#but this got me interested in worldbuilding on a location
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Vegeta's Mother Headcanons/Backstory (with Lots of Saiyan Culture Worldbuilding)
As promised to @blueper-saiyan, here is the backstory I've made up for Vegeta's mom and some of the royal family! I've literally thought about writing a saiyan Game of Thrones style fic about how King Vegeta came to power and how Vegeta's mother became queen. If, after reading some of the backstory, such a fic sounds fun to read, I might write it someday. Let me know!
(This post came up as part of a wider discussion about saiyan cultural/religious differences. Read here if you're interested, but the post will only enhance this one, and you don't need to read it for the backstory to make sense.)
To begin with some general information about how royal succession functions: There are four nations on Vegeta-sei, each with their own lands and cultural identities. When the heir to the throne reaches an age equal to three cycles of Vegeta-sei's moon (25 Earth years, roughly), they are bound to one consort from each nation. These consorts are within one moon cycle of the heir's age and can be any sex; measured strength at birth/assigned social class determines who is selected. (Anyone, however, can challenge the selected consort for their right to be bound to the heir apparent. If the challenger defeats the one originally selected in a duel, the challenger then becomes the new consort.) The "wedding" itself takes place in the weeks leading up to the first nights of the full moon after the heir turns 25.
The role of royal consort is a political one as much as it is about producing heirs for the royal family. Indeed, the consorts are not always reproductively compatible with the heir apparent. (This plays into another web of headcanons I have: gender/sex isn't really a big deal in saiyan cultures; they care far more about class/strength, and even the way they speak reflects this. Saiyago refers to people by class and not by sex/gender; there are no gendered pronouns.) The consorts function, essentially, as representatives for their nations. They are the highest ranking nobles/elites of their respective countries. The position comes with considerable political power and influence. There are motives, then, for someone to want to become a royal consort even if they cannot produce children with the heir.
Obviously, though, producing royal children is one of the main purposes of a consort. Those that are reproductively compatible with the heir are expected to engage in the necessary activities. And the consort who provides the crown with the strongest child assumes the title of king/queen consort, granting both that consort and the nation they represent special privileges, power, and influence. So even if there are motives for someone to want to be a consort regardless of reproductive compatibility, compatible consorts are preferred most of the time, and incompatible ones are often challenged. (Or, alternatively, certain conniving nobles might manipulate power level/class archives to ensure the person they want is "chosen by the gods" to stand at the side of the crown. Lots of fun GoT style shit here.)
So this brings us to Vegeta's mother:
She was the strongest (still living) saiyan born in one of the four nations within an appropriate age range to the heir apparent. Specifically, she is from the nation of people who occupy a collection of islands near one of the planet's poles. As mentioned in the long post I linked, this nation centers Oozaru transformation in their cultural/spiritual consciousness as opposed to SSJ transformation. The primal beast vs. the Enlightened Warrior. People from her country speak of a special bond to the moon goddess because, due to their location at the pole, they experience seasonal polar night. Whole seasons of nothing but the moonlit sky, and alternatively, seasons where they are waiting for the goddess rule the sky again.
And because they center the more wild, primal, and impassioned transformation, they are at odds with the culture in the royal city and the (most populous and influential) nation that surrounds it that centers SSJ transformation which is, supposedly, passionless and enlightened (in the Eastern sense). The unique cultural practices, powers, and techniques the people from Vegeta's mother's lands boast are therefore looked upon with skepticism by most other saiyans. Most saiyans don't know what to do with this essentially foreign group of people from sparsely populated polar isles who have strange ways. Some of them are even rumored to sense ki without scouters. The most powerful of them can even dissolve the borders of their mind as happens under the moonlight so they can communicate to others without speaking, soul to soul. (It's mild telepathy, basically. Speaking with the mind, being able to share thoughts/dreams; very skilled people might even be able to read others' minds in a limited capacity.)
And Vegeta's mother is one of those exceptionally gifted saiyans from this country/culture. But nobody cares or finds out about this until later. Because...King Vegeta was not the original heir to whom she would've been betrothed. The saiyan who became King Vegeta was a weaker/lesser royal child. One of his sisters, however, was the crown princess. And she was batshit insane.
King Vegeta's sister was exceptionally cruel. Even for a saiyan. And she came from a long line of rulers who were almost as cruel and insane as she was. Her lineage, in fact, is part of the reason saiyans are infamous throughout the galaxy. She and other corrupt royals/elites don't fight because fighting is what saiyans do. They don't fight for the sake of itself. They fight to shed blood, to kill, to revel in others' pain, destruction, and misery. The sadism is the point, not the art and joy of fighting. And they don't kill in a cold, unattached way. They rape and pillage because they are consumed with bloodlust, they get off on hurting others, and they are strong enough that few can stop them.
(Another topic I could write a whole other long post about: There is certainly considerable disagreement among different saiyan cultures about what their "fighting nature" actually entails. Is it about the excellence in craft? Is it about spiritual enlightenment? Is it about feeling at one with the body, the opponent, and the universe? Or...is it about defeating and destroying your rival? Is it about being the strongest? Is it about pain and domination? There are competing narratives for what the Ideal Saiyan looks like and about how that saiyan would fight. For someone like King Vegeta's sister, she and most of her family lean more towards fighting-for-domination/bloodlust because power has gone to their heads and warped them into something monstrous.)
And (not yet) King Vegeta sees all of this, and because he's one of the weaker children of his family, he faces considerable abuse. Naturally, he tries to prove himself by showing exceptional cruelty of his own, waging wars and conquering planets... But he never actually wins the approval of his family or the rest of the elite class. He becomes somewhat estranged. He comes to resent and look down on his parents and his sister especially. He sees their monstrous ways and turns away from them not because he sees their actions as evil, but because he comes to see their hearts as impure. He listens to the words and warnings of religious extremists around the royal city's temples who condemn the nobility for their impassioned bloodlust where they should instead be cold and tranquil when they fight. He becomes a bit of a fanatic himself.
Then his sister reaches the age where she's to be bound to consorts. And the moon festival is approaching and therefore her "wedding." She doesn't treat the consorts chosen for her like the esteemed nobles they are, however. She captures them and tortures them publicly to put fear in the hearts of everyone in their countries. On the night of her "wedding," she makes a humiliating display of them in the royal city's moon temple. It's pretty obvious that, once the ceremony is performed, she's intending to rape her consorts and perhaps kill the ones who can't provide children for her. Vegeta's mother is one of these consorts.
Vegeta's father is fucking disgusted by all of this. His sister is doing something absolutely sacrilege. She's using power in the most impure way possible, and she's literally desecrating altars doing so. It sets him the fuck off. He's watching the beginnings of the "wedding ceremony," but it's the last straw. While everyone's caught up in what's happening, he comes to the front of the temple and blasts his sister straight through the heart before she can touch any of the consorts, killing her instantly. And he doesn't stop there. He goes positively feral and kills every single member of the royal family while everyone is too shocked or drunk/high to defeat him even though he's not the strongest based on power level alone.
Covered in the blood of the king, queen, and all of his siblings, Vegeta's father calls upon any "righteous" saiyan to purge the royal lands of corruption. Certain religious extremists are all too happy to oblige (the tailless ascetic order from the other post is certainly included here). They begin with powerful elite families known to be close to the crown, murdering their figureheads and heirs. And even some lower-class saiyans join in on the bloodshed. Many of them despise the royal family and the elite nobility for degrading and abusing them. (Some particularly wicked nobles make slaves of low-class saiyans, treating them like aliens/animals; some of them even take children from low-class families to slake their most despicable lusts. While might-makes-right may be pretty commonplace in saiyan culture, I think it's still extremely feasible that those who get the short end of that stick would come to acknowledge that power does not justify every action, and that, especially among low-class saiyans, things like rape and murder of other saiyans are seen as traumatic and wrong as well as shameful acts to commit most of the time.)
The nights of the full moon, then, become a massive fucking bloodbath. Vegeta's father and those loyal to him massacre pretty much half of the nobility. And he, naturally, assumes the throne after the moon festival is over. He is at once respected and feared. He maintains his religious fanaticism and imposes it on the nobility. In some ways, he is just as iron-fisted and cruel as his predecessors, but it has an entirely different flavor. He follows the laws to the letter, taking them very seriously and giving them intense spiritual weight. He strives to emulate the model of the SSJ Enlightened Warrior and considers it his calling as dictated by the gods because they appointed him king.
And while he's not morally "good" by any stretch, and his religion/philosophy definitely leads him to commit some truly heinous acts, he's nevertheless "better" in many ways than his sister or his parents. Nobles who, for example, would have before taken low-class children to abuse are instead punished severely and pay dearly for their "impurity." (It kind of makes sense that someone like King Vegeta who faced significant childhood abuse from his family would consider taking advantage of certain kinds of vulnerable people to be weak and shameful---a corruption of strength.) And while King Vegeta isn't necessarily loved by all low-class saiyans, he's probably more popular than many of his predecessors were. Yes, he still ships off weak children, he still enforces the strict caste system (perhaps even more strictly than those before him too), and he still conquers planets and seeks out powerful opponents to destroy, but he does it with a certain spiritual sincerity.
Then it becomes time for him to take consorts. He's in a pretty unique situation where he's already king before he's "married." After the murder of his sister on her "wedding night," he frees the consorts from their bondage and tells them they can return to their homelands until the gods call upon them to perform their duties. They are more than happy to get the fuck out of the royal city for a while, naturally. But when the next moon festival is approaching, those selected are asked to return. One or two of the consorts his sister would've "wed" had perhaps fallen in battle, but most of them are the same, including Vegeta's mother.
Vegeta's mother and her homeland had been happy, initially, that she hadn't been reproductively compatible with the original heir, King Vegeta's sister. The moon-worshiping people wanted as little to do with the royal city as possible so they could govern their own lands in relative isolation. Now, however, her position as consort carries with it an implicit obligation.
In the years leading up to the next moon festival, Vegeta's mother of course visits the royal city a number of times given that she's an important noble personality. But she doesn't spend most of her time there and only goes when absolutely necessary. She crosses paths with the king, naturally, but avoids him if she can. She remembers, however, the night where he, essentially, saved both her life and her honor (though this was not his primary reason for freeing her). Even so, she's been bracing for the king to go insane like his predecessors. Perhaps bracing herself for him to force himself on her in some way. She doesn't trust him. She doesn't trust anyone outside of her homeland.
But the king is strictly business with her even if he does watch her. She's mysterious; he hardly sees her. She doesn't look like many other people in the royal city. She has different manners, beliefs, and even speaks a different dialect of Saiyago (though she can code-switch and speak the standard royal city dialect as well). She has a small, very feminine frame despite having a very formidable power level. It makes her more terrifying in some ways---that her power comes to her effortlessly, that she doesn't need physical strength or size to wield as much might as she does. She is regarded as extremely beautiful and is compared even to depictions of the moon goddess. Her being from the moon-worshiping polar isles reinforces this connection as well; she has an air of pagan magic about her, and her beauty as well as her strange ways/fighting techniques have this spellbinding or bewitching quality to them in saiyan cultural consciousness.
And her beauty, mystery, and foreign background make her the subject of scorn among many nobles throughout the royal lands. They don't want a pagan queen. Especially since the nobles that remain are ones that are more in line with the religious fanaticism of King Vegeta. The king has very recently purged the nobility of corrupt heretics, people who gave themselves over to shameful bloodlust and made no attempt to purify their hearts and live up to the Saiyan Ideal. And the prospect of having someone who is all about losing yourself and becoming the wild Oozaru become their queen is threatening. Many assume, too, that King Vegeta simply won't favor Vegeta's mother for these political reasons and will instead produce heirs with his other consorts.
That doesn't stop King Vegeta from developing a huge fucking crush on her, though. She's drop-dead gorgeous and incredibly powerful. She doesn't fawn over him or try to win his favor. She steers clear of him, and when they do have to interact, she doesn't filter her foreign/pagan sensibilities whatsoever to be pleasing. She always approaches him as herself and comes off strong. She even outright opposes or argues with him when matters of governance/policy arise. She makes very clear that her people don't care for the traditional caste system or how children are measured for their power at birth. She reminds him that the strongest and most wise of her people can sense hidden abilities in others' souls that scouters can't capture with a mere number.
Ironically, though, Vegeta's mother approaching King Vegeta sincerely as herself makes him fall for her even harder. Those precious few times she sees him in the royal city become almost special occasions for him; he waits for her, he looks forward to seeing her even if he's out of touch with it. He relishes their philosophical debates. As someone who takes his "divine" calling very seriously, he admires her own spiritual passion and sincerity even though they disagree on some basic things and have very different ideas about what the Ideal Saiyan looks/fights like. He makes excuses to talk to her and spend time with her. He probably even constructs situations where he is forced to consider her political input. He desires her and feels that the gods gave their blessing for him to desire her by choosing her for him. She, however, rejects even the smallest advances very strongly. And he, nothing like his sister in this respect, does not punish her or pressure her to accept him. He carries on with his other royal duties.
As the moon festival and therefore the official royal "wedding" approaches, however, Vegeta's mother eventually refuses even to attend the ceremony. (Makes sense, after all---last time, an insane princess meant to torture, rape, and murder her.) Many elites encourage other people from the polar isles to challenge her, replacing her with someone who will not shirk their duties. Elites hostile to the moon-worshipers call for her capture and possible execution. King Vegeta, though, requests only that she attend the ceremony if no one will challenge her and vows that she may return to her homeland once it is over, and neither he nor anyone will touch her under pain of death. She eventually accepts this offer. Her limited interactions with the king have at least shown her that he is generally a man of his word, and she will be able to maintain her political influence over him while getting to stay in her homeland and not fear retribution.
The ceremony takes place and is a very somber affair. Think the most traditional, by-the-book royal wedding ever (just with more fighting because they are saiyans). Vegeta's mother returns to the polar isles the very night the ceremony is over, though, as the moon festival nights are sacred to her people, and she has no desire to spend them in the royal city. The king lets her go as promised. The other nations are happy to see her go, as the more time the king spends with his other consorts, the higher the likelihood that the consort that represents them becomes queen. The king does indeed spend the first few nights in the royal city as expected. But...he does something scandalous before the moon festival is over.
He goes to the polar isles. He participates in some of their festival activities (ritual Oozaru transformations, battles, hunts, and sacrifices). He frames it as a gesture of political good will, saying that he will be a king to all saiyans no matter their nation or favored gods/goddesses. He strives to live up to the example of his Super Saiyan ancestors and will seek strength and wisdom in whatever form the gods will reveal it to him. Even if it means listening to pagan moon-worshipers and hearing what they have to say, what knowledge and power they have to impart. He means it sincerely, but his gesture was obviously inspired by his preoccupation with Vegeta's mother.
He doesn't make any attempt to get close to her personally, but he does transform under the moon with her. And afterwards, when some time has passed and he asks her to come to the royal city, she accepts.
She tells herself it's in service to her nation. Not in many generations have they had the crown at their mercy like this. She knows she has the power to influence how saiyan life itself is ordered. She still may not want to give King Vegeta a child or become queen, but she does want to take advantage of the opportunity his favor affords her.
She's there when Freeza and King Cold first contact the saiyans. It's obvious to anyone who was in direct contact with Freeza just how powerful he is, how much manipulative leverage he holds... But Vegeta's mother can sense something is deeply off about him and the entire situation. She's fully aware that Freeza will straight up destroy everyone if they don't enter his service. And she doesn't have the same delusional pride that the king does. She knows he's going to have to bend the knee if they mean to survive. It's because of her influence that King Vegeta doesn't enter a doomed war with Freeza at the start. She helps him acclimate the people to their new "alliance"---emphasizes better access to technology like scouters, healing tanks, ships, and incubation pods. She's a much better and more natural ruler than King Vegeta is, in fact. She brings a certain "humanity" (saiyanity?) to the role---it's about safeguarding the people and their way of life, not about proving that she personally is the strongest.
Naturally, this pivotal political role she plays brings her and King Vegeta closer together. She'd already been developing feelings for him slowly. She already knew he was different after he killed his entire family and spared her from their wickedness. And as she got to know him better, she really came to admire his own sincerity just as he admired hers. They are both deeply spiritual people even though they have different beliefs, and they have an understanding of each other. And the time they spent under the moonlight together was, after all, quite romantic even if saiyans don't really have "romance" the way humans do.
She admits to herself after a while that she's attracted to him. Sure, part of her definitely enjoys being queen in all but actual title. She enjoys how hopelessly this extremely powerful and austere man bends to her every whim and worships her as if she were actually the moon goddess herself and had indeed bewitched him like all the rumors say she has. Even against his better political judgment or his religious sensibilities. He can't help but revere and admire her. You know, saiyans having a thing for strong women.
She's the one who goes to him first. She tells herself initially that it's merely to consolidate her power, her hold on the king. He, of course, can't resist her and just completely fucking melts for her when she commands him to meet her in her bedchambers. But it's clear that it's neither about duty nor politics as they continue to be intimate. They are in love with each other. They connect on a soul level.
She eventually does become pregnant, though it is no guarantee that she will become queen even if she does provide the crown with a child. She would have to produce the strongest child to be crowned queen, after all, and sometimes which child is strongest does not become apparent until later. But...when Vegeta is born, he's leagues ahead of the other children that had been born already (he has a number of half-siblings). He's the strongest royal child born as far as the archives go back. It's unprecedented, but he's named heir to the throne immediately, and his mother assumes the title of queen at the same time he is named crown prince.
That Vegeta's mother bore him such a powerful son just makes King Vegeta fall that much more in love with her. He takes it as a sign, even, that the gods rewarded him for his piety. That he had done the right thing by murdering his entire family (as much as it still hurt to do, deep down, even if he'd never admit it). That perhaps his son was born so strong because the two sides of saiyan nature were for once at harmony with each other, the Oozaru and the Super Saiyan, just as he, descended from the Super Saiyans, learned to love and fight alongside his moon-worshiping consort. He dares to hope that maybe Prince Vegeta will become strong enough to overthrow Freeza and cast off the shame of servitude.
But there's trouble in paradise. The nobles from the other nations are absolutely appalled that the moon-worshiper from the tiny, pagan population of the polar isles has become queen. Many of them do actually think that she put the king under a spell to do her bidding. They don't like that her battle partner, Nappa, was originally low-class (but elevated once the queen came to the royal city---another cultural difference; it's not as taboo for nobles to have low-class partners in the polar isles because their caste sensibilities are not as strict). The fact that the king bent the knee to Freeza just makes things worse. He's weak. He'll lead them to ruin. He's easily manipulated. He listened to a sorceress instead of his own integrity and pride by submitting to Freeza where he should have instead gone to war and proven his strength as his ancestors did before him.
There's unrest among the lower-class saiyans too. Freeza ships them off to faraway planets for degrading assignments. He takes saiyan children to his planet, and they never return. They hate Freeza even if they are encouraged to be grateful for the battles and resources the Planet Trade affords them. They resent the royal family even if the prince is so strong that they can't help but be inspired.
Several elites challenge the queen to fight. She proves victorious each time, however. And this only infuriates her detractors and rivals even more. Eventually, there are plots to dispose of her via less than honorable means. There are assassination attempts. Those that are caught are of course tortured and executed. But...sadly, one of the attempts succeeds. The queen falls ill, and poison is suspected. She begins to deteriorate rapidly, but she doesn't die immediately. Her body resists the illness, and she lingers for a time even if she knows that, ultimately, her death will be inevitable and painful.
King Vegeta, understandably, goes on a fucking rampage. But there's a distraction. Freeza attends a tournament to decide who will become Prince Vegeta's battle partner, and he finds Prince Vegeta himself to be rather remarkable. Soon afterwards, he demands that King Vegeta send the prince to "visit" him on his home planet. He wants to take the prince in and mentor him as a mark of the "friendship" between Vegeta-sei and the Cold Empire.
The queen, however, does not want to give her son over to Freeza. She fucking knows how that will go down. She can feel it. Vegeta will be examined, experimented on, tortured, treated as a pet and a slave. She doubts that the SSJ legends are even real; she's of the opinion that it's just another interpretation of the Oozaru. So she's under no illusion that Vegeta will transform and save them all from Freeza at just the right moment. She knows he's just a little boy at the end of the day, however strong he is already.
Plus...she knows she's dying, and she doesn't want her son taken away from her. She doesn't want her last days to be spent knowing she gave him over to a monster. But at the same time...she also knows that, if Freeza doesn't take Vegeta, then it will put the entire planet in danger. She takes a page from the king's book and tells herself that she'll have to set her personal feelings aside to do what is rational even if it isn't quite right. So she requests only that the king doesn't let Freeza take Vegeta until after she's gone.
The king, meanwhile, is in fucking denial that she's dying at all. He doesn't want to believe it. He's caught up in his feelings about it. He's caught up, too, in the fear and dread their oh-so-tenuous relationship with Freeza is. He says he'll go to war with Freeza. That he won't let him take their son at all. But they both know that they have to. He copes with it by telling both himself and Vegeta that Freeza's "mentorship" and the opportunities his assignments will afford will make him stronger, will perhaps move him to transform when the time is right. The king doesn't explain to the child what he's really in for, just that he must be strong above all else. Vegeta's mother, though, probably tries to warn him in some capacity, as far as he is able to understand (he's about 4 Earth years old at this point).
Freeza, though, comes to collect Vegeta unannounced sooner than anyone expected. He is forcibly taken from his mother. She puts up a fight, but it's useless, and Vegeta ultimately goes to Freeza's home planet to begin his servitude. The queen dies soon afterwards, and when Vegeta returns to Vegeta-sei for the last time before the planet is destroyed, his mother is gone. He never got to see her again after the day he was taken away.
King Vegeta is consumed with grief and anger. He acts according to his worst impulses. Wages reckless wars, tortures people just to watch them suffer. It doesn't help that the person who was the actual political mastermind behind his regime (the queen) is gone. His rule is messy, and he becomes increasingly unhinged. He probably tries to make an incredibly stupid final stand. His actions certainly accelerate Freeza's plan to destroy him and the rest of the saiyans. And this is where all of this backstory catches up with where we meet young Vegeta in canon.
Anyway! There you have it, an epic backstory for Vegeta's mom and the royal family.
I made all of this up to be background stuff in my fic, but it's not just that. It's also there to show some of the internal conflicts going on in young Vegeta's character. He's caught between living up to the legends of his ancestors and his personal feelings just as his parents represent these two opposing interpretations of saiyan nature. He doesn't quite know how to reconcile these things within himself. His first years with Freeza, too, are colored by the loss of his mother and his father's becoming particularly strict and power-obsessed as a result of her death. This background story is in the fic is also there to tell the reader things about how saiyans conceptualize things like "romantic" relationships, what they consider beautiful. Besides all the stuff about religion, spirituality, and how saiyans construct morality, meaning, and enlightenment.
I hope this was fun to read!
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the zine’s officially out, so I can post my contribution for the @extraordinaryzine :D!
my piece is an interpretation of the caverns on Iron Island 🏝️ so I wanted to incorporate more of the water surrounding it by creating a sea cave to have light spill inside (akin to the modra špilja/blue grotto)
the focus of the zine was on the daily lives of trainers and their pokemon, so Riley uses a spot inside the caverns like this to meditate with his team, although any new Riolu he trains can’t resist wanting to jump into the water to play υ´˶ ･ﻌ･ ˶`υﾉ”
this piece alongside a ton of amazing artists can be found free to download digitally here! (and lastly some closeups bc I liked getting all the little deets down)
#kagarts#trainer riley#stat trainer riley#pokemon dppt#pokemon zine#this one definitely proved to be a bit of a challenge since. backgrounds are a whole other thing#but this got me interested in worldbuilding on a location#got me incorporating various elements from both the games and anime bc they both have their own specific strengths and limitations#that make it fun to interpret and feel more lived in#I can ramble a bit about it but for one the island in the games is just limited to being >place to defeat team galactic at#there’s only really leftover caves after mining expeditions so it’s mostly just abandoned mines type of deal#and riley’s singular house you can visit of course#but the anime includes a port town and scientists studying different parts of the island#so it fills in the gap left behind from game limitations#if there’s a town on an island specifically full of stronger pokemon that adds onto what riley’s job is on said island#to make sure either side of the town and caverns on the island are kept in check/at peace#adds to that job of being iron island’s guardian (and I haven’t even gotten started on aura yet LMAO)#I have a lot of notes but I’m saving any extras for later#go get this digital zine!!! it’s free!!!!!!
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Red Flowers: Rambles About Camp 2, Glomas, and Chapter 7
[JP spoilers ahead, you have been warned]
HI I’M SO MAD BECAUSE WDYM CAMP VARGAS 2 FORESHADOWED GLORIOUS MASQUERADE????????
For context, in this part of the event, Film Studies Club and Board Game Club just shoo’d away the forest fairies, and then they talked about why they were trying to put out the campfires. Then they started talking about the forest fire that happened back then: a miner’s campfire accidentally got too big and the fire happened. And then that screenshot comes up.
Vil also says “red flowers” in the JP.
This is insane to me because in the JP version, Camp Vargas 2 was the event directly before Glorious Masquerade. Camp happened late September 2022. Glomas happened the next month.
THIS IS SO INSANE….. THEY LITERALLY JUST DROPPED THIS SO INNOCUOUSLY AND THEN MAKE IT THE BIG THING IN THE NEXT EVENT…….
But it’s also so interesting too because!! A friend and I were talking about it because the red flowers that Rollo grew in Glomas are forbidden flowers! They were a thing in the past at one point. Fae would have known about the flowers, because in the first place, they’re fatal to them. The red flowers absorb magic and they will keep absorbing magic until the mage user has no more magic. And as beings literally made of magic, this is definitely deadly for fae. So in a way, this tidbit of information packs so much worldbuilding, not just about the forest fire, but also the perspective of fae.
Worth interesting to bring up here: Red flowers most likely came from Maleficent: Mistress of Evil. In the movie, humans made red dust from it to kill fae in the human-fae war. As that war is canon in Twst, it wouldn’t be a surprise if the Silver Knights (the humans) used them against the faes. So with that context, fae would see red flowers as a horrible thing, and to conflate it with fire, which kills living things too… yeah.
And now that we’re on this topic, we have to talk about chapter 7 because I am haunted by the fact that in the Maleficent movie, the faes do win against the humans.
But in Twst? We clearly see that that’s not the case.
Briar Valley was once called Land of Briar, as seen in the title cards showing the location in Lilia’s dream, connoting that it used to be much bigger. If you look at the map of Briar Valley, you’d also see that there are division marks on the country itself.
Literally the human-fae war has been twisted in this game. And that’s so fucking beautiful because in the original Sleeping Beauty, the humans won against Maleficent. Fae was the villain in that movie. But in Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, it’s the faes who won. Humans were the villain. And THEN you see here that the humans won, but now you can’t really tell who’s hero or villain. It’s easy to say the humans because fae like Lilia are protagonists in this game… but remember too that Silver is fully human And may or may not be descended from the Knights and Sebek is half human. Ffs, Yuu is human.
Anyway, consider that Maleficent lives despite the red dust used in the war. But now think: if the silver knights Do use the red flowers, that may have been what killed Malleus’ mother… and the one who lives is Lilia.
Consider too that in Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, one of the three fairies died to that red dust protecting the other fae :-) the blue fairy specifically. Noteworthy too that she’s the one who lifts Aurora’s curse such that she doesn’t die but just sleeps till she’s given true love’s kiss. Kinda… like how Malleus was born. Needs to be given love to “wake up”, to be hatched, to live. Like how Aurora needs to wake up via true love’s kiss to live. Merryweather in that sense is kinda like Lilia.
How haunting then that if Twst didn’t twist (heh) Maleficent surviving the war and made Mallenoir live, it could have been Lilia (who was the one who helped Malleus hatch) who died from the war.
Anyway, next chapter 7 update is probably gonna be so fire (haha) !!! But now it’s food for thought for glomas 2
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hi, correct me if i'm wrong but i seem to remember you saying that you're majoring in illustration! i'm currently in the process of applying to colleges and i plan on majoring in illustration as well, so i was wondering if you had any advice for portfolios. I could really use some tips on the presentation aspect specifically, bc I'm a little lost when it comes to stuff like the arrangement/organization of pieces, how I should crop my pictures, etc. any advice you can give me is greatly appreciated!!
hi yes i can totally help you out with this! i like to think my college portfolio was pretty good bc i got accepted to every school i sent it to lol :) the main pieces of advice that i was given when building it were this:
studies and pieces that show off your technical skill are great, but limit them to around a third of your portfolio at most. art schools DO want to see that you're technically skilled and can like, draw a charcoal still life or a self-portrait, because those ARE important skills to have, but ESPECIALLY if you're applying to a school that's more known for contemporary fields like animation or illustration, it's much more likely that they want to see your creative mind at work. the single best thing you can put in your portfolio is a BODY OF WORK, and specifically a body of work that shows off your own ideas and your own take on whatever you're producing. this means 3+ pieces that are interconnected or related to the same central theme. my portfoilo, for example, consisted of 2 or 3ish traditional, technical pieces which showed that I had a certain level of technical skill, and the ENTIRE rest of it was devoted to a series of original interconnected narrative comics I'd written and drawn. Every reviewer I met with told me that this was what made my portfolio stand out to them--it showed that I was not only technically skilled, but that i had something i wanted to DO with that skill, that I had direction and drive with my art and was able to produce work that reflected that. If you're maybe (definitely) not quite as ambitious as me, something like a series of 3-5 interconnected illustrations or a short comic if you're into that might do the same thing.
as a side note, if you DO have a body of work as the central focus of your portfolio, a lot of colleges will be interested in your process as well! for example with my comic portfolio, i used one slot to demonstrate my process, because I penciled every page traditionally before digitalizing it and i had extensive character and worldbuilding sketches. I wouldn't devote more than one slot to it, but if you have a body of work where the process is important to you it could be worth throwing in!
arrangement is tricky, but the advice I generally heard was "put your best stuff first." whatever you're most excited about, whatever is going to grab someone's attention the fastest, that's what you want to have in your first slot. (I actually don't think I followed this advice on my applications LOL but it's what i was TOLD to do and i think it's solid advice.)
in terms of editing, assuming we're talking about traditional pieces being photographed, you want to make sure your pieces are 1. well-lit, (DO NOT TAKE YOUR PHOTOS WITH OVERHEAD LIGHTING. wait for an overcast day and take them outside trust me) 2. legible, (no weird shadows obscuring parts of the piece, high-quality enough that no details are lost due to digital pixelation, etc) and 3. as color-accurate to real life as you can make them. most of this is just about getting a decent-quality camera (a newer iphone should be fine) and a good location. (outside and overcast, as previously mentioned) you may want to throw your pics into photoshop and play with the balance slightly, but I wouldn't do anything too drastic, try to get the most accurate photo possible without any editing. (if your pieces are small and flat, scanning them in may work better. most public and school libraries have scanners you can use for free.)
finally, cropping. the general rule that I was taught is to crop the piece, not the photograph. if you've got a piece on paper and you're not sure you like how the actual drawing is oriented on the paper, crop the PAPER down to size, and THEN photograph it. your photos should aim to show the ENTIRE piece from edge to edge (unless it's a detail shot obv) and I even like to include a little bit of extra "breathing room" around the piece so that it's clear exactly where the dimensions of it end. here's a piece I used for my college portfolios for reference:
i lowkey do not like this piece now but that's not the point. this is what i mean by breathing room--a few extra inches of space around the actual canvas so it's clear that this isn't a closeup and you can see where the canvas actually ends. the same is true for digital pieces. if it's a full bleed illustration (something with full color all the way to the edges of the canvas) just make sure you like the composition cropped the way it is and submit the full piece as-is. if it's a floating spot or something similar without hard edges, leave a bit of white or transparent breathing room around the edge of your image.
hope this helps! if you have any more specific questions lmk :)
#asks#^ guy who is terrified at the prospect of having to build a portfolio for fucking JOB INTERVIEWS now lmfao
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sorry i'm still SSSS blogging today. i meant to draw but instead i reread adventure 2 and. hm
like, it starts out fun, you have characters interactions and dreamsharing and interesting locations and new outfits and hotakainen backstory!!!! that's the stuff i think fondly of when i think of adventure 2. it sets up for an emotional throughline for the hotakainens that would be so so tasty to follow and explore, especially considering what happened to tuuri in the last adventure!!!
but then... nah. when tuuribird shows up, something that should've had a BIG impact, especially on lalli - there's almost no reaction among any of the characters. it's just "oh okay." and like, i get that the whole deal with the finns is that they aren't very open about feelings but come on. come on!!!!!!
i think that is the point in the comic where things start to feel off for me. it SHOULD be exciting, you have connected all the characters and you're digging into the main plot and not just fighting small fry along the way, but........ ?????????
it's also around that time where minna starts working on the infamous bunny comic, and some of the author comments from that period of time made me wince. the whole ssss reading vibe gets Weird!! it's really hard for me to extract the experience of reading the Comic from the experience of witnessing its creator getting converted and baptized in frozen lakes and following a higher calling to create a comic whose message is frankly rather stupid!!! also i don't read the comment sections but clearly shit went down in some of them, maybe because minna said some awful stuff in her streams??? i don't know!!!!!! i don't really need to know!!!!
and then the comic just gets boring and drags on forever. look, the worldbuilding and the monsters are cool, and the art is always lovely, but the true joy of ssss for me has always been the characters. and then they don't really... do or say very much with each other for the rest of the story. like they're following the plot beats, but so much of the comic us just monster fights, beasts fighting each other, the plot HAPPENS but there's no emotion tied to it. the most egregious example is when lalli and onni have the spirits of tuuri and ensi with them, and they have a conversation - and we don't see ANY of that. it happens off screen. we get NOTHING. there's ZERO emotional reward. the characters are for all intents and purposes unchanged. there has been no arc or change in their dynamics. WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE!!!!!
it feels like the beats of the story were all planned out, but not fleshed out at all, and when minna got this far she no longer cared about these characters, or like telling this story served any purpose. the potential is there! it's easy to imagine another timeline where this story is rich in character interacton and growth. instead we get a hollow shallow shell of a comic. welp!
i so badly want to admire minna's decision to end the comic "properly", but i really feel like it might've been better to have just abandoned it when her priorities shifted. it's so sad to see the characters getting neglected like dolls in a dusty toybox. it really breaks my heart that she doesn't believe ssss has any value beyond "empty entertainment" when it meant so much to so many. SIGH
people who couldn't be bothered to finish reading adventure 2 are right actually. there's nothing there.
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Why Greta Gerwig should adapt The Magician’s Nephew instead of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
I had some thoughts. They are below the cut in list form
Something we Haven’t Been Shown Before- to put it bluntly, we already have a perfectly good adaptation of TLTWATW, and it’s probably as good and accurate an adaptation as you could ask for. There are a few minor details that got cut and added, but honestly, as far as book-to-movie adaptations go, it’s extremely faithful to the plot, themes, characters, the whole shebang of the original book. Even if you don’t count the live action movie, there’s still the animated movie, the BBC production, and several play adaptations out there. It’s had its time to shine and by adapting The Magician’s Nephew, we’d be getting something fresh from the franchise.
Equally Accessible Starting Point- while TLTWATW was the first Narnia book to be written and published, chronologically The Magician’s Nephew takes place before it, serving as both a prequel and standalone story so that newcomers to Narnia could get into the series with either book. C S Lewis himself said that it didn’t matter which one people chose to start with, so it would serve as a great entry point for anyone looking to get into the Chronicles of Narnia as well as provide an interesting prequel for people familiar with the movies that already came out, leading me to my next point:
Worldbuilding- this book has so much cool stuff you guys. The pool world, Charn, the apple grove, the rings, Frank. ¡Actual literal worldbuilding! Also Sherlock Holmes and Atlantis for some reason. There’s just a lot of really interesting concepts and locations in this story that have the potential to be a true spectacle while also serving as a rewarding expansion of the universe that Narnia fans know that newcomers will still be able to appreciate.
Our Heroes- Digory and Polly are incredibly adorable and likable protagonists. They feel a good deal more fleshed out and realistic than the Pevensie kids in the books, and even though the movies went out of their way to give them some more depths, our dynamic duo from The Magician’s Nephew still feel quite distinctive in their own right. Their interpersonal conflict never grows as deep as something like, say, Edmund’s betrayal, but they both have different perspectives and things they bring to the table as individuals while also having a very fun, genuine friendship. Bonus points for being a rare boy/girl relationship that is never so much as hinted to be anything beyond platonic.
The Villains- The Magician’s Nephew has a pretty perfect combination of antagonists who manage to be memorable and legitimately menacing as well as pathetic little meow meows. This book gives us Jadis’ backstory as well as her getting to wreak unhinged havoc in downtown 18XX London as well as Uncle Andrew, a conspiracy theorist incel Redditor before Reddit was ever a thing. They’re delightfully entertaining in completely different ways, and seeing them onscreen would be an absolute treat.
Thematic Resonance- lots of things that happen in this book carry a lot of similar motifs to other films that Greta Gerwig has worked on, and since she hasn’t really created any epic fantasy style films yet, they could provide a strong emotional core to center any experimentation she tries out in the genre. You’ve got Digory’s loving but complicated relationship with his mother due to her illness displacing them from home, the coming-of-age aspects as the children encounter various adult figures they feel powerless to oppose, and learning the consequences of one’s actions. It’s even mentioned in the book that Polly is working on a little writing project that she’s sensitive about, like Jo March. A lot of people have complained that they feel Greta Gerwig will neuter the story by toning down the religious elements (which there is A LOT to dissect about concerning how C S Lewis’ beliefs led to things like the Problem of Susan, but there just isn’t enough information about the actual movie out yet to draw any actual conclusions) yet I’d argue that these emotional arcs, which play into Gerwig’s strengths as a director, could easily hold up a movie on their own if handled well. Combine that with the potential for unique visuals, the book’s surprisingly good sense of humor, and the many concepts that could be brought onscreen in a truly unique way, and you’ve practically got a recipe for a great addition to the Chronicles of Narnia unlike anything the movie fans have gotten before.
Feel free to disagree about any of that, though. Hearing where other people think the netflix movies should pick up would be really interesting, so leave any thoughts on the subject in the notes if you want. I just wanna see Fledge the pony accidentally get yanked into another dimension.
#narnia#chronicles of narnia#the chronicles of narnia#the lion the witch and the wardrobe#the magician’s nephew#greta gerwig#digory kirke#polly uhhhh#fuck i can’t remember if polly even has a last name#to be perfectly honest i think netflix will just adapt tltwatw because that’s the most famous one#but this was my favorite book and dammit more people need to know about polly and digory
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Some thoughts on Detective Grimoire
Another post about gaming! And this one is pretty interesting: recently, I finished playing the third game in the Detective Grimoire series, Tangle Tower. Immediately after that, I got the second one (the one subtitled Secret of the Swamp; the first game in the series is an odd duck, seeing as it's an old Flash-based point-and-click, and I haven't seen it). Tangle Tower in particular looks like this:
However, the reason I'm making this post is the same reason I only completed Tangle Tower now despite getting started in 2020. Nothing prepares you for the sheer creepy factor this game, and really the whole Detective Grimoire has. And it's not the jumpscare-everywhere kind of creepy, or the chilling kind, but the playful and surreal kind; in the here and now, nearly every scene had me yelling at the characters to "just get out of there and call the Federal Bureau of Control!" There is a lot of humor in almost every scene, and a lot of interesting and sympathetic characters (as well as some blatantly unsympathetic ones who act as red herrings), but also a cartoony, imaginative sense of foreboding par excellence. And said foreboding aspects have to do with the games' strong myth arc, the worldbuilding around unusual locations, and similar "secondary" aspects that almost make you forget there's a murder to solve in every game.
And about that, by the way: all the games are fair-play mysteries (even if I am only as good as the evidence I get to work with), and the detective mechanics function rather well. There are actual deductions to make, and you have to closely examine the games' locations to find out every piece of the puzzle. So, it's all pretty good!
#detective grimoire#mystery#gaming#point and click#almost occult detective#playfully creepy vibes#step aside this is the jurisdiction of the federal bureau of control
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There are so many interesting aspects of MHA worldbuilding/academia that we never got to see, and it pains me.
For a world that doesn't allow people to use their Quirks in public areas, how do 1A (bar Izuku, Kaminari, and Aoyama) have such control over their Quirks? Are there gyms or training facilities they can go to in order to train their Quirks? I'm assuming Yaoyorozu and Ida got some form of private training, given their wealth, and Todoroki had been trained by Endeavor from age 4/5.
How exactly do the work studies even function? They're optional and located all across Japan, so how do they make up the absences? How do they keep up with their schoolwork? Does UA pay for lodging? Why are the lowest ranked students in class even allowed to go on a work study if their grades are so bad? How has Oboro dying and the Shie Hassaikai raid not given UA even more bad press, considering that Sir Nighteye was killed and many UA students were injured? Nedzu mentioned "restarting" the work studies, so I assume maybe Oboro's death caused UA to pause them?
We also see in universe that the teachers disagree with Nedzu/the establishment on how UA should be run. Snipe didn't want the Sports Festival being held so soon after the USJ Attack. Present Mic was rightfully upset that his traitor theory was being shot down (wonder how they all felt when they found out he was right). All Might didn't like the first years being on work studies to begin with. Later on, Snipe, Cementoss, and Vlad King didn't want the work studies being made mandatory (though that last one was due to the HPSC).
It's funny you say this because I was actually somewhat thinking about this topic.
One thing that always nagged at me was that Yaoyorozu and Todoroki were really the only 1A students who were exemplary (I'm excluding Bakugou here for a second). It's supposed to be the best hero school in the world, yet it's only the two of them who actually show that off (with their quirk control, Yaoyorozu with her intelligence, and Todoroki with his raw strength). They should have been the expectation, not the exception.
Don't get me wrong, other 1A students like Kirishima and Tokoyami are good with their quirks, but not to the level that those two were at the beginning. To get into the greatest hero school in the world, you would expect more exceptional students. Even looking at a wider scope, the only other examples we can point to are the Big Three (and maybe Kendo but we don't see much of her skills beyond her fight with Yaoyorozu).
It would have been way more impactful for Izuku and Bakugou to get there and see how far behind they were (mostly Bakugou as Izuku already experienced this somewhat). Bakugou being the second best right of the bat makes no sense when Todoroki, Yaoyorozu, and Iida have (presumably) has the best training and tutoring possible (I will never stop being salty about Bakugou beating out Todoroki in class ranking, in what world does that even make sense). If this was going to be the best hero school in the world, there should have been students who have pushed themselves to the limits their entire life. Bakugou getting there and seeing that he wasn't any more special than everyone else would have been way more impactful. They both should have spent more time playing catch up.
But I'm rambling. UA in and of itself is just messy and the story just doesn't go into depth past surface level in any aspect. The only time Horikoshi starts to do this is with Lady Nagant, but even then a lot of society and its impact on her is left in the air
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Congrats on beating 3H !! So what are your thoughts of the complete Fodlan experience ?
Jokes aside, honestly I'm not sure I can give a straight answer.
Overall I'd say it's been one of if not my least favourite Fire Emblem, but that really doesn't sum it up.
A more accurate description would be that it had a good chunk of things I loved (above all the Nabatean fam, Dimitri and his story and Claude as a character)... But it's buried beneath a mountain of boredom to slog through, decisions I just don't vibe with and The Bullshit™. Sooo much tedium and Bullshit in this game, and the fact I was kinda done halfway through VW and only persevered through the end out of sheer spite doesn't help.
And it's such a shame because when I liked the game I REALLY liked it and think it has some of the best/most interesting ideas of the entire series... But was it really worth slogging through hundreds of hours playing the same mediocre at best maps and story beats over and over and having to constantly bear that. Fucking. Monastery? Right now I'm inclined to say no. As much as I love those things, it was not.
Playing all the routes one after another really lays some of the biggest issues of this game, like the repetition. SOOO much of this game is recycled between routes and also in a single route to honestly insulting levels, and it doesn't get that much better in Part 2. The fact the devs somehow didn't think people would want to play more than one route is just. Baffling.
Something I realized in the final playthrough is that they also recycle maps for what are supposed to be completely different locations. So you get shit like Brigid somehow looking the exact same as a forest in the Alliance filled with Demonic Beasts, or Rhodos Coast and a beach in the Sreng Peninsula perfect copies of each other. Complete with the monuments for Cichol and Cethleann. Also like damn, Seteth's wife was so dead they had to bury her twice. In two different locations.
The writing is all over the place as a result of the chaotic development where not even the devs could agree on what the story was, and the whole game could be used as a test study on the sheer damage scope creep can do as well as the obsession with lore and worldbuilding that they contradict as soon as it's convenient over making an actually coherent narrative. And also why you don't throw literally any idea you can come up with to the wall hoping something sticks.
Because of the overreliance on telling over showing, what with the bland recycled maps and all, that Garreg Mach almost feels like the only real location in Fódlan, and that's something no amount of in-game libraries or novels worth of lore if those ten thousand years of lore are even real and didn't just make it up
Speaking of Garreg Mach, dear Sothis I hate that place now.
The monastery was fun the first time around, but then it became a chore to something I actively dreaded doing. It's monotone, you do the same shit every time, it lasts FOREVER compared to, you know, the ACTUAL Fire Emblem gameplay I'm playing for. And while you can technically skip it, you're losing on so much stuff to progress your units if you use it, so it feels like the option is just there to mock you. Getting into Persona and realizing how well the calendar system can work if done properly did nothing but sour me even more on the monastery.
The characters having new dialogue every chapter is really neat and something I wish got properly carried over to Engage, this game manages to turn even that into a chore.
And like - I really want to like this game, and in a sense I do, there's quite a bit of it I love. But so much of it makes me actively groan that I don't think I'm gonna replay it for at least a year. And if I do it will be with the No Monastery mod.
#fire emblem#fire emblem three houses#fe16#fodlan negative#ask replies#yanderefairyangel#overall I'm glad i played it but at the same time it was not worth it
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For the ask game 6, 10, 11, and 14... hopefully those can fill your time but let me know if you need more lmao!
AGH TY for asking so many!! Im certain ill be able to fill a lot of time with those <333
6. Favourite ships; like i mentioned on your post, for me it really fluctuates what ship is in the front of my mind on any given day. Ofc, hiccstrid is a big one (theyre really good to me personally) and I'm currently also in a big snotstrid mood bc of my friend @spacenintendogs 's dragons off the coast au! (Also p l e a s e if you aren't familiar yet with dragons off the coast im begging you to look into it, its such an interesting take on a modern au and Rose's writing and worldbuilding is absolutely phenomonal). Fishlout also takes up a space in my heart, adore them so much! The dynamic is so good.
Ruffnut and her army of men is also so good, and the dynamics she has with Eret, Fishlegs and Snotlout is really fun and has a lot of potential. Tho i do also think she and Heather have potential. As do Eret and Heather! That whole group can just be mixed and matched together haha. Heather and Fishlegs ofc is also wholesome, they deserved more than this!
Due to me being so involved in the oc side of the fandom and being a really big supporter of everything oc (which is common knowledge after 4 years of this haha), I also love a lot of people's ocxcanon ships! Such as Rose's oc Ermintrude and Snotlout, @nosuda-cringe 's oc Mayeth Vang and Snotlout, and ofc the ships you've hinted and teased in otwd (zephbal save me... save me zephbal. I think about them a. Normal amount. Same with castav but i wouldnt let them save me, they need to save themselves first), plus a lot of others. Theyre all very dear to me <333
10: favourite songs from the soundtrack; OKAY so ive actually got history with this! When i was about 13-16-ish i had music classes as part of my middle school experience (lmao) and we were given the freedom to do any project we wanted. In those 2-3 years i used the httyd soundtrack twice for projects!
First I used Forbidden Friendship (that song man. That song) as like. An underbeat or smt? To add things on. Im sure it sounded horrendous and y'know the other kids in my class laughed at me bc of me using an animated movie's soundtrack, but the song did remain a favourite of mine and still is.
The second time I used the soundtrack was just after the third movie released! We were once again granted freedom and I decided to learn Once There Were Dragons on the piano! (Im not certain i still know it LMAO its been 5 years, this was even before I learned about OTWD which is in hindsight pretty funny)
Ofc once again the kids around me weren't amused and I couldn't play piano to save my life (my hands are too small to reach the octaves needed which. Sucked haha) but i had a lot of fun and the song really stayed with me throughout the years, it always brings me at least some sort of emotion <3
11; favourite locations; OH gotta be Old Berk and Dragon Island. We spend so much time in Old Berk during the shows and the movies and the form of the island is just so... memorable, in a way. In school of dragons, i always loved climbing the Great Hall up to Gothi's little hut haha. Miss that silly little island.
Dragon Island is soooo underused but i adore the implications sm! Like, the Red Death's corpse is there (and we all know how much i love environment changing giants) and we haven't really seen it since RoB/DoB. Underused location in my humble opinion.
Honorable mentions to Berserker Island and the weird treasure island from rtte season 1. They really slayed haha
14; favourite animation style; everyone knows i'm a big hand animation girlie so I have to go for those little moments in the franchise where more 2D animation is implemented (like in Fishlegs' leadership dream and the Boneknapper special). The keyframing and the subtle movements are really worth analysing and i absolutely adore how it's used. A real treat for us animators! (Special mention to the animation that's been going around from the live special, so good)
As for 3d styles, I have to say the first movie. It has a very raw edge which i love and it gives everything a great feeling. Plus, the animation error during forbidden friendship they left in the final cut owns me <333
#ty sm for asking!!! i had sm fun with these#the animation question got me HYPED#And i always love thinking about the httyd ships and the different dynamics every one could give#really brightened up my morning ty!!! <333#httyd#how to train your dragon#ask game
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From what you've played, how was Genshin's story when compared to the others gacha(you've played)?
Back when I played Genshin all we had was Monstadt, Liyue, and the Dragonspine mountain, so the only story I experienced was all the Year 1 content.
The main story was... serviceable. Monstadt was completely uninteresting both as a story and as a setting, but I really loved Liyue's map and music and found the story of Zhongli attempting to retire to be a bit more engaging, even if still inferior to the rest that Liyue had to offer.
Genshin was very lucky that unlike other gacha games, it had a sandbox map, which meant it had NPCs you could talk to. The little stories found by talking to the NPCs were far more interesting than the majority of the main plot, it was almost shocking actually. You could talk to a random NPC walking in town and they were more likely than not to have an actual name, other NPCs in town they were related to, and occasionally even a random daily commission or quest line related to their little story.
For example, even the blandest white bread city of Monstadt had an NPC where it had this sickly girl (I think she was blind too?) praying for health so as to not be a burden to her older brother. Going to the fountain in a different time of day would let you find her brother, wading in the fountain trying to get the coins people would throw in. Talking to the brother would make him a bit embarrassed, but he would be firm that while this may look undignified he had to do whatever it takes to support his sister.
These little narratives between ultimately unimportant NPCs meant to populate areas not only helped make the locations feel alive, but were easily some of the most engaging writing in Genshin's setting. You were rewarded for living in the setting, for talking to all the generic townspeople and remembering their names whenever you got a new breadcrumb of someone else's story. It was delightful stuff, and a lot more complex than most players would probably appreciate given how so few of them actually are just generic NPCs without anything meaningful to say. This aspect of the game is what best leveraged Genshin's unique position of being a (and back then, the only) 3d open world gacha game. It was the kind of stuff that would literally be impossible for something like FGO or Arknights to pull off due to the sort of games that they are.
The sidequests and character-specific quests also ended up being more interesting to me than the main quest. While the concept of the Archons (gods) and their rule over the world as well as the history of a massive war between hundreds of gods to determine the Archons is an integral part of the main quest, it wasn't until Zhongli's character specific quest where the Archon war finally pulled off being written as a historical event with real consequences to the setting beyond cool worldbuilding / a way to explain weirdly shaped rocks.
But I already talked about that specific quest before, so I won't repeat that here.
If I were to directly compare it to the others Genshin was generally better written than the gacha I've played that didn't really try much if at all in the writing department (Dragalia, a few other gacha games I'm too ashamed to write down here) or tried but failed spectacularly (Punishing Gray Raven) but did not match up to the highs of the two mobage I've played the longest, FGO and Arknights.
FGO's best had Genshin's best beat when it came to writing themes, pathos, all the messy, meaty bits of storytelling that evade easy description and yet give a distinctive quality to Type-Moon's best, while Arknights had the far more distinctive setting as soon as its meh first chapters gave way to the insane worldbuilding in its side stories.
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oh hello!! I saw your last post (reblog) and found enough courage to ask question. but, firstly, I hope you have a good day! so I'm new here and I don't read a lot of your posts (but I'm curious and I will read when I can), but I'm interested how long have you been in Silmarillion fandom? and what are your favorite places and/or characters in Silmarillion? I only recently started reading but I already really like it! I also like fandom!
Hey anon! Wishing you a good day as well, I'm doing fine!💜
I first read the Silmarillion about 6-7 years ago, so I suppose you could say I got into the fandom then, but I was just lurking and doing my own thing for many years - me being present here and sharing my writing is actually a fairly recent phenomenon (I was... shy x)).
My favorite places would have to be Utumno, Angband and the various locations in Valinor because I just love magical, mysterious and/or creepy places where hot angels can be found. There's also not too much known about them which means we get to worldbuild more :D
If I had to make a top list of my favorite Silm characters, let's say a top 3 because otherwise it'll take me hours to decide, I'd have to choose Mairon, Melkor and Eönwë. They simply are... the worst cases of brainrot on this blog😂
I'm glad you're enjoying the book and the fandom! Lovely to have you here ^^
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Its me again >:)
tysm for the amazing kiri hc's! This is a lot more specific, but what about large wetlands? I was thinking of incorporating a small village ontop of a bog, raised by stilts as a mission stop. These bogs could also be the reason enemy ninja find it difficult to locate kiri (i think this was mentioned in a databook?).
I'm also curious about the academy, it's a really interesting idea but I got a bit confused at the aspect of everyone (including ANBU and Jounin) training there. For anonymity, i'm assuming ANBU train on an underground level and enter through a back door, and every other rank gets a seperate level/area?
Either way I love all the worldbuilding hc's, don't feel pressured to keep it up. :)
Hi nonnie! Sorry for taking so long!
Your idea with the different ninja ranks training on seperate floors are spot on! That's how I imagined it as well. We've seen in the anime that oi nin train with masks on, so their anonymity would be more or less secured either way, but I do think that there exists something of a 'secret entrance' for the Oi nin. It should also be noted that the Oi nin headquarters and the Kiri academy are seperate buildings.
Now, regarding your other question, I think it's the mist that makes Kiri hard to find, and the fact it's hidden behind high mountains. But the idea with the logs is a great one! I even think Kiri itself was once built throughout forest and wetlands. Draining swamps is common in urban planning and building around rivers and marshlands makes it easier to move things. Additionally, it gives you natural protection against flash floods, as the swampy ground serves as sort of a sponge. I believe that the vegetation growing on the roofs on Kiri buildings and inside the village was deliberately planted for a similar reason. There are actually several real world cities that have been built on swamps, such as the most famous one; Berlin.
(these pink pipes used to pump swamp water throughout the city, now they're mostly underground)
These 'log cities' often don't look like log cities at all, as the reason why these old buildings are still standing strong is because the wood has been sealed away in the swampy ground, so from the outside you couldn't even tell if a village was built on logs or not.
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Does RWBY's geography suck?
Its just...completely barebones.
Places, locations, towns, etc exist only in the path the cast travels through. Its especially notable in Mistral since that whole continent literally exists solely just so Ruby could walk through a forest for over a volume till she gets to Haven.
Like, we all know the whole "oh Monty spilled ketchup on a napkin and that became the map" stuff but that's fine.
Map complexity, worldbuilding and geography isn't defined by the shape of your continents. They could be outright rectangles or squares for all I care as long as they are filled coherently and characters don't teleport between locations offscreen.
Here's for example, the map from Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archives:
While one can instantly see that the map shape is outright weird and doesn't match anything in real world, it doesn't really matter. Sanderson's setting holds up on it's own - how the shape of it came to be doesn't really matter in the end because its a well thought out setting.
I bring up Sanderson specifically because his lecture on geography is kind of really good and covers quite a few common mistakes people do, as well as highlighting while maps are kind of good thing to have for your story. How having a sensible geography can help you figure out where characters can and can't be, how various story plot points can or can't affect each other and so on:
youtube
And even while someone like Joe Abercrombie or N.K. Jemisin do show a somewhat of a distaste towards publishing maps (and for good reasons), that's also fine.
The map can be something that only author sees/imagines. Whether one publishes it or not is really dependent on the individual, but for me personally if it's a fictional world and you are trying to flesh it out, showcasing how it changes or how it is impacted by character actions, then, in a sense, the world is a pseudo-character. Either way, make it public or not, the map IS and characters move through it and interact with locations on it, affecting them or being affected by them.
And there lies a pretty big issue with how RWBY handles it. The world is inconsequential. Pointless. Whether its bodies of water or arid deserts, mountains or villages - in the end it doesn't really matter. For example, there's nothing unique to Mistral that matters. Ruby could technically be just walking through a ten times smaller forest in Vale and it would be exact same story.
RT, instead of looking at the world they have, dirty napkin or not, and going "hmm, what does this place mean and why is it this way? what does this mean for the characters here? Does a character being there and doing this in anyway impact anything over there?", just plop down bunch of locations in straight line and that's it. Because they have decided that a character has to go from point A to point B in exactly this amount of episodes and that's it. That's the world building. And then sometimes they would realize they forgot another character so that character just teleports over, without even having a single doubt on whether that character CAN be there.
In a story whose main selling point is Remnant, the so called "The world of bloody evolution", where everything is MYSTERIOUS and woooo Moon is broken and OH NO that continent looks like a DRAGON and the communications between kingdoms are broken and there are grimm everywhere and this place got screwed up hard before and so on…suddenly none of that really matters. There isn't really an attempt to give Remnant characterization. How does each kingdom function? How does things going REALLY wrong in Atlas affect the economies and state of other kingdoms for example? Does Fall of Beacon and the destruction of communication system even matter? How would different locations be affected by the broadcast at the end of the tournament? How would various characters introduced from various locations deal with what happened? Miles and Co aren't interested in that. There isn't really an attempt to actually pay attention to distances between places and different methods of transportation because we gotta do all this in exactly this number of episodes somehow. The only time transportation methods mattered is when they had to put Blake onto a pointless padding storyline with her trip to Menagerie.
As much as people REALLY like joking about characters teleporting (be it in RWBY or in game of thrones), there's a bigger issue with Remnant in that it doesn't really feel like a coherent world. Places don't feel "tied together". There's little thought put into figuring out how things happening can affect the bigger whole. And thus the world feels smaller and smaller. Mistral could be another continent or Mistral could be an island or Mistral could be right next to Vale. Vacuo could be on the other side of the planet or literally two steps away from Beacon. In the end with the way RWBY is set-up It doesn't really matter. Characters WILL appear where the plot needs them to be. Consequences of specific things happening WILL be ignored if the plot needs them to be. Difficulties, location context and other things like that WILL be ignored as long as the plot needs them to be.
The last real attempt at characterization of Remnant is all the way back in the first three volumes - when the story goes from Beacon to the town around it to Mt.Glenn, establishing world-building elements there that then come into play in V3 conclusion. We don't get much but we get a sort of sense how the kingdom of Vale would have slowly expanded and how much Mt.Glenn is a sort of a wound within Vale, with unfinished and destroyed buildings highlighting the stagnation of that expansion as it hit a wall made out of as much of unknown dangers as it is made out of humanity's own vanity and pride. Which in turn ties back nicely into the vanity and pride involved in Fall of Beacon where once again a location falls apart because of the threats they refuse to see. There's a sense of progression and you can sort of see and FEEL this location that show spent three volumes in…die. And the logic and idea of the Goliaths moving from one location to the other, the idea of Vale being cut off from it's allies with the fall of the tower, the idea of the wound spreading, the idea what's safe and what's unsafe SHIFTING on massive scale matters. Blake disappearing matters because there's a difference between HERE and THERE. Weiss being taken away by her father matters because DISTANCE plays a part. Ruby setting out on a long journey matters because the DISTANCE matters. And through that, the sense of the world being no longer "connected together" is felt. V3 finale is in a lot of ways about things that should be there and have been there, now being missing. And it also sets up the expansion of the world as the characters are thrown out of their safe zones into places beyond, in turn slowly connecting it all together as a bigger whole.
Never again after that. 6 Volumes ago and never again after that. Characters take volumes to get somewhere or get there in a single scene change. Characters being in different locations doesn't matter. Sense of scale means nothing. The villain can be right at the doorstep and still far away for months to pass. Kingdoms don't feel like they belong in the same setting and no matter how grand the events that happen are, in the end it doesn't even matter because characters left the place. Does anyone REALLY think ANYTHING From mistral will EVER come up or matter? I really doubt that.
Its pretty telling that "adding a single ruined town" of Mt.Glenn is STILL the pinnacle of RWBY world-building.
Its pretty disappointing too because the setting deserves so much more.
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2024 - A New Timevir
This post contains some words about the loss of death.
Writing is a very fun hobby that I've done for as long as I can remember. It probably started as written exercises and fanfiction during childhood. It transformed into intricate worldbuilding as I was introduced to the hobby of tabletop roleplaying. In recent years, I've written interactive fiction, scripts, novels and sourcebooks.
But one constant caveat is that I almost never shared my work. It was an enjoyable process to convert thoughts and feelings into substantative manifestations in the physical realm. Yet despite many coworkers, friends and family members asking about them, I'd always give the same answer of "it's personal and not worth sharing".
I thought about why I was doing this, and noticed I have been living the life of an observer. I enjoy the detail of the world around me, and paying attention to things that others would consider irrelevant. I would even deliberately put myself out of my comfort zone if it meant putting myself in a location that I could see something new. If there was an interesting protest in the city I was living in, if there was a strange, dangerous event occurring in the vicinity or if there was an unusual experience or location to be discovered, I'd happily waltz in and act like that I was meant to be there. During the riskier parts of youth, it even meant a bit of trespassing, but I stopped doing that after a few dangerous close calls.
What I was not doing as an observer was manifesting that in the world. Many of my projects would be built, some even to completion, and then they'd sit in a box, frozen and inaccessible through their obscurity. Nothing I made ever felt like it was deserved observation compared to the rich tapestry of the world around me. Even in the rare moments I found pride in something, it would soon feel obsolete compared to some next logical alternative.
A lot of my life has been spent on "the grind". Work had seemingly crept its way into absorbing the free energy I had in an addictive loop. At first, it was merely a way of ensuring survival and trying to get out of school debt. It took the majority of my late 20s to get out of school debt, a feat I was able to just reach before my 30th birthday. A few more months, and I had a decent emergency fund and a "real" disposable income, assuming I wasn't going to try and buy a house (which to be honest, isn't an exciting proposition at the moment. Real estate trends caused by high demand have made housing costs extortionate, but that's a discussion for another time).
Work is of course necessary for human survival. Indeed, if we took a snapshot of lives lead across history, nearly everyone has had to contribute in some way to their communities for them to function well. The meaning of work has shifted through the various periods of history significantly, but its goals have remained the same. What is implictly understood, even if not necessarily well recorded, is that there was a whole tapestry of living that existed outside of these actions that could mean vastly more to the people that lived around them. While much of these ideas have persisted through the passing of cultural works, very rarely have we got a good snapshot of the life of any specific individual, even if they potentially had amazing tales to tell.
Identity has slipped through my fingers somewhat accidentally. It had felt much easier to sacrifice every bit of effort to accumulate knowledge, resources and a position of comfort than it took to stand for anything. At first I may have resisted the ideas of exaggerating an accomplishment, or cutting on the quality of a product to create it faster, but those values became too easy to discard when reward was on the table. But if anyone were to ask me about the morals of the situation from the outside, I'd remark a half-mealed "it depends" which really meant nothing beyond the acknowledgement strong values had merit and self-interest could get in the way.
It seemed like the intelligent thing to do because the things that were remembered across time were great accomplishments, long standing monuments and the best and worst of events moulding humanity's timeline. It was easy to mistake what was memorialized for what was important in life. It then followed that if memorialization was an ultimate goal, that the best way to do so was to accomplish some great feat was to set yourself up with as much power as could be wielded, a good proxy for which was money, before putting all that strength into ventures in the hope that something would hit and a legend would be born.
It is possible I could have remained trapped in that vicious craving for objectives if it wasn't for a life shattering event at the end of 2023. It was at this time that my younger brother died unexpectedly in his mid twenties. A whole life was potentially ahead of him, but it was cut short at almost no notice. My relatively normal family crumbled into chaos and it was shattered.
In the emotional fallout, I looked again at what I had done. Of course I did not regret unburdening myself from debt, or succeeding at a career. But in all the push for an abstract notion of success and legend, I had lost an invaluable voice that could never be replicated. My brother had lived his life to his fullest in his time on Earth. He had moved country, he had found love and friendship, and he had ideas of a future. Seeing these wither into tears, memories, and finally a grave, made me realise in the end that a memorial would not make up for the moments that would never be had again.
My new year's resolution for 2024 is to try to reestablish a voice. To truly live in the world and not merely plan a story for my death. To make sure that my friendships and bonds remain strong and not let them disappear due to the inconvenience of maintenance. To stand for something and not just exist in the pursuit of convenience.
One way I am going to test myself on this goal is to try to make sure I write something down each week. Something public. It won't necessarily be something profound, but at least it may prevent me from slipping back into forgetting about the things that really matter. Perhaps it is better to exist in the world than merely drift through it.
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It's Worldbuilding Wednesday! So I'm raiding your Ask Box to ask to tell me about my Roman Empire: Food and Culture.
How does Food impact or feature in your work?
Alternatively, you can tell me about your equivalent of the Roman Empire lololol
Thank you so much @amaiguri for this lovely ask ~
I shall do my best to describe the food situation in my main magical series, particularly as it relates to the protagonist.
This superhero fantasy series is called Sh!t Just Got Magical. There's a lot of food mentioned in this series. As in, a LOT of food. Food plays a huge role in this story due to its importance to Kazaio "Kaz" Szuo and his sparkly new career.
Just a bit of background info to help set the delicious foodie scene.
The main setting is the city-state Seszun (Seszun is both the noun and the adjective), located on the Seszun Peninsula. Now a predominantly green city, this near-future urban metropolis spreads across the entire peninsula and is built in and around (the re-vitalized remnants of) natural features, most notably Chaiuin Forest, the Cheosaing Mountains, and the Sousz Salt Flats. Since the global unification movement began, Seszun has been considered the symbolic capital of Earth.
Kaz is a 21 year old boy who was born in Seszun to birth parents of non-Seszun background. He has a large family including his foster mother, foster aunt, three half-siblings and two foster cousins (it's complicated, but I promise it makes sense). His aunt has a very good income (she's a nutritionist, funnily enough), but given the size of the family, money is frequently tight. They'd probably be considered a middle-middle/lower-middle income family because of this. Kaz has historically had difficulty holding down a job. Without his family, would be 100 percent broke.
Now, onto the food!
Kaz is now a magical boy, hired by an intergalactic Alliance to defend the universes from an evil alien warlord and his "Liberation Force". Being a magical boy presents a few interesting challenges when it comes to diet, the main one being Kaz has to significantly increase his food intake. This is not only to support his intensive training and resultant increased muscle mass. When Kaz transforms he becomes immortal (this does not mean he cannot die; he's just much harder to kill). This immortal form has an incredibly high metabolism rate. If Kaz does not eat appropriately before transforming (and he may be called on to transform at any time), his immortal form can obliterate all his mortal reserves. As such, particularly after strenuous battles, de-transforming can be dangerous - becoming mortal again when his body has been all but stripped of nutrients. Under more usual circumstances, de-transforming gives Kaz a serious case of the hero munchies.
To avoid malnourishment and fainting spells (or worse) after battles, his support team are currently developing an easy-to-digest nutrient cake that Kaz can eat post-transformation. They haven't yet found a recipe that won't turn his fragile human guts inside-out, but they're working on it. Until then, Kaz guzzles calorie boost bars and Re-Hydrate Plus (an electrolyte drink) post-transformation, then hunts down the fastest, biggest, healthiest meal he can - or his space cat mentor does, anyway. Kaz would prefer battered squid sticks.
This might go without saying, but given his magical job and all the training involved, Kaz also has to improve his semi-sub-standard diet. He'll get right on that…
Although Kaz has a sizeable income now, he's used to buying food on a budget and generally sticks to that (he is both a creature of habit and a lover of bargains). This means lots of convenience stores, vending machines, and fast food restaurants, as well as his mom's cooking. Even when he starts trying to eat healthy, he doesn't often venture beyond these options - unless food trucks or street food carts are involved.
One more point: Kaz actually likes to cook and he's not half bad. We'll see him cook for his family quite a few times throughout the series ~
Here's a bunch of food Kaz has eaten so far. This gives a bit of an idea what an everyday person on a budget (who makes slightly unhealthy food choices) in Seszun eats.
Cracklebombs (popping candy chocolate; bought at a drug store)
Crunchables (dried seafood snacks; bought at a drug store)
Sticky butter rice cake skewers (bought from a street vendor)
Rice
Beer (predominantly rice lager)
Kelp soup (Mom and Kaz both cook this)
Chilled tea (fruit flavored, black, and golden)
Battered squid sticks (bought at a convenience store)
Battered fried shrimp "shell stack" (a hybrid of sandwiches and wraps) with rice, spicy coleslaw, and gloppy specialty summer sauce (bought at a convenience store)
A curry cup (bought at a convenience store)
Frozen air-fried mollusks (from his freezer)
Oyster bake (Mom's cooking)
Breakfast steamed buns with dipping sauce (from a family restaurant)
Oyster and potato stew (from a convenience store)
Fried scallop burger (from a fast food restaurant)
Barbequed pork intestines with sticky citrus sauce (from a hole-in-the-wall restaurant)
Oyster stew (Kaz's cooking)
Rice salad with mix-and-eat toppings and garlic dressing (from a fast food restaurant)
Seared tentacles and omelet balls (from a fast food restaurant)
Deep fried breaded shrimp (Mom's cooking)
Noodles in sweet nut crab sauce (from a café)
Extra spicy soup sack (a giant soup dumpling) with scallops and quail eggs (from a food truck)
Gently spiced crab legs (from a food truck)
Sticky fried chicken with pickles (from a fast food restaurant)
Crispy potato skins drizzled in tangy-sweet curry sauce (from a canal vendor)
Seszun-style fried rice (Kaz's cooking)
Instant nutty-lime egg noodles (from a vending machine)
Milk stew (leftovers at a friend's place - not Seszun-style food)
Traditional sweets - jellified rice and iced fruit topped with crystallized honey (from his fridge)
Boiled custard buns and skewered jelly cakes (from a street food cart)
Wow that's a long list. And that's not even everything!
Kaz eats a lot…
Okay, just for fun, let's get a bit more technical - badly-written-half-copied-from-the-textbook-high-school-social-science-paper style! Kaz wrote it, I swear…
Seszun cuisine is predominantly influenced by Wauian cuisine; the majority of people who identify as Seszun today are descendants of settlers from Wauia who colonized the peninsula a thousand years ago. Wauian cooking methods were adapted to consider locally available ingredients, producing a cuisine more unique to the peninsula. Over time, this was also influenced by the cooking methods of the local Indigenous people, the Nauje, creating what is now considered traditional Seszun cuisine. The Nauje maintain to this day an ancient food culture that is similar to, yet distinct from that of Seszun.
The majority of traditional Seszun cuisine consists of short-grained brown and white rice (frequently mixed together); noodles; sea vegetables such as kelp; crustaceans such as shrimp and crab; mollusks such as squid, mussels, and clams, with scallops being perhaps the most popular and most commonly consumed; fish such as tuna and mackerel; quail eggs; soy beans; root vegetables such as onions, radishes, carrots, and local varieties of potatoes; cabbages; and fruit, predominantly citrus fruits (cold-tolerant varieties), although seasonal melons, berries, and pome fruits are also available. Tea (of black and golden varieties) is the traditional drink of choice. Traditional seasonings include citrus, soy, sesame, garlic, ginger, honey, coriander, and chilli. Most traditional Seszun dishes are simple, fresh, and fragrant with an emphasis on presentation. Early Seszun literature describes as follows: Peninsula folk eat first with their eyes; if their eyes are not satisfied, their mouths do not eat (this refers only to the aristocrats of the time, the Seszun Circle). The most common cooking methods are boiling and searing, with light soups, stir fries, and curries being common dishes. Most traditional desserts are rice and fruit based.
The most stereotypical traditional Seszun meal, no matter the time of day, includes a bowl of rice (sprinkled with desired seasoning), kelp soup, seared scallops (either fresh or marinated), and potentially a fresh salad with radish, carrot, cabbage, and coriander.
More modern Seszun cuisine incorporates ingredients and influences from all over the world. Seafood remains the most popular choice of protein, however, chicken is now readily available and is a staple of modern Seszun cuisine. Pork and beef is now more common, although beef is very expensive and generally only consumed by the wealthy. Pork offal is a cheap, widespread alternative meat. Perhaps the most notable difference between modern and traditional Seszun cuisine is the introduction of deep frying and, more recently, air frying almost anything that can be breaded or dipped in batter. Although many authentic international cuisines are available in Seszun, more commonly global dishes are given a "Seszun spin" with the new invention regularly becoming synonymous with modern Seszun cuisine. Bread and cakes have also become incredibly popular, the Seszun varieties made predominantly with rice flour. "Shells" are a rice-flour flat bread baked in molds that produce its namesake's shape. Developed around 150 years ago (so considered by some more modern than traditional), two domed shells are used to cup (or sandwich) anything from salads to curry, producing a cheap, filling, easily transportable meal. "Shell stacks" were and remain a popular and usually more healthy food choice for those on a budget.
More important features of modern Seszun cuisine include convenience, with the advent of frozen food, convenience stores, and vending machines, and also self-service; gourmet instant noodle eateries and other do-it-yourself eating experiences have become very popular since the global unification movement began. Also, as with most of the world, Seszun now runs on caffeine. While tea is still drunk more than water, Seszun now imports more coffee than any other location on Earth.
Food of every variety, but particularly traditional sweets, are offered to Seszun's many deities, both on their feast days and when praying for a deity "take interest".
And… that'll do for now! I honestly haven't thought too much yet about food in relation to Seszun's culture, history, and religion - I'll be thinking more about that as the series goes on! Eventually I'll have to start thinking more about various alien cuisines as well. I won't mention what the Liberation Force eats... trust me, you're fine not knowing. And, at this early point in the story, we usually just see Kaz's space cat mentor eating nutrient cakes, or else snacking on whatever Kaz is eating.
Please remember that this series is still in its infancy - names may change, locally available ingredients may shift. Perhaps in the future I'll re-visit this scrumptious world-building subject. I might even achieve something resembling succinct next time! But I doubt it.
This is why I haven't made many posts along these lines… whenever I try, it takes all day…
Thanks so much again @amaiguri. This has been a wonderfully helpful exercise, hunting through the story and old notes to pull together everything food-related. I shall be referring back to this on a regular basis.
On another note, I haven't had Kaz nearly hungry and faint enough after all his battles. That's something I must amend on the next editing pass ~
Sorry, Kaz…
#writing#worldbuilding#urban fantasy#writeblr#writers of tumblr#writerscommunity#writers on tumblr#creative writing#indie vtuber#vtubers of tumblr#envtuber#english vtuber#blue mooney#moonfeatherblue#blue mooney worldbuilding#moonfeatherblue worldbuilding#food#food worldbuilding
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