#tmr flammagenitus

[penwrythe]

Finally working on Altostratus' cover! Just laying down perspective for the two very giant metal murder love birds.

[penwrythe]

Finally caved in and updated their heights.

I-I just like the idea of kaiju monster battles in my story, lol!

Anyway, Flammagentius (the largest monolithic warobject to ever be refitted) is updated from 68ft to 120-150ft range.

Nike is at the maximum height of a THA-era refitted relic, 100ft. In her unrefitted form, she was originally around 9ft-15ft as a goddess and 12ft-13ft as a living trident after the Inversion Event (AFR era).

Sizes are updated mostly because whenever I imagine a battle between Flammin and another large relic, I imagine them very very terrifyingly large.

[penwrythe]

This a short blurb from a TMR story I scrapped some time ago

This blurb is from a story that, honestly, needed a bit more time for the rest of The Mundane Realm to develop. I was not ready to write it. By that, I mean that the worldbuilding, history, and the broader concept of the lore of World of Relics need some fleshing out before writing this story. So for now, it will be on the back burner for a very long time.

However, I want to share this blurb because I still like it. I had written it during a rough time earlier this year (cough-prev post-cough). It was the first time I tried narratively writing my objectocs in this manner. It still needs more development and some major corrections on grammar, but it's still alright. Enjoy!

// major spoilers for RFR and TMR , feat. Nikey and Flammagenitus

~

~

The sky is a deep blue, weighted by heavy black clouds that block the sky. The lands below her are shrouded in a deep shadow, rolling hills under the billowing clouds. She never saw the sunrise but heard about it from the altrix who raised her. A great star, the sun was once driven by a being of fire before the rise of objectkind, now it roams the skies since the Event thousands of years ago. That fire being, along with many others like it, later became the progenitors of the relics that live today.

One of which flies by her. A trident with large red wings so long and slender, it still surprised her that they could support the weight of their owner’s long core that was far larger than her own. The trident’s name escapes her, they only met a few times in the past. She remembers the first meeting with her and how she towered over her. She is one the first and last of her generation of the First Relics.

“Keep your wings steady,” the trident said, ”You’re doing great! That new tail weight of yours is helping with your balance.”

Following the trident’s direction, she steadies her metal wings. How long did it take her to get here? Months of training her ichor and eating excessive amounts of material to strengthen her core. Then the long refitting process took another year. She just started flying and her leaders wanted her to be ready to fight in the war in a few months. So much change to become a monolithic flying torch. A future weapon to best any rouge relic.

Sudden turbulence disrupts her flight and she makes an attempt to correct herself. But she overdoes it and begins to spin out of control. She panics and flaps her wings uselessly. She screamed as both the sky and the ground became one ever-spinning black-and-gray gradient.

“Nike!,” she yelled. That's the trident's name.

Golden aura wraps around her wooden and metal frame and slows her descent. "It's alright, Flammin! I got you!"

Flammin turns to face Nike above her. Radiant the trident was, covered in gold and silver plating attached upon a dark walnut wooden pole. Red cloth wings stretched wide, which are attached to her chest with a decorative cloth knot. Just above it, supported by a bronze neck, is her head blade, cast in rusted bronze with the edges of her prongs shining gold.

Nike. The Queen of Relickind.

Effortlessly pulling her back up, Nike draws her aura close. With a gentle twist of her aura, she rights Flammin in the correct flight position.

“I’m about to release you. Be ready.”

Flammin opens her wings and tilts them slightly, expecting a sudden influx of air to take her again. But as the aura ebbs away and the gray sky becomes open to her once again, Flammin is able to hold herself steady. She hears Nike giggle a bit at her.

“What?” Flammin asked.

“You’re smiling!”

“Oh-!” Flammin shies away, allowing herself to lag behind. She wonders for a moment if Nike caught her blush upon her mahogany wooden face.

“Flammin, don’t be shy!” Nike laughs, “Want to see what’s above the clouds?”

She looks towards Nike, smiling, “Will the sun be there? Won’t we get in trouble?”

“Marathon is still on our side. They still guard the sun,” Nike said, mentioning another relic Flammin does not know, “And the insurgent relics are foolish to attack me. You are safe by my side.”

Nike flies higher and Flammin follows close behind her. They go through the dark clouds, using the faint light of the sun beyond to guide them through. They weave together in and out of the cloudscape. At one point, Flammin hears Nike laughing. And she joins her. After a short time, they break through the cloud top and beheld a sight before their eyes.

The sun shines brightly, bathing the cloudscape in its golden rays, and the sky surrounding it is a neverending blue. The clouds below shine a pearlescent white with occasional breaks in their formation showing the shadowed lands under them. Flammin looks at Nike and sees her shine more brightly under the rays of the sun. They fly side by side as the winds in this space gently push them forward.

Flammin sighs.

“Nikey?”

“Hm?”

“You’re beautiful.”

“You, too.”

[penwrythe]

...I think I figured it out.

So, it might be best before introducing a character's pronoun shift (if they have multiple pronouns), to denote that change right away in whatever paragraph/scene/chapter it's needed. I decided to introduce the pronoun shift using Flammagenitus' backstory in the following:

Falling silent, Flammin focuses on her flight. Like the long crest of bristles flowing in the wind upon her head, Flammin’s thoughts wander into a memory. She remembers her old home in northern Jazera —considering who she was back then— they once lived in many years ago. It was the first of its kind, a small kingdom with relics and objects living together...

From there, I used they/them sparingly throughout the remaining two paragraphs. I only switch to a descriptor for Flammin or use another word aside "they or them" if describing a group in the same sentence.

Flammin was a master muralist when it happened and was working on a commission for the royals, the names of whom the former artist had long forgotten... ~~~ Flammin and a few other living objects were lucky that the exit was nearby and together the panicked group ran out into the burning chaos. Flammin was lucky for a wooden paintbrush back then; those flames burned through most of the fragilekind like themself, leaving behind an uncountable number of kernels to the mercy of the Great Spear Apollyon, Nike’s greatest rival...

Then at the end of the backstory, I return to Flammin's current pronouns. Quick note: Flammin still use she/they in the present setting of the story. It's just in Altostratus, Flammin goes by "she".

Even now, Flammin’s core aches deeply, her mind hunted by the knowledge that the lost kernels of the deceased will be revived as prisoners in a burning world under Apollyon’s rule.

I think I'll go with this! The rest of the short story needs a bit of editing for grammar again.

Altostratus story update!

Currently working on Draft 5 finally. I spent most of my time yesterday cleaning up each paragraph, adding a few extra details here and there, and improving a bit of the grammar in the story. Today, I combined the edited paragraphs together to read the new draft as a complete story. It reads better, especially for the small worldbuilding details describing living object anatomy.

But I'm currently stuck at pronoun usage. So Queen Nike uses she/her and Flammin/Flammagentius uses she/they, both are nonbinary. Both characters are living objects, with Nike as a living trident and Flammin as a wartorch. I wanted to try shifting Flammin's pronouns within the narrative of the story, so either per paragraph or so. The result of this became very clunky very quickly, either that I confuse Flammin with Nike, or Flammin with something that's a pair or group.

To illustrate this here's an example of pronoun shifting:

Excitedly flapping her long wings, Nike quickly glides over Flammin to her other side. Flammin turns her head to follow the trident, mildly jealous of Nike’s greater agility in flight. When they started their flying lessons a month ago, Nike flew circles around them. Those lessons were rough in the beginning due to Flammin still needed time to adapt to her new size, but Nike encouraged them to keep going. “Ah, at this point,” Nike said as she settles in her new position, “You’ll be a skilled flier in no time.” “And to think for the past three years, I was stuck in those damned scaffolds,” Flammin said through her closed heavy jaw, shuddering a little at the memory. She had to endure a decades-long refitting to become the form they are now.

So, I tried looking for advice and found this interesting, and frustrating, thread about interchangeable pronouns for non-binary characters. CW // mild transphobia, mostly from a few users who don't understand nonbinary people and alternative pronoun usage

Anyway, from the suggestions in the thread, it seems to be better to use either she/her, they/them, a neopronoun set, or use interchangeably between chapters or scenes.

So, comparing what I have above, here's what I'm thinking of writing about instead:

As She/Her

Excitedly flapping her long wings, Nike quickly glides over Flammin to the other side of the wartorch’s wide frame. Flammin turns her head to follow the trident, mildly jealous of Nike’s greater agility in flight. When Flammin started her flying lessons a month ago, Nike flew circles around her. Those lessons were rough in the beginning due to Flammin still needed time to adapt to her new size, but Nike encouraged her to keep going. “Ah, at this point,” Nike says as she settles in her new position, “You’ll be a skilled flier in no time.” “And to think for the past three years, I was stuck in those damned scaffolds,” Flammin says through her closed heavy jaw, shuddering a little at the memory. She had to endure a decades-long refitting to become the form she is now.

As They/Them

Excitedly flapping her long wings, Nike quickly glides over Flammin to the other side of the wartorch’s wide frame. Flammin turns their head to follow the trident, mildly jealous of Nike’s greater agility in flight. When Flammin started their flying lessons a month ago, Nike flew circles around them. Those lessons were rough in the beginning due to Flammin still needed time to adapt to their new size, but Nike encouraged them to keep going. “Ah, at this point,” Nike says as she settles in her new position, “You’ll be a skilled flier in no time.” “And to think for the past three years, I was stuck in those damned scaffolds,” Flammin says through their closed heavy jaw, shuddering a little at the memory. They had to endure a decades-long refitting to become the form they are now.

Also, there's a possible confusion between singular they and plural they.

Flammin remembers the first year of their refitting they spent training their ichor and consuming excessive amounts of material to strengthen their core in preparation for their role. Then the toolsmiths have begun their construction. The pain of Flammin’s core being drilled, wielded, and cut, and their ichor structure stretched by the toolsmiths bothered them so much that they drank tankers full of quicksilver to soothe their deepest aches. And the scaffolds. Flammin’s core itched as the damned scaffolds kept them off the ground while the toolsmiths installed new gears in their legs. This became easier to live with as the construction neared its completion, especially with a small refillable quicksilver pump installed inside them. Flammin breathes some steam, glad that it’s over, even with the occasional dull aches still lingering within their core’s new structure.

Anyway, I'll keep looking. I'll also look up books and stories by nonbinary and trans writers for a solution for this as well. Anyone with any advice is welcome to reblog or comment on this post. Thank you!