#im sure she would like to know about the forgotten regent

[yaeggravate]

it's odd that we don't actually know what happened to anfortas alberich when we know the other named schwannenritters either died or got husked. the only clue we have about his fate is the message he left in the ruin guards that spell out "we fought to the last one" which doesn't really tell us much. his supposed last stand was in port ormos, which actually had an active pirate alliance at one point. we're also explicitly told that anfortas lost his left eye.

now, i'm not saying anfortas is kaeya's pirate grandpa but i'm also not not saying it. is it a little weird for a king regent to become a pirate? sure. but if an archon can work at a funeral parlor i don't see why not.

fast forward to the present day and during the pari world quest, we fight a herald named klingsor, who ends up escaping. klingsor found out what happened to the khaenri'ahns and joined the abyss to bring the truth to light. he is the descendant of hadura, one of the schwannenritters who anfortas executed for alleged betrayel.

if they play it smart this could lead to a future kaeya quest in which we learn anfortas' fate with klingsor showing up to act as his narrative foil. ok yeah i'm clowning myself but it just sucks that we always end up learning more about khaenri'ah and the alberichs without kaeya even being involved.

[worth-this-and-more]

Can have new theories about sel

[spoilers for legendborn and bloodmarked, read at your own caution ;)]

*clears throat* *sips coffee and daintily puts the cup down* let's get down to business

im already doing a bit of research on other asks that I've gotten, but here are some theories i already have

this one is broadly a merlin theory but i am pretty sure the tattoos are connected to merlin's descent into demonia where the tattoos monitor how powerful the merlins are becoming and then slowly but gradually imbalance their control over their demonia making them "succumb to their blood". my theory is that as rootcraft is majorly used in healing and protection, and we already saw the effects of removing alice's mesmer gave her immunity from any future mesmers, so it is possible that this is how merlin's oaths will be cut off too, safely. faye probably used her powers to vanish natasia's oaths, which could explain why she was able to stop her descent and maybe after faye's death she is on the run and is not in contact with any rootcrafters so which is why she wasn't sure that she could help sel?? either way, rootcrafting is a major part for merlin's "succumbing to the blood" thingy

the "as a string of mysterious kidnappings escalates and Merlins are found dead" thing. it is never specified that merlins are kidnapped and killed. what's to say who's kidnapped, merlin's might be just killed and the one's they are guarding are kidnapped. so here i present to you my theory, natasia and sel, the mother son duo is on a rampage, a rather non-silent one, to find out where the fuck is bree and ofc selwyn knows that erebus is behind this. what better way to find out where is erebus than to just get the details from the other seneschals or regents or whatever tf they are called I'm not gonna bother to search up the names these don't deserve that much time and effort from me. and merlins are protecting them, so kidnap the peoples and kill off merlins. who knows the kidnappings could also be of legendborn because they are "hostages trapped with the mother-son duo" but we all know they're allies after all. this will be an excuse to get out of radar from the order because by the looks of it this whole thing is gonna end one way or the other. this will be the final camlann anyways.

and also while we're on the topic, selwyn and bree would be revealed to have met as children which will take us back in a flashback to that scene at davis's house where sel "several questions ash across his face before he decides on one" asks bree to explain why did she yell out when he touched her and do you feel something when i look at you?? and he remembers fleeting a forgotten memory of a girl with the same pretty hair and bold eyes that told him your eyes feel prickly, like sparks, but like good sparks and i just know this will happen in canon whether we get it in the books or not. i might write a fanfic about this lmaoo.

this went longer than expected but yeah there you go!! I'm yet to post a few more specific theories i just need to read the arthuriana

[lemonhemlock]

tysm for answering my stupidly long q!! i appreciate you taking the time :)

i think i wasn’t clear or you’re referring to smth im not aware of/haven’t seen re: spoilers- but i don’t think aegon will abuse helaena/alicent, certainly not physically or anything like that. if anything , with the way they set up their relationship, i’d imagine his most tension would be with aemond, who has already made it clear he thinks he’s the better option for the throne (and forgotten the existence of his toddler nephew when he said so 😂) and standing up to otto, who has been pulling the strings since the day aegon was born, so that’ll be a cool inversion for their relationship. and for sure i think he’ll have a different and darker relationship with alicent (she’s given him this position he never wanted and yet now (potentially) relishes) but imo that would be more of a power trip than anything else? ifs hard to know about his dynamic with helaena bc again we are given nothing except he ignores her lol, but in terms of that i don’t think much would change tbh.

i hope that makes my rambling more clear hahaha. thanks again ❤️ have a wonderful day

Oh, yeah, I don't really know what direction they're going into, because having power trips with his family can mean literally anything. :)) From sassy quips to outward humiliation and physical threats. And I definitely don't want to see the last two. :)) So I'm mostly rambling based on vibes. But I think Alicent/Helaena have suffered/will suffer enough already and I'm not keen on Aegon piling onto that.

Aegon duking it out with Aemond could be very intense, why not! But I would like them to ultimately preserve that bond that keeps Aemond as Prince Regent, not king, and makes Aegon want a huge-ass statue of Aemond after he dies.

Anyway, you're welcome & thanks for dropping by! 💟

[bigskydreaming]

How did you come up w/ the worldbuilding of By Lost Ways? Cause going by chapter 1 and your posts on the deck, it's fascinating and super well thought out!

LOL thanks! And yes I will be getting back to that now that I can like....actually enjoy feedback/comments from stuff I post instead of just posting and two seconds later be in crisis mode and completely forgetting I even just did that lol.

But in answer to your question, you know how there are novels like Fifty Shades of Grey and City of Bones that are basically fanfic with the serial numbers filed off, as some people call that? This is basically just the exact opposite. It was an original novel that was part of a bigger shared fantasy universe of mine called the Citadel, that I ended up not doing anything with because it had too many (superficial) similarities to another novel of mine, even though the latter was a sci-fi project. They actually werent that similar, just used a lot of the same aesthetics and tropes, like both had airships, etc, it was one of those things where they just FELT too similar when writing them, and that was causing complications in doing anything further with them so I decided to just let one go, and it happened to be the fantasy one, since I had a bunch of other projects in that same universe that I could shepherd various characters and elements over into.

But one thing I couldn’t ever really relocate was the idea of the Regents’ Deck, which was always a fave concept of mine, and then awhile back it occurred to me that the Batfam was actually really really easy to structure into the already existing framework of the Regents’ Deck and the overall world I’d built around it, and so I was like hey, Im not doing anything else with it, why not just make it a Batfam fanfic. So the story that resulted was a new thing, its not like I just swapped the names around, the plot of Hypotheticals of Being just didn’t work for a Batfam fic, at least not in any way that really engaged me, but it kinda just.....it was almost more like writing a crossover fusion of two fandoms, just one of them happened to be wholly of my own making, lolol. But basically like, the actual fanfic was just sorta like me writing another story in this same setting/lore that I’d already written one novel in, just with the Batfam characters instead.

As for the worldbuilding itself, in the initial form, like, worldbuilding is literally my favorite thing in the world lol, and also I happen to view as probably my biggest strength as a writer, so if there’s interest, I’d be down to do a post walking through kinda my whole ‘process’ there or whatever. Since I do have a certain approach I apply to pretty much everything I write, from fanfic to original projects, its just so ingrained its hard to kinda break it down into clear steps. But give me three things to use as a start point, and I’d be happy to kinda like, do a post ‘showing my work’ as I worldbuild around them.

The three things thing is kinda key for me, as I dont know entirely where it comes from or why I started doing it, I just noticed somewhere along the line that every fully formed project or world I create that I’m actually happy with, like....can always be traced back to three initial ideas I threw together. I’m not exactly sure why three is the magic number for me, it just kinda is.

For example, the world and initial story for this one grew out of these three seeds: Mother Sky, a Tarot Deck, and airships. Those were the three elements that popped into my head as wanting to do something with, and that I combined to come up with this world. (Mother Sky being like.....so I was thinking about all the various takes we have on Mother Earth, and I was wondering what would a world look like that viewed the Sky in the same way, like potentially if it was a fantasy sky-set civilization instead of land-bound).

So the basics of the world all grew out of just those three ideas, and then it was easy enough to flesh out by leaning on a lot of already existing worldbuilding for my broader Citadel mythology, to create the exact specifics of the plot/conflict. Not really relevant to the fanfic version now, as the focus on that stuff is most of what was cut when adapting it to Batfam, since I still have lots of Citadel stuff not related to this one particular project.

Like the basic idea behind the Citadel is that in this fantasy universe, the universe itself has a kind of rudimentary sentience, that constantly seeks out a kind of partner or symbiosis with sentient beings to kinda...drive its power. Like, its aware enough to know that it wants to grow and change and evolve, but relies on the imagination and creativity of sentient beings to do that. So it centralizes its powers of creation in a form that appears to most sentient beings as a kind of fortress or citadel, a seat of power, and anyone who enters it and assumes control over it, in effect becomes god. Able to reshape the universe and create anew according to their whims. And sometimes there’s just one person who stumbles across the Citadel, sometimes a pair or a trio, sometimes a full pantheon, with various individuals assuming sovereignty over set Rooms within the Citadel, and the forces those Rooms command (like gaining the Armory makes one a god of war, the Library a god of knowledge, etc, etc). 

But for all their power, the various residents of the Citadel rarely ever glean on to the fact that the Citadel is kinda ‘alive’ in and of itself, and the true power behind all the power they wield. And the one thing the Citadel detests is stagnancy. So whenever a god or gods or pantheon becomes complacent, stops USING the power of the Citadel as a force for change, stop driving the engines of creation to beget something new and instead just become content to kinda enjoy what they’ve made or reshaped things INTO.....that’s when the Citadel basically takes back its power and reappears as a temptation on the horizon for new seekers to find and ascend to godhood.

Anyway, the point being there’s been an endless cycle of the Citadel changing hands and everything that comes with it, up until what’s basically the beginning of this broader universe.....the ‘last’ residents of the Citadel are a full-fledged pantheon who were so destructive in their attempts to seize more and more control of the Citadel for just themselves or their allies, that they were basically destroying their entire world without any single one of them having control of enough of the Citadel that they could prevent this. Until one of them, Seshan, finally gained control of the Throne Room, the heart of creation, and using its power she basically locked all the other gods in their respective Rooms and broke the entire Citadel into pieces, flinging the others away into the void of uncreation. So for the thousands upon thousands of years since then, the various other gods have been able to create using just the power of their own Rooms, and move between each others’ various worlds, but are denied access to the Throne Room or the world it rests on, the world of their own creation.....and without it, none of them can put the Citadel back together and assume full control of it.

Or, y’know, restart the cycle of creation and destruction. Something the Citadel itself, unbeknowst to any of them, is really not happy about.

So you’ve got some gods who are content with things the way they are and happy being the only god in town in their respective worlds, you have others who are trying to use their worlds to one by one conquer the others’ and thus gain control of their Rooms, trying to gather enough power to kinda just force their way back through the locked doors to the Throne Room, and then you’ve got others who basically have been using eternity to settle old scores and grudges.

The latter happened to be the backstory for the setting for what became By Lost Ways - hence why it wasn’t too hard to pull these particular elements out and shift them to other settings. The original Mother Sky, the creator of this world, is in the Citadel-verse named Eriu, and she’s the supreme nature goddess of earth, sea and sky, being one of the most powerful of the deities with control of three separate Rooms. She used the Aviary to make this particular world, hence its magic being connected to and stemming from feathers, etc. The Dark One, the original Joker of the Regents’ Deck, is Dian, who controls the Pit and the Locked Room, and as such is the God of Temptation and Emptiness, Hunger and Corruption.

(Dian’s machinations back during the Holy Wars basically shattered the mind of Eriu’s lover, Indech, as Dian tried to manipulate him into gaining control of one of the most dangerous Rooms in the Citadel and use him as a proxy without risking himself. It half worked, as Indech gained control of the Room that made him the new God of Chaos, but in the process turned from the somewhat naive, gullible scholar Dian had been counting on him being, to someone just completely detached from anything other than his own interests - which were now fueled by the primal powers of chaos and his new worldview/conviction that nothing he did mattered and thus he could do anything free of consequence. Indech’s as distant and unreachable to Eriu as anyone else, and she’s had a vendetta against Dian ever since....which often takes the form of a merciless nature goddess rampaging through the worlds of Dian’s creation, heedless of the damage she leaves in her wake, as the more millennia pass, the more disassociated the gods become from their own origins. Some have even bought into their own hype and forgotten that they aren’t the only gods out there or even the first).

But anyway, that’s the story of how the worldbuilding for By Lost Ways came to be, lol, though for specifics on like, the actual process as opposed to the big picture stuff, just send me three things and I’ll walk through things from the start to whatever results.

For the record, I want to make clear I’ve been writing stuff in my Citadel ‘verse since I was fifteen, so any similarities to Brandon Sanderson’s shared universe are not incidental, but they’re also not me ripping him off - rather, I’m fairly certain we were both influenced in our worldbuilding/big picture stuff by the same novels when we were growing up. Like, its not that I’m above ripping other people off, its just that I want credit to go where its due. I ripped off Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman and a little Michael Moorcock and some Zelazny. LOLOL.

[hereticbones]

now that I've finished worm:

rachel started off as one of my favourite characters and progressively got better, i love her, the end.

i would die for dragon but i didnt like/am 2 stupid for her epilogue. and also feel slightly weird about the housewife-ish-ness of it. give me more dragon/defiant/weaver super vigilante family.

im ambivalent about lisa and grue for the most part. i feel like i should be sold on lisa but im... not...

i liked aisha from the moment she's introduced purely defensively because Taylor's description of her was so... classically horribly judgmentally Taylor. and then she turned into a legitimately fantastic really funny + tragic character. that last non epilogue arc man FUCK.

ok so speaking of that arc..... fuck. that fucked me right up. khepri got me fucked up. when the crowd is hugging and celebrating and she thinks theyre murdering each other? fucked me up. when tattletale BLOWS HER A KISS and she doesnt recognize it.... fucked me up. when rachel succeeds in communicating with her when no one else can after all the time taylor spent learning to communicate with rachel??? FUCKED ME UP.

Dragon running her fingers thru her hair when khepri realizes she's forgotten how to read?!?! you guessed it FUCKED me UP

ahem. tbh i wasnt super invested in the last 1/3-1/4 of the story until those last few arcs. the whole jack/theo/end of the world stuff. mostly because i couldnt keep the characters straight.

but then...khepri.... FUCKED ME UP

erm.

other things i didnt like: how weirdly firmly WoG and canon insisted that taylor was straight after the first few arcs when she was accidentally written kiiiinda bi. related: um... isnt amy kind of... an Evil Lesbian? i have not seen any commentary on this which is a bit funny since ppl argue about literally everything else about amy. i mean there's other gay characters but like... her whole schtick sort of manifests as...you know what the more i think abt this the less i wanna previcate. she literally is motivated by her gay love to do an awful terrible thing. sure theres mitigating factors and tons of ppl find her a blameless or almost blameless character but lbr she does something atrocious because she's in love. shrug emoji seems bad.

also iirc of the main chars regent MAY be bi but is EXPLICITLY a rapist so yknow. coughfuckthatcough. aaand as much as i love lily and sabeh they are definitely secondary characters. legend might be an extremely important person in-fiction but in the story he's uh... not.

also circus? being some kinda trans? i think there was good intentions there but it was just... weird... and uncomfortable.... I'd have to reread that bit to see exactly what was said but i definitely remembering feeling unpleasant.

over all no worse than any str8 fiction but ive seen some ppl praising it for being diverse and uh... nnnnot..... exactlyyyy what I'd say.

i really really loved taylor as a protagonist. she was such an damn fuckup and also... terrifying. i loved how rational she thought of herself when she was actually.... not that. at all. what a great example of an unreliable narrator. and also a hypercompetent protagonist despite also being a walking disaster. i loved how all the protagonists were motivated by trauma and how if u werent traumatised u were basically untrustworthy.

i didnt like Taylor's obsession with physical appearance. i understand how it was supposed to be a consequence of her bullying but 1) i just feel weird when she references having no curves/boobs. thats weird. idk. and 2) have a protagonist who is self concious of their looks be actually fat or something u cowards. give her acne. fucking do it.

the writing was damn good 95% of the time. the other 5% is pretty excusable considering how fast and how much wildbow wrote holy shit.

something that i couldnt stop thinking about and that i wish wasnt a bit watered down by the end when nearly everyone was using it was that our narrator adopts the term "passenger" from bonesaw. she picked it up while uh... going thru something p damn traumatizing even if the focus is on what grue went through. every time she used the word "passenger" i remembered that it was bonesaw's word and i wondered if taylor did to.

kid win's chapter about having superpowers + adhd was p well researched and good and i liked getting to see him being awesome and sucessful later on. he wasnt my favourite ward but his bit was Real Good.

the action was p good. the tension was top notch. the characters were the stars. the romances were.... fine. sometimes i wish things were spelled out more. sometimes the obtuseness was just right.

and it is in the end now my favourite superhero story.

and im yawning and sleepy and im sure ill think of a dozen more things but w/e

[qdtquietdownthere]

Day 10- Baked Beans for breakfast and an afternoon of volunteering.

DAY10

Crack of dawn and the amber sun sits low on the horizon. 

I walk the streets looking at my feet. The pavements are not quiet, like I had expected. They are busy, but a different kind of busy, they are suit busy. People flocking to work. 7am streets are not my streets. 

I walked past Regents cafe earlier in the week, it looked proper London to me. A proper greasy spoon cafe with those seats which are bolted to the floor and each other. My Grandad ran a cafe a long while ago, and I will aways remember that smell of bubbling vegetable oil. Everything cooked from one pan. Honest food. Mums comfort food, but grandads. We used to call my grandad ‘grandad Pops’ because he drank lots of pop. They kept shelves of cans and 2litre bottles of pop in their garage. Proper British, wipe clean table cloths, chips and a can of pop. Thats what the cafe looked like when I walked past.

Today it is hectic, there is a long line and a woman shouting with the deepest loudest voice i have ever heard. There is a menu behind her, which looks like chefs specials, these include eggs Benedict and fish cakes. No one seems to be ordering these. Maybe they are for a different crowd. The most popular seems to be toast, black pudding, beans, chips and bacon. There are plenty variations of this, and everyone seems to know their order by heart. I go for beans, toast and mushrooms. This place seems like an institution. I put up an instagram about it and friends from Leeds and Glasgow tell me they have been there. I like my breakfast and its deliciously cheap. I feel comfortable and curious, so I'm not sat with my head down, I'm just watching. I have learnt to just sit and be and watch since starting the residency, which is a great thing. It is also a place I wouldn't walk into if I had to choose where to eat breakfast. This has been a fundamental-ditch avocado on toast. Im sure these places exist in Tottenham, and I'm sure there are delicious places to eat, i just wouldn't go. Now, well I would go.

I wander along to the market, which is still asleep when I get there. Its mainly food places. Japaneese burgers, falafel and a giant fish stall. There are a few locals chatting to the fish monger and I shout at someone “that looks good” but i don't get much interaction here. The wider area is very connected though, lots of coffee shops and charity shops. Once again, it is an area which feels like a little village.

From here I decide to go wander around a new estate and fall asleep lying on the grass in the sun as I watch the jumbo jets come in to land. The space is social, green and alive with movement. Parks for people to hang out and lots of benches. There are a few bee hives and i notice the area has received an award for this. Each flat seems so unique yet they are all identical. This is apparent in Churchill Gardens. The unified individualism of the flats.

I am anxious about volunteering this afternoon. I will be doing food distribution with Mike and ‘Helping the Homeless’. It is one of the best things I have done so far in the residency, despite me being initially, but internally so cautious. I think I am cautious because I'm scared to upset anyone. I don't want to be seen as this young girl rocking up for one session then fluttering away again. Its present, it is serious and the rates of homelessness is increasing. The amount of people relying of food banks is increasing. The food distribution comes out from a tiny little shed hidden in the corner of a housing estate. Its a beautiful housing estate, which once again cuddles around a lively, and busy playground. On one side of the estate is a building completely covered in tarps and scaffolding. Its being turned into luxury flats, despite being in the same square as a community reliant on a food distribution service. Im in shock. I am also, and once again in shock of the contrast. Walking to meet Mike i took many wrong turns and saw many beautiful streets and beautiful people. The streets smelt like flowers and perfume and everyone seemed to be living as it was a Saturday afternoon. This was happening just around the corner. I am saddened and in disbelief. 

Walking in to start the afternoon I meet wonderful Mike who shakes my hand very nicely. He is wearing high vis and is the centre of attention. Surrounding him are several people; Dolly, Charlie, Dee, Naomi, Claudio and an Irish man who speaks so fast I don't catch his name. He wishes me a happy life in his soft Irish accent many times and talks about his times living on the streets near Stonehenge. He also asks to inspect my hands and tells me I need to stop biting my nails. While speaking to him and hearing the sadness in his voice I am caught up by a worry about what to say. His world is so different from mine and I worry anything I say would seem stupid. Later Mike and I have a good conversation about how to cope and deal with listening to stories and information which is heavy. We've just got to be human. I find this day valuable on so many levels. 

Mike and I load a trolley full of several bags of food. They are bursting with fresh veg, fruit and nuts. Mike tells me that the work he does is not voucher based but based on real needs. Each household is only entitled to visit a food bank three times a month, at which most of the food on offer is purely tined or dried food. This isn’t good enough. I ask Mike how he works out who needs the food and how he reaches these people in the community, especially when they can be hard to find. He answers very simply “I just know my community”. Something which really sticks with me. 

We push this really heavy trolley along main streets towards Churchill Gardens. Mike uses a walking stick, which is unbelievable given that he is basically pushing something the weight of a large elephant along the pavement. The first stop we make is to deliver food to an elderly gentleman who's wife recently passed away. He doesn't leave the house much anymore and Mike tells me he often gets caught chatting to the man for a while. I wait outside out of courtesy but wish I had gone in with Mike. Eventually he reappears despite the elderly man showing him photographs of the grandchildren and asking mike to stay for a cup of tea. I cant help but think of the importance of Mikes role in this gentleman’s life as both a means to eat and as social interaction. This is the theme of the next few deliveries. Social isolation due to illness and age and confidence which prevents an individual leaving their house. One woman never answers the door and I cant help wonder if she is inside but is unable to come to the door for whatever reason. We leave the food on the doorstep. We end the deliveries on Churchill gardens with a family who thank Mike and give me the warmest Hello. 

Mike is everywhere in the community and even while we are gone for delivery he is getting phone calls every two minutes. He giggles so much and talks about all the groups and initiatives he has set up. I ask about younger people in the community and he names a few places and people who are doing wonderful things for them. Yet they are still no where to be seen to me. Yet again I haven't been with any young people since church or choir. I cant help but see the need for young, energetic people to help Mike, or simply interact with other people in the community, for everyone sake. The separation of age is continuously apparent.

We spend the rest of the afternoon sat on the plastic chairs chatting in the sunshine. We sort 50 black bin liners of crisps into the shed and blabber away as people come and go. It is an inclusive space once again. It is run by the community so there isn't this separation between user and service. The people helping are service users, yet there is no distinction. I forget this and ask Naomi if she lives close by, to which she answers with the story of how she got to be someone who was homeless and how she got to be someone who both uses the service and hangs around with Mike. This is empowering and I value this anonymity. I feel valuable in the conversation, as just another person bringing my experience into the chat but not being defined by it. We talk about so many things while mike goes back to visit the first elderly man to spend more time looking at his pictures of the grandchildren. 

This experience is brimming with generosity and inclusivity. Once again, it is about being a local and a regular. At its core it is about being someone who is guided by human connection and friendship, be it fleeting or permanent. I walk away from today with a further confidence in myself and in the power of one individual deciding to take action and make a change. So often before doing this project I would have overthought how to engage and make a difference in communities, including my own. I would have almost been crippled by trying not to upset anyone, make something effective and change driven. I always believed in the power of simply talking but todays experience set it in cement. The food distribution service isn't just about getting the most vulnerable and forgotten people in our community food, it is also about building a community and having a laugh and being validated through being given a space to talk and be listened too. 

I walk to the tube station and bump into Mike who is having a natter with the newsagent. I go home and have an ice cream and a swim in the pond at Hampsted Heath.