#the love elves sisyphus

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

so I read The Heart of the World again today and now I'm super curious/interested in a couple things. 1. where did Ilyn's name come from? and 2. why did you pick the specific 7 elf clans that you did? I love the book, it's great, I'm really glad I own it!

The Heart of the World by me (@janedoewrites)

Again?! I'm so flattered. It's nice to know people are reading it not just once but more than once. High praise.

Now, onto your questions.

Where Did Ilyn's Name Come From?

Like almost all names in the book, I essentially drew it out of a hat. Or I went "uhhhhhhhhh that sounds good" and picked it. Since I never came up with anything that felt better, it stuck pretty early and there it stays.

Unlike some of the other elf clans, the sun elves don't really have a scheme (mainly in that I only had to come up with two names and one had specifications that were required for the plot to make sense which left me only one free option). So, it really was me sitting there and "I need a name, shit, this sounds good" and here we are.

Why the Specific Elf Clans?

This one's a little better in that there's at least some reasoning behind it.

I knew I wanted seven main branches because seven's a good bullshit fairy tale number. Three, the other good bullshit fairy tale number, was too few as I needed to cover the night elves, the sun elves, and the gold elves and I knew I wanted more than that/wanted some really ridiculous ones in there. With Wizard Lenin descended from at that point an undecided group of elves that were different.

I also needed the narrative that the sun elves/night elves are by far the most powerful for bullshit reasons. I wanted some really good useless elves who, per the origin story, had reason to believe they were making wise decisions.

So, we have it based on the typical things people would wish for: wealth, beauty, physical prowess, intelligence, and happiness. These all seem like fine wishes on the surface, they're not bad by any means, but it's one of those "oh wait, fuck, I didn't think of X!" and now they're all stuck.

Though the specifics of the origin story came after I'd picked my clans.

The night elves were decided earliest as I wanted/needed vampire equivalency with similar aesthetics. The gold elves were next as I needed artisans/minters and the like and that was fairly easy to come up with. Then were the sun elves as I needed a group that Lily came from and I needed prophecies, that fell into place very quickly because of that. The rest were decided last and roughly at the same time as "happiness elves are funny" said I, the love elves are what you'd expect someone to get saddled with, the moon elves are also what you'd expect someone to get saddled with, and the mind elves are a good power that is horrifically powerful but not the raw power of the big two but is also surprisingly easy to overlook.

And so we have our main elf clans.

With a shout out to the shoe elves being part of the reason there's branching clans because I need them to exist.

[janedoewrites]

It occurs to me I can submit an ask over what else I've been wondering and that if it's not spoilers it may even be answered. I loved the incorporation of trials, poor Nhoj and the night elf just stuck re-traumatising themselves with reminders of horrific violence, in their variety and was aggrieved by the loss of 2. So:

Before Rabbit ate the happiness and love elf tasks what would they have been? Did you always plan to have them eaten and never decide? Is there a particular reason they got the short straw?

The last question is possibly they had less narrative focus mostly, the happiness elf particularly, but it's because of authorial choices and deliberate writing why it's possibly fair game to inquire about.

The Heart of the World by me.

And sure, submit anything you like! Even spoilers, depending, I might answer if it's spoilers for the single book thus far, just not anything that will spoil things ahead.

With that said.

You nailed it, there weren't any. They were always slated to be eaten, I never had to come up with anything, for which there was much rejoicing on my end, and the why is... well, that actually is something of a spoiler. It's not so clear yet as of book 1 but there are things Rabbit does and doesn't eat and there is something of a pattern to them.

So, hold that thought basically.

[thanatcsx]

@seeingvivianne​ location: community garden making a comeback this season  notes: a mild trigger warning for a reference or two but nothing scary

Death followed some people around like an old friend, lingered in their shadow and followed them in their footprints. Never quite visible but there somewhere in the peripheral, Thanatos didn’t expect to be recognized or known, but Vivianne wasn’t a novice when it came to loss. Oracles weren’t so fortunate, Atropos snapped the strings and what was once taut reverberated through the branches of the Otherworld. Banshees and oracles, clairvoyants and so on and so forth. It was Death’s burden to know those that came and those that went, older than the Inferno, than the Isle, and Elysium itself. Before others dipped their toes in a so-called afterlife that, in truth, was a mortal convention to give hope to what came next. Death was not the suffering of hellfire, neither was it frolicking in fields meant to dull your senses and keep you content. It was not swimming in blessed waters or fighting endless battles, only to die and be reborn again the following day. Death was peace, a quiet end and a return to the order that had birthed the cosmos. 

Thanatos was never well-liked, only those too tired of life ever seemed to call him in. A few names came to mind, the anguish of the souls in the fire, those punished by Gods that wanted an easy release. Death chose not to interfere with fate, the Graeae wove as they willed and everyone answered to the aether in the end. His family fought and the squabbled, their affairs made ruins of empires and realms, yet Thanatos was always the name that ended up cursed. Hated in one moment, then revered in the next as those that wished to see themselves or their loved ones spared begged for it. He wasn’t infallible, he’d been tricked by one such wily denizen of this realm before, though the former King now toiled elsewhere - Ulthar’s personal prisoner - but still it was said that Sisyphus remained content. Even in anguish, true rebellion. 

There were no gardens in the sands, the Duat and the lightless cave that Death inhabited didn’t welcome vegetation. When Thanatos threaded over mortal soil, he enjoyed the vegetation that this realm invoked, the fey had done so much here, planted the seeds but it were people like Vivianne who’d helped them to grow. All things died, but the time they spent here, however brief, was worthy of some reverence. Plants, animals, even people. While Thanatos’ disposition likely made people think otherwise, he was fond of mortals, their lives were brief but meaningful. They lived and they died over such short spans of time, but over a few measly decades - the equivalent of two or three long blinks for the elves - they were born and they grew and they loved and they built and they fostered bonds of community, family, and friendship. Then they died. Gobbled up by Oztalun or Ulthar’s contraptions Through blood or pain some remained, spirits that Persephone pulled under her wing as she took the place of one that Tiamat and her companions had corrupted so long ago. 

This was not the first time Thanatos had stood before an Oracle, or even this Oracle. He’d been there when her mother had thought to sacrifice a chosen infant for the gain of power, he’d been there when that child was abandoned at the feet of a monster, there when she grew to slay the beast that reared her, and he was there when she’d come full circle to destroy the woman who’d have devoured her whole. “You have my condolences.” Thanatos offered, Allegra had been killed in the Otherworld, a dracaenic death with a destroyed heart, “Your mother found peace in the end, because of you.” Into the horizon she’d gone sailing across the sands, her essence among the stars now. “Someday, many years from now, she’ll return. Not the woman who would have killed her own children, but someone new.” A fresh start and a new beginning. 

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

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