#my very indulgent worldbuilding

[wisteria-lodge]

In Harry Potter and Malfoy's Suspicious New Interest, Draco mentions that Lucius has a raven named Orgoglio. That is a very charming and whimsical name. Did Lucius choose it, or did Narcissa? And why Orgoglio? Is there a particular reason why you chose this name? Is it a nod to Lucius being a wife guy and his lovely “Faerie Queene” Narcissa? Or is it more of a “sophisticated man chooses sophisticated pet name” sort of manner?

What a charming ask. You absolutely picked up on an indulgent little detail that I mostly just dropped in there to amuse myself. :D But now I get to talk about it!

In my head, Lucius is 100% a Bird Guy. Those are his peacocks. And if you have so many birds, well then of course you're going to need to name them, and you're going to need a naming *theme.* So yes, all of Lucius' birds are named after characters from The Faerie Queene. They have been ever since he named the first owl he took away to Hogwarts Archimago (after the evil sorcerer character.)

And from Lucius' perspective... it's a family history joke. I actually like the little Pottermore detail that Lucius Malfoy I, Lucius' namesake, worked very hard to marry Queen Elizabeth I. I think that Lucius (present day) would both think that that was kind of cool, and kind of funny. The Faerie Queene was written for and about Queen Elizabeth I, and I bet the first Lucius had some kind of opinion about it. So Lucius' birds are his way of forming this positive connection with his family/legacy, because I do *not* think he had a good relationship with his father, and my vibe on his mother is that she died kinda young, and Lucius legitimately to this day doesn't know exactly what happened there.

We know from Sirius' tropical birds that non-owls can deliver letters, and Lucius would obviously be *all* over that. So of course he'd have a raven, and of course he'd name it after one of the poem's villains. Also, all the Faerie Queene characters do have these very fun, very whimsical names that just kind of fit the vibe.

[chiropteracupola]

A May morning.

[fleouriarts]

investigating different tattoo options for furries, featuring (ferret) riley and his stupid giant dolphin tattoo ❤️

wasn't able to cram it onto the pic, but another con to freeze-branding is that it can take up to 8 weeks for the fur to grow back white and show a visible design. it'd probably be the best option if it wasn't for that and its price if you weren't getting a premade design

[winds-of-zephyr416]

You know, I’ve been having a lot of OC thoughts lately. Usually my family gets to hear most of them, but none of them are available so now it’s tumblr’s turn for insanity :)

So in my fantasy world that I’ve been building for a couple of years or so now, I have these… gods. Eldritch, celestial beings who exist as spirits in the world. They don’t really consider themselves gods, they’re really more like a lost civilization than anything, but the premise still stands.

Anyways, I’ve been thinking a lot about their culture and language lately. They don’t really have to contend with things like death, they’re very much so immortal and almost impervious to harm, so they don’t really do a lot of things for survival. They also typically communicate with a form of telepathy, so language isn’t even a necessary thing for them.

But they still have a language. They still have architecture. They still have a society that comes together to solve problems. Granted, it’s a lot different than what human civilizations look like, because of the whole “impervious to harm” thing, but they have it, and that’s what’s important.

You know what else is important? Their language. Especially their language. Good lord I am not normal about their language.

Their language is made up of sounds that mimic the world around them. Some words are built up out of rippling streams and birdsong, while others are made out of sounds impossible for us to even hear. Their words are crafted, and many are made to have double meanings and ambiguity. They can’t be ambiguous when they trade thoughts and ideas through their minds, so the notion of being able to say something with multiple meanings fascinates them. They write songs and poetry, and they are engrossed with it, because sound has never carried so much meaning before. They make jokes. They find misunderstanding hilarious, because they’re so alien to their usual way of communicating. They adore puns. Language isn’t a necessity for them, but they developed it anyway, because it gave them a new way of having fun that they had never encountered before in their billions of years of being alive.

Later on, when humanity comes into the scene, they realize that they can use this thing called language to talk to them. Humanity is not like the gods, humanity needs to communicate through a physical medium, whether it be through sight or hearing or touch. Humanity is often confused or overwhelmed when the gods converse with them, because they find that many of the sounds the gods use are completely incoherent. They can’t recreate the sound of thunder in the sky, or crackling flame, and often they look around them in fear, as if the sound alone is indicative of danger.

So, the gods adapt. They learn the languages of humanity, instead, and talk to them in their own tongues. But mortals are curious, and the gods love to learn and teach, so it isn’t long until the gods try to translate the sounds of their language into something humanity can listen to and understand. The music of the slow cracking of the earth is shifted up in pitch until mortals can hear and hearken to the sound, and the mortals in turn recreate it with what their voices will allow. Slowly, the gods make their language perceivable, and slowly, humanity teaches them how to make it pronounceable.

The resulting speech is neither mortal nor divine, but somewhere between the two. Its words have a rippling quality, and in each sentence one can almost hear what is being spoken. The word for wave becomes a low crash, the word for music becomes a dancing song in the ears of whoever is there to listen. There is no doubt that there is magic in these words, with the way they call everyone in the room to their attention and fill their hearts with the very soul of what is being said. This language is not magic in a sense of control, it does not bind things in the world to its will, but it carries with it the memory of the world it was made to describe.

Later on, this middle ground, this speech both mortal and divine, would become lost and forgotten. It would not vanish violently, with the sudden fall of an empire, nor would it fade away with the few who are “worthy” of speaking such a tongue. No, instead it would grow and evolve with the people who learned it, moving across the continent and coming into contact with new lands and people. There, it would teach and learn in turn, and then diverge again, becoming yet another middle ground.

Slowly, like this, the language of humanity and gods together disappears. It does not die, but it dissolves, morphed into a thousand little pieces that stay on in other languages. It can still be found, if you look close enough, at the way speakers arrange their words, or in the rhythms they like to sing. Not even its name is truly past, still being borne by a speech that closely resembles the one long gone.

No, the language of mortals and the gods does not die, because, even in the darkest of days, when it seems like the world will perish and all life along with it, each syllable uttered in fear echoes the language that once carried nothing but joy, and each sentence given in comfort is another window into the years when things were bright. The tongues of mortals do not forget, even if humanity itself has.

And even so, were the speech of humans ever to forget what they helped to create, the gods would still remember. And maybe, the gods would teach and be taught by the mortals once again, in spite of the mutilated darkness that enshrouds these present days. Perhaps they already have.

[fate-defiant]

'kay so I doodled another thing before bed, just to test the tool further. I wanted to see what I could do if I went beyond just a sketch with a bit of color slapped onto it. Not gonna lie after fiddling witth the brushes further I was a bit dissapointed - they're not unworkable, but the limitations are frustrating nonetheless. I ended up doing the lineart as though I was working with a mechanical pencil - set the brush size to being as thin as possible(i worked on a 800x600 pixel canvas here, for the record) and then just sorta went over the parts I wanted to be bolder several times. It didn't turn out great but that's more of a skill issue on my part.

All this isn't to say that's it's bad, for the record, the main goal of the people making this was clearly to make something for people to have fun together with and not a perfect clone of [insert your preffered drawing program here]. If I experimented further I could definitely figure out plenty of interesting things that can be done with just the free features, I just don't have the time or the patience tonight.

[ikkaku-of-heart]

I know I’ve talked about how Joras has its own special breed of Newfies but there is one other kind of dog regularly found on the island, though it’s owned most prominently by the upper class and thus only seen in Arkham or the mansions by Bangor Crater.

Borzois.

They generally come in black, white, or shades of grey and are mostly used for hunting and as companions/status symbols. They too are known to protect against the Old Ones, though while Newfies are more focused on protecting their homes and loved ones, Borzois are more proactive and quick to give chase should an eldritch threat appear. Generally doctors, successful businessmen, old money families, and important society figures own one.

[lollybliz]

.

[unearthlycat]

(my own prev tags for clarity: #also this post spawned multiple side paragraphs in the headcanon doc about slugcat kinship terminology so *jazzhands* yippee)

it is not, although i have posted snippets from it occasionally! (the names post on my other/main blog is partly from there, in fact.)

it's this monster:

I can share the relevant snippet though! (Spruced up with some fancier formatting than a block of plain text and handwritten html tags...) (Also I realize there's some slugcat gender stuff that's indirectly referenced/mentioned but not explained in here but that would have been like another ten paragraphs from elsewhere in the doc to cover so i'll leave it out for now lol)

In Surv and Monk's colony, especially, colonymates are like extended family, with certain familial terms used to address others of equivalent ages to those roles (similar to many human cultures):

Adults to other potentially-related colony adults that aren't their mates tend to refer to one another as "cousin"

Adolescent and young adult slugcats will typically address any pup as "little one"/"little sibling" until they have had pups of their own (or are about that age). Even after that, "little one" is still a common way to address pups, and "little sibling" for juveniles/young scugs that aren't one's own child

Similarly, most pups will address older juveniles as "big sibling" honorarily. Survivor and Monk would generally not address one another by name -- younger siblings would address elder as "big sibling", and older sibling would typically address younger/pups as "little sibling".

Gourmand (and as an adult, Monk) would be addressed by an honorific for their role/gender -- something like "aunt/uncle" and "teacher"

A form of "mother" is used as a respectful honorific for any Mother slugcat, regardless of personal relation.

"Stranger"/"guest" are used to politely address non-members. The former is sort of the default non-rude way to address a non-colony-member, while the latter is nicer and suggests honorary membership or long-term presence in the colony.

Rivulet's colony uses the equivalent of "aunt"/"uncle" pretty freely as the typical way to address any familiar slugcat who is around your parents' age/notably older than you but not ancient, and similarly with "grandparent" for much older slugcats and "little sibling" for immediate juniors. "Cousin" is a polite term of address for any slugcat one wishes to suggest social kinship with, but is only occasionally extended to other sapients like Scavengers (in which case there is an intentional implication of inclusion/welcoming.) "Stranger" is normal for "other" sapients like scavengers and sometimes iterators, but a bit rude to use for another slugcat and often suggests an *outsider* outsider, potentially hostile.

Artificer's colony was less strongly organized/social and used fewer specific honorifics, but did have a similar usage of "Mother" as respectful address of any Mother slugcat (by their colony's definition of the role), and used "aunt/uncle" as a sort of generic address for a respected usually-older slugcat, sort of like Riv's colony's use of "aunt/uncle" and "grandparent" combined, and used "cousin" for any slugcat related closely enough to acknowledge but not either aunt/uncle/grandparent, parent, or immediate sibling.

Other notes:

Rivulet addresses Moon as "auntie" because they feel like "grandparent" would be a bit rude -- like, technically she's older than any slugcat alive, but iterators are different, y'know?

If they ever meet, Rivulet would also call Arti "auntie" and it would be really weird.

Also, assuming this is in-timeline and Monk would be much older at the time of meeting, Monk would probably call Riv "little one" half-jokingly and Riv would be like ??!? do i LOOK like a baby to you??? (actually wait don't answer that--)

thinking about Spearmaster and Gourmand friendship…

Gourmand trying to figure out if this Weird Purple Spiky Creature is a threat to the colony or not, eventually realizing it is just a very weird and awkward slugcat and then wanting to sort of welcome them but Spearmaster is very poorly socialized and skittish and clearly unsure how to approach things…

Spearmaster who has no idea how to socialize with other slugcats and feels intimidated but wants so badly to reach out, bringing Gourm's colony gifts in hopes of winning them over like Scavengers, and Gourmand caaaarefully trying to coax them into sticking around like "we're fine, you should join in and have some of this too, there's enough to go around"…

(Spearmaster being self-conscious about their way of eating freaking out other slugcats and carefully restricting themself to only eating a tiny bit, and only baby centipede or eggbug or other foods that they see other slugcats casually eating, or not eating at all, because they're afraid of appearing too scary/creepy and being rejected…)

but just like. imagine please:

Spearmaster, laying out a pile of like 5 unused spears, two badly skewered bluefruits and a live eggbug: [please dont kill me please dont kill me please dont kill me please dont kill me]

Gourmand, grateful but increasingly concerned and bewildered: ... Do you want to join us to eat before the rain, stranger? I am sure there will be enough to share!

Spearmaster, stuck behind a language barrier, sweating nervously, continuing to produce more spears: [FUCK]

[writeblrfantasy]

writers, listen up...

i've fallen out of touch with the writeblr community a lot in the past few years, and i want to rectify that. the community aspect was what made me fall in love with tumblr, and what improved my writing for the better.

the golden days of my writing were when i was highly active and engaged in this wonderful community, but life and work and the horrors of self publishing have overtaken my energy in the past year. however, i have been really struggling with original writing, and i want to get back into the community here.

that said...

you write fantasy with queer characters

are an indie author

post frequently about your wips (taglists are a bonus!)

are queer

are a very active and friendly writer

if any of these apply

please, please reblog and tell me about your wip. gush over it. infodump. characters and ships and worldbuilding and plot, i want it all! this is your invitation to be as selfishly indulgent as possible. let's make some new friends and restore some community!!

boosts appreciated!

[rassicas]

In which Cress encounters some unwanted visitors.

-----

this is a comic idea that has been tormenting me since march, but in august I finally started to make it real. very self indulgent, i'd been wanting to have cress forced to Kill as a part of his story for many years now though. hehe

The events of this story take place before Big Runs have started. Cress has never worked at Grizzco. Why is he being targeted by Salmonids...? That is the mystery... lots of worldbuilding thought went into this btw. i am open to questions. *folds hands together*

credit to my pal @roachgore for helping out with: - layouts on a couple pages/panels that i Struggled to envision (this is one of the hardest parts of comics for me) - grayscaling on pages 7-9 - sfx text on 7 and 8 - all the blood. he wanted to do it of course

[vexwerewolf]

If I could ask you for some advice, what do you think helps the flavour text of a mech or piece of equipment sell a player on the fantasy of using it?

I'm finding it frustratingly difficult to do so with my own homebrew content: I can come up with lore and backstory easily enough, but re-reading it feels dry, and I can't help but contrast it with how the descrptions in official content and other supplements is more evocative, at least for mechs.

Let's observe some corebook Lancer flavour text and examine the various varieties it comes in.

Purely Functional

While it's usually not the most fun type of flavour text, this just tells us what the weapon is, and - if it has any particular tags or on-hit effects - why it's like that. The Hand Cannon is a good example: here's what it is (modified pistol), here's why it does more damage, and here's why it has Loading.

The main advantage of Purely Functional flavour text is that it provides space for other types of flavour text to breathe. Flavour text is a great place for jokes, but it's not good for every piece of flavour text to be a joke - the pauses between notes in music are just as important as the notes.

Obfuscating Vendorspeak

The Bristlecrown Flechette Launcher this is a great example of dark humour that Lancer uses quite often: marketing fast-talk to cover up something really unpleasant. The joke here is based on us understanding precisely what the equipment does mechanically, and then seeing how the manufacturer tries to sell it. There's a bunch of dense technobabble here meant to obfuscate the fact that this weapon fires knives in every direction specifically designed to kill infantry.

Deadpan Weirdness

The joke here relies on describing something extremely weird like it's the most natural thing in the world. Wait, you're telling me that in a world where I can just print new parts if the old ones break, they put DRM on my fucking knife and I have to apologise to the fucking knife maker to get a new one? What the fuck, dude? Why are you acting like this makes any sense?!

My sword uploads fucking what to the Space Internet?!

Third-Act Twist

This type of flavour text disguises itself as something else - most often Purely Functional - and then hits you with Third Act Twist. It makes you go "wait, what?!" It's very classic setup-punchline stuff. You're telling me my mech can rot?!

As a side note, Lancer loves to use this for its NHPs.

WHY DID YOU PUT THAT IN SCARE QUOTES, LUCIFER

Worldbuilding

This is similar to the Purely Functional, but instead of just describing technical specifications of the weapons, it puts the weapon in the broader context of the setting's history. Okay, so we know what this weapon is and what it does - why was it built? What was the original use case, and why? Most importantly, what can the existence of this weapon tell us about the world that build it?

Whimsical Aside

This is the insertion of a light-hearted, humanising little insertion regarding how this piece of equipment gets used in the field. This serves to remind us that soldiers aren't cold, unfeeling killing machines: they can be as emotional, irreverent and silly as the rest of us, and they do things like name their mobile bombs...

... or call resupply drones "mech snacks."

The Ominous Out-Of-Context Quote That Explains Nothing And Only Raises More Questions

As I've said in multiple textmash memes, this is basically Tom and Miguel's shorthand for "this technology is Intensely Fucked Up in a way that it is more fun and scary not to explain." This is essentially Lancer's version of SCP's [REDACTED].

You might think this is the domain of HORUS, and you'd be right, but every single manufacturer indulges in these - although IPS-N had to wait until NRFaW to get theirs:

What the fuck do you mean by that, Lancer?

[apigeonisapigeon]

650 words and I haven't even gotten to the part where I break down all the different powers in exhaustive detail 😈

I started writing the summary. So far it's 400 words and counting of worldbuilding

[starflungwaddledee]

Who wins starstruck or a aroace guy

both of them, because she's also aroace just like me!

actually while i'm at it, here's the little animation i was working on for pride month but never got around to posting!

in my self indulgent aroace worldbuilding i like to imagine that labels for orientations and genders are just kind of... not that much of a thing on popstar, because it doesn't matter at all to anyone. nobody has ever cared about stuff like who or how you love, and 90% of them are picking their own pronouns anyway.

that said, it's still nice to have a little self representation here on our primitive earth internet, where this kind of thing very much does need to exist and we deserve to be proud of it!

[openphrase123]

i just finished this fic! it's good!

and because it's all done i want to like... be a LITTLE self indulgent and talk under the cut about some miscellaneous things that i ran into while writing it. don't click the readmore if you're interested in the fic and haven't read it yet i'm about to spoil the Whole thing.

also there is an epilogue to this fic now - go read that before this post if you're getting to this before the update!!

so!! i haven't written fanfiction in like FIVE YEARS. it's been a while! part of that is because i was doing original stuff and part of it was i was in a creative slump. so isat kind of dug me out of that and i owe it my thanks. i've been able to do a crazy amount of original work since starting this fic, it's brought back my creative discipline. in like seven years when my video game comes out you can thank isat for that probably

i originally set out thinking this was the only fic for isat i was going to write. and then as i was writing this i fell deeper into it. i kind of got out of isat a little disappointed in how it ended?? but now that i'm here i'm like ah it's fine. just cause i would have done something different in dev's position doesn't mean it's bad. it does mean i can write a bunch of fanfiction exploring things i wish had been tackled more in the game though LOL

i said this in one of the chapter authors notes but i DID start out curtain call hating loop with every fiber of my being. (as in i liked them as a character UNTIL the act 6 reveal which i thought was lame) and then i played through the game a second time knowing the loop twist and went "oh nvm this makes sense" so a lot of the loop stuff in this fic was actually written twice. originally i was just gonna have them soulmerge with siffrin and not be present at all but then i was like. no. i do want to keep this lighthearted and that's too depressing of an end for loop. i do have a loop postcanon doc so i'll go repay them for their slapdashed involvement in curtain call someday

i'm in a weird position with curtain call in that i wrote the themes and major conflicts Directly After playing through isat the first time. before i could really marinate and analyze the characters fully. so there are a lot of scenes and points where i think i wouldn't characterize certain people like that if i were to rewrite this from scratch? however i don't disagree with what i've written either - it's just an interpretation that i don't necessarily think is my favorite anymore.

neither is any of the worldbuilding i did for any of this - it works for curtain call and i think it was nice but i don't necessarily think it's my current interpretation of what the culture and people were like? i like the wishes being permanent thing, i like the language stuff, but i'd probably go in a different direction if i went through this again

i do actually still think "the forgotten island was destroyed by a volcano" is my solid headcanon explanation of what happened to it. in my heart. i think like - with siffrin as a character especially it's very important that he's always missing something, that it's not idyllically happy for them at the end of everything. so even if he can remember more from their own past, it's - you know - there's no way to go back. only forward.

in the vein of this i probably could have killed siffrin/loop's entire childhood family but i did not. mostly because i did think it was fun for him to have to explain all of those cultural taboos they broke to survive. which, of course, was not a big deal - any good parent would rather their kid be alive than lawful - but what is isat other than a vehicle to make siffrin work through every moral compulsion and spiral they experience

i had a thought halfway through writing the fic that i was stepping on the very good and beautiful odile friendquest by making the island real and having a lot of siffrin's personality dictate how it went. but i ultimately decided on keeping siffrin very close to their country, more than odile is to vaugarde, because siffrin actually DID live on the island when he was a kid and that i think is a Different type of "longing for your country" trauma than odile's. i think they can still drink over the feelings together though

writing bonnie is very fun but very emotional for me. the bonnie&siffrin age gap (preteen to late-20s) is the exact age gap between me and my niece so every time i need to sit down and write something for them i think about her and how much she's a little baby growing up. this has nothing to do with bonnie it just makes writing bonnie really hard for me

if the entire history of my ao3 account was not an indicator, i'm a very big fan of writing romance, but i did not want it to take over curtain call at all. i also could have left out sloopis entirely and almost did, but thought "you know. with the way loop functions in this fic. i should at least let that be open ended" cause sharing a body with a version of you who is dating some other guy is gonna get messy no matter what. it's just not necessarily something i had time to or the urge to explore here. think of it as a fun spiritual nod to the fact that isafrin is technically open ended in isat (<- cop out answer)

i think i'm pretty vocal in how much i am absolutely insane for the flashback "happiest i can remember being" conversation. who let them do that. i think a lot of how i worked with mirabelle and siffrin's relationship in this fic kind of revolved around that. important to me that it ends with mira checking in on him and getting the answer she was looking for all along <3

overall i'm happy with curtain call. glad i am done with it though. there's so much that's running in with it at once. i'll probably wait a month and reread the whole thing to myself front to back before i start having fond memories of this. i mean it's always gonna be the fic my nephew was born during and i'll always remember having a panic attack in the airport right after posting chapter 7 but it's gonna be weird letting this one sail off into the ocean of the internet. however feel free to ask anything about the fic, i wrote this in a lil hurry on a bad day and probably didn't cover everything

goodbye, curtain call!! i love you!!!!! i'll miss you!!!!

[looks both ways, waiting for most people to leave]

also. if you've read this far. i hope it's not too gauche of me to link my personal project. if you've read over 100k words of this you might enjoy the game i'm developing? i've been working on it for almost a year but i just started the devlog last month. it's still in early baby stages as far as a full video game goes but if you liked this you'll like the game when it comes out (similar nickname culture, timeloop trauma, petty interpersonal drama, very stupid jokes, natural disaster angst)

also there isn't a lot on the devblog yet, i've mostly been doing programming on it, i JUST started visdev i'm sorry if it's uglyyyyy (FOR NOW)

anyway i'm trusting you with that link. i'm going to use my professional name on that project when it airs don't cross the wires pretty please just pretend that's a butch-y cis woman's game <3 guard the closet door babeyyyyy

[theellipelli]

I need to eat drywall nostalgic chill is so good GGRRRHAAAHHHHHHHH FIGHTING FOR THE SPOT OF MY FAVORITE FIC EVER RN. Anyway I wanted to ask what ur process is when writing fic? Especially something so lengthy and lore-heavy like nostalgic chill. Been trying to cook up some hsr fic myself but I get so overwhelmed by the sheer amount of world lore ..

your FAVOURITE fic EVER??? that is a lot of praise... waow...

thank u for asking such a fun question!!! my process is very losey goosey, specifically for this fic, but ill try to explain it as best i can

the (VERY) rough outline for this fic has been planned out since long before i actually started posting it, with it getting more detailed near the end (a few of the final chapters have already been drafted, actually)

on the path towards the end ive spread out a few plot points which are either just cool things i want to write about (like all those damn fights) or important character stuff (like the bailiu heart-to-heart and every single jing yuan reality check)

when i start a new chapter, ill usually already know where i want it to end, often one of those pre-planned points. ill spend a few days (or even one or two weeks) thinking about how to continue the story, and then once i have an idea ill like, ill sit down and start writing.

typically, a good idea will be the easiest to write for me. if i get stuck anywhere before reaching the end of the scene, ill usually just scrap it immediately and start over. i try to make each chapter one unbroken scene, so a reached plot-point isnt necessary for the chapter to end.

like, for the most recent 2 chapters, the plot-point ive been writing towards is jing yuan meeting the master diviner, which was a VERY important thing that needed to happen before anything else. of course, everything is also following an overarching goal, which is mostly just jing yuans character arc, and that is built towards in the narration between major events. also worldbuilding i guess.

on the research side, i dont have much to say? my grasp on the xianzhou lore is already pretty solid (its my favourite area) so a lot of the research i do lore-wise is just double-checking that i have my facts straight. also, reading the xianzhou lore is good for inspiration, if im really lacking in that, which is unusual but not impossible.

i dont think my process is especially unique? its definitely not very structured, but thats unusual even for me. idk tldr i think of cool stuff i want to write about and then fill in the gaps between those cool stuff. tis fun

as thanks for asking such a fun question, here is a little yanqing for you. kisses. mwah. blessed be the indulgence.

[artbyblastweave]

Hey, I just read this superhero series called Rising Stars. Have you heard of that before, and do you have any thoughts on it?

Personally I loved it. 113 children in utero get affected by the energy of a comet passing overhead, and start developing powers. They all get different levels of power, some never realise what their powers are, some just straight up suck.

Like there's a guy who's totally indestructible. But he's not and stronger or faster, he just can't be damaged. And he can't feel anything tactile either. So he over indulges in taste because it's one of the only sense he has, and ends up obese.

There's a girl with telekinesis, who can only manipulate small objects. The carotid artery is a small object, so she gets headhunted by the CIA for assassination work.

And then there's the reveal that their powers operate off a shared energy pool, and if one dies the remaining power gets shared among the remainder. And then people start turning up dead...

Rising Stars has been near and dear to my heart for a very long time. It's by no means perfect, but one of the things I find the most compelling about it is how it positions superhumanity as a fundamentally extremely finite phenomenon.

Works in which superpowers are introduced to a world that didn't previously have them will often break in one of two directions; either they'll treat it as a new, sustainable equilibrium that will somehow fail to change anything of import, or else it's a floodgate that opens and completely wipes away the status quo. But both scenarios generally take for granted that capes as a general phenomenon are here to stay- that there's some replacement-rate mechanism at play. Rising Stars depicts a world where this isn't true, and moreover it very quickly becomes clear to everyone that this isn't true- that these 113 people are the only superhumans the world is ever gonna get. That's enough to be extremely disruptive, but not necessarily paradigm shifting- and the worldbuilding reflects that in interesting ways, the sense that the reaction of many is just that they've gotta wait these assholes out.

Maybe some of them habitually dine-and-dash at upscale restaurants but what are you going to do, call the army every time? Not worth it. There's fewer than a hundred of these guys, it's not like letting it slide is going to be the start of something. One of them takes over Chicago and runs it as a fiefdom? Okay, that's bad, but it's one city and everyone else who's similarly inclined already rallied under her aegis, still not a paradigm shift. The entire containment strategy for the ones who are habitually supervillainous is to ring up one or two of the ones who decided to be superheroes and dump them in Antarctica, forcing them to walk back. Obviously not a great solution but what's the incentive to come up with something better? This isn't a growing population that demands a systemic response, it's the same six or seven guys every time, and you're only gonna have to put up with them for so long.

And the series really did a lot with the fact that these people all know each other- a small-town's graduating class worth of superhumans who all grew up together. The "oh, what's so-and-so up to these days" energy of it all. The comparable sense of wasted potential as you get into your late-twenties-early-thirties, take a look at what everyone you grew up with has been up to lately, and really seriously evaluate what it is, exactly, that you've actually accomplished with your life, compared to what you thought you were going to do when you were a teenager. The Specials don't even have the luxury of existing in a conventional superhero universe where their personal mediocrity (real or perceived) will come out in the wash due to all the other superpeople running around-they're wasting more than just their own individual lives through their inaction or failure, and the series milks that growing sense of rat-in-a-trap tension as their numbers start to really dwindle in earnest over the course of the comic.