Hello and happy STS!

I'm very curious about Shapeshifter's universe. How and why can the Pack, ya know, shapeshift?

Hello! First, I need you to know that this ask was the impetus for me making a pseud-wiki article about shapeshifters for the Shifter!verse, which I then proceeded to lay aside for a little break, and then existence happened and it's now been enough time I'm now genuinely a little guilty about it.

That said, I'm gonna leave you with the section of "Shapeshifting Mechanics", under the cut because I cannot be normal about this...

III. Shapeshifting Mechanics

Proven facts about the mechanics of shapeshifting are few and far between, due to a bevy of factors. Modern laws about human experimentation have made it difficult to study metamorphs with modern scientific instruments, and historical attempts at studying metamorphs have fallen far short. There are many theories of how shapeshifting works, shapeshifting transmission vectors, transformation triggers, and the like, many of which are in direct contradiction with each other. The one aspect of shapeshifters that all agree upon is that each metamorph is capable of transforming into one animal species only. The rest is actively debated to this day.

Shapeshifting Transmission

Shapeshifting is unique among magical conditions in that it is able to be passed on genetically as well as from individual to individual through specific events. Many researchers have remarked upon the observation that a metamorph’s progeny will not always inherit the animal form of its parent. While it is common for the same animal form to be seen throughout a lineage, there is always a possibility that a shapeshifter will have an animal form different from its parents or siblings, albeit a small possibility. Some believe that a shapeshifter’s animal form is representative of their personality, though there is no scientific way to prove this. Others maintain that a metamorph’s animal form is determined by geography and nearby animal populations; a theory that is also impossible to prove.

The ability to shapeshift also appears capable of lying dormant for multiple generations before becoming active once more. This can account for stories of humans spontaneously gaining the ability to shapeshift, though it’s unknown how many generations can be skipped before the ability is lost altogether.

It is impossible to accurately determine the percentage of metamorphs that are born vs bitten, just as it is impossible to accurately determine the number of shapeshifters alive at a given moment, but it is safe to say that most shifters are likely born shifters, since the process of becoming a bitten shifter is extremely dangerous. It appears to take a specific set of events for one to be ‘turned’ by a shapeshifter’s bite, as there are many reliable accounts of an individual experiencing no ill effects from a shapeshifter bite. Like most magically-influenced things, intent seems to be a deciding factor in if a bite is a transformative one. A metamorph must bite with the intent to transmit their shapeshifting abilities to the victim. An accidental bite, or one that does not contain the intent to transmit, is therefore probably a safe one. The process of being transformed into a shapeshifter is often deadly, with some sources claiming up to an 80% mortality rate. What little has been learned about this process points towards the magic behind shapeshifting altering the victim’s body at the genetic level - altering parts of one’s DNA, which in turn affects aspects of the body’s function at a cellular level. With this in mind, an 80% mortality rate does not seem too unreasonable.

The Shapeshifting Process

By far the most incomprehensible aspect of shapeshifters is the process through which they transform. First-hand accounts are varied and occasionally contradictory on the exact mechanics, requirements, and effects of shapeshifting. It is generally agreed upon that shifting is a painful process, with reports ranging from mild discomfort to intense distress. Shifting has a not insignificant energy requirement. Some think that metamorphs with animal forms smaller than their human form expend less energy transforming, while those with animal forms larger than their human form with expend more energy. Some maintain that frequent, consistent transformations can ease both the energy cost and pain associated with shifting. This cannot be proven, but seems to be a generally accepted idea among shapeshifter communities.

The concept of control when it comes to shapeshifting is much debated. Some shapeshifters have reported having near-perfect control of their abilities; able to transform at will, and rarely, if ever, experiencing an uncontrolled, spontaneous transformation. Others report having very little control, and transforming primarily when in a heightened emotional state or when exposed to certain external stimuli. A sliding scale or bell curve is the most common way of conceptualizing how much control a shapeshifter has over their abilities.

Perhaps the most intriguing and least well known aspect of a shapeshifter’s transformation is the disappearance of a metamorphs clothing, accessories, and certain items found on their person during the transformation. These items appear to vanish into thin air, when common logic would dictate that while a shapeshifter’s physical body was affected, their personal items would remain untouched. There are many, many theories on where these items ‘go, some of which have interesting implications for our understanding of the universe. Unfortunately, there is answer, and any attempt to find one have failed. Technology such as cell phones, GPS trackers, and RFID units all cease to function as soon as a shapeshifter begins their transformation, only to automatically resume function once the metamorph returns to human form. 

Some biological and natural components - such as dirt, blood, water, or dead plant matter - will remain on a shifter between shifts, begging the question of just how connected a shifter’s two forms are. Injuries that are inflicted on one form will be present on the other, and if one form was recently doused in water the other form will also be similarly soaked. Yet, clothing and ‘unnatural’ items a shifter may be wearing will simply cease to exist until the form they existed upon first is returned to.

Shapeshifting Limitations

There appear to be many limiting factors that determine the animal form an anthromorph can have. First and foremost is the matter of mass. Animal species that are either too small or too large seem to be inaccessible, likely due to limitations with magic being able to transform mass at a certain level. There has never been a documented shapeshifter with an animal form smaller than 10 grams, or larger than 1000kg. The second limiting factor is intelligence level or brain capacity. This appears to be due to issues with fitting a human-level consciousness into something less capable of complicated thought. The last limiting factor seems to be evolutionary closeness, though there are enough exceptions to this theory that some have suggested disregarding it entirely. But the predisposition for shapeshifters to have animal forms that are a type of mammal cannot be disregarded. While there are notable exceptions, most metamorphs have an animal form that is of similar body plan (4 limbs, two eyes, air-breathing lungs, etc) to a human one, likely because it is easier to adjust to a body that functions similarly to one’s base form. Aquatic metamorphs such as weresharks or dolphin shifters have acknowledged a difficulty in adjusting to their animal forms at first, though their ‘animal instinct’ apparently kicks in quickly and allows for easy adaptation. Avian shifters have noted a similar instinctual response or understanding that allows them to fly without a lengthy learning period.

Happy Storyteller Saturday! Your OC has become (in)famous for something, whether they wanted to be or not. What was that thing? How do they feel about it?

Happy STS! Thank you for giving me the chance to talk about some of my favorite people: The two most infamous traitors in Caledon’s short history…two people who are infamous for almost doing something.

Killian Rameau grew up hearing stories about magic, about the days when it wasn’t illegal to just say the word. When he got older, he decided to make it his goal to learn about the magical city of Highgrave and explored Caledon in search of its ruins. Along the way, he told stories to all who would listen about the “visions” he had received, and eventually gained a following. These people believed that he would be the one to return magic to the world, but unfortunately, his followers grew tired of waiting. He was betrayed by someone close to him and was eventually arrested and executed as a traitor. Yes, it’s illegal to speak about magic let alone search for it—but he died for an idea, not a crime.

Mara Wilkes, one of the MCs in ToL, heard the rumors about Killian growing up. She spent her life studying and searching for information that could help push her country into a new era, but Caledon’s limited knowledge failed her. When her partner Oliver mentioned that Killian’s journals and research were collecting dust in his family’s archives, she decided to take matters into her own hands. She found a map that supposedly led to Highgrave, and was determined to find her way there—but she was also betrayed, and the map was torn from her hands before she could even read it. She was given a less severe punishment (more or less), but she was still branded as an exile, a traitor—just for reading.

All she ever wanted to do was make life better for others around her, and they buried her for it. She’s become a very jaded person during her time in exile and has lost sight of her true purpose in life.

Happy Storyteller Saturday!

Very curious to see your thoughts in the tags on why your process works for you! I want to refine my draft 0/draft 1 process myself.

Happy STS! Please summarize your WIP in the worst way you possibly could.

Happy STS! I hope you’ve had a good week :) What is something about your WIP that’s either on your mind lately or that you wish more people would ask you about?

Hi! Happy STS!

I haven't been writing in several months (I've needed to focus on uni), so I have been mainly thinking about worldbuilding. For a while now I've been quite obsessed with figuring out the fashion in far too much detail. It's honestly not that important for the story, but I love dress history so it's just extremely fun for me to come up with a hundreds if not thousands of year of fashion evolution for almost a whole continent. Figuring out Ahinian fashion has been most interesting and hardest part too, because I'm trying to base it less on anything historical and more trying to come up with something different.

I can best figure visual things like fashion out by drawing it, so I started with the royal siblings, Agrippa and Manoheahpi. Here they are showing of court fashions. Black, dark blue, white and yellow are colors of the moon cult and their clan, which is the head of the moon cult. Agrippa is wearing a formal gown and a headdress of the heiress. The extreme sleeves and the ribbon skirt are part of the formal court dress. Manoheahpi is dressed in a casual outdoorsy aristocratic men's dress. He is a sage, hence the tattoos.

I think it's very interesting to figure out gendered clothing because it reveals so much about the gender construction and gender roles of a society. Ahinians have technically five genders, voasin - a woman, deavin - a man, vašáin - a third and separate gender category, voasdár - afab or intersex person, who lives as a man (-dár is masculine suffix), and deavnei - amab or intersex person, who lives as a woman (-nei is correspondingly a feminine suffix). In their culture gender is less defined by the body and more defined by the spirit. Their society is not entirely egalitarian though (even if more egalitarian than your typical patriarchal binary society), since their society is theocratic and gender essentialist, not in biological way but spiritual way. Therefore magic is very gendered. They are matriarchal so women hold most of the political power. This is reflected in dress - upper class fashions are more feminine coded, lower class fashions more masculine coded, and religious attires are vašáin coded because they are traditionally sages. In more formal setting aristocratic men too wear long gowns, and lower class women also wear shorter gowns.

I'm still figuring out the details of vašáin dress, clothing of lower classes and ceremonial dress. But I do know that very warm layered clothing is considered finer and more upper class, since the climate is very cold and the upper classes live in large castles, which can't be warmed to very comfortable temperatures. On the other hand lower classes live in small log cottages that are filled with hot smoke that even in very low temperatures keep the cottages in near 30C temperatures, so their indoors clothing are basically one layer, which they see as underwear. So even in hot summer upper classes dress in a lot of layers for formal occasions, the layers are then just thin and made of silk, linen and/or nettle. They don't wear crowns, but they wear elaborate hair jewelry indoors (with caps when it's cold indoors too) and elaborate hats outdoors. Lower classes also wear more toned down and more practical hair jewelry, but mostly caps and hats.

Also this all applies only in the agricultural area, which is along the Vuolhú river (the area marked in the map). The societal structures are very different outside it (so most of the country) where agriculture is not possible and people are herders and hunter-gatherers and quite nomadic. Population density is quite expectedly much higher in the agricultural area, so people wise, it's most of the country.

For Storyteller Saturday!

If I haven't sent you an ask already and you'd like one (or if I have sent you an ask and you'd like another one) please reblog this with an emoji of your choice. I will interpret your emoji to the best of my abilities and send you a sufficiently appropriate ask. Maybe it'll be close to what you were thinking, maybe it won't, but either way, hopefully it'll be entertaining!

Have a bitchin day <3

(Tag list @amandacanwrite @elsie-writes @riveriafalll @kosmic-kore @kaylinalexanderbooks @bard-coded @carrotsinnovember @patternwelded-quill @somethingclevermahogony @whatwewrotepodcast @goldxdarkness @the-angriest-author @mk-writes-stuff)

Happy STS round 2! What level of medical knowledge exists in Alium?

Thanks again!

A lot of medical knowledge, due to advanced tech because, well, they have healers as a decent part of their population (the fifth most common).

Healers can sense what's wrong in someone who's sick. Even if they don't have the medical expertise, they would be able to tell where the problem was, and a general idea of what's going on, even if they don't know the exact terminology. Most healers are encouraged to study medicine due to their abilities, for better or worse.

Healers can also, of course, heal to varying degrees. For example, Level-1 healers would be able to close up wounds and prevent blood loss, but wouldn't be able to heal more cell damage, such as burns. Level-2 healers can heal burns, and Level-3 healers can prevent scarring.

The way powered-healing works is that they have significantly higher macrophages, which healers are encouraged to donate, and those can be used to create antidotes, medications, vaccines, etc. Healers also have the ability to boost mitochondrial energy production and regeneration, more ATP energy, and enhanced cell signalling to repair the damaged cells. With the proper samples, technology did develop to semi-replicate this ability in for relatively minor injuries. Does this make Level-1 healers feel obsolete? Yeah. It does, thanks for asking.

In summary, Alium has higher medical tech due to healers being common enough.

Thanks!

TSP intro

TSP tag list (ask to be +/-): @thepeculiarbird @illarian-rambling @televisionjester @finchwrites

Happy STS, Tori!

Looking back, what's your writing-related highlight of this year?

Hey, Sam!

This year goes down in my lifetime achievement writing years!

I published two freaking books this year!!! ♥️♥️♥️

Ayyyy, Aqua! :D Happy STS! So I'm making my way through Titan Modern AU, and . . . actually, take two questions on it. 8)

I have legitimately looked everywhere, and I am severely curious. :') Have you thought of a title for this one, or is its title literally just Titan Modern AU?

More importantly, tho, how much did you have to change to make the world of Fangthane's Folly fit the modern day? (And what did you end up keeping? I notice there's magic and dwarves, but how different are these bits compared to their DnD roots?)

Hope this ask finds you well! :D o/

Hi Jax, this is technically a day late, but not really because time zones are a thing :P. I am very well, thank you. I am enjoying the fact that the words seem to be flowing quite easily for the time being and taking advantage of that to write a lot for all my ongoing series and creating new ones. Thanks very much for the questions, I have a lot to talk about with this AU :D. Answers are under a cut because the second one is going to get quite long.

Question 1

I don't currently have an actual title for this one yet. I have a tendency to title WIPs towards the end of writing them and this one is no exception. I have some vague ideas, but I'm not too concerned about it just yet. Especially since there's a high possibility that this one is going to throw some major curveballs my way once I get into the thick of the plot that might well change the kind of title I want to give it.

Question 2

Ah, the dwarves are technically not a thing for this one. Everyone is more or less human, unless it's directly stated otherwise. The reason Fangthanian women can have beards at all is down to a slight genetic quirk which means they are pre-disposed to much higher testosterone levels than average. The Throffite community, in particular, is very insular and tend to inter-marry within themselves due to a history of discrimination against them.

As to how I changed the setting to fit with the modern aesthetic:

I've modelled Fangthane city a little bit after towns like Fort William, since the location of Fangthane in Allansia has a relatively similar geography to that of the Scottish Highlands. So Fangthane city is no longer built into the mountain, but is a city that was built very close to the mountain (which is now called Ben Oir). Extrapolating from there, and taking into account the maps that exist of Allansia, it was a a matter of figuring out how and why there would be outposts for the kingdom that are so far away from the capital. In that case, an old empire made a lot of sense, and taking into account the relative time period this AU is set in (roughly the 90s to early 2000s), it also made sense that said empire had been disbanded, but that communities deriving from it still exist (hence why Stonebridge and Firetop are still mainly natively Fangthanian). So, yeah, culturally speaking Fangthane is basically the UK transplanted into Allansia at this point.

I wanted some of the history of Toreguarde to remain intact because there are plot things related to that that will pop up later in the story. The city was almost destroyed, officially, by what is considered to have been a terrorist organisation that was working on behalf of another state and/or one of the ruling council of Toreguarde of the time who went just teeny bit mad with power (Greydown was an absolute ass in canon, and is in this AU too).

As the setting, rather purposefully, appears to be lacking in magic, no mentions are made of demons, portals or the breaking of reality, even by those who were present at the time. The remaining Heroes still exist, but I'm working out what their exact roles in all that were. Egrim is still a priest, so that's him covered. Alexis, upon talking to Dru about it, was probably a sniper that was a part of the military forces of Toreguarde at the time, while Selene was probably some sort of science-y nerd person brought in to help explain some of the weirder stuff that went on that was kind of acknowledged and then later given plausible and sensible scientific explanations. She just happened to be somewhat decent at this diplomacy lark when communication with the reinforcements from Fangthane started going south, hence her current role in the story. She probably worked quite closely with Ivan, who I have yet to figure out the details of, with regards to that. I also need to figure out what Fai did and what happened to him...

I am doing a lot of this worldbuilding and adjusting Fantasy canon on the fly, to be quite honest, so not a lot of it is set in stone just yet. However, I have given some thought to the Throffite community both in Fangthane and in Toreguarde and some of their history and culture, drawing a lot on what I established about Throffism in the fantasy canon and doing some major research into the irl history of such things to make sure that anything I write about it is handled as sensitively as possible. I have also written copious notes on the hows and whys of the fractious relationship between Fangthane and Toreguarde that would fit in with more modern (Western, as that is what I'm familiar with) political norms.

Happy STS! Sort your OCs into Breakfast Club type high school archetypes, please

Hello and thank you for the ask! Apologies that it took me like an entire month to respond.... November and December are the busiest, most exhausting months for my job ^.^||

For the Shapeshifter trio:

Jay - The Punk/The Misfit. Easily one of the most smartest kids in her class, but staunchly anarchist and anti-establishment so her grades don't reflect her academic ability.

Kerr - The Jock. Charismatic, athletic, capable, what more can I say? Uses his reputation to look out for the misfits and outcasts, and won't tolerate bullying from his teammates.

Warrick - The Theater Kid. Bombastic and exuberant, sees everyone as his friend, and the kid can't sing but he's a damn entertaining actor. Knows when to tone it down, though, thank fuck.

Happy STS! If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?

Thanks for the ask!

*drumroll*

✨WRITE WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT✨ closely followed by a reminder that it isn't necessary to pursue any form of conventional publishing to justify dedicating time and energy to writing.

That's also what I'd tell anyone else's writing self at any age or any stage in their writing journey 💜

Does anyone want Storyteller Saturday questions?

Please interact with this post if you do!

May-June 1948. One of the most brutal Golden Age Batman stories is this bleak entry from WORLD'S FINEST COMICS #34, an atypically dark tale by Edmond Hamilton and Dick Sprang, about the rise and fall of a ruthless hired killer. Unusually, the story begins by revealing that the killer is already dead, an unidentified body on a slab in the morgue, and flashes back to his earlier life:

Even if you're willing to allow that Durfee's love of guns "should have been normal and healthy," the sadism and sociopathy on display here doesn't speak highly of the parenting skills of Jim's father. Yikes.

If you watch a lot of older film noir, this flashback sequence might seem somewhat familiar. I'm reasonably certain that it was inspired by a 1940 MacKinlay Kantor short story called "Gun Crazy," originally published in THE SATURDAY EVENING POST. About a year and a half after this story was published, Kantor and screenwriter Dalton Trumbo adapted "Gun Crazy" into the screenplay for a movie of the same title, directed by Joseph H. Lewis and released by United Artists in early 1950. "Gun Crazy" is also the story of a young man (called Nelson Tare in the original story) whose love of guns eventually leads to his destruction, although both the story and the film present their protagonist in a more sympathetic light than Hamilton does. As we soon see, Durfee is a monster:

Durfee decides to offer his services as a hired killer to gangster Pete Goro, being careful not to let Goro know his real name or even what he looks like. After completing several jobs for this new client, Durfee accepts a thousand dollars from another gangster to kill Goro, although to maintain his reputation, he still carries out his last commission for Goro: killing Gotham district attorney Tim Logan. Meanwhile, Batman, who has learned how Durfee's potential clients contact him, but nothing that would identify the killer, attempts to lure Durfee into the open by anonymously hiring him to kill Bruce Wayne!

Batman and Robin are unsuccessful in capturing the wily assassin, but when Durfee realizes that he's failed to kill Bruce Wayne, his pride leads him to try again on the grounds of the newly opened county fair. Batman manages to decoy him with a Bruce Wayne dummy, but Durfee knocks Batman momentarily senseless with the wooden stock of his gun and loses himself in the crowd. Then:

So, Durfee is finally shot dead by a random cop who has no idea who he is, for a crime he hasn't actually committed. He then ends up buried in an anonymous grave, and even Batman never knows his real name. A very grim drama indeed, and a story that seems more suited to the gritty crime comics of the period, like CRIME DOES NOT PAY or Simon & Kirby's JUSTICE TRAPS THE GUILTY for Prize, than the relatively sedate WORLD'S FINEST. The cover of this issue, incidentally, sports this light-hearted Win Mortimer illustration of Batman, Robin, and Superman having fun:

(The other stories in this anthology issue aren't especially dark or violent, but it's still a little jarring!)

It is once again STS and I am once again at work tonight, so in honour of that I'm throwing this to the lot of you:

Your OCs have come to my escape room. How are they getting on in there?

Happy STS! If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?

If I could tell my younger self anything, it would be that the key to outlining and worldbuilding is to ask myself the question "Why Does It Matter?" Because if it doesn't matter to the character and the plot, then I'm wasting my time worldbuilding it, and I'm just procrastinating.

There were many years there where I would spend so much time and energy worldbuilding and plotting, that by the time I began writing a story I was bored of it. That stopped me making good progress on my stories for years.

It wasn't until I stumbled over Abbie Emmons on youtube that I first heard someone talk about worldbuilding in that way and it really unlocked the key to the whole process for me.

So if I could have learnt to look at it that way much earlier, I can't even thing about how much forward progress I might have made just a little earlier.

Happy Storyteller Saturday!

When you finish a first draft, how does it look? Is it readable or does it have more holes than a swiss cheese? What are your next steps, and how much changes?

(If you haven't finished one yet, what do you think how it'll look when you get there?)

Happy Storyteller... Sunday? (:

(Sorry for the late answer!)

Usually, my first drafts are very messy but readable. I may skip a few scenes, or add quick notes instead - what I know the characters need to do, or what I don't know they are going to do, so that I can figure it out later. After finishing a draft I usually take the time to try and write in some of those skipped scenes, do a bit of editing to polish off the writing for the second draft, think of what went "wrong" or what I really enjoyed about certain scenes, or just like, erase whole chunks of the story that don't work anymore and think about what scenes could take their place, that sort of thing!

Then, depending on how I feel about the final version of this first draft, I may set it aside for a while and start some other WIPs (a hiatus, so to speak, to let the ideas for the next draft rest and develop, so that I can come back to it some months later with a fresh mind. For example, my WIP The Last Wrath is in that kind of hiatus rn!), or - if I'm really, really full of ideas and excited to write this next draft - I just move onto the second draft. (: