#twst worldbuilding fascinates me. I want more

[mochinomnoms]

Okay, sit down because I need to give some context

So, one thing I really like in media is worldbuilding and I was always kind of frustrated from the lack of it in twst in certain aspects. So, for a while, I started making things for that, be it species, places, etc

All of this just for me to say that I made at some point characters that are basically winged people or harpies and that they lived on the mountains or on a floating island because I like that kind of stuff

In the middle of all of this I had a little idea of a romance story between one of the Octavinelle boys (or all of them, who knows?) and one of these winged people

I don't know why I liked it so much. Maybe it's because has some forbidden romance vibes on it because one's place belongs on the deep sea while the other is on the sky (it specially hit hard when it was with Azul because of his insecurities and such). It didn't help much that the boys are not good with flying classes and many birds can't swim (if they're not aquatic, that is)

But I thought it was really cute all the same. Like, the boys being fascinated with their flying or their colorful feathers while they where amazed by their tails/tentacles and how they swim

Oh! Now I'm imagining they switching gifts based on the courting of their own species. The winged one having jewelry made by shells and the boys with feathers braid onto their hair

Anyways, that's it. Just wanted to yap about them :D

That's a cool idea! I have some ideas of my own bird beastmen, mostly centered around Yaquk. Since he's going to be a minor side character in PTM though, I may write a thing or two with him later on to go more indepth.

It's very cute to imagine how vastly different but also similar merfolk and winged people might be! I personally would reference the way the Ritos in the Legend of Zelda games BOTW/TOTK work in terms of society and culture. I like them a lot in for worldbuilding!

I do get the frustration with the lack of worldbuilding in media that you like. In TWST, i think that might be due to it being based on Disney media and that can kinda limit it, but also not? Idk, but that's what fanfic/art is for lol

[wiria-lae]

Kanaloa (Harry), In Depths

Before life rose above the waters, there was what dies in waters.

Some notes before the actual origin story:

Kanaloa is intended to be Harry's original name. Harry is the name that he now goes by on land.

The name Kanaloa in real life refers to a Hawai'ian god. I myself am not of Native Hawai'ian origin nor would I claim to be familar with Hawai'ian mythology, though I tried my best to research what I could for this OC. I'm welcome to make any changes, should my interpretation come off as disrespectful in anyway.

The italics refer to the actual god, and the normal text refers to the OC.

They call him Kanaloa. So his name, then, shall be Kanaloa.

This is how language works: a name is a gift, a label, or a choice. Sometimes it is everything at once. For him, the nuance matters not. Nuance is about intent - all returns to the same meaning in the end.

Kanaloa, in his native tongue, translates closest to the old “overseer of the depths”. The depiction of him is never the same; at times Kanaloa is an octopus, other times a squid. He is closest to the latter, some odd hybrid of humboldt squid and merman. So that is what it means, when the others in the community extol him with this name; it is one worn by history, an ancient magic humming with brine.

On land, as Kanaloa will learn someday, he is known as an old god. Sometimes in textbooks, he is a dead god. What the land never mentions is that Kanaloa, too, is a god of land, creator of that which rises above the tides and a blesser of life. It doesn’t matter. The land has rewritten Kanaloa with fresher gods, new conquering the old.

But for now he is Kanaloa, and he still lives, 8 abnormal limbs and 2 tentacles and aquatic horror all yet to divulge frigid ocean secrets. Merfolk beyond the northern coral seas are not rare, per say, though certainly uncommon. Oceanic population densities beyond coral waters are low, and the innate instincts which beget a cannibalistic nature certainly don’t help. They may hunt together. Nevertheless, friends and family and their friends and children will all greet death at his hands. In the depths, all relations can be rewritten.

Kanaloa does not pray to his own name. That is not what saves him. He saves himself.

He is not big. Not yet, maybe not ever. Still, what he lacks in muscle he makes up for in length, limbs long and tentacles longer. For now he lives on the sum of what mercies he finds, too lacking in fat to be eaten by hungrier siblings and too potent with magic to be worth the effort for a predator he can’t handle. Water is heavy and magic heavier, but gravity is not the same as it is in the air. Nobody falls freely - everyone sinks, when succumbing to the chasmic force. It is a fight for survival, to fight for the right to live, and fight the current to be able to swim.

He is prudent in his prayers. He is thankful for nothing. Kanaloa thus thanks the entire ocean, an empty hell to all merfolk. There is nothing to pray for. There is nothing at all, just water and more water, and apathy so thick it chokes on salt. There were gods in the waters and there are corpses that survived, for what old gods endured the lasting deep are no longer present among the modern, common mer societies.

Time-keeping in the ocean is not hard. There remains light in the twilight zone, and their kind has always revolved culture around light. When it is dark, they migrate closer to the surface. When the light returns, they go back to the abyss.

Their own lights, flickering between red and a dense transparency, are the intrinsic language of his kind. These lights grant him his name, Kanaloa. The same lights cycle through life, and grant Kanaloa an everlastivity. Time is not equal across the world, and time feeds Kanaloa the pitcher of itself. He watches everyone around him die in due time, and watches their children survive and perish. Kanaloa becomes something of a legend in his community when he outlives them all. He matures fast and grows faster, longer, and never seems to die, even with age making him all the more attractive to feast upon.

He is not a god. Kanaloa may have been a god, but faith loses significance in a world where gods are real. The incantation of disbelief is not a choice which can be made when a god cannot be denied existence.

Kanaloa is, now, some variety of squid merman. He is some age and someday, he will come out of the water to greet the land that his name’s god had once shaped. Magic will course through him in ways that it never can beneath ocean skin, and he will learn to manipulate it in all the ways that he never could before.

That is not now. There remains an expanse which we all must cross before reaching the shores from where Kanaloa will stand, on an isle - touched by the marvel of ripe gods - encroaching on the land Kanaloa never made, a vessel of magic and ink ready to burst.