

He almost laughed.

That hadn’t even crossed his mind.

His thoughts drifted a day into the past, to the puns they’d cracked in her kitchen. “Must’ve been the cheesecake. I’d batter be extra careful while carrying you down these stairs!”

Eager for her reaction, his eyes flicked from the steps to her face. She didn’t disappoint.

No, she rolled her eyes.

He smirked in record time.

“I swear you’re like a walking punpedia.”

“You’re meant to egg me on, Marinette. Have I tarte you nothing?”

Banana puns. Baking puns. He was on a roll today. Punning against an artsy villain would be a piece of cake.

“Gosh, I pun with you once and suddenly, we’re pun buddies.”

Had his hands not been preoccupied, Adrien would’ve placed one to his heart. “Why, I hope you’re not planning to dessert me?” This time, she groaned, but he didn’t miss the slight upward tilt of her lips. “Because that would mousse definitely make me sad.”

With a shake of her head, she finally cracked a smile. Briefly, he wished he didn’t have to watch where he was going, so he could freely enjoy the fruits of his labours.

A few seconds ticked by, the thumps of his shoes against wood filling the silence. He reached a stair landing, strode by two doors, then continued down another set of steps.

Marinette sighed. “I feel kinda bad about leaving early.”

Adrien’s brows curled. If either of them should feel bad right now, it was him. He’d invited Kagami, after all, and here he was leaving her despite knowing she wasn’t at ease around acquaintances.

“Don’t feel bad, Marinette. Your health comes first. Any one of our friends would say the same.”

She was silent.

But one glance at her face revealed lips pursed by thought.

“Is this about leaving Luka?”

From the corner of his eye, Marinette nodded. “I just feel so lame for ditching him.”

Adrien shrugged. Well, as much as he could with her in his arms. “I’m sure he understands. I know I would if I was in his shoes.”

A quiet pause.

“You’re right.”

Adrien didn’t need to peel his eyes from the steps to know she was smiling. “So, uhh”—he cleared his throat—“did he really compose that song just for you?”

Another nod on her end.

“That’s pretty cool.” Even if it didn’t suit her as well as it could’ve. “Maybe I should compose a song for you,” he thought aloud, already sifting through piano pieces he knew for inspiration. Something bright. Strong. Resilient. Joyful! Playing it needed to make him as happy as being around her did.

“I, um… I should probably text my parents.” Her left hand dropped from his neck to pull a smart phone from the front pocket of her pants. “I’m sure they’ll be happy to take me to the doctors, so you don’t have to.”

“Oh. Well, I…” It sure made transforming easier, but he still had to ask, “If that’s not too much trouble?”

With a shake of her head, Marinette held her phone near his shoulder. “‘Course not.” It clicked as she typed. “And this way you don’t have to leave everyone.”

Little did she know.

While Marinette tucked away her phone, he scaled the last of the steps and approached a wooden door, its surface scuffed from years of use. “Could you—”

Sure enough, she was already reaching for the brass knob.

They exchanged a smile as he planted his back to the door and reversed his way into an open-air corridor. “Nice work, team.”

That got a giggle out of her.

With Marinette still in his arms, Adrien strode by rows of beige mailboxes, a letter half hanging from one of the slots. She extended a hand and pushed it the rest of the way in.

“In case it’s something important.”

“Very typical of you,” he said with a wink.

Her eyes fell to her lap, but not before she smiled.

As they approached an iron gate, he recalled her earlier advice that it was never actually locked, and coaxed it open with his back. The street was fairly quiet. A few pigeons. A couple of motoring cars. And an old lady walking her sausage dog.

He glanced back at the entrance corridor beyond the iron gate. It’d make a good transformation spot. Well, as long as Marinette didn’t see him race inside, only for Chat Noir to leave a second later.

With that in mind, Adrien rounded a nearby corner to be met by an equally quiet street. Bending his knees, he set her down on the sidewalk and placed his hands on her shoulders, ready to catch her at a moment’s notice. “You okay to stand, Marinette?”

Her answer, as it turned out, was to press her petite fingers flush against his chest.

A second later, he froze as she slapped her hands to her face. “Sorry!” She peeked up at him from through her fingers. “I – Uh – The designer in me! She felt bad for creasing your dress shirt!”

That made sense.

Adrien placed a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry, Marinette. I’m a fashion model, remember? Unannounced crease correcting comes with the territory.” He chuckled. “Besides, I prefer you doing it as opposed to some stranger.” After two light pats on her shoulder, his hand returned to his side, and his fingers drummed against his thighs. “So, err…” As much as he needed to scat, leaving her alone felt a little impolite. “I can keep you company until your parents get here?”

Marinette toyed with the hem of her cardigan. “That’s, uh, awfully nice of you, Adrien, but there’s really no need.” She tapped her fingers together as she peered up at him. “I – I mean, not that I don’t want your company. Your company’s great. You just… umm… probably wanna get back to everyone else, right?”

Well, not exactly.

He slipped a hand behind his neck. “Are you sure, Marinette?”

“Adrien.” The boldness of her tone alone made him still. “Gateau of here.”

Did…

Did she just…

The smile that swept across her lips was answer enough. Man, she was awesome!

“How can I say dough to that?” With a broad grin, he took two steps back the way they came. “Take it easy on that ankle, okay?”

“Uh – Yeah! Will do.”

“And I guess I’ll… see you Monday?”

“Yup. Monday! That’s when you’ll next be seeing me.”

“Great. See you then!”

With a two-fingered salute, he ducked around the corner and backtracked through the gate, rows of mailboxes affixed to the wall on his right.

Plagg zipped out of his messenger bag. “Finally!” By the way he snickered, he wasn’t really bothered. “Parting with your girlfriend is such sweet sorrow, hmm?”

Nope. Definitely not bothered.

“You said the same thing yesterday, Plagg.” He fiddled with the cuff of his dress shirt. “You know she’s just a friend.”

His kwami floated closer. “Don’t you mean a pun buddy?”

Adrien gave a wry smile. “Speaking of which”—he launched out his fist—“Plagg, claws out!”

In a flash of blinding green, Chat Noir stood where Adrien Agreste once had. He approached the gate, scanned the street for any onlookers, then raced out onto the sidewalk.

One tap of his baton launched him heavenward—and with a highly essential flip, he dropped to a nearby rooftop. In the distant cityscape, Montparnasse Tower stood like a sky-high circus.

“Good thing I’m wearing my clown costume.” He tapped the glowing paw on his staff, revealing its screen. “No messages from M’Lady? Well colour me shocked.”

A few taps brought up the latest akuma update. No heroes on the scene yet. He glanced at his Bugabeacon. By the looks of it, she hadn’t transformed yet. Seemed he wasn’t the only one running fashionably late.

Chat gripped his staff tighter.

This was their first battle since his reveal.

Ladybug’s first battle with Adri—

No.

Her second battle with Adrien.

And an agonising reminder of his desire to prove himself.

Sure, Chat Noir had done so for over a year, but he wasn’t just Chat Noir anymore. No, he was also Adrien Agreste, who’d failed to save her as Aspik for three months straight. Adrien Agreste, whose nightmares had been haunted by Desperada ever since. Adrien Agreste, who longed for redemption.

And today was his chance.

---

Marinette tottered into a nearby alleyway and propped her back against a weather-worn wall. Two painkillers, a dollop of anti-inflammatory cream and twenty minutes of ice-pack time, yet somehow her ankle throbbed more now than it had right after her fall.

Tikki whizzed out of her pink clutch, concern swimming in her eyes.

“Our first akuma in a week and I’ll be spending it stumbling through Paris.” Marinette pushed off the wall to test out the injury. A little weight was wince-worthy, but bearable. Anything more active was another story. “Will my transformation do anything to ease the pain?”

Her kwami shook her head. “I’m sorry, Marinette! Injuries you get while de-transformed are out of my control. You’ll just have to be extra careful.”

So it looked like she’d have to keep anything too jarring to a minimum. Well, try to. Running and jumping were kind of necessary when it came to yoyo swinging and dodging dangerous projectiles.

“I’ll have to fight through the pain.” She shifted her weight to her good ankle. “At least it’s just a sprain. Or there’s no way I’d be standing.”

Five storeys up, a blur of black leapt over the alley.

Tikki frowned. “What about Chat Noir?”

A touch of dread rematerialized, gripping her chest as it had upstairs. She’d thought – well, maybe freaked out – about that on the way down. Though observing Adrien’s own ditch attempt had been a welcome distraction. And a fascinating one at that.

“He saw me walking fine during patrol last night.” She cupped her chin. “It’ll be hard to come up with a believable excuse, but...”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

Marinette nodded. “I have to.” Purpose hardened her eyes. “Tikki, spots on!”

Latex washed up her body in a glow of pale pink. Immediately, Ladybug reassessed her ankle, hoping for a miracle.

Alas, Lady Luck couldn’t solve everything.

She flicked up the screen of her yoyo. According to her Kitty Tracker, Chat Noir was already five blocks ahead of her. “He’s really hightailing it over there,” she thought aloud, and hurled her yoyo at the rim of the roof above. One tug sent her skyward.

Her toes touched down.

Her ankle caved.

Her knees slammed against the roof.

Ladybug groaned. “Focus!” The second time in a week she’d said that very thing. She’d let down her friends, her master, all of Paris. She refused to be that useless today.

Never again.

Ladybug hoisted herself to her feet and stared out at the Parisian skyline. Montparnasse Tower reached for the clouds like a multicoloured beacon. It’d already been about ten minutes since that footage had aired. She needed to get there fast.

But how could she do that with a busted ankle?

The Horse Miraculous wasn’t an option. The Miracle Box was stowed away in Master Fu’s old phonograph, atop the chest that housed Adrien’s many birthday gifts. Getting home would take almost as long as stumbling to Montparnasse.

A lightbulb went off in her head.

What if she embraced her inner Spider-Man? Swing more. Land less. Rest her ankle on the way there. Yeah, that could work. It’d be better than pushing her ankle before she’d even engaged Putricasso.

With her mind made up, she hurled her yoyo at a distant chimney. And as she spideyed her way over to Montparnasse, a month-old memory replayed in her mind.

The sinking sun set the sky ablaze, splashing the Arc de Triomphe with its golden glow. Her legs swayed off the ledge of the aged monument in time with Chat Noir’s, while cars hummed underfoot.

“Hey, LB?” He grinned at her, the tiny straw of a juice box brushing his lips. “Has it ever occurred to you that you’re like a female Spider-Man?”

“Y’know, my friends were discussing that very thing this week.”

“Ha! Mine too.” He took a hearty sip. “It makes sense, right? You’re both bug-themed. You wear lots of red. You swing around the city.”

“So if my comic counterpart’s Spider-Man, who’s yours?”

Chat puffed out his chest. “I am Batman,” he rasped, his voice an octave lower.

She snorted. “I was thinking more along the lines of Cat Woman.”

With a pout, he passed the juice box to her awaiting hand. “Why not Black Panther?”

“Who?”

“Wow, M’Lady!” He slapped a dramatic paw to his heart. “That hurts my very soul!”

Through a smile, Ladybug took a small sip of juice. “Well,” she eventually said, “I think Chat Noir’s a much cooler superhero anyway.”

The smile he flashed her could’ve powered all of Europe.

Then he opened his mouth.

“Does this mean I can’t call you Spider-Woman?”

Ladybug couldn’t help but laugh as she soared through the autumn air. She considered telling him their silly talk had come in handy. Maybe she’d even let him call her Paris’ friendly neighbourhood ladybug. He’d get a kick out of that for sure.

Up ahead, Montparnasse Tower was a fast-approaching eyesore—and a reminder that she still needed a reason for her injury. One scan of the area drew her attention to an ice rink. A very familiar ice rink. An excuse bloomed in her brain. A skating accident. One she’d suffered from first thing this morning. It wasn’t her finest cover-up, but her choices were gut-churningly limited. If ever there was a day for her luck to shine through, today was it.

With each street she swung through, the beige brickwork and timeworn buildings of Paris evolved into a mess of colourful shapes. Rooms stuck out at odd angles, far from structurally sound. Flying pigeons defied the laws of aerodynamics, their wings branching from their bodies like two featherless triangles. And Parisians panicked in the streets, their faces distorted and their bodies a jumbled state of jagged shapes. If a unicorn caught a stomach bug, she imagined the aftermath would look a lot like this.

A multicoloured beam sliced through the sky—just past Montparnasse Cemetery, where an expanse of tombstones dotted the land. More beams burst from between a distant street and with narrowed eyes, she veered toward them.

#ml fic #miraculous ladybug #you times two #adrinette #marichat #ladynoir #ladrien

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secretgamergirl · 5 years

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RPG Campaign Setting Thoughts - The Planes

Sometimes you just get kinda burnt out writing stuff for other people’s settings and have to write stuff about your own. Expect a series of these, maybe, my track record for long-form stuff on this blog sucks. Today though, here’s some notes on just the fundamental underpinnings of the setting. Let me know what you think here, because eventually if I get enough of this I might like, kickstart a book on it (with, you know, good art) and/or write adventure paths or something.

The world as we know it, the sun, all the stars in the sky, and everything between them comprise what some refer to as the Prime Material Plane, Creation, or The Great Canvas, onto which Brin [bad placeholder name there] paints our world and some speculate many others, creating the land, the sky, and all that ever lived.

Much like a mortal painter, Brin holds a Great Palette [ethereal plane?], which holds the raw stuff of creation - the elements. Fire, earth, air and water, in their purest forms. [Probably also Positive/Negative energy, para/quasi-elemental planes too] Were one to travel to the Great Palette through magic, they would not experience these as blobs of pigment on a board, but each as their own reality, as infinitely vast as the Great Palette, but lacking its variety, each comprised in its way only of a single element, and magical beings born thereof. As these elemental planes are closer to Brin, they are sometimes known as the Inner Planes.

Beyond the Great Canvas, and indeed, beyond the reach of Brin entirely are the Outer Planes, or the Great Beyond. Home to the other deities, and the destination of souls after death. [And that’s all I’m really inclined to say here because I don’t particularly have any tweaks for the outer planes beyond avoiding the copyrighted bits, but if I do a book, yeah.]

While the Great Canvas is a singular whole, always representing the entirety of our physical reality as it presently stands, Brin’s work is never-ending, their hand always at work, repainting some corner of the canvas, touching up details, or painting over vast swaths in a sudden fit of inspiration. Our own world is a small enough part of the whole that such drastic revisions are rare, and thought by many to be a portion of the canvas Brin particularly favors, but over millennia, our world has been vastly revised several times, and in more recent years, the strokes of Brin’s brush have made alterations to several individual regions. [So there’s weird unexplored places near major population centers!]

When Brin’s brush repaints the world in this manner, what once existed is never truly lost. Much as one with a careful hand can chip away the paint on a heavily revised canvas to reveal an earlier state, so too is the Prime Material plane comprised in truth of many layers, and in rare places, cracks of sorts allow safe passage beyond our present layer and one that lies beneath. Portals, in a sense, to cities, countries, perhaps even entire worlds Brin felt the need to replace, some still home to creatures and civilizations at odds with the world as we now know it. [This is the Big Blank Check of the setting. With care, ‘cracks in the paint’ like this allow for mind-blowingly huge underworlds, Underdark/Hollow World style, weird distorted early sketches for the world like Pathfinder’s First World and Shadow Plane, or a nice compromise if there’s some particular aspect of a different campaign setting you just can’t bring yourself to leave out of a new campaign and want to grandfather in without messing with the rest of the world. And yes, this whole conceit comes with the very meta implication that every Main Campaign World for a major fantasy RPG are layered on top of each other like this.]

[A couple notes on races here too, because they’re tied in to the above and I don’t know if I’m up for dedicating a whole update just to them. My first instinct was to just not have races. I’ve never really been a fan. They encourage power gaming for stats, a whole lot of actual racism, flat simplistic mono-cultures, screwy language rules, and it never makes sense that everyone’s living in the same cities in the same population ratios. BUT I’m really striving for backwards compatibility, so...

Halflings and Giants exist because Brin isn’t always especially consistent with scale and perspective. There’s just parts of the world where people were created really big or really small next to common frames of reference, like in medieval paintings where a person is somehow the same height as an entire tree and also a dog or whatever.

Half-Elves and Half-Orcs are their own distinct races. A human and an elf can’t have a kid together, nor a human and an orc. They came about because Brin was revising the world, and some people were in living along the edges of where new races, which ended up as somewhat blend areas so the new additions wouldn’t cause too much contrast. This is also why they’re fairly rare.

No particular plans for doing anything weird with dwarves and gnomes yet. Dwarves might have dug their way up from an older layer? I like Pathfinder’s take on gnomes as First World immigrants but that’s probably infringe-y. Maybe bring pointy hats back?

Also? Orcs are white people. Like, not literally, still going to be green (with maybe lighter, near white shades in the mix too). Culturally. Bunch of monotheistic, patriarchal, self-aggrandizing, colonizing brutal scumbags, prone to wearing powdered wigs and impractical clothes with ruffles and buckles everywhere, as a major villain for the setting as a whole. Too many works of fiction, which is to say all of them, have depicted orcs as “primitive evil savages” and then just blatantly depicted them as Mongolians/black people/Native Americans/whatever group they have unfortunate subconscious issues with, so, screw all that, time to do them as the actual evil marauding empires trying to conquer and enslave the whole world for a change. Deal with it.]

BRIN - TN Deity

Home- Beyond the Planes (with command over the Inner Planes and Prime Material)

Domains - Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Weather

Common Worshipers: Artists, Crafters, Explorers, the Dissatisfied

Goals: Perfecting the world, in an artistic sense.

Direct Interventions: Brin is capable of sweeping drastic changes to the Prime Material Plane or any of the Inner Planes, but is completely unconcerned with most mortal and even divine concerns. They are only likely to intervene directly in events causing drastic changes to the Prime Material Plane outside of their vision for it, and tend to do so with sweeping changes to the fabric of reality.

Blind Spots: Brin never intervenes with, nor even observes anything in the outer planes, and will not grant spells to worshipers who travel there.

[Brin is kind of a terrible pick for a deity to worship, honestly. Bit on the alien side, and if you really get their attention, it’ll be more likely that your home town is now a beach than anything helpful to your situation.]

#game design #worldbuilding #RPG campaign setting #D&D

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lucalicatteart · 6 years

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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)

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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)

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)

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.

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

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!!!!

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)

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.)))

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

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

-- 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.

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.)

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.

-- 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))

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

-- 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.

-- 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.).

~ 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.)

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~

#worldbuilding

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el-and-hop · 6 years

Text

When Autumn Leaves

Chapter 2: What Comes Next

[ao3] [prologue] [1]

Pairing: Mileven AU

WC: 4.6k

Summary: Mike and El seem to find out more about each other, and in the process they find out more about themselves.

[A/N]: I still have no idea what i’m doing.

Shit.

El just took off and Mike had no idea where she went. Mr. Clarke? Who was Mr. Clarke? He cursed himself for not running after her and asking who this teacher was and where his classroom was located in this maze of a school.

You would think that after getting lost twice trying to find class that I’d have seen every hallway possible. Yet Mike found himself standing back where he started, right outside of the nurse’s office.

He looked down at his watch, a cheap plastic calculator watch that his father “gifted” him for his tenth birthday, and checked the time again. Three fifteen. He wasted fifteen minutes trying to find his locker. And now he has fifteen minutes to find Mr. Clarke’s room.

Mike lifted his right hand up to his eye level and held it there. He could see his fingers shake. Closing his eyes, he listened to his breath.

Breathe in through the nose for five seconds.

Hold for eight seconds.

Breathe out through the mouth for ten seconds.

Breathe in through the nose for five seconds.

Hold for eight seconds.

Breathe out through the mouth for ten seconds.

Mike opened his eyes again. His hand was still.

Stretching his shoulders, Mike pulled up his backpack and then started walking. He didn’t know where he was going, but somewhere was better than nowhere.

Each locker looked the same. The doors into the classrooms were all a light colored wood material. The white paint on the walls made Mike feel like he was roaming a ward in a hospital. He went left. He went right. He went straight.

He looked down at his watch again. Three twenty-four.

He took another deep breath and closed his eyes. What if she’s waiting for me? He couldn’t help but think about how she’d react if he didn’t make it. There was nothing he feared more in this moment than being thought of as a stuck up fool. Already the new kid, now with a reputation.

This was a new start. New school, new house, new friends, new location. New life. And it was crumbling before his eyes.

At the end of the hall two figures moved from one side to the other. Mike could swear that one had red hair and the other brown. It’s El.

Without hesitation Mike sprinted towards the end of the hallway. His legs felt like air, like there was nothing between him and the ground. He saw the two of them enter a classroom. That has to be it.

Mike took a moment to catch his breath. There’s no point in coming in looking like you were lost. No one needs to know that.

Right as he was to enter the door he stopped himself. He worried about the eyes that always felt like daggers. There was comfort in them, not how they felt but a comfort in their presence. He always had eyes on him. Most of the time it could be blamed on his height and his hair. But today it was the comfort of an actor. Terrified of judgement but at ease with the company.

His mind was telling him that he could lie and go home, say he was pulled aside by a teacher to get caught up on school work, maybe say his mother picked him up early, or maybe his sister didn’t want to wait for him.

But his hand moved for him.

The door creaked open and he took a step in.

Breathe in through the nose for five seconds.

Hold for eight seconds.

Breathe out through the mouth for ten seconds.

“Mike! I was starting to think you were lost.”

El was sitting in the back of the classroom on a desk, her feet dangling in the air in front of her. She still had the splint on her nose. Next to her, the redhead that Mike had seen entering the classroom with El was sitting in a chair writing in a notebook.

“I just uh,” Mike began, taking his eyes off El and scanning the floor in front of her. “I just needed to go to my locker and get my books changed.”

“I want you to meet everyone,” El said, dropping off the desk and standing up. Her voice was still nasally, but nothing like it was before.

“Max, Lucas, Will,” El said pointing at each person, ignoring the fact that they weren’t paying attention to her. “And that’s Dustin. I think you two met already.”

Mike hadn’t noticed the three boys when he entered the room. They were at the front, each with chalk in their hands, musing over scribbles on the chalkboard. The design, Mike could see, was something resembling a catapult, although the drawing looked nothing of the sort.

“Tell me what you want and I’ll draw it,” Will said, pushing Dustin out of the way.

“Dustin,” Mike heard El call out. She had silently appeared next to him. She was shorter than he remembered. “I want to introduce you to Mike.”

Dustin turned around and came over to Mike. Lucas and Will had moved from the board and were now watching. Mike could only assume they were holding their breath as well, since the room was painfully quiet.

“Don’t take my seat again.” Dustin held out his hand as if he was offering some kind of one sided peace treaty.

Before Mike could register what was going on, a book came from the back of the classroom and struck Dustin on the side. The two of them looked to see Max standing up from her desk with raised eyebrows.

“I’m sorry for being an asshole,” Dustin said, looking down at his feet.

“It’s okay,” Mike whispered.

El crossed her arms and sighed. “It’s not okay.”

“El,” Will cautioned, “it’s not worth it.”

Will nodded to her and El responded with a deep breath.

Silence fell upon the room again. Mike didn’t want to be the one to break it. He was already the center of attention. There was no point in making it about him again.

“So,” Lucas said, elongating the final syllable. “What do you know about catapults?”

Mike felt the eyes fall upon him again.

Actor. Stage. Audience. Give them what they want.

He walked up to the chalkboard to examine the drawing closer. The physics were more advanced than they were learning that year. But it was simple equations, a plug and play of sorts.

“It looks like a mix of a catapult and a trebuchet. You have the weight system of a trebuchet in the front but also the spring mechanism from a catapult. You have too much force.”

Mike turned to see the Dustin and Lucas squint at their design. Dustin’s head tilted to the side. Both of them were somewhat lost in thought, until Dustin spoke up.

“Well, what do you suggest?”

Mike stood silently for a moment. While their plan was bound to fail, coming in and saying your idea is horrible and I can fix it if you let me take control of the entire situation probably wouldn’t be the best way to become part of their group. He turned to El, who, looking back up at him so he could see the whites of her eyes, nodded as if to say just go for it.

“Maybe,” Mike said as he started to walk up to the board, “if you stick with the catapult design, you could use half the materials.” As he was talking, Mike picked up a piece of leftover chalk and began to draw his own model. “You could get the same result and it would be more efficient.”

“I like it,” Will said with agreement, “I don’t know about you but it makes more sense to me.”

“Well if everyone hates my idea and loves that one, I think it’s pretty clear then,” Dustin said as he started to erase the old drawing. “Let’s do the damn thing.”

Mike turned to see if El was watching everything go according to plan. Instead, she was engrossed in a conversation with Max, the both of them making their way back to the seats they were occupying earlier.

Mike felt his heartbeat slow down and his stomach inch it’s way back out from his throat. One thing at a time.

The rest of the hour was spent with lists and drawings, schematics and textbooks, materials and planning. The rules of the science fair were explained quite simply. They had to make two different catapults. One had to be a small model for prejudgement and the other had to be a full scale working model that was able to fire a projectile exactly twenty-five feet into a basket. And they had till the end of October. Four weeks.

Will was the first to leave when his older brother, who's name Mike didn’t catch, came by to pick him up. Dustin followed shortly after because of a “family dinner” that he couldn’t miss.

That left El, Max, and Lucas. Mike packed up his things carefully. He didn’t want to make it clear that he was ready to go home.

“You said you lived on Windsor, right?” El asked as she pulled her backpack straps tighter on her shoulders. Her and Max were already by the door.

“Windsor street,” Mike repeated.

The way that Max raised her eyebrows made Mike think that she thought something lik e “are you fucking serious???”

It was awkward to say the least. Even after spending an hour under the eyes of his fellow classmates, Mike still felt as if every move he had was being calculated and averaged into a sum that would somehow determine if he was going to be allowed back into the friend group tomorrow.

He minded his own business, kept quiet, and made his way out of the classroom when prompted.

The air was different than hours before when he and El leisurely walked the halls. He watched as she walked in front of him, hands on the straps of her backpack, her worn converse squeaking as the heels dragged on the floor.

While El and Max led the way through the now empty school, Lucas and Mike followed side by side behind.

“Where do you live?” Mike didn’t expect the question to come out of his mouth. Way to be subtle, Wheeler.

“On Windsor, actually,” Lucas laughed. “A few houses down from El. We grew up together. Before she and Hopper moved it was pretty quiet. Then came Will, Max, and finally Dustin.”

Mike mumbled in agreement, and continued walking. The doors were approaching quickly and Mike began to prepare for the outside chill. Hawkins weather was nothing like Chicago weather.

When the doors opened, each inch of Mike’s body felt like it had been stung thousands of times. He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and burrowed his chin into the collar of his jacket.

“You act like you’ve never been in the cold before,” Lucas said as he put his hands in his coat pocket.

“I’m from Chicago,” Mike said with a muffled voice. “You don’t spend a lot of time outside in the winter.”

Lucas followed El and Max, while Mike stayed close behind. He watched as the three of them made their way to the bike rack, where two lonely bikes were parked side by side. As Mike came closer he realized that there was a skateboard inside the front basket of one of the bikes.

Bikes. Why does it always have to be bikes. Mike’s dad had given him a bike as “incentive” to move out of the city. Did he know how to ride one? No, but he didn’t think he’d ever have to. Only people in movies ride bikes in small towns, right?

“Did you walk?” El asked pointely as she pulled her bike off the rack. It was old and Mike could tell it had seen better days.

Lucas had already mounted his bike, and, standing beside him, was Max, who had the skateboard tucked under her arm.

“It’s not that far,” Mike began, bringing his shoulders in closer to his ears to somehow retain more heat.

“You’re right,” El said.

Mike watched as she started to walk down the sidewalk to the road. He was flustered, not by her choice to walk in the cold when she had a bike that would get her home in half the time, but by the fact that she was so straight. There was something about the lack of conflict, how she seemed to know what she wanted and went for it. He liked that.

He also sprinted to catch up with her.

Mike didn’t get to notice much of Hawkins when they came in a few days ago.

With El, Max, and Lucas focusing on the road ahead, Mike took the opportunity to take in what he hadn’t seen before. The trees that lined the sidewalks and the cracking road were starting to change. Oranges and reds were darker than he imagined the countryside would be. It’s not even the countryside . Some of the houses had to be at least a hundred years old, if not more. Big front porches, ornate doors, and spacious front yards seemed to go one after another; it was like he went back in time.

He hadn’t noticed that the tree line came up to the backyards of each house. As he continued walking, with each passing gap between the houses, Mike studied their space. They were tightly knit in places, almost impenetrable, and, just a few houses down, they were so sparse that he could barely consider it a forest.

Mike wanted to jog ahead and talk with El and Max but it didn’t seem right. They were keeping to themselves, probably girl talk or something, but he couldn’t shake the fact that El invited him to walk with them and yet hadn’t said a word to him yet. He couldn't tell if he was disappointed or angry. He knew that state too often.

The sun was setting, behind the houses, even though the sun set closer to seven than it did four. The breeze was growing colder and Mike knew it wasn’t long until the group would separate.

Hawkins wasn’t like Chicago. Back home, if it was quiet enough to hear your own breathing, there was something seriously wrong. He’d grown accustomed to the barrage of car horns and trains in all hours of the night. And yet, walking down the street of houses ten times the size of their apartment back home, Mike felt like felt oddly out of place.

It wasn’t the people, though they were much slower and far kinder. It wasn’t the empty fields, though they did introduce him to many more colors that he didn’t even know existed. It wasn’t even the new group of people he hesitated to call his friends, though they were the first ones to make him smile in a very long time. It was something in the air. As if there was a secret he wasn’t privy to yet.

“We don’t go out into that forest,” Lucas said. Mike assumed that he’d noticed that he’d been staring off behind the houses.

“It seems like you could get lost pretty easily,” Mike responded.

“They say the last kid to go exploring in there got lost and died. They never found him.” Lucas looked ahead, keeping an eye on the two girls walking in front. “There’s also reports of howls and barking too. They say it’s wolves that make their way down from Michigan but I don’t know.”

“You’ve heard them before?” Mike questioned.

“Only once, but it didn’t sound like any kind of bark I’ve ever heard.” Lucas stuffed his hands in his pockets again.

The group of kids continued down the street, mostly quiet, with a few remarks about the cold and the homework due tomorrow. It was the kind of meandering conversation that could go for hours, but it was quietly cut off by Lucas saying goodbye and turning off to his house. Mike could see his own house from there, and a warm feeling grew in him that made up for the cold outside. People his age were close by. That was new.

And then he remembered that Lucas had said something about him and El living a few houses down from each other. No way.

“So which one’s yours?” Max asked. She had watched Lucas drop his bike by the side of his house and smiled when he turned around to wave goodbye. Mike sensed something between them.

“The, um, white one,” Mike mumbled. He pointed to his house to make up for the jumble of words in his mouth. El had a redder face than she did when he last saw her. He found himself noticing even more about her: the way the breeze blew a stray curl from behind her ear, the way she kept picking at her thumb, and the way she looked at him with eyes that were darker than anything he’d seen before.

“You’re neighbors,” Max laughed, punching El on the shoulder. Mike can see El’s face grow even redder. He could feel his own get warmer despite the cold.

Mike wanted nothing more than to get out of this situation but every part of him wanted to stay and get to know the two girls who kept to themselves most of the walk home. She invited him to walk with them but she didn’t want to talk to him.

Mike realized it was getting awkward fast. Quit while you’re ahead, right?

“I’m, uh,” Mike began, feeling his hands start to shake again. “I’m gonna get going. See you in History.”

El looked down at her shoes. Mike could see her fiddling with her thumb again. “Oh, ok.” She replied.

And with that Mike turned to his house without a single look behind. No sudden movements. Act cool. He wasn’t cool, though. He tripped up the stairs to the front door but played it off as if he was running up them. And once he got inside and closed the door behind him, he leaned back against the door and slid down.

He felt his heart beat fast. He wasn’t much of an athlete, was rarely any good in gym class, and couldn’t run a mile to save his life. And now, for reasons he didn’t know just yet, the girl outside was taking his breath away.

Holy shit.

“Michael, is that you?” A voice called from the kitchen down the hall. “Dinner’s already done so eat whenever.”

Mike’s mother, Karen, wasn’t exactly the best stay at home mother. Sure, she kept the house clean and watched over his younger sister Holly, but she wasn’t the most interactive of parents. He couldn’t remember the last time they played a game together.

Mike tried to shake the day out of his head but each time he kept seeing pictures of El. And it started to scare him. It had been one day and he was already getting too close. The last time he made friends he changed schools just weeks later. Distance, he told himself. Distance.

Getting up, Mike made his way past stacks of boxes that lined the hallway. For living in an apartment, he didn’t realize how much stuff they’d acquired since the last move.

He made his way into the kitchen, pulled some silverware out of the box that sat on the counter, and dug into the box labeled “dishes” for plates only to be met with fancy Christmas platters that hadn’t been used in years. After resigning to eat directly from the pot of potatoes and chicken on the stove, he did his best to sneak up to his room, past his mother, so that he could avoid having to have one more conversation for the night.

It wasn’t that he hated people. No, it was that he was an internal person. He needed to be alone to recharge, to decompress, to be one with his thoughts. Back in Chicago, they told him that it was healthy to an extent. They told him to find someone who would listen, because talking to yourself isn’t ideal.

In his bedroom, Mike tossed his backpack on his bed and walked over to the window, past the boxes with all of his clothes and books and little nick nacks that he had collected over the years.

Through the glass he saw the upstairs light of the house across the street come on, and he could see a figure cross back and forth, blocking out the light. He could faintly make out brown curly hair before the curtains were drawn closed.

He placed a hand on the window and smiled. “Nice to meet you, El.”

“How are you going to explain it?” Max asks, lying down on the sofa. She pulls a book out of her bag and starts to flip through the pages.

El lifts her head from her notebook at the table across the room. “Explain what?”

“That thing on your face,” Max retorts. She reaches into her bag again and pulls out a pencil and starts writing in the margins.

Max’s observation sparks a light in El that she hadn’t thought through yet. The daughter of the chief of police Jim Hopper comes home with a seemingly broken nose? He was understanding, however, and he knew she hated lying. It was mutual trust that kept their house from collapsing in on itself.

“I’ll tell him what happened,” El replies. “I tripped and fell in class.”

“And you honestly think he’ll believe you?”

“Have I lied before?” El waits for a response but nothing comes out Max’s mouth. As if Max realized it wasn’t worth a fight, the two girls go back to their books.

Max then dog ears a page and sits up. “So is he in the party or was this just a one time thing?”

El looks up from her book and over at Max. She knows exactly who Max is talking about. And she really doesn’t want to be having this conversation.

“Why not?” El smiles. “Do you think he’s cute?”

“What?! No! If anyone it’s you!!” Max spits back at El.

“For once can I think someone is nice without you thinking I like them?” In that brief moment El starts to think about what Max actually meant. Sure she noticed the little things about him, like how he was way too dressed up for the first day of school, how he smiled when he was talking about himself, how his messy brown hair matched his dark brown eyes and oh my god.

She could feel her face start to turn red and her stomach start to constrict. He’s just nice and sweet and cute . But despite all that, she couldn’t help but wait to go to class again. Even History was starting to seem like it could be fun.

“What happened to her?” A voice came from across the room and as quickly as El could look up her father was already up in her face. Hopper turns to look at Max, as if he expected her to answer.

“Don’t look at me,” Max begins. “I wasn’t there.”

El feels her face getting hot as Hopper starts to fiddle with the splint on her nose.

“I tripped and fell in class,” El starts. She tries to push her father’s hands away but he continues. “I went to the nurse and she put this on me and said it will last until we go to the doctor.”

“Did she?” Hopper says with a raised eyebrow. “Max come over here.”

El has no idea what is going on and it doesn’t look good. She sees Max come over and stand beside her, waiting for some kind of direction from Hopper. And the intensity of his stare at her nose isn’t helping one bit.

“Grab El’s hand.”

“What?” Both girls respond. It’s clear that Max is as confused as El is.

“Grab her hand,” Hopper repeats. Max obliges.

“Look at me,” He says, looking El in the eyes. She just wants to know what the hell is going on.

And, when Hopper grabs hold of the tape that is holding the splint on her nose and rips it off, El figures out what’s going on pretty quickly.

She’s glad only Max got to see the bright red lines that covered her face. There’s a burning on both sides and she swears she can feel more blood slowly making its way down her nose.

“It’s not broken,” Hopper says, getting up and balling the nurses splint in his hands. “Back in the service we went through medical training and you just bruised it.”

For all that Hopper did for her, his give and take no shit attitude made them the perfect pair. Rarely did either of them keep things from the other and they never lied. This doesn’t mean there weren’t fights. Oh there were fights. When two people live under the same roof and neither want to deal with bullshit, obvious tension ensues. One would leave, stay at the Byers’ house for a night, and they’d make up the next day. It was a routine and it worked.

“God,” Max chuckles. “You look like shit.”

El tries crinkle her nose but the pain is still quite present. Instead she goes with a mouthed shut up.

Afraid that someone is going to try to change the conversation, El gets up and makes her way into the hall.

It’s a large house for two people, but with Hopper’s affinity for collecting junk, it’s become quite cosey. In the large hallway stands an old mirror mounted on a dresser. To any other family, a dresser in the hall would be a terrifying misuse of furniture. But here? It was perfect.

And obviously something must be wrong with it because El can only see Frankenstein’s monster instead of herself. If she shows up to school the next day looking like something out of a horror movie, she’d be the new mascot. That’s what happened when Carol showed up after being attacked by a stray cat. The school just so happened to choose the lion as the spirit animal.

“I saw the Wheeler’s. They invited us to dinner tomorrow night,” El hears Hopper call from the kitchen.

“Who?” El responds.

“Our new neighbors, the ones across the street? I can’t stay for the whole thing but you’ll be fine, right?”

El looks back in the mirror. Hopefully Mike isn’t afraid of monsters.

Tag list: @fatechica @she-who-the-river-could-not-hold @earlgreyteagirl @the-fandom-queen-28

#Ross writes #stranger things fanfiction #stranger things fic #mileven #mileven fic #mike wheeler #el hopper #mike x eleven #stranger things au #when autumn leaves #wal #ross writes fic #i hate this so much #whoops

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artcanary · 6 years

Note

1-50

oh my god dude

im gonna put this under a cut bc this is a lot. this is a ride, have fun i guess

1. Your first OC ever?god. its got to be Super Kitty. when i was like … an incredibly small child I used to draw comic strips about this feline caped crusader, who was friends with everyone in the city, and the comics always involved him stopping an evil banana man from stealing money from the local bank. He was paid with donuts for his service to the city. i still remember how to draw him.

2. Do you have a personal favourite among your OCs?i’d get arrested if I didn’t answer this with Bronze, probably… but really, they’re very important to me

3. Have you ever adopted a character or gotten a character from someone else?man, i cant remember! i really dont think i have… P:

4. A character you rarely talk about?there’s loads of characters ive never even posted a single picture of on tumblr, i wouldnt even know where to start asdf

5. If you could make only one of your OCs popular/known, who would it be? bronze is the easy answer, but… i guess that could also go to Servant or Westrin. Servant has a comic project in the works that basically stars him, sort of a series of one-shots about the things he’s experienced, i feel like that would be a good thing to take off and run with. Westrin’s just fun as hell, i love the guy.

6. Two OCs of yours that look alike despite not being related?real talk now… there’s at least five different characters that i refer to as a whole as “bronze-tangential”, who started out as, “what would bronze be like if they were in this world?” and then becoming their own thing within said world because i just get stupid attached

its an epidemic

7. Are your OCs part of any story or stories?nearly all of them, actually. that’s the main reason i make characters, after all! too many to really go into specifics here, again P:

8. Do you RP as any of your OCs? If you do, introduce one of your RP OCs here!not often, but i think Bronze and Westrin are the most common ones. unless playing a character in dnd, or running an npc in dnd counts… then a whole lot more hahaha

9. Would you ever be willing to give any of your OCs to someone else?it depends on the circumstances. i don’t really like the idea, though.

10. Introduce an OC with a complicated design? Westrin’s old getup is a pain to draw, and there was one other design i did that I cant find anywhere… whichever way, i dont often tend to draw super complicated things often

a couple fakemon ive designed though… heheh those can get pretty finicky

11. Is there any OC of yours you could describe as a “sunshine”? hmmmmmmmm my immediate thought was Eric Silverdale from a comic i was working on a few years ago. hes a darling, i want him to be my friend irl

12. Name an OC that isn’t yours but who you like a lothow could you do this to me i love each and every one of all my friends ocs GOD the first one who comes to mind is @d20-official‘s Smith, whos Bronze’s friend… everyone in that DND party actually

13. Do you have any troublemaker OCs? Rated on a scale from “harmless” to “honestly somewhat frightening”: -Baromet (charming and quite friendly but definitely a kleptomaniac),-Westrin (demigod of bards and travelers), -XEN09 (a nonsense hacker), -Conny (needlessly contrarian and dumb as HELL), -Enza Colie (long fucking story but hes a good-for-nothing), -Hemlocke (mad scientist, chaotic evil), -Iris (AI and hacker, VERY bad), -The Terminus (glitch-in-the-matrix demon, chaotic evil), -and Sydd (the Queen of the Faeries, hopefully the danger there needs no explaining :’D)

14. Introduce an OC with a tragic backstory Mmm… there’s a few of them, most obviously Lent (whose background I did a short comic about). Basically his entire town got eaten by ghosts and turned into zombies, he only barely survived with a sliver of his soul left.

15. Do you like to talk about your OCs with other people?yes, i often discuss storylines and such with friends

16. Which one of your OCs would be the best at biology (school subject)? Probably Bronze’s dad! I don’t talk about him much, but his name’s Devon Reed, and he was a biotech developer specialising in android design.

I often describe him as being something of a reverse Arthur Weasley - a very fatherly scientist fascinated to the moon and back with the concept of magic.

17. Any OC OTPs? having trouble thinking of a lot of them right now, but there’s Eric + Lent & Naiadine + Tailias from Emerald Sigil, Avken + Baromet from my space campaign world, Sydd + Wyvv from my unnamed campaign world, and I’ve been considering Westrin + Servant as an interesting dynamic in Servant’s story

18. Any OC crackships? My character Bismuth and @autistictimeknight‘s oc Eros. Theyre so fucking in love, I love it. Its been awhile but I do still think about them sometimes.

As I recall, Eros is an empath, she can read other people’s emotions. But Bismuth is a robot, and Eros can’t read her. Because of this Eros can let go of her fear of unintentionally manipulating the emotions of her date, which would hold her back from most other relationships.

19. Introduce an OC that means a lot to you (and explain why)Hey, meet Bronze! I definitely do not talk about them every five minutes, why would you say that.

Bronze was with me through two of the hardest years of my life so far, and being a DND character they grew with me, both as a fighter and as a person. They were non-binary before I started using those pronouns, they were the first character or person or anything who I fought someone about using the right pronouns for, they make a great icebreaker for if I want to see how someone reacts to non-binary pronouns …

One funny anecdote about Bronze is that when I first made them, their “gimmick” was that they would sometimes glitch out and mess up their speech, mostly because I wanted an excuse not to engage in the roleplaying (which I was very bad at). The interesting thing is that as I got better at interacting with the group, we both grew out of needing it very quickly.

I’m very proud of Bronze.

20. Do any of your OCs sing? If they sing, care to share more details (headcanon voice, what kind of songs they like etc)?Westrin is a bard! His singing voice sounds like Bill Wurtz and these are his theme songs.

21. Your most artistic OCProbably Westrin again, he writes a lot of songs… and Hallux is a game designer?

22. Is there any OC of yours people tend to mischaracterize? If yes, how? I honestly dont know… no-one talks to me about them, haha!

people use all manner of pronouns for bronze, though.

23. Introduce OC that has changed from your first idea concerning what the character would be like?I’m gonna go with Enza for this one. Enza Colie was originally written entirely because I wanted an antagonist for a short starring his sister, Jane Colie. But the more I fleshed out his reasonings for acting how he did and explored his character, the more I realised he’d make an even more interesting character if allowed to have a redemption arc, too.

I just want to state for the record that I was very reluctant to the idea, and he basically dragged his way out of the villain pit entirely of his own accord. I am dubiously proud of him, and also a bit scared.

24. If you could meet one OC of yours, who would it be and why?Probably either Eric (Big Man, Best Friend), Crocus (Mother figure), Reed (Father Figure), Westrin (hed just make a good friend u kno??), or Bismuth (she makes good conversation!)

25. The OC that resembles you the most (same hobby, height, shared like/dislike for something etc?)probably the homestuck fan-troll Hallux, but that’s mostly because they were based on a troll-sona I made awhile ago. They’re a hope/prospit game designer who is small and full of rage and love

oh, and there’s dave! dave’s a superhero speedster, existing in a modern-day superhero version of seattle. theyre idiot, just like me,

26. Have you ever had to change your OC’s design or something else about them against your will? this is an interesting one… i don’t think ive ever had something Bad in a design ive done called to my attention by someone, but I did create my character Servant at around the same time I was first really expanding the diversity of my casts. (since i don’t talk about him often, a little context: he’s a magic spirit creature bound to human form to serve the royal family of the land and follow their orders.)

somehow, younger-and-more-stupid me managed to have the revelation that making this “eternal slave” character literally anything other than a white man, especially as a white author, would be Pretty Not Good. im … thats really, really not something i should pat myself on the back for, but i do consider it one of the biggest bullets dodged in my artistic career so far that i realised that not all representation is good representation so quickly, before i could make that incredibly, incurably stupid mistake.

after that, trying to make sure my characters and their presentations don’t harm anyone pretty much has become a paranoia. i don’t seem to have stepped on any toes yet, but when it inevitably happens, please let me know - i didnt know, and i want to fix it!

27. Any OCs that were inspired by a certain song? None that I can think of, actually! I don’t really do that often.

28. Your most dangerous OC? god damn it i have no idea!!! is it the terminus? glitch in the matrix god of chaos motherfucker?is it sarle? terrifying calculating scientist with the power of the soul at her fingertips ??? is it ares??? is it athena????? is it petra?????? the gatekeeper????

… actually, the gatekeeper might be it, if “dangerous” just refers to “the amount of raw power it can wield”. the Gatekeeper is a titanic entity that exists in interdimensional multiverse space, and its implied to have the ability to create and destroy entire universe bubbles at will. for what cosmic purpose, no-one knows.

at a more personal scale, though, literally all of the aforementioned characters are pretty bad to run into too.

29. Which one of your OCs would go investigate an abandoned house at night without telling anyone they’re going?god. Mina or Tawn. Tawn is the Indiana Jonesy type and probably dumb enough, but also competent enough not to get into too much trouble there. Mina would probably drag her friends along.

30. Which one of your OCs would most likely have a secret stuffed animal collection? XEN09. No-one knows, because no-one knows xir personal identity. Xe absolutely does, though. It’s less of a secret if you know xir in person, but good luck finding out about it otherwise.

31. Pick one OC of yours and explain what their tumblr blog would be like (what they reblog, layout, anything really)dave just reblogs memes all the time tbh. they like to keep tabs on the ridiculous superhero news going on, and they show human jokes and cat videos to their alien gf. they dont really post or add to posts, but they talk in tags a lot.

32. Which one of your OCs would be the most suitable horror game protagonist and why? i want to say tawn because i literally just realised ive been imagining their voice as sounding like luigi this entire fucking time and i never realised until this exact instant

33. Your shyest OC?probably baromet. they prefer to keep to themself in their hideout, with their collection of shiny things. they don’t really enjoy trying to communicate much, mostly because they expect to get yelled at.

34. Do you have any twin characters?Yes! At least two sets;

- Crocus and Sarle. (x) (x) They don’t exactly have a very well-developed relationship, but they are both quite important to the plot of my campaign world, and they are both very interesting. Crocus is a motherly figure who just exudes friendliness, while Sarle is .. very much not that, a researcher studying very gruesome things and pushing the boundaries of reality.

- Jane and Enza Colie. I haven’t talked a whole lot about either of them here, but I’d rather leave their story to do the talking whenever I get around to it. Essentially, the both of them were intended to do the dirty work for their crime boss family, but Jane ditched to study medicine. Most of the conflict between the two of them comes out of Enza not understanding why she made the choice she did, and coming to understand how he’s been manipulated.

35. Any sibling characters? I can’t really think of any off the top of my head, I should … I should really work on that.

I can talk about Westrin, though. Westrin (a demigod of many things, but namely bards, travel, travelers, and people who are lost) often becomes close friends with mortals, sometimes practically adopting them. These people who consider him family, and people who have received his blessing, are able to use his surname, Brilanta, as their own if they choose. So I guess all of the Brilantas are siblings, at least in spirit.

Oh, and XEN09 has like, seven siblings. Xe is the second-oldest, and least remarkable.

36. Do you have OC pairs where the other part belongs to someone else (siblings, lovers, friends etc)? I already talked about Eros and Bismuth up there a ways in question 18, but I’ll talk about another relationship here. @autistictimeknight‘s character, Nova the Alchemist, is mentor and adopted parental figure to my character Munna. Munna … Munna isn’t a very good apprentice. She tries very hard.

37. Introduce an OC who is not quite human That’s most of them, I’m not quite sure what to say here. Bronze is an android? Bronze again? Westrin? All the aliens ??

38. Which one of your OCs would be the best dancer? man. uh. westrin or jean. or perhaps valencia.

39. Introduce any character you want ??? uhhhHHHhhHHH Lord Brillium is the reigning deity of the Cloud Kingdoms in the other campaign setting I’m working on. They represent light and the quest for knowledge, and spend most of their days in the Cathedral Observatory watching the stars.

40. Any fond memories linked to your characters? Feel free to share!one time bronze flew a hover-bike through the stained glass window in a cathedral blaring all star by smash mouth on their iguana

also one time bronze rickrolled a rakshasa demon and then pulled updog on it like, two minutes later

another time bronze scared off an entire army by pretending to be an automated security system

41. Has anyone drawn fanart of your OCs? If yes, maybe show a picture or two here (remember sources & permissions!)ive got a whole little folder on here from all you blessed people !!!! right now ive got a drawing quinn did of one o fmy characters as my lockscreen

but i think the one i’ll really never ever get over is this piece of Jane, by @rabendraws / @owoltron:

(i bet you thought i forgot about this, dude. dude. think again.)

42. Which one of your OCs would be the most interested in Greek gods? this is kind of a weird question, m, I feel like Bismuth would find learning about the mythos utterly fascinating, as would Tawn.

43. Do you have any certain type when you create your OCs? Do you tend to favour some certain traits or looks? It’s time to confesshaha. uh. i might.

aside from the entire “bronze-tangential characters” thing i mentioned awhile back, I tend to really like designing characters with hair color lighter than their skin color. it just looks so cool man. i love drawing freckles but dont put them on enough characters. i like really curly hair, but also really long and flowy hair. i like drawing triangular body types, and pointy/prominent noses.

44. Something you like about your OCs in generaluhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh this is a really vague question. m. m.

45. A character you no longer use?there’s old versions of characters, but a lot of my older ones have been somehow repurposed. I guess there’s Turien, my first-ever DND character, who’s just kind of sitting dead now. Haven’t really done anything with him other than a pretty recent tangential character.

46. Has anyone ever told you that you treat your OCs badly?Not that I can think of.

47. Has anyone ever (friendly) claimed any of your OCs as their child? Im certain it’s happened, but I can’t remember any specific instances.

48. OC who is a perfect cinnamon roll, too good for this world, too pureSpring. spring knows nothing of th dangers of the world who is letting them into fights someon eneeds to stop this

(spring roll, hehe.)

49. Which one of your OCs would most likely enjoy memesim not sure what this question is asking since many of my ocs actively enjoy memes including but not limited to westrin, dave, bronze, xen09, iris, and doctor archersen

50. Give me the good ol’ OC talk here. Talk about anything you wanti think. i think im going to pass on this one. i gave you the good old oc talk. your damn turn, yall:

if you have any questions about any of these guys feel free to shoot one at me!

thats all from me im tired and its one am. techskylander you absolute madman

#yetanotherOCmeme #WHY #personal

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mysticfyres · 5 years

Text

2019 Fyre Awards: Game of the Year Awards

Winner: Mobile Game of the Year - Florence

While I admit I am somewhat late to the party on this one, Florence truly is a clever and refreshing twist on mobile games which I much appreciated this year. Florence is a relatively short game which tells the story of a young woman’s search for love, eventual heartbreak, and journey of recovery and self-discovery. Though perhaps this sounds somewhat simple on paper, the game represents these concepts through beautiful visuals and clean/simple comic-style artwork so beautiful I was practically screenshotting every panel. However, though comic-esque in its style, this game uniquely manages to tell this heartfelt story with almost no dialogue (spoken or written) whatsoever, instead leaning heavily on its visuals, use of colors, and fantastically inter-woven gameplay to tell its story. Though nothing in its story itself was inherently unique, its gameplay elements, such as putting together pieces of a blank dialogue box to demonstrate how it feels to work your way through a conversation with someone new, were. In fact, elements such as these make me both hopeful and curious as to what digital comic designers in the future may be able to do with their work, to allow reader interactivity beyond simply glancing over their page. Innovations aside, however, Florence as it is is a sweet, reflective, and quiet experience I much appreciated amid the noise and chaos of many other entires on this year’s game list. As such, Florence is my clear winner of the 2019 Mobile Game of the Year Award.

Winner: Xbox Game of the Year - Dishonored 2

While I previously sung its praises for its level design, I can’t neglect mentioning that Dishonored 2 was the best single-player experience I’ve had all year. From a visual perspective, this game is stunning, with beautiful steampunk coastal exteriors and interiors brimming with art, coins, and trinkets. Its level design is likewise phenomenal, with diverse options for clearing each and every section of each and every level, whether you are bloodthirsty or aim to disappear into the shadows completely. Its enemy and weapon designs are likewise fun, with iconic adversaries like the clockwork soldiers, and abilities which let you do things like turn into a shadow monster. With so many ways to play and so many cool things to see on your way, the game gives you strong inherent incentive to explore, and spend hours and hours in its world. Although that world is considerably smaller than that of some other games, every second among Karnaca’s alleys felt like a treat. Its overall excellence and creativity in design make Dishonored 2 an easy winner of the 2019 Xbox Game of the Year Award.

Winner: PlayStation Game of the Year - Shadow of the Colossus

Speaking of games I definitely missed out on at the height of their popularity, my first experience with Shadow of the Colossus this year was one I will never forget. Shadow of the Colossus, for those living under a rock, follows a boy named Wander’s quest to climb and destroy 16 colossi roaming across forbidden lands, in order to resurrect a girl named Mono. Although I had a good time with it, there was a lot which I think was left to be desired with Shadow of the Colossus, as even the game’s remaster felt empty, colorless, and glitchy. However, one significant point of note about Shadow of the Colossus is that it permanently changed how I felt about boss fights. After finding these 16 colossi, quaking at their magnitude and destructive power, and attempting to scale and wound them only to be time and time again thrown off, beaten around, or killed, I found myself a changed person. After completing these bosses and this game, no boss battle has ever felt quite as intimidating. Although I’m sure there are yet games out there which will provide even greater challenges than that I faced with these colossi, after scaling and defeating these creatures I don’t think later boss fights will ever feel as impossible to me. That’s the beauty of building a game around crazy-intimidating boss fights, through this, the game trains you to approach even the most insurmountable-feeling task with a level of determination and trust in your own abilities which I feel so many other games don’t care if you do or don’t have. Again, while the game at large didn’t feel that fun or strike any specific chords with me, I think this is definitely something everyone should experience at least once. Thus, Shadow of the Colossus wins the 2019 Playstation Game of the Year Award.

Winner: Nintendo Game of the Year - Untitled Goose Game

As far as games go that let you unleash your inner b*stard, nothing can beat Untitled Goose Game. Untitled Goose Game is a stealth/simulator type game where you play as a goose whose sole purpose is to steal bells and simultaneously ruin the lives of everyone around you. As someone who always picks the nice option in video games, and who knows all too well about the studies which prove the nonexistence of things like catharsis, I didn’t really see myself being able to get into the mindset of a goose who really just wants to bring chaos and ruin. But I gave it a try, and soon found myself giving in to my inner a**hole. Part of the ease of doing this, I think, is great game design. In a world where you can pick up and move everything your goose mouth can hold, why wouldn’t you? In a world where people will be mean to you and stare at you for simply minding your own business, or god forbid- trying to have a picnic, why wouldn’t you, say, steal their radio, lock them in a garage, or break their stuff? Although the game tells you all the best ways to ruin their lives, it doesn’t have to incentivize you to do them: when you’re that small and filled with that much rage, it comes naturally. Although the controls to pull off some of those things are a bit slippery at times, if anything it only serves to fuel your terrible rampage, and continue your pleasure-seeking riot through the village. Again, while not ever things I would see myself doing, a goose does as a goose does. For this unfiltered look at my own psychoticism, Untitled Goose Game wins the 2019 Nintendo Game of the Year Award.

Winner: PC Game of the Year - Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy

While there were many games I really enjoyed this year, there is no game I had more inherent interest in or continued desire to play than the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy. PW:AAT is the port of three classic games which I’ve wanted to play basically my entire life: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney − Justice for All, and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney − Trials and Tribulations. All three games follow lawyer Phoenix Wright in his quest to defend the innocent in various trials. As a combo of all three games, PW:AAT features hours and hours of content, which together make for an enjoyable, though somewhat mixed, bag of ideas. Characters in the three games are wacky caricatures which somehow loop back around into being unique, yet somehow entirely believable. The writing, meanwhile, careens back and forth between being dead serious and comedic. The story behind each case and the logic it takes to solve it is sometimes clear as day, otherwise seemingly non-existent. However, while PW:AAT is occasionally frustrating, it also keeps things fresh and leads to some genuine surprises. Each trial is a roller coaster ride from start to finish, and while far from a perfect game series, it is nonetheless wildly entertaining. For countless surprises and top-notch entertainment value, I have to give PW:AAT the 2019 PC Game of the Year Award.

Winner: Ultimate Game of the Year - Borderlands: The Handsome Collection

And finally, the winner of my Ultimate Game of the Year Award for 2019 is Borderlands: The Handsome Collection. Like Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy, Borderlands: The Handsome Collection is actually multiple games in one, and includes both Borderlands 2 and Borderlands the Pre-Sequel plus all DLCs of both games. The collection is named after the famous villain Handsome Jack, who appears prominently as both a protagonist and antagonist in both games. Besides being a genuinely great experience, Borderlands: The Handsome Collection was the series that defined my entire summer, and which I played start to finish with my best friend Ak. Story-wise, the games’ writing is phenomenal, with one of the best co-op campaigns I have ever played, and an engaging yet upbeat story as well. As mentioned before, both games likewise host an iconic cast of characters of diverse ethnicities, sexualities, and body types. The world design is likewise simultaneously bleak and colorful, leaving both Pandora and Elpis feeling both masterfully whimsical yet also like the wastelands they are often likened to. As far as gameplay, the game’s FPS and loot system mechanics are some of the most enjoyable I’ve experienced, and come to fruition in some insanely fun boss battles with great loot drops. Though other games both on this list and in the world at large have tried to mirror these elements, no game quite nails it like this one. The Handsome Collection is likewise easy to sink hours into without even trying, and before I knew it I had over 250 hours logged easily. Though I put off exploring the Borderlands series for many years, I am so incredibly glad I finally gave it a chance, as it’s now one of my favorite series of all times. As the game collection which allowed me to fall in love with this all new set of characters and universe, the Borderlands: The Handsome Collection is my indisputable 2019 Ultimate Game of the Year.

#Dani speaks #video games #games #gaming #The Fyre Awards #the fyre awards 2019 #thefyreawards #thefyreawards2019 #fyreawards2019

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wondergirl-lovebot · 7 years

Note

For your pjo Newsies au could you wrote when Jack and Crutchie get together. I'd be forever grateful (ps I've been waiting for a good pjo Newsies au for like ever so thanks for writing it)

Thanks so much for requesting!!! I really appreciate it! And, It’s my pleasure to write this au! I was sorta surprise there wasn’t any on here for it (or at least to my knowledge.) Anyways, I’ve been wanting to write fics for this AU, but I had 0 motivation to write. So, when you requested it I was super happy because it gave me a reason and motivation to actually write them! So, I should be thanking you!

Also, quick thanks to everyone who’s either sent things to my inbox, my DMs, or just simply reblogged or liked the headcannon posts about the au!

Sorry in advance for any spelling/grammar mistakes sometimes I can’t see for looking haha

They’re Breaking Your Heart? Then Try to Hear it Pound

(part one of two maybe)

Chapter 1: A One-Way Trip, A Very Hard Fall

Original Headcannon posts for this au: Part 1/ Part 2

This should be up on AO3 sometime, at the moment of me posting this I am having difficulties with posting it.

Of course, the first time Jack would ever meet/talk to his deadbeat mother would be when he was Seventeen.

But, then again he has the worse luck ever. A prime example of this would be just exactly who his mother is. Now, his mother couldn’t be that bad, right?

Well, she really isn’t personality wise, that is to say, but it’s more what she is than who she is.

Jack’s mother was the Goddess of Love, Aphrodite, herself. You’d think having a god or goddess as a parent would be cool and amazing, but it’s not. It’s far from amazing. Just ask any of the currently alive demigods, or read a Wikipedia page on any Ancient Greek “mythological” child of a god.

Their stories all end the same. Which is that it’s never a happy ending.

Now, the Goddess of Love’s children had get happy endings right? It’s basically ensured to them just based off who their mother was. That’s wrong, very wrong. It doesn’t matter who your godly parent is monsters still find away to hunt you down and kill you, and you still get to carry out all of the gods dirty work for them. You have no choice in the matter.

Aphrodite is known amongst the demigods and gods themselves as being one of the more, how do you say it, caring parents to have as a god. She generally appears in her children’s dreams to give them advice, or just to talk about their love lives. She may not do it often, but almost all of her children run into the Goddess one way or another at least once in their life times. She also watches over her children (and their love lives) more intently than most other gods. She tries her best to give them blessings and signs that she cares for them, but ultimately she’s a goddess and she isn’t allowed to directly interfere.

Jack Kelly, her eldest son at Camp Half-Blood, has never once seen her despite being seventeen and her cabin’s counselor. He’s always wanted to meet his mother, hell any half-blood who’s never met their godly parent will tell you this. Ever since he was little, even before he knew he of his divine heritage, he’s dreamed what it would be like to meet her. Those dreams were amplified at the age of ten when he arrived at camp, and was claimed by the Goddess.

Never did he ever in his seventeen miserable years of life, did he imagine any situation that even came remotely close to what ended up being their first meeting.

Well, that was probably a good thing that he didn’t imagine this situation.

It started as just a regular old day at Camp Half-Blood.

Jack was scaling the climbing wall, and was about to reach the top of it. Of course, that’s when everything went wrong. He had grabbed onto a ledge that seemed to be placed to a little too conveniently, but at the time Jack wasn’t really thinking about how the ledge seemed a little suspicious. He was mainly trying not to be incinerated by lava, at that point. So of course, when he grabbed onto the ledge it it burst into a dangerous and sickly flame.

Great Greek Fire! That’s just what I needed, he thought. Now, he had no choice, but to let go the ledge. Seeing as there were no other ledges or anything to grab onto, and the wall was just about to pour lava out the top of it, he was forced to take a free fall.

But, as soon as he hit bare earth below, he had let the pain and exhaustion consume him. And, with that Jack’s whole world went dark, engulfed by the darkness that slumber brought, as he hit the ground with a loud and painful thud.

It wasn’t uncommon for a demigod, especially of his strength, to have weird dreams about other events happening around the world at that same time. Or, to have somewhat prophetic dreams. Even, dreams that was some sign of help of guidance was normal. But, Gods showing up in them to have a quick chat about one’s love life was definitely not normal.

Even, for their messed up standards of what ‘normal’ is.

Jack stood in the middle of what seemed to be the Aphrodite Cabin, the one his siblings and him shared. But, something was off the cabin was empty. The cabin was usually filled with the children of Aphrodite gossiping, making bets on the love lives of other campers, etc. He hastily looked around confused as to why he would be having a dream about the cabin, let alone when it was empty.

That’s when he spotted her.

He didn’t really know how to describe the women sitting on his bunk with her legs neatly crossed and her hands at her sides. She was looking through a few photos that Jack had displayed by the side of his bed, before she looked up noticing his presence.

He didn’t really know how to describe the women, but he had a gut feeling that he knew this woman, and she knew him. Her appearance kept shifting, but that didn’t change the fact that he knew she was absolutely stunning.The women’s height, shape, hair color, eyes, race, and everything about her appearance other than the kind, loving smile she had on her face and her clothes, were shifting dramatically and rapidly. That was until, she finally took form as a short, sunkissed, girl with soft features and sandy blonde hair that hung to her shoulders.

That’s when he finally realized just exactly who he was in the presence of, and who trying to contact him through an unconscious dream. “M-Mother?” He managed to stutter out, fearing the reasons why his mother had come to bless his dreams with her presence.

Aphrodite only visited the dreams of those who she either, one, favored or found interesting and wanted to help make their love lives “interesting,” or something or other like that. Or, two, those of whom were her children, and were in need of some advice or help. Whether that need come from a quest, to what to wear to an important event, or to even having trouble with their love lives, and needing help to fix them.

Aphrodite really did have a soft spot for her children’s love lives.

He was really hoping it would be the latter of the two, and that this would be some sort of warning of a dangerous quest he’d have to go on soon. That would have been way better than being “blessed” with an interesting love life from his mother. That always meant trouble and pain for those involved. Oh, how Aphrodite just loved a great tragedy.

But, of course he wasn’t a child of Tyche, so naturally his luck was pretty horrible. And, of course the first time he’d ever meet his mother would be under the circumstances of his love life.

Aphrodite smiled gently at his recognition of her. Even, though Jack had never even met, let alone seen, his mother before this he could she cared somehow, just by that smile alone.

“I’m sorry that we had to meet for the first time in such, um, interesting circumstances.” She let out a small, gentle laugh before getting up from where she was seated on his bunk. “But, I must say Jack you’ve grown into quite the handsome young man.” The goddess complimented.

Jack’s face became as red as the strawberries they grew in the fields at camp at this, “Uh, thanks?” He scratched the back of his neck while smiling warily. “But, um- uh, why are you here? N-Not that I don’t want you here! I’m happy to see you after all this time! But, why now?”

The Goddess of love let out a small laugh at her son. “Well, I came to tell you that I’ve been watching you lately.” Jack could feel his face flush even more. Did she really watch over him? Does that mean she saw him fall off the climbing wall? And- Oh Gods! That means she’s seen him googly eyeing that son of Apollo during meals!

“Yes, Jack, to answer your questions I have seen you googly eyeing him, he is quite the cutie isn’t he? I’m sure Apollo would agree with you on that.” Jack was probably the color of a stop sign now. Wait, did she just read his mind? “As for the climbing wall incident, I am quite sorry about that. I really did need to talk to you, and it’s not like I can just randomly show up at that camp of yours and do it, now can I?”

“Wait, hold on a second here,” He started moving his hands in a sporadic slow-down movement, “You caused me to fall off the climbing wall? Why in the name of Zeus would you do that for?! What’s so important that it couldn’t wait till, Ya’ know I actually fell asleep?” Jack didn’t mean to snap at her, but that’s what it came out as. Aphrodite just let out a small breath, before beginning to smirk that I-have-very-interesting-plans-for-you smirk.

“Well, yes I did and I’m very sorry about that sweetie,” it felt so unreal that he was being called ‘sweetie’ after all these years of never even seeing her, “As for why I did it and why it’s so important. Well, I was just getting to that part of course!” She smiled happily, rocking on her toes.

“Let me guess, it’s about my love life isn’t it?” Jack deadpanned.

He wasn’t necessarily the most, how do you say, romantically active child of Aphrodite. He had only ever had a handful significant others, and for a child of Aphrodite that was surprising. But, he wasn’t really like his siblings. Most of them weren’t in it for the long run and some even got into relationships just to break the person’s heart on purpose. He always tried to be in it for the long run, fully committed and supportive. But, nothing ever seemed to work out in the end. Whenever, the relationship ended it was always them breaking it off, or on the rare occasion it was a mutual break up and he’d stayed very close friends with them. So, ironic right that he was the Counselor of the Aphrodite Cabin. And also, that his mom would finally appear to him when he was finally starting to accept the fact that no one liked him that way, and that he was basically single forever.

So, it was odd to say the least, that now when Jack was single and pretty content with that fact, that his mother would finally appear to him to give him love advice. “I mean not that there’s anything wrong with that! But, you know it’s just unexpected to say the least.” He said casting his eyes to the ground.

Aphrodite lifted his chin lovingly, with her lips ever so slightly curled into a smile. “Ah, looks like you guessed correctly.” Jack let out a nervous, shaky breath. He really didn’t want to know what the Goddess of Love had planned for him.

“As you know, I take quite amount of pride in my children, and just so long as they please me and stay on the write path in their hearts,” no doubt was she referring to her daughter who had become a spy in the Titan War, the old counselor, who wanted to stop but was threatened into continuing with it. In the end, she sacrificed herself for her comrades and was hailed a hero by most, but of course there were always a select few who didn’t. “I bless them with an interesting, but good love life. Now, not all of my children, especially nowadays, get as interesting ones anymore. It’s such a shame honestly, so much wasted potential just because they choose to be rude and hateful to others who don’t share the same outward beauty and standards as themselves.”

The Goddess shook her head in disappointment before continuing, “It’s not like I make their romantic stories bad, well occasionally but I digress. They just aren’t as interesting as others are, they’re quite mundane and boring for my tastes.” Maybe that’s a good thing seeing as how you tend to meddle quite a bit with others, Jack silently thought to himself.

“But, then how does that explain why you’re here?” Jack furrowed his brow looking down questioningly at his mother.

“Ah, well you see,” she smiled with slight satisfaction, “I was here to tell you that, as you know already, I have been watching you. And, since I do favor you over most of my current children, please don’t tell that to any of your siblings that! Of course, not to say that I think you would.” Her expression was playfully teasing him, yet it radiated how much she cared for him and the rest of her children at the same time. “I just wanted to tell you that even though your love life has been quiet, hm, eventful so far. And, that was without my intervention, I must say you are one of my favorites to watch.” That made him laugh nervously because he knew what was coming next.

“Anyways, I am promising you that I’ll make this even more of an interesting love life than before! You will find the ‘one,’ as you might say, soon!” She cheerfully added, “I must admit, I’m very excited to see how this one will shape up!” His eyes must of widened at that because she quickly added, “Not that it won’t be a great relationship for the ages! But, I only intervene so much. Many think I cause all of it, but I generally only give nudges in the right directions. You all are usually the deciding factor if a relationship succeeds or not though.”

Jack knew she could feel his uneasiness and scepticism, and that she was trying to comfort him, but it wasn’t really working. Jack had never had much luck in love, despite being a child of it.

“Wait, what exactly does ‘you will soon find the one’ mean?!” He must of looked crazy and frantic, but his mother just put her hand to her mouth and laughed graciously at her son.

“Oh, you will find out soon enough! Now, I must leave Ares is taking me out tonight! Au Revoir!”

“Wait, huh!?” Jack reached out questioningly, but by the he could say anything the Goddess had disappeared into air. Leaving Jack by himself in bright pink cabin, before that too disappeared.

Jack woke up with jolt.

He frantically scanned his surroundings trying to figure out where he was, and also comprehending what had just happened. Though, it was proving a challenge, since his head was pounding like a woodpecker was hacking at the side of his head. Oh, and not to mention the throbbing coming from his left leg. He also felt nauseous and lightheaded.

Great, he thought, this is just what I needed a severe burn, a concussion and multiple broken bones! Oh! And don’t forget the ‘blessing’ from Mom! Jack thought looking down at his right hand, the hand that should have been severely burnt. Yet, it showed no sign of it?

“Wow, wow, wow, relax! I’m trying to help you!”

Jack, then had realized he was in the infirmary, and had nearly head-butted the boy trying to heal him. Gods was Jack just having a great day!

That’s exactly when he realized just who was healing him. Of course, it had to be the adorable son of Apollo who ran the infirmary, and who Jack had been pining over basically since he saw the guy after his first capture the flag game. Said son of Apollo was a literal ray of sunshine despite the fact that he was crippled and forced to use a crutch everywhere he went. But, that never seemed to stop him, he was the camp’s head doctor (medic? Healer? Jack didn’t know what the proper title was) in the infirmary and really the whole camp. He was always smiling that adorable lopsided grin of his, was always positive even in the worst of situations, and so Jack couldn’t help but be drawn to him.

Not to mention was he beautifully adorable with his sandy blond hair, light but not pale complexion, assortment of splattered freckles on his nose, and don’t even get him started on those sky blue eyes.

But, of course Jack was too much of a chicken to actually talk to him, let alone remember his name! Wow, he was so pitiful.

Gods, he was more of a stereotypical son of Aphrodite than he thought he was.

Apparently, Jack was too busy staring at his face and thinking of how amazing he was that he didn’t realize that the boy was speaking to him.

“Hey, are you listening!! I’m trying to tell you what exactly happened to you, and what I’ve had and have to do to help you!” The healer pouted, trying to get Jack to lay back down.

“Oh, umm, sorry?” He flashed an apologetic smile.

“Okay, so will you listen now?”

“Of course, Sunny Boy!”

“Umm w-what?” The son of Apollo asked, flustered and- wait was he blushing?

“Yeah! Sunny Boy! Ya’ know because your a Son of Apollo and he’s the sun god,” and you’re like actual sunshine and I also have no idea what your name is, “Get it?” Jack tried to flash a playful smile, but he must of looked like a crazed perv because he felt extremely woozy and heavily medicated.

“Oh, whatever!” The boy huffed, “Everyone calls me Crutchie, so just call me that please!”

“Whatever you say Sunny Boy!”

“Anyways,” the boy- no Crutchie- continued, “You have a concussion and-”

“You don’t think I know that?”

“AND, you have several broken ribs and you fractured your left leg,” Crutchie said as he got up to go fetch something from the infirmary’s cabinet. Jack just winced realizing just how much pain he had been in. “I was able to get some Nectar in you and use my healing to mend the bones a bit so they weren’t as severely fractured as they were. Oh, and I was able to fix the burn on your hand right up! But,” he dragged the ‘but’ with a slow exhale of breath, “seeing as there’s a capture the flag game later I have to preserve some of my stock.”

“Really,” Jack raised an eyebrow, “or do you just like watching me suffer in pain?” The blond boy spun around with some ambrosia in his hands.

“Hardly, but since your cabin is sorta pissed at Hermes for pulling that prank,” he sighed slightly rolling his eyes, “and also, Spot and Race sorta freaked out about it too ‘cause I know you guys are pretty good friend right? Well, they’re sorta gonna try and kill the Hermes kids and thus their team along with it tonight. So, I have to make sure I have enough supplies to heal everyone since I’m sort of running low at the moment.”

“Wow, I’m sincerely touched by their anger and concern.” Jack mockingly cried before rolling his eyes, “Seriously, I’m good friends with the Hermes counselors guess that’s not enough.” Jack shrugged causing himself quite a bit of pain.

“Yeah, well Spot’s the type of guy who when sees the chance to start a huge fight in Capture the Flag that he knows won’t cause a huge horrible rivalry, takes it.” Crutchie sat down, unfolding the ambrosia squares. “And, Race follows him and vise versa on those sort of things….” He trailed off, “And not to mention he’s pretty good and riling people up too.”

“You act as if I don’t know this, Sunny Boy!” He chuckled, giving a faint smile as yet again he caused himself pain with a simple action.

Crutchie laughed a little while handing him the Ambrosia squares. “Oh and I forgot to mention concussions are sort of hard to heal with nectar or ambrosia and my healing powers can only do so much at a time, so we’re keeping you over night and maybe tomorrow too.” Jack took the squares gobbled them down trying his best to stay calm and collected around this guy. “Since, my main concern was your ribs and leg I wasn’t able to heal much of it, but I was able to heal it a little.”

“Ah, thanks,” Jack mumbled finishing his last bite of ambrosia. “I mean hey, you shouldn’t have to over exert yourself to heal me just because I was stupid and fell off the climbing wall.” He gave a weak smile looking up at the other boy through his lashes.

“Oh um, n-no problem!” Crutchie stuttered slightly blushing, “I mean usually I would be able to do more, but with Capture the Flag being so close and all I have to persevere a little bit. I hope spending a night at the infirmary isn’t to bad.”

“Of course not! I mean, hey I get to see more of you!” Jack grinned like a Cheshire Cat.

“Oh well, um okay,” Crutchie was blushing furiously now, “Y-You better rest! Just, uh, call me if you need me I’m gonna be here late tonight.” Crutchie stumbled toward the exit of the room, “Oh and I’ll make sure someone brings you your dinner…. Which will probably be me, see you later lover boy.” And, before Jack could say anything else Crutchie had dashed out of the room. Jack was now left alone in the room with his thoughts running wild.

Jack’s mind was more scattered than normal. Not only did he have a concussion and broken bones, he also met his mom who told him she was going to make his love life ‘interesting,’ oh and don’t forget he had woozily flirted with the guy he had been pining over! Oh what a great day!

Jack tried to comprehend what his mother had told him and what exactly ‘you will soon find the one,’ meant. Could it be- no, he shouldn’t get his hopes up, he had no chance!

Before, he knew it he had slipped into the darkness of sleep once again.

Jack would be lying if he said that he wasn’t at least a little bit sad that his time in the infirmary was over. Okay, that was a lie he was very sad about it.

He had gotten to know Crutchie much better over just that short day and two nights he was there! Now, Jack wasn’t just interested in the son of Apollo because of what he had heard, saw, and from the few short interactions they had before this. Now, Jack was officially head over heels for him.

One problem though. He still had no idea how to approach and actually spend time with Crutchie. The boy spent most of his time in the infirmary and shared no lessons with Jack at all. He felt like he was going to explode.

A few night after he was freed from the infirmary he found himself on the losing end of a poker game against Race, Spot, and his half-brother Romeo. While, Davey shook his head off to the side criticizing them for the way they were choosing to spend their free time.

“Oh come one Dave! Gambling is a very valid use of free time!” Race retorted. Davey just shook his head and laughed a bit.

“Oh well I’m not saying it’s not, and I sort of expect you to do it Race. But, I’m more or less criticizing the three who are willing to play against you.” Davey shook his head, scolding them.

“What’s so wrong playin’ against Race?” Romeo, oh Romeo he was still so oblivious. Jack had to admit Davey was right it was stupid of them to gamble against a son of Tyche, the Goddess of Luck, but hey Spot and Jack had some tricks up their sleeves. But, Romeo well he stood no chance.

Children of Tyche were extremely lucky and almost always came out victorious in the end, especially when it came to gambling. Literally, their cabin looked and pretty much was a Casino. But, keywords there, almost always. Now children of Tyche were tricky and were anything but below cheating. They love gambling and games of luck and probability. This is due to them having the power to manipulate luck, and this power Jack didn’t really understand. But anyways, basically when they gambled all was fair game really.

So, Spot was free to intimidate the hell out of Race or physically beat him. And well, Jack he was a powerful charmspeaker so that definitely wasn’t out of the question. Now, Jack would never admit aloud to charmspeaking people into certain actions, but he did it more often times than not.

Well, no one ever stated to rules about cheating other than the obvious. So, technically it wasn’t cheating. Sort of.

Race began the game, obviously. Which basically gave him free reign over the whole games possibility, and luck of players against him in which cards they were dealt. Why they still let him do this he didn’t know?

They were half way through the game when Spot brought up Jack’s time at the infirmary. “So, Bird Brain how was your stay at infirmary?” He said teasingly with a wink.

“Ooh yeah! How was you and Crutchie’s time together?” Another mock coming from Race this time.

“It was fine, I guess,” Jack tried to avoid this subject seeing how his friends could get. “I mean it’s not like anything really happened, he brought me food, made sure I was healing correctly, and did actually heal me. But, nothing happened.” He explained a little more harshly than he intended to, yet even with the harsh tone in his voice he was blushing at the thought of the son of Apollo.

“Oh, my, my looks like Jacky Boy’s got a crush!” Race announced elbowing Jack in his freshly healed ribs. Jack couldn’t help, but yelp seeing as they were still pretty sore.

“Whoops! Sorry, Jack!” Race apologized.

“‘S fine,” he mumbled rubbing his sore ribs where Race had just elbowed him in. Jack could feel his face flushing a bright red.

“Wow, it’s totally not like we didn’t see that one coming,” Davey rolled his eyes before continuing, “Seriously, Jack has been all heart-eyes at the guy for months.”

“No I wasn’t!”

“Sorry to break to ya,’ but you totally were.” Spot scoffed,leaning back on the back legs of his chair. “You two both check each other out when the other’s not paying attention. And, don’t get me started on how many times I’ve seen him watching you train or spar! You two are so in love with each other!” Spot teased him. Despite all the teasing him and Race both did, they cared about Jack and it was never with malicious intent.

“Gods! No I do not how many times do I have to tell you guys this?!” Jack’s face felt like it was on fire, and it was probably the same shade as a fire truck.

Romeo hadn’t said anything, yet. He just looked around the table confused until his face contorted into a the a-lightbulb-just-went-off look.

“Wow this makes so much sense now!” Romeo exclaimed, “Now, I understand why you’re always staring at the Apollo Table during meals.”

Jack let out a large groan before burying his face into his hands. What had got himself into? It didn’t matter all he knew is that no matter what did happen things were not going to be easy.

And he had only one person to thank for that:

Aphrodite.

Thanks for reading!! Again, sorry for any grammar/spelling mistakes if there are any. Please, tell me how you liked the fic!

Also, if you have any other requests for this AU hit up my inbox!

I’ll probably write a part 2, but like I may not you guys tell me!

#WOOHOO IM DONE #I seriously love this au it's my child #Abby Writes Fics #Newsies PJO AU #Newsies #PJO #Jack Kelly #crutchie morris #Crutchie #spot conlon #racetrack higgins #Romeo (newsies)#anon #requests #jackcrutchie #sprace kind of #I meant it in a sprace way but i dont think it came off that way oh well

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