#if i liked worldbuilding i would do so much of it

[ataleofcrowns]

Chapter Progress [NOV/06]

Hey all, it's been a while since I've written one of these 🍂

I've been posting regular previews on my Patreon, but a proper update was long overdue! As a refresher, my last update was this one, and I've got lots more to update you on now that I'm further along!

I've struggled a lot with this chapter and have been trying to wrangle it into shape as best I can, and I'm happy (and relieved) to say that I can finally give you an estimated release date: you can expect CH12 to be uploaded in December this year.

I won't be putting a specific date on it yet, since it could be anywhere from early December to late December depending on how much progress I make in November, but I'll let you know! Now, onto specifics.

The Main Plot

I'm currently balancing out LI specific content in the main plot! Regardless of what you chose in regards to Kham and the peri trader, players will be spending some time with D and X to make up for their absence in CH10 at the beginning of this chapter, and I've really missed writing their dynamic with each other as well as the Crown.

I genuinely can't decide which branch is my favorite. Meeting with Kham directly gives so much juicy verbal sparring and tension between not only her and the Crown but her and D and X as well. But meeting directly with the peri trader let me dig more into the worldbuilding, explore the city a bit, and have some more lighthearted shenanigans with D and X too.

I'll add some previews here for both routes that I've also already shared for people on the Patreon. Here's a little excerpt for people meeting with Kham:

“There is one thing I have been wondering, princess,” you say as you stare back into her eyes, watching the way the orange orbs of light flicker like flames. “When you first arrived here, you were accompanied by a retinue of guards. Whatever happened to them?” Kham does not raise her brows at you, exactly, but something similar to the motion as the wood above her eyes arches upwards with a stiff creaking sound. “They are not merely my guards, they are my servants first and foremost. Naturally, they run errands for me.” “What kinds of errands?” “Surely you do not think I would fetch all I require by myself?” She appears amused by the line of questioning rather than offended. “They trade with the peri merchants in your city on my behalf. Although, calling it trade is perhaps not accurate, as I hold the right to lay claim on their supplies whenever I please. They are representatives of my mother, after all.” You consider the explanation, but nothing about it seems notable or inconsistent so far. “So you have never dealt with this peri trader I wish to meet with yourself?” “Of course not.” She smiles, her wooden mouth briefly pressing together. “That would be beneath me.” “A shame,” $xname muses casually from beside you, contrasting the sharp look in their eyes. “We had hoped you might have some insight to share.” “As much insight as you are willing to offer me regarding this flower you seek,” Kham returns, her smile still in place. “The blue siren, yes? A rather strange fixation…” You feel the urge to tense, but withhold yourself from it by taking a slow, relaxed breath. All the rigorous physical training you have underwent over the course of the past month is already showing its benefits: you feel more aware and in control over your body, able to maintain your composure. A necessary skill when dealing with someone like Kham, as conversing with her feels like a dance of sorts. The two of you are watching each other’s steps, waiting for the other to slip.

And here's the excerpt for if you choose to meet with the peri trader:

You manage to make it through the marketplace, finally arriving at a large building with an open front, wrapping around the corner of the street. Tables and shelves are lined with various flowers and plants, perused by a few passing customers. This appears to be the peri trader’s shop, signaled by the sign at the front that reads Eshkar’s Garden. Eshkar being the name of the peri trader in question. Most of the flora on display you recognize, if not by the labeled names then by sight alone, but several look entirely new to you. Pale white flowers whose hanging bulbs pulse with light when a customer brushes against its leaves; bleeding vines wrapped around a miniature roofed trellis atop a tall table, its crimson flowers slowly dripping down pink juice caught by bowls below; a tall flower with only two black petals, large and pointed, that nearly startle you when they snap together several times in sharp, cracking sounds, almost as if the flower were clapping. IF CROWN IS INTELLIGENT Momentarily forgetting about your intended purpose in being here, you approach the clapping flower with curiosity, wondering what set it off. Sure enough, you see dead and decomposing flies of various sorts collected at the center of its bulb as you lean over to peer inside, taking care to avoid leaning in too close lest your nose get caught between the aggressive petals. Does it catch and eat small insects? How fascinating. You glance at the labeling of the flower, its name fittingly given as ‘black ovation’. IF CROWN IS INTUITIVE Eyes drawn by the visual spectacle of the white flowers, you find yourself wandering over to its shelf, glancing at the labeling that reads ‘stardrops’. The bulbs look ordinary at first glance, but sure enough, when you reach out to touch its petals, the flower begins to glow like you saw before. A ring of light travels up its stem, through the petals to the very ends, where it erupts into tiny little golden sparks. Hence the name, you suppose. Unable to stop yourself, you touch the flower again, mesmerized by the light show, until you notice a shop attendee frowning at you from nearby. Feeling scolded, you quickly pull your hand away and offer an apologetic smile.

Lots of fun going on in both routes! I don't envy you for having to make this choice lol.

Aside from this big branch, the main plot will converge for everyone again in the latter half of the chapter, where the Crown gets do to some more typical Crown things: hearing public petitions! They'll contain 2 smaller scenes where your character will hear out some citizen concerns, which will let you rack up reputation points with either the public or the nobility, and 1 major scene that affects a future plot point.

Not gonna spoil these since I've already talked so much about everything else regarding this chapter, so this will have to remain a surprise ✨

The Romances and Friendships

While the start of the chapter is X and D focused, if you have a specific (platonic) LI you want to spend more time with as buddies and perhaps get a little relationship advice, you'll have that opportunity at the start of CH12! I've had to write 12 variations in total for each friendship scene, which was a lot of work, but completely worth it.

Some LI routes also have big additional differences depending on if you have a low or high romance (such as A and R), while it matters a little bit less for the others for the time being (such as D and X). So if you screwed up on D or X's romances and have a low status, you're mostly in the clear from immediate consequences… for now.

Here's a little excerpt, taken from a playthrough of a Crown who has a high romance with A and chooses R's friendship scene:

Something like mischief gleams in $rname’s eyes as $rthey looks at you. “I’ve noticed you and $aname seem especially close nowadays.” You shift a little on the couch, averting your gaze to avoid $rname’s eyes as you strike a casual tone. “Do we?” “Mhm.” When you do glance over at $rname, you find $rthem studying $rtheir nails, and you begin to relax as you think it was just an idle remark. Until $rthey adds, “All the hand-holding underneath the table is endearing, I must admit. Especially since the two of you seem to think you’re being subtle about it.” IF CROWN IS RESERVED Heat flushes up your neck at being seen through so easily, remembering breakfast earlier that morning where $aname’s fingers hooked around yours beneath the table. “We were just… we’re not…” $rname looks up from $rtheir nails to grin at you. “There’s no need to look so embarrassed! I’m happy for you. The two of you seem well-suited for each other.” Trying to move past your flustered state, you clear your throat. “You think so?” “I’ve never seen $aname so at ease as when you’re around,” $rname considers, eyes narrowing with teasing and fondness both. “You look more unburdened with $athem near, as well.” IF CROWN IS FLIRTATIOUS You almost laugh at the remark and give it away completely, only managing to keep it in at the last moment and grinning back at $rname instead. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” $rname looks up from $rtheir nails with a sly smile. “No? What a shame. I was going to say how well-suited the two of you are for each other.” That catches your attention, your playfulness easing into something more sincere. “Really?” “I’ve never seen $aname so at ease as when you’re around,” $rname considers, eyes narrowing with teasing and fondness both. “You look more unburdened with $athem near, as well.”

This scene aside, CH12 will also contain another dedicated romance scene with your LI, dealing with some of the fallout from last chapter whether good or bad. If your romance is high, you'll be coasting- except maybe for D romancers, who are in Pining Hell either way haha.

If your romance is low, though, prepare for some delicious angst 🙏🏼

That's all I've got for now! Thank you all so much for your patience and support as always, especially for how long I've been making you all wait. You're the best 💖

[explodingchantry]

Vague veilguard spoilers? About being an elf in minrathous and various other northern locations

It's very difficult to not sound batshit insane when saying "why isn't anyone being fantasy racist to me" but like genuinely why isn't anyone being fantasy racist to my openly elven rook. Especially when I'm parading around Minrathous, basically the racist slave capital of the world? Not a single comment? Really?

Why do I face more fantasy racism as an elf in ferelden than I do in fucking TEVINTER? why do we hear about slaves in codex entries specifically written by those who don't condone slavery but we don't really interact with one?

Also how come there's so many elves in tevinter working normal service jobs? I know a bunch of them will be liberatis I get that, but like. You can't even be an elf in goddamn ferelden or kirkwall without risking being abducted by tevinter slavers. And you're telling me you can be an elf in minrathous itself without being abducted by tevinter slavers? Like one or two sure especially if they're protected by the shadow dragons but like brooooo

Speaking of the difference between the south and the north - does northern thedas just not do alienages ??? Is that something we're scrubbing off too?? I get it for minrathous because. Lol. But like - antiva? Is that something I just forgot? Alienages are acknowledged in like One codex entry but why wouldn't the north have them?

Don't get me wrong I Have liked some of the recontextualisation the game has done - but I think a lot of this has to do with bioware being afraid of repercussion if they include their staple fantasy racism in their game. And I do fucking get it lol you especially don't want a game about being whoever you want to be turn around and be racist to your face depending on the race you choose. But the thing is that you had 3 games and tons of side media that built this up - the world of thedas is a very unequal one, a deeply racist one, and it does take players aback when they've gotten used to it and then play veilguard and they're just able to frolic in the streets of the tevinter capital as an elf with no repercussion and not a single comment from it's inhabitants

It's so crazy going from being called fantasy slurs constantly in DAO to this KDJDKDJDJD

Like at some point it is a little bit immersion breaking just because we're otherwise so used to it and have been told several times that the north/tevinter would be much, much worse, you know?? But I do get that it's hard and that bioware is trying to move away from constantly hate criming their players. I get it's difficult. But it still hurts not just my immersion but in general hurts the worldbuilding and lore

There's a lot to be said about magic, too - but I'd want to reread the lore we had on these countries pre-veilguard and would like to also just, yknow, finish the game before I talk too much about it

[ranticore]

I've often seen people ask you for drawing advice(which yes absolutely!) but what kind of writing advice could you give someone who wants to start? (or just narratives as a whole)

Ok my biggest advice and the thing I always spend most time on when editing is that u should tell the audience way less than you think you should tell them. Provide information sure but don't draw connections and don't hold a reader's hand. Like for example one minute ago I was reading over a paragraph with the final two sentences (paraphrased): "The word 'faery' didn't quite make it out of his mouth [in reference to himself]. He'd never thought of himself in those terms" and my editing comment was to nix that last sentence entirely because it's just saying out loud what the previous sentence is telling us, like holding ur hand and pointing at it saying "hey this is what that last sentence meant btw". it's easy to end up with a lot of that but you need to go back and cut all of those out. think about a reader drawing their own judgements, how much more engaging it is

Other random stuff I've picked up over the years

Kerb your worldbuilders disease ur writing a story not an encyclopaedia

Read your paragraph aloud to identify repetitive or weirdly structured sentences

There should be a clear causal chain running the length of the narrative - x happened because of y, which happened because of z, and so on. No matter how many links in the chain you should know it start to finish

Written media gives you an unlimited time budget, a reader can take as long as they like with it. You don't have to make it quick and snappy. You get to show & explore things that visual media can't, so take advantage of it. Also ditch every piece of writing advice which is like "trim all the fat and also imagine camera angles and scene cuts like it's a movie" because it's not a movie and you aren't constrained into a short runtime.

First draft is rough it's supposed to be rough just write it

It's impossible to write dialogue that nobody would ever say.. easy to scoff and think "nobody talks like this" but they do

I can't in good conscience advise everybody do this but the slush draft (draft 0 as it were) of stbh was narrated entirely in first person by the pov character in each chapter, with the framing device that they were explaining their actions to a judgemental third party. This was just done for fun before any other world building or even plot it was just to get the characters right first & to sort out how they would attempt to justify their actions, when they'd try to make themselves sound better (or worse), and just their voice in general. It ended up being absolutely invaluable

[rosepetalkitty]

ngl hdg kinda amazes me in its ability to cater to my kinks pretty much perfectly while simultaneously triggering several of the worst parts of my trauma.

like how is it that it hits on everything i like on the surface, provides semi-decent worldbuilding to back it all up and enable the creation of stories, and even has consistent backstory and stuff, and yet the entire damn thing instills this looming sense of dread and fear that i can't shake enough to properly enjoy it...

below the break im gonna talk in like. moderate detail. about the parts that scare me. so uh yeah be aware that it'll get heavy that's just how it is.

ok, so the worst thing for me. wellness checks. the idea is cute and kinda hot on the surface. "make sure you're okay and if you're not you're getting domesticated" (which is supposed to be like. a happy thing. "now you get to just chill and be happy and get taken care of forever and in return you give me only your submission"). yeah, fuck it, im into that. hell that's not even an uncommon trope in the realm of cnc/mc writing.

except whenever i read an hdg wellness check story (in the sense of those long-ish tumblr posts that people write—i haven't even really considered reading the longer form content on ao3) there's something viscerally... off... about the tone. it stops feeling like kink and starts feeling like a nightmare when things happen to line up just so, and then it clicks, and reminds me that i knew people, real people, who had "wellness checks" happen in real life, except that instead of it being a kink thing that made them happy and was genuinely for their wellbeing, it was that their parents had hired people to kidnap them and drag them to a psych ward when they just needed a therapist. not all of those people that i knew have come home, as far as im aware. some have been gone for years.

and what about the whole idea of the non-consensual part being okay because "it's for your own good". in hdg-land it is. it's genuinely good for you and everyone seems to be happy with it, other than the occasional "bad guy who hates good things" trope (feralists, in hdg, afaik). but that's exactly what they told me when they cut contact between my boyfriend and i while he was in the hospital. "it's for your own good." guess what, it wasn't. his parents didn't like our relationship. they wanted me to forget him. they either didn't understand or didn't care that i couldn't. it was a year and a half before he came home and i had forgotten nothing.

our loss of communication was the tipping point in a series of events that, had i made one decision differently in the end, would have killed me. thankfully i fucked it up and am here today, no longer in that bad of a place may i add. im choosing not to share any of what happened to me directly right now because i don't want to turn this into a full on trauma dump, but suffice it to say there are recurring themes.

it's so interesting to me because in a lot of ways i have found comfort from those experiences in kink and writing. take flames of averon: mech pilots are neurochemically bonded to their handlers. how different is this from what the affini do to their florets? well, you have to sign up to be a pilot, and there's no authority in the world threatening you if you choose not to. even the coalition military wouldn't dare force you to become a pilot against your will, though they might never stop sending you promotional flyers if they find out you're able to tolerate the cyberware /lh

hell, im into cnc. im really into it. i chose to leave it as an opening between pilots and handlers in foa. the implication exists that if a handler tells their pilot to do something the poor thing will have a hell of a time saying no. that's intentional. it's hot to me, on either end. but the safety comes from other things.

yes, your handler has a lot of influence over you at a level that's hard to imagine, but you chose them and they chose you (most of the time), or at the very least neither of you had any complaints to raise with your supervisor when the paperwork came in for syncing your link chips (holly and astrid from seat of consciousness).

yes it's true, you can't be reassigned now that you're bonded, but that doesn't mean you have zero recourse if your handler is treating you badly. if you need to, you can always file paperwork with your commanding officer to request that something be done.

plus, handlers go through a lot of training, which includes screening to filter out people who would actually harm their pilots. yeah, some handlers are a little sadistic, but when it comes down to it they are on your side. if that wasn't the case they would never have passed pre-basic.

put another way, as a pilot in flames of averon, the closest thing ive ever written to a floret, there are a multitude of points at which you could have said no and didn't, and although that's obviously still noncon in the grand scheme of things, it's "signing away your freedom" cnc compared to the hdg flavor of "you 'consented' via it being the best thing for you whether you like it or not."

even if your handler just told you to "stay" for the first time and you're currently panicking and trying to figure out why your legs won't move, you still have some tiny amount of agency—an escape hatch, so to speak—and you'll just never end up having to use it.

and to me, the loss of that minute level of agency which will never be invoked is the difference between "this is hot as hell and feels perfectly safe" and "this is the abuse that was once leveraged against those i cared about, and to some degree myself, and it's simply been repackaged with a kink sticker slapped on."

none of this is to say i hate hdg, it's fans, those who write about it, or even the parts of it which scare me. i do think the idea is hot. hdg is pretty cool. hell, it was one of my inspirations in writing a lot of the pilot/handler dynamics in flames of averon. but it does scare me. and no matter what i tell myself i can't shake that fear.

it's frustrating, because oftentimes fear can be part of what makes something hot, but the particular flavor of fear which hdg instills in me is one which makes bitter all that it reaches. maybe someday i'll grow out of it. the traumatic memories from which that fear stems were only created in the past couple of years, to be fair. but something tells me a piece of that fear will never be fully dislodged from my mind.

so, all this to say, while i am into hdg, it's a complicated relationship.

(and on a sillier in character note to lighten the mood—please feel free to respond to this with roleplay or whatever you like!)

to any Affini out there who might be reading this, know that im not scared of you. im not scared of what you represent. im only scared by the fact that you mimic that which has left the scars you see on my soul today. im not against being taken in as a floret, and none of this is to say that i hold any level of disdain for you.

i only ask that you be gentle with me. what has been broken once can be broken again. please, do not let it come to that.

[bibibbon]

One thing that bothers me is the lack of depth about Izuku's family, like we only know Inko, his mother, but we don't know anything about Izuku's other family members, like how they react when they know that Izuku is quirkless. Hisashi, who is a mysterious figure, who Horikoshi said would have a role in the story, seems like he forgot or even ignored it to end the manga quickly.

Agreed! You're not the only one with this opinion anon.

I have had many conversations with @mikeellee talking about izuku's lack of family members, the reasons, and how that reflects onto his only family member: inko Midoriya.

Now inko is certainly an interesting character. She is the protagonists mother yet she is very neglectful and lacks a lot of emotional boundaries with her child.

I personally label her as a neglectful parent. She is abusive to izuku in the form of neglect! She is a bad mother, and the series has the potential to do something with that, yet it doesn't (or it can be argued that it does, yet does it very badly)

Inko and Izuku only having one another could be an interesting plot point that delves deeply into inko's character and honestly adds tragedy to her. She has no one except of izuku, her husband is non-existent, she has no job or social life, her life is connected to izuku, and it's cruel. Personally, I think if someone wants to execute this idea, it would be difficult but very much doable just hard.

However, introducing family members to izuku would probably be the better option, in my opinion. Allowing for us to explore the midoriya family, their interests, how they help shape who izuku and inko are today, introducing conflicts with them and even developing them as they're own characters who may help izu or add to the worldbuilding.

This, for example, could be done with hisashi midoriya izuku's father. For all we know, he is in America working abroad, so why don't we see him? Why don't we see what america is like in mha through the lenses of hisashi who could interact with his son and use that to add more to the worldbuilding.

[bomberqueen17]

aight poll results

Huh I haven't really done a poll before, I kind of thought there'd be somewhere you could like, see the results. But no. I just have to scroll back and find the post. And since I made it not rebloggable I can't reblog it either, LOL.

So anyway. It's not quite-quite closed but there's more votes in it than I thought there would be, and I'm going to discuss it behind this lil cut here.

[Image ID: a screenshot of poll results showing 14.5% for the sweet summer children era, 85.5% for the older sea-dogs, 55 votes cast, almost four hours left in the poll.]

After making this poll I went back to my Just Write Some Scenes approach and noodled around some more. My first attempt had been to come up with this whole elaborate Save The World plot, and then try to introduce the crew to each other right at the start of it, and after tripping over that and falling flat on my face, that's when I reconsidered and made the poll. Mostly I just. Need other people to remind me that I'm not alone in the wilderness here, LOL. And you know the quite-contrary "I need advice but mostly so I can identify that when someone tells me to do the thing I don't wanna, that means there's a thing I didn't want to do, which means there is a thing I DO want to do, and now I can narrow down what it is" impulse, yes?

But it's gratifying to find that I've voted with the majority here.

So my main consideration here is that while I cannot really reuse any of the scenes I wrote as fanfic, I can absolutely carry over every bit of the character dynamics. The canon events, I can't translate. The fanfic character work, yes. (What that means to you, dear readers, is that I thus can totally just publish the fanfic at some point LOL, so I'll... try to do that if I can ever manage to become sane about it.)

I don't know that I've fully explained, here-- I fully have a 125,000-word fanfic already complete for this fandom. Like, it is 125,000 words long, and goes from before Master and Commander to... I'm at about the middle of Ionian Mission. That's book nine. And it's all the gapfills and everything from Tom's POV. And I have a few more scenes I'm still writing, but what I have is quite a novel already.

If I took the characters from their Master & Commander Book 1 era and file the serial numbers off and try to instead give them this plot, then I have to cram in every bit of the getting-to-know-you shit, and also worldbuild the whole setting, and then also have them save the world. It's not that I can't do this, but I have this huge shortcut where I've already been working with these guys (and you know how fanfic works, I've subtly warped them from canon because these are side characters the canon author did not devote all that much time to. There are several times when Mowett did something in the first book and by the eleventh or twelfth, Stephen firmly remembers it as something Pullings did, and the narrative treats him as correct, and I genuinely think that O'Brian forgot, unless he was trying to make a point about Stephen's memory issues that he then didn't entirely follow through on. It happens more than once. Also there are a number of occasions when the narrative asserts that Mowett was present for books when he was not; he does not appear in book 3 for example, but is afterward treated as though he'd been there. "They've been together since their youth!" they haven't been in the same hemisphere in six years. Anyway.)

I've been working with these guys for the length of a novel already. So what I can do, and what I think I'm going to do, is that I'm going to just pretend that I've already rewritten a serial-numbers-filed-off version of the first volume, and dive in at circa the book 5 section of the fic, and insert this adventure at that point. Which gives me a certain rank for each character-- Pullings and Mowett would be lieutenants with some seniority, Babbington would be a newly-made lieutenant, Aubrey has moderate seniority, his relationship with Maturin is fairly mature and has weathered some storms and come out well, he's rescued Maturin from torture, Maturin is slightly washed-up with the intelligence people and is addicted to drugs but recovering-- and from the fanfic side (spoilers for the as-yet-unedited-and-unpublished fic!), I've established Pullings in his marriage, given him his checkered career (Indiamen and transports), he has two children, and also he and James and Mrs. Pullings have worked through a bunch of their shit and figured out that they should all have a threesome sometime. But, crucially, they have not had this threesome yet.

So it's like-- a ton of deep character work, that I can just plunk us into.

(I haven't figured out a new naming structure yet so I haven't find-replaced and I'm just writing with the old names, which is hilarious the more I diverge from canon.)

It's not that I don't want to tell that first story, of them all meeting up initially, but I think it would be easier to go back and write a prequel after having done the Big World-Saving Plot.

Anyway-- some serial-number-filing notes here:

Aubrey is going to be a woman because then if I write her exactly the same it comes across wildly differently and I am absolutely dying to see what effect it has. Translating Jack's particular confused helplessness around women makes this new Aubrey into an extremely awkward lesbian and I love it. (Still fat, crucially. Still six feet tall. She might not be blonde, though, depending what I do with racial dynamics in this 'verse. Doesn't matter, as calling a woman Goldilocks is less hilarious than a man.)

Maturin is still a dude. They still have absolutely zero sexual chemistry, but profound deep interpersonal love. (This is bookverse, guys. Sorry the gay movie version is great but that's just not where I'm going here.)

Instead of having a lower-class accent and antecedents, I'm translating Tom into being somehow visibly biracial, which can give the same impediment to his being taken seriously for promotion as in canon, but also lets me tie this into the other books I've started in the land-based part of this verse. His mother is descended from mainland mammoth-herders, and I haven't decided what visual characteristics that gives him but it's enough that he gets called racial slurs occasionally. As in canon, Aubrey doesn't particularly notice these things, and cares only that he is competent.

Babbington is a trans dude so I have to figure out how that works in the worldbuilding but this is an extremely useful thing to have and will illuminate all kinds of awesome things for me. As a bonus, it can just be background established fact in the first book I write, and can be a plot point in the prequel if I do come up with anything cool in the worldbuilding, but if not it can just be a like low-key background thing in the prequel too. Who knows! It gives me a ton of material either way. Has potential to establish vivid character dynamics in a minimum of words, I think.

I was trying to solarpunk-ize solid-shot cast-iron cannons and seem to have independently mentally invented electromagnetic rail guns, so I have to research that somewhat but I think I have some good worldbuilding foundations based off that. !!! Exciting. I especially love the idea that the ships can collect and store potential energy that they can use either for propelling the ship without wind, or for firing guns, and so manoevering with sails still carries enormous tactical value because if you can get in position to fire your shots without having expended your generated power, you'll have much more success in battle; conversely, if you realize you're in a poor tactical position, instead of throwing your guns over the side as in the napoleonic era so you can flee faster, you simply empty your power generation banks into your propulsion to get the fuck out of there. And it makes it more solarpunk post-collapse-friendly by having tactics that can prioritize things other than massive loss of life, which doesn't hold with the dynamics of precarious population levels in the other books in this 'verse. Life was cheap in Europe in the 1800s but that doesn't work here. I love the idea of the "battles" being almost entirely manoevering, and it being plain impossible to have just yardarm-to-yardarm prolonged hammering except by rare circumstance.

So anyway that's where I'm at. So far. Stay tuned i guess? Thanks for reading this far, anyone who does. <3

[dravidious]

How's the writing going? Well I've written over 2000 words and I'm questioning if I'm spelling "our" correctly, so you know

[puppyeared]

littlest furth shop

@laikascomet

[icewindandboringhorror]

I made a few new wax seal stamps out of clay (like the ones I did for my worldbuilding stuff forever ago), this time just of random symbols that I thought might look good done in the style of painting over the raised part of the wax or etc. :0c Some of them aren't carved deep enough to really show up that well, but overall they worked okay for being clay lol

[rileys-battlecats]

girl help I started writing down oc thoughts and have started contemplating the logistics of how a city carved into the walls of a ravine would have access to fresh water

[faislittlewhiteraven]

Been having some ISaT tech level and timeline (as in 'when backstory things happened') thoughts and want to ramble a bit:

Tech

ISaT's setting is based on your classic sword and sorcery fantasy JRPG so its easy to assume that tech wise everything is 'fantasy medieval' and call it a day but consider:

Body Craft is at bare minimum is magic sex changing surgery (earliest known equivent in our world dating to 1930) that any old person can learn to do safely on themselves in only a few months, and more likely has many many broader applications like regular old surgery, the 'combat healing' Mira and Sif use, etc.

Cameras and photos are rare enough that Odile comments on it (namely she's happy the group get a photo in the House due to them being 'so rare') yet are also common enough that everyone in the party knows about them and doesn't question the existence of a camera beyond being surprised that the mirror was one. (In our world cameras date back to the 19th century, with the earliest manufacturing of them being in 1839). 

Printing presses and ways to make plenty of paper to feed those presses given absolutely everyone in this game can read, expects everyone else to know how to, and both mass produced book series and newspapers are a thing. (Note: Printing presses have existed since waaaay back but it's the mass paper manufacturing that makes newspapers and The Cursing of Chateu Castle possible that really has my eyebrows raised here, especially since neither Siffrin or Odile find either odd in any way, indicating such things are common everywhere, and while newspapers have been around since 1604 in our world, mass produced fantasy books didn't really take off until the start of the 20th century).

Food production and storage: despite being in the middle of a national disaster that almost certainly cut off trade networks and access to most suppliers for literal months now, Bonnie, a small child, is able to easily get their hands on fresh Pineapple, curry ingredients (for samosa), potatoes, plantains etc with no issues or anyone commenting on this being unusual or lucky. Oh and the only character who even brings up the concept of potential starvation is the Fishing One, and only in a sort of 'we're not at risk now but sooner or later...' kinda way due to noticing that the fish they fish up for fun are disappearing and likely being frozen. So yeah, that heavily implies Vaugarde has very good food storage tech/Craft (possibly better than ours), and likely also good food production and harvesting tech/skills also.

The Island's incredible knowledge of the stars: while the oldest known orrery in our world is dated from around 205 to 87 BC (ancient Greek, earth centric model), the fact Sif -who would've learnt this as a child/teen- is so very certain that stars are big balls of fire made up of gas is interesting as that's something our world couldn't prove the theory of until around the 1900s (note: it'd been theorized a LONG time but Sif talks like its complete facts to them . Additionally the earliest existing record of a telescope in our world dates to a 1608 patent and we see one of those in game.

Post posting EDIT: A wonderful user qds-place pointed out that Mirabelle has anti-anxiety medication in her room. This is in both ISaT and SAaP and though we're not sure what form the medication takes (pills? Valium? Megitech esc Craft boosters???) the fact they specifically have 'anti anxiety' medication at all (as opposed to idk dragging Mira off and drugging her through the gills) is kind of impressive and if it IS modern anti anxiety pills those could be as recent in creation as the 1950s! So um. Some high levels of tech implied in chemistry there <3

So... yeah. All this, plus the fact that the highest tech implied area, The Island, literally specialised in the study/Craft of turning wishes into reality (for a long enough time period that Wish Craft is culturally so ingrained in the King and Sif that they do it without thinking and it seems intertwined with their nation's religion) has been completely erased from memory to the point anything heavily associated with them has been forgotten, and also we only ever see Dormont aka a little village well away from the cities, it's not hard to conclude that you can basically justify giving the ISaT world any level of tech you want, so long as you lock any of the truly 'setting breaking' stuff like planes and rockets behind The Island's forgetting curse (I would've said trains too but thinking about it trains were invented in 1802 so it's honestly easy to imagine that they totally exist in the ISaT setting/Vaugarde but aren't ever on screen because rail is way too dangerous to consider using while the Curse is active and potentially time freezing things on the tracks).

Side note: We know absolutely nothing about Vaugarde's transport system but as a fan of fantasy RPGs it is honestly a travesty I have yet to see a fic that has flying dragons/wyverns or other fantasy mounts in setting. Like, ok yes, the party would probably have wanted to use those but maybe they don't like the Curse and fled? Maybe the King's Curse targeted them first? Maybe all their handlers dropped the heroes off in Dormont and said 'Well Saviors it's been fun, but well me and Scales here are off to Poteria until things wrap up so best of luck to you' before buggering off?

This isn't really a serious complaint just. Me reminding myself/potentially other fanwork writers out there that there's a lot about the setting we just don't know about and limiting all travel to walking, horse drawn carriage and boat is not actually required. (Also please mix up travelling to the Island. Boats are a wonderful classic and have great thematic vibes for Sif's original leaving of the Island but like. Imagine the sheer in-universe wtf of the memories of The Island suddenly coming back and people on the north coast suddenly realising there's a massive bridge, subway or underwater tunnel leading there that everyone just forgot about - potentially filled with all kinds of Sadnesses that need taking down. Or Warp Panels in a House of Change, idk XD).

Timeline

Canon notes first:

Bonnie is a preteen (8 to 12), Mira and Isa are in their early to mid 20s (with Isa slightly older), Sif is late 20s to 30, and Odile is 40+ Nille is stated to be around 18 to 20.

Siffrin ran away from home when they were a teenager (13 to 17? 18?) and this is heavily implied to be when the Island was Forgotten.

Bonnie (in ISaT specifically*) says that Nille told them that when it happened all the adults were talking about it, hence why they think The Island is close to their village. *In Start Again a Prologue, Bonnie says that they themself remember the adults talking about the Island disappearing, which er. Is a bit impossible given they likely weren't even born yet when that happened but that can be explained away by AU differences, InsertDisc5 still finalising details between SAaP and ISaT, and/or OG Siffrin having been in the loops so long they weren't actually listening when Bonnie was talking and just 'scripted' in their head something 'close enough' to what Bonnie was saying to get the idea (note: mentioned that idea before in my post here on the differences between the House and King in Start Again vs In Stars and Time for anyone curious so er please feel free to give that a read if you haven't already).

Odile mentions remembering 'when it happened' as well and has been 'travelling for years'.

The King 'appeared out of nowhere' sometime in his adulthood, and lived in the city of Corbeaux for a few years before he became the King.

The King became the King as was freezing people in time long enough before his attack on the House of Dormont that everyone inside knew he was coming, there were a wall's worth of newspaper articles about him, and everyone was expecting Euphrasie to defeat him.

Mirabelle's quest began 'almost a year ago' and Sif lost their eye 'recently'.

Thoughts on the above:

Calculating when The Island was forgotten:

Sif being mid 20s to 30 and having run away from home as a teen means that The Island has to have been forgotten somewhere between 9 to 17 years ago with nine only possible if he ran away at age 17 and is only age 26 now, and seventeen being the far opposite if he ran at age 13 and is currently 30.

To narrow down the timeline: Given Sif ran away from home because he 'didn't want to eat his veggies' and 'just wanted to scare [his] parents a little bit' it's probably safe to assume Siffrin was likely on the younger end of the teen spectrum (teens run off all the time sure but with loving parents and over veggies? That screams 'kid who has not yet learned that freaking out the parents will get their ass grounded and/or yelled at a LOT and is therefore best saved for doing fun forbidden stuff that ideally the parents will never find out about' XD) Additionally given Siffrin can't remember his age/birthday etc but Isabeau outright says near the beginning of the game "But you're older than most of the people here?" meaning Sif must be visibly older than Isa or Mira, so he's probably closer to 30 than not.

Those alone would imply the Island likely disappeared closer to the '17 years ago' side of things BUT Nille (tops 20 years old) told Bonnie that "[the Island's disappearance] was all the adults would talk about for ages" and kids usually can't remember anything prior to 4 years of age so with that in mind...

I'd say The Island most likely disappeared between 13 to 16 years ago.

Nille stuff:

This is more a general mention but. Nille is tops 20 years old. Bonnie is between 8 and 12 and doesn't remember their parents at all.

This means Nille ran away with Bonnie and gained emancipation and custody of Bonnie (if Vaugarde has formalised that kind of legal stuff) while she was at most 12 years old herself and could have in theory been as young as 6..!

Regardless, it's very likely the original home situation was that bad, Nille deserves a ton of credit for raising Bonnie as well as she has and I'd say it's very VERY likely she had a lot of help from villagers in Bambosche and/or the local House of Change in doing so. ...But also Bonnie is very adamantly 'my sister and village' and not 'my sister and [specific names who live with us]' so there's clearly by the time Bonnie was 4 or so they were living in their own place so... Yeah. Lotta drive for independence there too it seems (so the party might have more trouble adopting Nille into their group post ISaT than Bonnie might expect).

King stuff:

Already an adult 13 to 16 years ago so at bare minimum 33. Given his vibe probably much older though.

Newspapers get printed pretty quick though for there to be so much speculation and research done into his background so quick, either Vaugarde has some form of fast messaging system (something like a Chappe telegraph on top of the Houses of Change? Odile I think does mention that they'll have a message sent to let Nille know they'll be returning Bonnie...) or the King was freezing stuff for IDK around a month or two before reaching Dormont? Alas can't find out how long it takes to walk across all of France out very easily (I'm sure the numbers are out there but my brain is pudding rn) but if we had those numbers we could probably make some guesstimates based off the rough sketched map of Vaugarde InsertDisk5 did... Which I would link but apparently the tumblr post I had it linked on has been deleted???? 'wails at this very unhappy development'

Mira's journey and Sif's eye:

We really don't know a lot but almost a year ago gives us somewhere around 9 to 11 months to spread the journey out along and after eye removal surgery the patient can out and about as soon as 2 to 6 weeks after, maybe sooner with magic healing (though full recovery/growing used to the changed spacial awareness -which Sif clearly does not have- probably can't be sped up and takes around 3 to 6 months) so um. I'd guestimate Sif's eye injury is really recent; like two months ago tops recent. ...Which sorta explains a lot of why Bonnie is not dealing with it right now and also why the others might be trying to avoid bringing it up (since Sif clearly loves avoiding the issue but they haven't yet realised that maybe they really should bring it up even if it annoys them anyway?)

Odile with some Ka Bue speculation:

When it comes to The Island, how did Odile, presumably living in Ka Bue at the time, remember 'when it happened'? Was the Island well known enough even on the other side of the world that it's disappearance made waves? Or was Odile herself or someone she's close to paying attention to the region? (Like maybe her dad or a friend is/was into politics or trade, keeping up with overseas news and got concerned it could happen to Ka Bue? I'd say 'I remember when it happened' line implies it was more immediate knowledge than being informed by a messenger much later though...)

As for Odile's 'years of travel' I have to wonder, what's left behind for her in Ka Bue? She brings up going back there quite a bit, might just miss home and possibly her father if he's still alive, but given it took her years to get here for something so personal rather than idk 'materially rewarding' I think Odile might have some kinda family estate or something back in Ka Bue... Something she wasn't worried about potentially losing while far away, but solid enough to want to return to, beyond her father who she'd definitely want to see again if he's still around. (...But given how open she is to chilling about Vaugarde a few more months with the others, I really don't think he is alive, since well, given their respective ages and travel between Vaugarde and Ka Bue apparently taking years, there'd definitely an uncomfortably high chance of him passing away while she's gone and that seems like the thing that'd stress Odile out so... Yeah. Probably got an estate in Ka Bue she'd like to take the Family to visit/possibly sell off if she decides she'd like to live with them in Vaugarde so... Just my off the cuff headcanoning here and hoping that gives others ideas or something).

---

Anyway that's all the ramble I've got in me so... yeah! Hope this was interesting and useful for those needing a bit of a 'possible tech'/timeline calcs breakdown for the Island + a few more vague things and um. Probably will post a long winding ramble about my attempt at a ISaT Selkie AU fic I've been working on next <3 (Not to be confused with looped-140-and-counting's already existing and quite wonderful Selkie Siffrin AU which already has a completed oneshot fic, a snippet of sequel, two snippets of prequel/Sif flashbacking and I believe a comic too, all of which I highly recommend <3)

[liquidstar]

wait speaking of getting isekia'd via truck, a couple weeks back me and a friend on were talking abt portal fantasy/isekai tropes (mostly bc i was infodumping abt rz again), and it made me think abt a fun concept for an ocverse. tho its possible similar things have been done obvs with just how inflated the genre is, just hear me out OK

story starts in the normal world, with a typical Nerdy Guy going about his daily life, expositing about how he feels bored and longs for adventure and magic, just like in all of his favorite media. as he's crossing the street, distracted by his mobile game, he doesn't notice The Truck(tm) coming straight towards him. except he's not hit by it- he's pushed out of the way in the last second, saved by a passing girl who gets hit in his place. this is who the story is about now.

mc gets sent to that sort of intermediary dimension that some isekai have, where she meets the Goddess Lady or whatever that was in charge of the whole isekai situation. goddess lady proceeds to freak out, because she nabbed the wrong person, and she's going to be in SO MUCH TROUBLE. she starts questioning the mc, only to find out that this kid has a good social life, does well in school, is in sports, and has barely ever played a video game. basically the opposite of the socially introverted, underachieving, repressed, genre-aware guy she was supposed to have reincarnated. for the sake of fulfilling somekinda hero prophesy or whatever. and the mc kinda bargains to be sent to the fantasy world anyway bc, well, its that or death i guess. so the two of them kinda have to team up to course-correct this mix-up.

mc is kinda given a list of tasks to do that basically mirror how a typical story like this Would Go, expected to fall in line with the tropes in order to achieve the ultimate goal, but kinda ends up failing at all of them... or not? failing backwards, maybe. doing it in a way different from how its meant to go- using the wrong formula, but somehow getting the right solution. while sort of continuing to question the insanity of the whole situation, and the nature of this whole fantasy world. just fucking up all the tropes.

but a layer i'd wanna add on top of all that is the fact that the hero prophesy (or whatever) called for a man. so upon arriving to this new world, the mc is basically put into a "gender swapped" body and... doesnt seem to mind. this isnt an uncommon isekai trope either, but i hardly see it tackled with much care to really explore whole Gender Thing beyond gags about the "mismatch" (which can be in poor taste) or the conclusion that "well because their Body is now this gender, their gender identity changes to match" which i feel is a pretty shallow and binary take-away to draw abt bodies and identity.

but i think there can be more to explore w the prospect if you actually wanna get into gender stuff. in this case, i'd particularly wanna get into the idea of imposter syndrome. the main character was not MEANT to be... the main character. seen as a phony fighting tooth and nail to meet expectations, and constantly fumbling. not a real hero, or a real man. but its meant to be an act anyway, so why does that bother her? it was like that back on earth too, trying as hard as possible to be the perfect girl. a good social life, does well in school, is in sports.... but that good girl thing always felt fake too. or desperate. what was she trying to prove? how long as this BEEN bothering her, actually? why does it feel easier to breathe in this body, despite everything? the way this whole act makes her happy is scary, because its fake isn't it? but wait, which part was fake? the before or after? is it all fake? isn't this all just a mistake?

was it really a mistake? who is more heroic; a guy too focused on a mobile game to pay attention to those around him, or the person who risked their life to save a stranger? but the hero prophesy was for a "man," right? what does that even mean?

[reinedeslys-central]

more!! again!! for the nico after blood of olympus fic!! actually I thought of this while writing the last one but I just finished it.

His elbows buckle and he lets himself fall into Will, snorting at his theatrical groan under the weight. They lay there for a second until Will shoves him gently, and Nico lets him manoeuvre them into a more comfortable position.

"Hi," he whispers, moving a curl away from his cheek. The greenish tint of the loft window casts a weird shadow over Will's face.

"Hey yourself," Will murmurs back, winking.

Nico rolls his eyes. "You look like Apollo when you do that. Please stop." Will squawks in protest.

"I do not! Also, since when do you remember what Apollo looks like? Actually, no, don't answer that, you can't bring up my dad while we're in bed, Nico, why would you do this to me?"

Now it's Nico's turn to sputter and whack Will in the chest - getting another dramatic oof and a laugh in return - before turning around to face Hazel's bed. He's not sure when he'll ever be able to sleep facing the wall. Will can't do it either.

As Will's arms curl around his waist and draw him back against him, just like they did back in the infirmary that one day, he thinks maybe he'd be okay trying that with him sometime. One day, in a house with gates, no longer wary of monsters.

Will noses the back of his neck, causing him to twitch. "What is it?"

Will's answering smile presses through the rough cotton of his t-shirt. "Nothing, sunshine."

Nico frowns under the covers. "Hey, what do you think of houses with gates?" He whispers.

"Gates? Well, it'd be safer, I guess, but we'd lose the neighbours coming over -"

"As if you want to see random people at the door anyway. What if they're monsters?"

"Oh, come on, darlin', I'm from Austin. Of course I gotta keep space for the neighbours to come knocking."

"…Fences? Actually, hey, why'd you assume I was talking about us? Obviously - Obviously I was talking about random. Random houses. For architecture reasons."

Will muffles his laugh into the back of his neck, again. "Oh, my bad. And I'm only here because you ripped a stitch on the lava wall yesterday."

Nico feels his ears warm.

"Shut up."

"I didn't say anything."

"..Still."

Will reels him in closer until his back hits his chest and he can press a soft peck to Nico's still-red ears. "I think a fence is a great idea, by the way. We could ask Hazel for help with some ward stones too, like you have in the cabin. Gotta make sure we've got at least one window and standing space in every direction, though, or at least in the east, because you know my dad would sulk if he didn't get to scream me awake in the morning."

Nico's blush gets worse.

"Now who's talking about your dad in bed?" He gives up on pretending. Will sees him through every time, anyway. "Also, shrines, obviously, and we need a spot to stargaze."

"Yeah, shrines, obviously. Maybe just yours, mine, and Lady Hestia's though, or else everyone else is gonna get pissy."

Nico barks out a laugh like it's shocked out of him. "Pissy? Don't let them hear you say that."

Will holds him tighter and settles against the pillows. "Sure thing, sunshine. Now can we sleep?"

"Yeah, yeah."

It's not long after that that Will's breath evens out behind him, his muscles untensing. Nico knows he's got a few minutes yet, so he thinks.

Today was…. good.

Today was nice. Normal, even. Just a day of camp schedules, working in the infirmary, an admittedly short campfire, and this. No monsters, and no mistakes. No deaths, but..

Unbidden, the moments in the infirmary come to mind. He thinks of helping Will scrub in for his one surgery of the day, a kid that had gotten parts of an arrow stuck in their leg a week ago and hadn't noticed til yesterday. He thinks of yesterday during capture-the-flag, stepping in and desperately trying to copy what he'd watched Will do, because Lydia was hanging crooked from a tree and there was no one else around but him-

He thinks of Patroclus tying the straps of Achilles' armour, watching his lover sleep peacefully. He thinks of what Connor had told him about at the campfire weeks ago, of Silena Beauregard taking on a drakon when Clarisse declared the Ares Cabin wouldn't be fighting.

He thinks he might understand.

Lydia wasn't the same (thank the gods), but if there was something to be done that only Will could do right, yet couldn't, and the only way Nico could take up his mantle would be to die trying - then, yeah. He'd do whatever it would take for these kids. To do what Will would do. He's gone to Tartarus already, hasn't he? At worst, he'd try his best and greet his father early if he failed to survive. Nico could even give Charon a tip on the way in for the hell of it, why not?

If there is a luxury that comes from being a child of Hades, after all, it is that dying is not the thing that scares him.

There's a brazier still lit outside the window. Its glow falls in slits across their bed.

Will grumbles, pushing his feet forward until their ankles are wound together. The sheets shift.

Nico smiles into the dark, into the chirping of crickets and the soft glow of the fireflies out the window, and falls asleep.

more for this fic:

scene 0 - prologue-ish scene 1 - the library of social awkwardness or here (or in my heart, 'kidney function is not a right, it's a privilege' lol)

general writing directory

also lmk if you want more lore. I am so down to talk about this fic + the worldbuilding ideas I have for it in the notes it is unreal

[tumblweeds-omegaverse]

random omegaverse thought:

There must be people who experience specific instinct things with indifference or boredom.

Procreative cycle coming up? "Crap, I've got plans this weekend...stupid skip weeks."

Caught an intriguing scent while walking? "But I need to get to work! Shut up brain."

Had a snap response to a distressed sound? "Who was it?! ...right, it's my day off, I can go back to sleep."

Somebody growled at them? "Kid, I'm not a rival, that's my sibling."

Super cozy cuddle session happening nearby? "I'm gonna pass tonight guys, no social battery left, maybe next time."

Group of friends heading out to flirt and check out other singles? "I'm coming with you but only to make sure you all get home safe."

Setting where fated mates or soul bonds or permanent marks are a thing? "Meh. I don't really want one or care if I ever get one."

People in the actual omegaverse would get as bored of their stuff, as we do of ours, you know? It could be interesting to see that kind of vibe in fics. Biological demands faced with all the excitement of paying bills or doing laundry or tying your shoes.

Even if that kind of energy might not drive a plot, it could be interesting to have as a contrast to the people who do have big feelings about them - good or bad.

There's the friends who can't wait til they have a pack of their own, and the one friend who isn't against it but couldn't care less. There's the group in the office who are all about scent compatibility tests and figuring out one's best match and what sprays most highlight it, and the coworker who has no intentions on putting that much effort in. There are parents who hover and protect their offspring by scenting them multiple times a day, and others who don't see what the fuss is as long as it's done in the morning.

...also: packs with introverts who show care by giving each other space. So often, closeness is depicted through physical touch and tactile affection, but comfortable silence is meaningful too. Knowing people are near, but not having to interact until you're ready. Sitting in the same room doing different things, knowing that all it takes is a "hey, look at this" to share what you're up to. People understanding and accepting each other's differing or fluctuating needs for how and when to recharge. Seeing somebody reaching out or sharing space, beyond what's their norm, as a signal of the fact that they care.

[blueper-saiyan]

I have a firm heartfelt belief that neither Goku nor Vegeta is at all normal for a Saiyan but some of the ways that they’re weird overlap perfectly, so they’re both convinced that they’re normal and that’s just what Saiyans are like

[theminecraftbee]

Normally, traitors aren’t frog-marched to the Emperors themselves, regardless of what rank of information they had. These aren’t normal circumstances, though, Techno bemoans to himself. For one, the man is refusing to speak anything but French and a tiny amount of broken Bayesh. For another, on being made, he immediately handed over about three folders of classified information then loudly waited for handcuffs to be put on him.

Phil is lounging in his throne; he’d never been one for propriety. This leaves Techno to be, uh, the actually serious one. The one adorned in uniform, sitting and glowering down. It’s lucky that the traitor isn’t a pigman, because Techno isn’t actually great at glowering, but humans are weird about pigman facial expressions so he should be fine?

The traitor stands before them and grins. In perfect Bayesh, he says: “Finally. It took way too long for you to catch me, bitch.”

Techno pauses. He stares. In Piglish, he barks to his guards: “Everyone out. It’s Leader business.”

They file out. They’ll be waiting outside. Phil straightens in his seat and reaches for his own sword.

Techno, laboriously, drags his hand across his face. He switches back to Bayesh. God, does he regret being fluent in multiple languages sometimes. “What are you doing here, Tommy.”

“Showing you your intelligence weak points, fucker. Do you know how easy it is to slip Bayesh spies in here? I was smooth. A smooth customer. I was hearing classified milkitary secrets—”

“You were caught within two hours,” Techno says.

“That’s—that’s just what you think, innit?” Tommy says. Phil laughs. He’s the real traitor here.

“Tommy. I don’t wanna have to cause an international incident, but I’ve had a really long day, so if you just tell me who hired you to run a spy op, and why you decided it was a good idea to run it yourself, instead of sending one of your experts…”

“No one,” Tommy says.

“Hey, don’t lie you little shit. Techno might not want to start an incident but I don’t care,” Phil says. He grins and holds up his sword. “You wanna wake up in a jail cell and reveal some secrets? We may all be Leaders but it won’t stop torture from hurting.”

“What the fuck, Phil,” Tommy says.

“No one’s torturing anyone. We’ll just bomb them later if we must,” Techno says.

“And I wasn’t lying. It’s—can I take the wig off by the way? It fucking itches.”

“I despise you.”

Tommy takes off the black wig, revealing his blonde hair. “Anyway, I don’t want to work with you guys either, so I figured I’d get your attention by like, acting like we’re enemies and stuff. Got hired for espionage enough back in the day to pick up that much.”

“Who the fuck wanted you as a spy?” Phil asks.

“Fuck you,” Tommy says and doesn’t elaborate.

“Please just tell us what you want,” Techno says. “Please. I can’t handle this much you at any given time.”

“This needs to be Leader to Leader,” Tommy says, and something heavy laces his words. The hairs on Techno’s arms stand up.

“You coulda asked,” he says, in one final desperate bid for normality.

“No, I couldn’t have,” Tommy says. “I think Chip’s dead.”

Techno doesn’t notice that he’s standing until he is.

“What?”

“Yeah,” Tommy says. “Yeah. And, uh, I fucking. Need your help to figure out what happened. Before we get blamed. And I know, politically, you’ve got no reason, but if we don’t figure out—”

Techno sits back down, heavy.

“I know you understand Piglish. Let me talk in my native language. Phil.”

“Yeah, mate?”

“Go get the stuff.”

Phil’s eyes darken. “Right. That. Well, I’ll be back.”

Tommy’s voice, for the first time since Techno met him as a newly-minted Leader, standing on a wooden bench and yelling about executions, is small.

“You believe me?” he says.

“Why else would you come here?” Techno asks. “Not like we like you.”

“Good, because I’m shit at infiltrations. Would have been embarrassing if you, like, didn’t know your enemy well enough to know that,” Tommy says. He’s saying something else underneath it. Techno is neither good enough at Bayesh or at Tommy to guess what.

“Let’s work out an excuse to make a treaty. And you tell me everything.”