#wip: triad

[void-botanist]

Thanks for the tag! I had to think for a bit about what customs I'd built around weddings and funerals themselves since neither have had much opportunity to feature in my work (yet) but I came up with a few things.

Zalen, Zel, and Keearo are all Toru-Kavran, though their experiences and practices vary due to the specific contexts they're from. But one thing that they all do share is the matrimonial choker, which you can see Keearo wearing (Aza wears one too, but I apparently never drew that). It's a black leather band with a metal ring in the middle that acts as the clasp. Where Keearo is from, it's common to have a gold ring for the engagement period, a silver ring when you're married, and in the case of his widowed parent, a transparent ring. One idea from Triad that I still really like is Aza and Keearo putting their gold engagement rings on a leather cord for Kirnus as a token of their affection and a going-away present when he heads back home. I suspect based on other worldbuilding that the custom in Zalen and Zel's part of the world is to swap out the band itself instead of the ring, with different colors and possibly shapes associated with different stages. There are also specific intricate ceremony hairstyles that their grandmother has always been in charge of crafting upon their heads (in their cases, for graduations).

But the most unique perspective on marriage as an institution comes from Hoven's society. Sha-nawwenn are bipedal goat people based on chamois, and because chamois generally divide themselves based on sex and age, the small country, Litroj, that sha-nawwenn come from is similarly split: women live in West Town, men live in East Town, and River City, built around the river in the middle of the country, is where they come together (figuratively and literally - it's where you go for both grand libraries and grand love hotels). (Both towns include trans/nonbinary people who have chosen to live there, though many opt to live in River City long term.) Marriage was initially conceived as a way to codify connections between West Towners and East Towners, which in some ways was just a legal system for getting dibs on the person you planned to have kids with. The Elders (panel of government leaders, who are in fact actually old) added other incentives over time to help encourage people to have more kids, which eventually made the gays go, "hey can we have that too?" They got it after a lot of hemming and hawing that had nothing to do with anti-gayness and everything to do with the Elders not wanting to lose the power of their incentives.

The more contentious thing about sha-nawwen marriage now is whether this legal marriage should apply to couples made up of different sapient bipedal species. People like Hoven's brother, who married an orea-nawwen guy (like Cirrus, a bipedal goat person based on mountain goats), currently have to get their legal marriages done elsewhere, and usually end up living there. So anytime someone sees a sha-nawwen outside of Litroj the first thing they look for is the horn rings that would suggest said nawwen left Litroj for a marriage.

HAPPY WORLDBUILDING WEDNESDAY!

I’ve been doing a lot of cultural worldbuilding for a couple of my wips, and something I’ve really come to appreciate are fictional wedding and funeral customs! So, what are, if any, some traditions and/or customs when it comes wedding and funerals in your world? Do the societies in your world look at death or marriage in a particularly unique way?

This is a little late arriving for Worldbuilding Wednesday, but it’s here nevertheless! I wanted to put something out there for all of the new writeblrs I’ve gotten to check out over the past couple of days, so, if you’re one them, then definitely this applies to you! Tagging is a nightmare, but I’ll try my best! And, this should also go w/o saying, but if you see this and you just want to participate, then please feel free to!

Tagging some new followers (with no pressure, obviously!): @toribookworm22, @calicojackofficial, @westcountrygothic, @mz-elysium, @wearfinethingsalltoowell, @leighvalentin, @happystarfishnightmare, @an-elegant-void, @littlepatchofhell, @spookyceph, @thatndginger, @aesa, @theskeletonprior

Also tagging some OGs (again, with no pressure): @thetruearchmagos, @cryptid-s-wips, @citruswords, @reowrites, @highlycosmic, @make-the-heteros-upseteros-2022, @blackwidow2005, @ellatholmes, @floppydiskdoc

[paintedcrows]

Empire of Death | The One Who Waits at the End of Everything

Choosing to believe One Who Waits is Death the eternal, until proven otherwise.

[tomatostyle]

WIP Commission of triad Chun li.

[asinusrufus]

Ptah, the Cosmocrator / Memphite Triad (WiP)

[indecentpause]

The Black & Blues: Part III, Chapter iii

no moodboard today, my brain is fried.

With Josselin giving Akasha her violin lessons, Tuesday and Thursday are lonely and boring. It’s true that you do work those nights, but not until 10:00, and they meet at 8:00. Granted, you should be sleeping at that time, or at the most just starting to get up. And you have to eat, and shower, and do all the day-to-day things, since you leave an hour early so the bus can get you there. You and Danny spend those evenings hanging out opposite each other in your beds, reading, playing computer games, whatever. Parallel play stuff. Even though you don’t always talk, his presence is comforting, and you hope he can say the same about you. He’s not avoiding you or the apartment. He’s not being weird. Every now and then he’ll glance over with a concerned look, but it’s nothing severe enough to worry you. Their lessons are about an hour, so you leave just as they finish. Sometimes you run into Akasha in the stairwell. She goes over to your place to hang out with Danny while you’re at work, and, presumably, Josselin’s with Frankie. So you’re not alone, but at the same time… you’re more alone than you have been in a long time.

read it on ao3 here!

or start from the beginning here!

Current taglist: @abalonetea @only-book-lovers-left-alive @poore-choice-of-words @leadhelmetcosmonaut @jasperygrace

@drippingmoon @magic-is-something-we-create @winterandwords

@revenantlore @mr-orion @idreamonpaper @theoddcryptid @thelaughingstag

Black & Blues taglist: @lynnedwardswrites

[seraph5]

Colour wip for the Amsterdam Triad

[simplegenius042]

"What Kind Of Love Are You?" OC Quiz & "Every OC List Got The ___"

Tagged by @adelaidedrubman @imogenkol @voidika @shellibisshe and @aceghosts

Tagging @socially-awkward-skeleton @noodlecupcakes @josephseedismyfather @inafieldofdaisies @icecutioner @derelictheretic @shallow-gravy @direwombat @strangefable @rhettsabbott @josephslittledeputy @cloudofbutterflies92 @skoll-sun-eater @cassietrn @carlosoliveiraa @g0dspeeed @wrathfulrook @afarcryfrommymain @strafethesesinners @turbo-virgins @raresvtm @softtidesworld @starsandskies @ladyoriza @la-grosse-patate @florbelles @titiagls @minilev @yokobai @thewanderer-000 @omen-speaker @justasmolbard @alypink @thesingularityseries and @nightwingshero + anyone else who'd like to join.

Four results for my OCs for this quiz and four OC Lists for four of my series.

JOAQUIN COBALT (THE UNTITLEDVERSE)

This feels accurate for Joaquin considering he begins The UnTitledverse as an adolescent, and the series follows his growth and youth to adulthood. Joaquin has the weight of the world (or rather multiverse) on him, but, he still has time to be a child, to be a teen, to be his own identity, with Maisie, Mario, Calvin and all his found family and friends to share the weight.

SILVA OMAR (THE SILVER CHRONICLES [FAR CRY 5 & FAR CRY NEW DAWN])

Religious themes (including the trauma) for Silva go brrr! Like what else is there to say?

HAOYU ANABUKI (LIFE, DESPAIR & MONSTERS)

Yeah this makes sense for them. Haoyu is someone who's not used to love and when it comes it is gonna be the most life-changing thing for them. For once something they will have to make a commitment towards keeping if they want it. Haoyu is also the type to go in a panic as well as overthink; including full-on denial.

MARISSA "RESS" BISHOP (A RADIOACTIVE CALAMITY OF LOVE, BOMBS & GORE [FALLOUT])

While this definitely suits Ress at her best, I don't think it encapsulates everything about her. Because while Ress' love is bountiful and ageless and endless... there's also the fear of losing it all, because Ress will outlive everyone she knows because her own natural mortality outlasts everyone else's. The only person that would be around the longest with her (and meet her at what would be considered old age for a hybrid species like them) would have been her older half-brother, Ore... but even that is cruelly taken away from her by their father Urias and his Occult. Yeah, so while this definitely does shine a light on the happiness and thrill Ress would feel with her lover (prime example being Piper), it doesn't acknowledge the grief she'd eventually have to face.

Now for the OC List, I decided to go with OCs from all four/five of my series; The UnTitledverse, The Silver Chronicles, Life, Despair & Monsters and a shared list with my Fallout series A Radioactive Calamity Of Love, Bombs & Gore and my original series An Old Ballad Of Chance And Ember Hearts Trilogy (which includes my Wings And Horns WIP that this trilogy spins off from). So yeah... enjoy! [NOTE: This will include art/doodles, reference pictures (for the art/doodles that I still haven't been skilled enough to draw) and faceclaims]:

THE UNTITLEDVERSE

Lisa Cobalt | Malcolm Darling | Mario Emmet Jester | Madame Callaghan | Lillian "Lena" Elliot Greenpeace | Allyson "Alice" Darling | Edward Carmine Calvin Dearing | Joaquin Cobalt | Rick Thompson

[My (Incomplete) Art: Malcolm Darling, Mario Emmet and Jester]

THE SILVER CHRONICLES

Oscar Lapis | Father Adam Omar | Silva's Third Eye Elsa Omar | Paul Yellowjack | Silva Omar Azriel Omar | Nadi Sinclair | Kamski Neon Alexander Khaos | Gavin Turquoise | Mercy Omar-Seed | Ezekiel

[My (Incomplete) Art: Silva's Third Eye (or at least what its spiritual physically looks like if you're potent in the Third Eye... or a certain New God shitting bricks at the sight of this hungry symbiotic cretin)]

LIFE, DESPAIR & MONSTERS

Yan | Frederick Rosemary | The Unity Hatter | Icarus Galatos | Hatsukami Hinode | Xavier Tulip | Haoyu Anabuki Rico | Eden "Evie" Bloodleech | Sonya | Sir Enigma Malvolio | The Court King Denise Redwood | Lora | Cecil Royce | Corvus Targaryen

[Image Reference Credits: Vecna from Stranger Things, The Stupendium in "The Toybox", The Core from Amphibia, an edited Mad Hatter from Alice In Wonderland, Kraang One's Exosuit from Rise Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie and artwork of that Jester King done by CristianAC on Steam]

A RADIOACTIVE CALAMITY OF LOVE, BOMBS & GORE + WINGS AND HORNS

Elrand Brandt the Vault Dweller | Aggravor the Accursed | Arcane Urias Xiang Ba'al | Vega the Resident | Marissa "Ress" Bishop Alph Dolen the Lone Wanderer | Ryder the Courier Six | Discord the Mad Kin of Carnage Ortega "Ore" Brantley | Archangel Metatron | Finidy Mona the Chosen One | Nate Gust Sarid the Sole Survivor

[Image Reference Credits: Vecna from Stranger Things, Annihilus from Marvel Comics, Kagetane Hiruko from Black Bullet, LorenzoArt's Caedis from Instagram, NCR Veteran Ranger from Fallout: New Vegas and art of Archangel Metatron that I found posted on Quora]

[Faceclaims (which might or might not change): The UnTitledverse: Beanie Feldstein for Lisa Cobalt, Scarlett Johanson for Madame Callaghan, Elizabeth Gilles for Lillian "Lena" Elliot, Sean McLoughlin for Greenpeace, Anya Taylor-Joy for Allyson "Alice" Darling, Benedict Cumberbatch for Edward Carmine, Laurence Fishburne for Calvin Dearing, Isiaiah Stannard for Joaquin Cobalt and Aaron Moten for Rick Thompson. The Silver Chronicles: Mario Casas for Oscar Lapis, Brad Garrett for Father Adam Omar, Juliana Alves for Elsa Omar, Gabriel Garko for Paul Yellowjack, Mina El Hammani for Deputy Silva Omar, Aria Goodson for Azriel Omar, Aïssa Maïga for Nadi Sinclair, Andre Royo for Kamski "the Good Doctor" Neon, Taron Egerton for Alexander Khaos, Matthew McConaughey for Gavin Turquoise, Emily Tosta for Mercy Omar-Seed and Álex González for Captain Ezekiel of Security. Life, Despair & Monsters: Daniel Padilla for Icarus Galatos, Hatsukami Hinode & Xavier Tulip, Hikaru Utada for Haoyu Anabuki, Wilmer Calderon for Rico, Nathalie Emmanuel for Eden "Evie" Bloodleech, Rami Malek for Sir Enigma Malvolio, Odette Annable for Denise Redwood, Karen Fukuhara for Lora, Mia Goth for Cecil Royce and Daniel Radcliffe for Corvus Targaryen. A Radioactive Calamity Of Love, Bombs & Gore: Jason Statham for Elrand Brandt the Vault Dweller, Yvonne Strahovski for Vega the Resident, Beyonce for Marissa "Ress" Bishop, Sam Blanckensee for Alph Dolen the Lone Wanderer, Halle Berry for Ryder the Courier Six, Jessica Alba for Finidy Mona the Chosen One and Steven He for Nate Gust Sarid the Sole Survivor.

[lumosatnight]

WIP SNIP

Thanks for tagging me for a Sunday Snippet @st-clements-steps (x)! It is no longer Sunday, but it is WIP Wednesday so that's close enough in my book.

This is from a lil' Theo/Pansy/Blaise fic that I'm hoping to get done this year (at some point).

Pansy knew, of course, that Theo was in love with her. That didn’t mean he needed to be so bleeding obvious about it.

It had started back in sixth year — when his gaze lingered longer and his touch became more desperate.

Pansy revelled in the attention. She wore her skirt shorter, her neckline lower, and her lipstick darker. She leaned over Theo’s desk when passing papers in Transfiguration. She brushed her arm against his in the greenhouses during Herbology.

For years she did this, even after the war, even after Hogwarts. It was delicious the way she could get him to do anything she wanted.

Tagging: @apricitydays-lazynights @nanneramma @sleepstxtic

[wordsmithic]

I saw someone using this Picrew for their original characters, and I wanted to try it myself for my own. Click for better quality!

Part 2 of MySadBlorbos

[wishingforatypewriter]

tell me more about Triad Princess Lin please!

Thanks for the ask! Triad Princess Lin (hopefully not the permanent title) is an AU in which Lin was raised by her father Kanto (a founder of the Terra Triad) instead of Toph. Lin's really close to her father, but resents that Toph kept Suyin but not her. Lin and Zolt are also romantically involved (because I couldn't help myself) and she's faced with the choice of continuing her dad's legacy with the Terras or founding the Triple Threats alongside Zolt and Cobra (my OC).

[uncleasad]

WIP Wednesday Last Sentence You Wrote

Oooh, it’s WIP Wednesday already in this $TZ, and my brain is shutting down for the night, on an ominous note/last sentence. So I thought I’d play/start my own little tag game or whatever we call them…

Post the last sentence you wrote on your current WIP (and tag some friends if you want)

The year Hope was 13…that might have been the year when everything broke.

From There’s a World Where Your Nightmares Came True, aka Triad vs Dark Hosie.

(Maybe I’ll remember and do this every Wednesday? 😂)

Tagging, in no particular order, writer friends @evilpenguinrika @encircledbythorns @persevereforahappyending @avengerskye @sabrinasfadingmoon @russellsired @toriwritesstories @the0fi @alliplong @firelordirohh @whyislenaluthorsohot @shadowhuntermama (you know you wanna start a new fic 😂) in case any of you want to play, too. Totally optional 😀

[not-so-secret-bi-badge-bunny]

Tell me why I get the best fic ideas during cardio??? And why are they all still WIPs?

Current WIPs brought to me by cardio sessions:

Reckley (Reyes, Rocker, Buckley)

A Triad fic where Rocker is still in SWAT, Buck is still a firefighter, and Carlos Reyes is Athena's partner.

Rocker and Carlos meet at a bar, and they meet Buck at a Grant-Nash bbq. They eventually get their shit together and get together just before the fire truck bombing.

Buckstead (Evan Buckley/Jay Halstead)

Buck saves Jay during the Tsunami, Jay helps keep Chris safe while Buck dives back in to save others.

This is going to be a strangers-to trauma bonded friends-to lovers fic, still undecided on if this is going to stay in LA or if Buck is going to transfer to Chicago firehouse 51

BuddieTommy

Tommy never left 118, Buck and Tommy start dating mid-season one. Two nights before Eddie starts at 118 Buck and Tommy decide to go to a bar to roleplay "picking up a stranger"... But instead of Tommy picking up Buck, they end up teaming up together to take Eddie home.

Eddie still has his "Whatta man" moment. They are successfully established as a triad before the truck bombing.

Guess I need to write while getting in my cardio because it's the only way my brain functions *sigh* 🙄, gotta love the ADHD am I right?

Dumping my musing here before I have to go be a responsible adult.

K, thx, byyeee

Em

[indecentpause]

The Black & Blues: Prologue

Meara grew up in a small town with people with small minds. Now nineteen, he and his best friend move to Chicago, the closest big city, with the hopes of living somewhere they can openly and unabashedly be themselves–musicians, weirdos, and openly queer. Meara meets another man in the scene who has keen interest in him and their relationship starts off bright, if a little nerve-wracking for the newly out Meara. But while his relationship and his dream to start a band start coming together quickly, everything else starts to fall apart.

The Black & Blues is LIVE! read the prologue for free on Ao3!

I'm not sure yet whether I'll be posting once or twice a week. right now I only plan to post part one. part two is still in progress so there might be a gap in posting between the two. but part one can still stand on its own!

Read it here on Ao3!

Current taglist: @abalonetea @only-book-lovers-left-alive @poore-choice-of-words @leadhelmetcosmonaut @jasperygrace

@drippingmoon @athenswrites @magic-is-something-we-create @winterandwords

@revenantlore @mr-orion @idreamonpaper

Black & Blues taglist: @lynnedwardswrites

[onekisstotakewithme]

Ski AU, please!! ⛷💚

Neeks, my beloved! 💜💚 You bet.

Ski AU being of course, the AU that takes place over Christmas 1998, where BJ and Peg are a couple of young professionals in their thirties, taking a much-needed vacation for the first time in years... and they take their vacation at a ski resort in Maine.

Where (of course), they happen to bump into another young professional on vacation, one by the name of Hawkeye Pierce...

“I told you,” Hawkeye says. “Nobody’s gotten me pregnant yet. I’m still my only child.” “Fair.” “Besides, you don’t have the hips for it.” “As if you could tell,” Hawkeye scoffs. “Under all this padding, I could have a body that stops traffic.” Peg laughs as she pushes up the lap bar. “I have no doubt of that, Hawkeye. C’mon.”

[void-botanist]

I appreciate you taking the time to write that out! I'm probably going to come back to it next time I get on a gender worldbuilding kick. I've already been thinking about it for days, lol, as I gathered my thoughts about my own writing.

In general, the world of TFA/Triad is a sort of what-if. What would societies look like if gender (and bodily sex, and romantic and sexual orientation) weren't used as tools of discrimination? It's not always forefront in the story, because it's one of many what-ifs that take turns as appropriate (and to be honest I mostly think about my writing as "ooo fun android story" and so on), but the way the narrative approaches those things gets to be radically inclusive, which is just a breath of fresh air.

That world is almost entirely made up of gender-equal cultures, with a few partial exceptions (I'll get to that in a sec). I'm mostly not interested in writing about gender inequality in its many forms, but I am extremely interested in the cultural/species construction of gender and the experience of it, especially when racism, sexism, and anti-queerness aren't constraining factors. I still have a lot of culture-specific building to do around how gender is thought of, but on the whole I'm happy to treat gender as unimportant on a structural, societal level. For example, in the real world, I hate the concept of legal gender and/or sex, because at best it's a useless data point and a time waster for trans people and records managers. So it doesn't exist in this world, making more space to explore other legal issues. And I like so-called soft boys (uwu optional) not least because I am one, and I want to write about worlds where feminine guys and masculine women and voids of chaos (I'm really just describing myself) and everyone betwixt can just be. I want my characters to be thinking about more important issues like "does this dress go with that jacket" and "exactly how real are aliens" and "what does it mean to be an android".

The exceptions to this that I mentioned before are intentional and complicated and are tied up in hetero-, amato-, and allonormativity too. An extreme example would be Aza and Seriito's mom, previously an overbearing queen trying to keep a grasp on the monarchy she was raised in via controlling her children. Once it became clear that Seriito is very gay, the queen decided she had a better chance of preserving the bloodline via Aza (who is bi) and focused her efforts on trying to match Aza up with someone. As twins, Seriito and Aza were still slated to inherit the monarchy together unless one of them abdicated, but Aza would still occupy an implicitly higher status because of her hypothetical reproductive ability (bonus points if she actually, you know, reproduced). But at the same time, there is no baked-in gender preference for an heir, and the clothes culture isn't divided along gendered lines (especially not the ones most common in the western world IRL). And no one expects Seriito to un-gay himself, or even considers that a possibility. So I'm kind of commenting on gender inequality and how it intersects with anti-queerness, but that's not really my main goal. (I'm also trying to not make the few major antagonist characters cartoonish reflections of how much anti-queer normativities harm everyone.)

But while gendered expectations don't exist on a societal level, they can exist on a personal level. Kirnus, for example, is a trans guy with complicated feelings about his transition because while he feels better in himself because of said transition, he deeply associates his mom and other women in his life with presence, stability, resourcefulness, and effectiveness, while the men in his life tend to have weaker or different associations. He knows that gender doesn't actually make any difference as to whether he can have those qualities, but on some level it still feels like if he wants to be the best version of himself, he shouldn't have transitioned. So I get to think about things like that, while at the same time being able to explore other trans characters' gender discoveries in terms of "realizing I'm trans is scary because I don't understand myself and it's hard to present a self you don't understand to other people" without "realizing I'm trans is scary because this puts me in actual, possibly mortal, danger and is going to make a lot of things harder for me". It lets me really enjoy the crunchiness of (transed) genders.

I think I ended up kinda sideways to the original topic, but hopefully this has still been interesting and maybe useful. (I actually realized some plot elements I'd never considered before as I was writing this.) I definitely don't have everything figured out about how I want to handle gender in this world, but it's always sort of geared toward inclusivity and vibing with queerness. And re: gender-neutral utopias, I guess it is kind of central to the story for me? But more often in the sense of "I need this to be true for me to write the story I want to write". I also write fairly low-stakes scifantasy slice of life, so make of that what you will.

thinking about gender in fantasy worldbuilding and theres smoke coming out of my ears

[amaranthsynthesis]

by and large my sketch files are basically incomprehensible but I started this last fall before the BG3 brainworms and it would be great to get back to it and actually polish it into something finished