#piaj misc

[tenspontaneite]

in one of the chapters of "Peace Is A Journey" you had the gang eat snow to stay hydrated, you should never eat snow to stay hydrated. in fact, it does the opposite and dehydrates you. My family comes from a long line of Mountaineers and my mom used to be a cross-country skier. Other than that you've been incredibly accurate with mountaineering knowledge.

See, I'm actually of two minds about this one, because you're right that in the long run, eating snow dehydrates you more than it hydrates you....but I've been debating whether or not that would be known by Rayla in-setting.

I have shown her to have pretty damn good all terrain survival knowledge, so on one hand, yes in theory she could know it. But on the other hand, I have to think about what her people in the Silvergrove do or do not know, and where they'd get that information from.

The reason snow dehydrates is because melting it inside the body and then reheating the body's core temperature takes energy, and that's like, metabolic knowledge that I'm not sure everyone would have. People who live in cold regions would probably have most of their populace knowing that eating snow is bad just from folk knowledge and experience, but for everyone else....I'm not so sure.

The Silvergrove is located in a temperate forest. Certainly Runaan and the assassin squad would have been trained in a lot of survival knowledge, so they might know intricate cold weather survival stuff like this. But it could also be that, like for us, there's a basic assumption that eating snow is a good way to rehydrate if you can't make a fire to melt it, and either Runaan would know or wouldn't, and then Rayla would know or wouldn't, because in the end she is less knowledgeable and experienced than Runaan. I've been leaning towards 'yes they do know', because they did travel through mountainous regions in winter to get to the castle, so Runaan would probably have brushed up on operational knowledge and learned it even if he didn't previously - IF that information is actually available. And that's where I'm stuck.

Moonshadow elves in piaj ain't any better at thermoregulating than humans. But. In piaj worldbuilding, Skywing elves are very very cold resistant, and Sunfire elves can keep their core temperature high with very little energy, because their thermoregulatory processes are augmented by magic. So if Sunfire and Skywing elves can very efficiently stay warm, and therefore snow hydrates them, and they can live in cold regions more easily, it might be harder for Moonshadow elves who don't generally live in cold regions to know whether or not snow is an efficient water source, since they only have hearsay from other races. This makes it more likely that Runaan and his squad wouldn't necessarily know that snow-eating itself is dehydrating, just that eating it makes you colder, so wherever possible you want to melt it on a campfire first.

So my options are:

- Runaan knows, because the Silvergrove has accurate niche information about Moonshadow elf cold survival for some reason, presumably from hypothetical cold environment Moonshadow societies or a pronounced past history of cold weather ops. In this case, Rayla either knows, in which case the story text needs editing, or doesn't, in which case only the notes need editing.

- Runaan doesn't know, because either Silvergrove information on cold weather survival isn't that detailed, or because the differing physiologies of different elf races means that information just plain isn't available.

So in sum I really haven't decided yet what my stance is on this lmao, and that's why I haven't made any notes about it in story yet. I was kind of hoping no one would notice >.> Good catch though.

I welcome input / opinions! I'm still making up my mind on this one. I really like it when there's funky racial difference reasons for there being misinformation, so I'm biased towards that, but on the other hand I feel like the Silvergrove assassins are pretty resourceful and might have conducted enough cold weather ops to know anyway.

What do you think?

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Oooh I was playing with this exact picrew the other day and did in fact use it for tdp OCs! Let me share some!

These are two of my only piaj elf OCs who this picrew does justice to. The others generally aren't compatible with its options.

I also made an attempt at a Cairon, but he's not quite this baby, lol.

four of my main characters from this picrew

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Fuck yes finished piaj 26!!!

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*stares at Bloodmoon Huntress* hoo boy. Time for more piaj edits huh.

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are you planning on finishing Peace is a Journey? i was binging it recently and its really good, but i noticed it hadnt been updated in like 6 months

You have very interesting timing, my good fellow!

As it happens, I've had a lot of shit on and have barely written for like five months, and ngl I am bigtime not enjoying it. So actually these last few days I was finally able to sit down and force myself back into the tdp fandom by binge watching reaction videos for three days and then finally by watching season 3 again and reading ttm, the art book, etc. I finished doing that today! And now:

Over the next....probably weeks, I'll be honest, I'll be starting the Grand PIAJ Edit of 2022. It's been a long time coming, and I put it off for a long time because I hadn't caught up with ttm or this or that, and then life just sort of,,, happened, and it got put off even longer. But yeah, now's time to start, finally.

I've got a lot to do, so I expect it's going to take a while. I've got bits to add, bits to tweak, grammar to edit, and on top of that....I've got to start seriously keeping track of a lot of running details in order to be able to do my consistency checks effectively in such an enormous story. For an idea, these are some of the things I've noted to myself I'll need to take notes down about during the next grand edit in order to track:

Clothing state and quantity; damage, discoloration, wash status

Food quantity and use

General supplies quantity and use

Rayla injury progression and healing

Sketchbook drawings progression

Campsites by day and description

Noteworthy scenes and conversations and exposition by day

....and some more stuff that's more spoilery. Point is I have a good amount to do, and piaj is so massive and so logistics heavy that I really need to keep easily searchable records of things like this so I don't trip up. In a recent chapter I almost rewrote a scene that already existed in another chapter because I couldn't tell the difference between 'I remember it vividly because I've thought about it a lot' and 'I remember it vividly because I've already written it.' I caught it in time but I don't want that to happen more often in a story as detail-oriented as this, which it will, if I don't take careful notes on my next grand edit. Which will start today or tomorrow.

I won't edit any public chapters until I've finished all the extant chapters on my computer, so you've got plenty of time to download the current version if you want to preserve it. I'll also make sure to preserve a copy myself and make it available for download. There will also be change notes added to the change logs of every chapter so you can get an idea of whether anything interesting was added or changed, or if it was just basic grammar or style edits.

In general, rest assured that my plans for piaj are too cool for me to leave it here!

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I was not expecting to see two of my fics in a graph tonight but it was certainly a fun and surprising experience! Same hat @raayllum 😅

Pronouns used in top 20 The Dragon Prince fics on AO3, sorted by bookmark. Almost an even split!

more on how this type of plot was made

[tenspontaneite]

PIAJ 2022 Edits Changelog & Update News

The 2022 Grand PIAJ Edit is now complete. All chapters on ao3 and tumblr have been modified, supplemental material such as supplemental chapter notes has been modified, and the changelog is ready. The PIAJ master post has been updated.

PIAJ chapter 25 is complete, and will be posted 23/06/22, on my birthday.

This post will cover an overview of some noteworthy changes to the story and worldbuilding, and will then list the chapter-by-chapter changelog. You can refer to this changelog to decide whether or not you wish to reread a given chapter or scene.

Story Content

 When I started the story, I considered incorporating water purification as a campcraft & survival issue to address, but decided against it because at the time I didn't think I was going to take piaj very seriously. By the time that changed, it was too late to reasonably introduce. But as long as I'm editing the whole thing, I might as well incorporate it. So, now Rayla is appropriately disturbed at drinking unclean water, and some scenes have been modified to reference this, and conversations modified to discuss it. Some worldbuilding notes have been added in relevant areas.

I made an incorrect assumption about the Banther Lodge when writing PIAJ; namely, I assumed it had taxidermy and animal trophies in it - it took closer examination for me to see that it's actually all wooden sculptures of animal trophies. Some not yet published scenes later in the story reference the presence of animal trophies in the Banther Lodge, so rather than change those scenes, I thought of something else I preferred for the setting and characters and modified the early piaj chapters accordingly.

 Grammar

 I have always been fully aware that you're supposed to end dialogue with a comma if there's a dialogue tag afterwards, but it looked so profoundly wrong to me that I couldn't bear to do it. I trained myself steadily to accept it, and having now accomplished that, I've edited PIAJ accordingly. I have almost certainly missed some instances, which will likely get picked up on future edits.

 Continuity and Consistency

 Ensuring I could take notes and check for continuity errors was one of the major reasons I wanted to do this in-depth editing process. I did identify a few continuity errors where late chapters had conversations that neglected to reflect the existence of similar conversations earlier in the story; these have been fixed. I have also taken comprehensive notes on a variety of topics to have easily searchable records to help me keep continuity solid in this ridiculously complex story.

Some things now being tracked: Clothing (Quantity, damage, cleanliness), Food & Rations, Supplies (Quantity & usage), Past Events (Pre-story events mentioned), Campsites (Chapters & brief descriptions), Ezran & Zym Ability, Callum Ability, Health & Injury (all relevant characters), and various subsets of all of these, as well as some misc. progression details. I've also done some in-depth mapping in my detailed Information & Espionage document.

 Worldbuilding and Nomenclature

 The PIAJ worldbuilding has been developing over time, so some things needed to be tweaked and amended, and other things were amended to conform to new canon material that I thought it was worth incorporating. Here is a list, not necessarily complete, of changes that have been made.

Great Bay has been renamed to Weeping Bay to conform to canon.

PIAJ stance on elves with facial hair modified in light of Tales of Xadia elven characters with beards. A summary: elves can have facial hair, but it's as rare as for cisgender human women. It runs in families, so more prevalent in certain communities, and may be utterly unknown elsewhere. Due to association with humans, facial hair can be stigmatised in some xenophobic communities, similar to hornlessness.

Some terms in Paragonism have been changed. The High Cleric is now the ultimate religious authority in a kingdom; the Priest of Paragons is now the highest religious authority in a given settlement. Houses of Paragons are now called Halls of Paragons, except where they are large enough to be called Temples. The overarching authority of Paragonism is composed of one High Cleric from each human kingdom, and is known as the High Clergy.

Some references / details in Paragonism have been changed. While Fortune is considered a Paragon, they're a controversial one, and not widely followed. Accordingly it doesn't make sense for most people to make references to them; any of these in the text have been replaced with more appropriate Paragons. References to 'Lord' or 'Lady' on their own have also been modified; this isn't an uncommon thing for people to say, but it's generally only done by people who have an exceptionally strong faith for a specific Paragon, such as Healers for Mercy. In the absence of this, any reference to 'Lord' on its own can be assumed to be an oblique reference to Hope.

The supplemental notes for each chapter have been inspected and modified where needed. Some examples: moondust dosage now varies based on the point in the lunar cycle it is taken, the full-body dragon sign language has been updated with its name of Draconic Corpus, and details of the rare Moonshadow elf talent called 'truthfinding' have been clarified.

 Chapter-by-Chapter Changelog

 Please refer to this to see where the largest changes have been.

(Section 1)

Chapter 1:

04/05/22: Grammar, style, added lines and paragraphs here and there – particularly to the opening, which I always disliked before. Addition of some description in the Banther Lodge.

Chapter 2:

04/05/22: Grammar, style, some modified sentences. Nothing major.

Chapter 3:

04/05/22: Grammar and style edits, as well as some extra lines here and there, and a couple paragraphs of extra content in the late tent stuff scene.

Chapter 4:

05/05/22: Grammar, style, a couple extra paragraphs early-ish in the chapter relevant to Banther Lodge changes. Changed the moonberries to gooseberries.

Chapter 5:

07/05/22: Grammar, style, etc. Added in a couple extra lines, and edited Ezran’s knowledge, for some geographical locations that are more worldbuilt now than when I first wrote this. Minor insignificant edits to this chapter’s supplemental notes.

Chapter 6:

07/05/22: Grammar, style, new scene section pertaining to water purification that’s nearly an entire 1k of new writing, two new chapter note sections pertaining to water purification and swamp fever. Also, modified the Claudia and Soren scene to fix a continuity issue with chapter 24.

Chapter 7:

07/05/22: Grammar, style, water purification edits, etc. Minor edits to the chapter’s supplementary notes.

Chapter 8:

10/05/22: Grammar, style, minor details. Minor edits to the chapter’s supplementary notes.

Chapter 9:

11/05/22: Grammar, style, minor details. One conversation gently modified for better continuity with ch24. Minor edits to this chapter’s supplemental notes.

Chapter 10:

11/05/22: Grammar, style, minor details. Supplemental chapter notes received minor edits.

Chapter 11:

19/05/22: Grammar, style, minor details. Supplemental chapter notes have had minor edits.

Chapter 12:

19/05/22: Grammar, style, minor details. Supplemental chapter notes received minor edits.

(Section 2)

Chapter 13:

20/05/22: Grammar, style, minor details. Supplemental chapter notes were edited; the section on the story section format was edited to account for the current state of the story.

Chapter 14:

21/05/22: Grammar, style, minor details. Supplemental chapter notes received minor edits.

Chapter 15:

Grammar, style, minor details, a paragraph and a bit added in around the wound care stuff to improve binding-related continuity. Supplemental chapter notes received minor edits.

Chapter 16:

22/05/22: Grammar, style, minor details. Supplemental chapter notes received edits, with my worldbuilding stance on elven facial hair modified to reflect some official elven characters from Tales of Xadia.

Chapter 17:

22/05/22: Grammar, style, minor details. Supplemental chapter notes received minor edits; updated information on moondust a little.

Chapter 18:

22/05/22: Grammar, style, minor edits. Supplemental chapter notes received minor edits; added in a paragraph regarding my stance on new and supplemental canon materials such as the books or Tales of Xadia.

Chapter 19:

22/05/22: Grammar, style, minor details. Supplemental chapter notes received some edits and padding and supplementing.

Chapter 20:

22/05/22: Grammar, style, minor details.

 (Section 3)

 Chapter 21:

23/05/22: Grammar, style, minor details. The supplemental chapter notes received some significant edits; positions of authority in Paragonism have been modified.

Chapter 22:

23/05/22: Grammar, style, minor details.

Chapter 23:

23/05/22: Grammar, style, minor edits, some slight changes to a scene for better consistency with previous chapter. Supplementary notes have been updated to reflect developments in the worldbuilding, largely affecting the rare Moonshadow elves known as truthfinders.

Chapter 24:

23/05/22: Grammar, style, minor details, edits to the first two scenes to fix a continuity issue with chapter 6. Minor edits to the supplemental chapter notes.

And that’s all! Happy rereading, and I’ll see you again in a week.

[tenspontaneite]

A whole entire mood from ch25 Rayla

[tenspontaneite]

Ok so. Soon, probably not today because my head is mush, but maybe tomorrow, I think I'll be starting to put edits live. Feel free to download the current ao3 version of piaj if you like. I'll reblog this post with progress updates and post the full changelog when it's done.

[tenspontaneite]

Thinking about that time like a week ago I wrote a note to self in the piaj channel of my friends discord server that was just the word 'blood' with no follow-up or context and then forgot about it, and then one of my buddies was like,,,,, should we be concerned orrr

[tenspontaneite]

Rereading the earliest chapters of piaj during the editing process has been a fun time, but man, this line in chapter 1 just got me like:

"It's spring, though, and it'll only get warmer. Do we need cold weather stuff?"

oh Callum you sweet summer child

[tenspontaneite]

Finally finished the initial read-and-edit of the published piaj chapters 🎉

Still got more editing to do, as I took notes on things that would need more careful changes for consistency - it'll still be a while. But we're getting there.

Eventually, I'll post a comprehensive changelog that will give chapter by chapter summaries of changes, as well as broader scope overviews of changes I've made. Might not be for a bit, but that's the objective I'm working towards. At that point I would recommend people either reread the fic, or reread chapters marked as having significant changes, according to your preferences.

(However, you can just as easily not reread anything at all; nothing major enough to affect story continuity will be changing.)

[tenspontaneite]

I think I'm going to be ready to put the piaj edits live soon, which is great timing really, but before I do that I want to get up to date with my information travel timeline and that's,,,, uhh,,,, yeah let's have a look at that.

This is my current key for writing/interpreting the information travel timeline:

Plus a bonus look at some of the sections and tracking pages. Also this key is heavily censored for spoiler reasons, but you get the idea.

And here is an example of what the information travel timeline looks like:

Covering the days immediately after the pre-canon death of Avizandum, and Xadian response to it.

This is all horrendously complicated but....necessary? Because I legitimately have a story here that's so logistics based that it matters what information is being sent, when, by who, via which information channels, and in certain cases, whether those channels have the capacity to send short notice emergency missives or not.

Using codes like this means I can easily search for a specific piece of information being passed on, or a specific source that is passing information, and track what they're doing through the timeline.

I enjoy it but man it's a lot of work. Last stage before I'm happy with the piaj edits though.

[tenspontaneite]

Would you say that the edits are good enough of an excuse to do a reread? :P

Lmao, yeah I would if it were me as a reader and enjoyer of the fic. I reread things very very often.

If you're the sort of person who likes rereading fics, I'd recommend it. There's a lot of subtle tweaks to worldbuilding and general vibes that can't really be explicitly pointed out in the changelogs. Everything major is in the changelog, like the fresh 1k of new writing in chapter 6 for example, and you don't have to reread to understand the story, but I'd recommend it if you're that way inclined.

[tenspontaneite]

So, er, I've been doing kinda good at piaj over the last week 👀

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S U F F E R I N G

Thank u for your enthusiasm, penny 👏