#borders are concepts and lives are real

[royalberryriku]

Just hearing now about Israel and, upon such, have some thoughts but I also recognise I'm not the most educated in the history of the matter nor know enough to have a strong opinion.

I will say, however, that it seems that the governments and those in power are to blame on both sides while I'm always seeing innocent people, civilians, suffer for power hungry governments.

Too many innocent Palestinian civilians have died, too many innocent Israeli civilians have died. And it's always the governments doing the killing, the driving people from their homes, the bombing, the kidnappings; the atrocities.

War is poison, nationalism only serves those in power.

So much death in the name of patriotism and nationalism, and for what? Because a one rich man wants more land over another rich man's land, both of which are inhabited by neither just regular folk who die either way because the rich men in question don't care who lives there, just who owns it? Or perhaps they do, perhaps that's the whole problem; because they're so caught up over who's Palestinian or Israeli that they don't realise both are fucking dying because they want to kill so badly.

Just... who's this war even for? Two greedy and bloodthirsty people who aren't the ones dying and having their homes destroyed? Two leaders who are harming their own citizens in the name of nationalism? It's true, I don't understand the cultural significance of these places, who's ancestors are "rightfully" from where and whose ancestors have said what. I don't know and it's not my place to say. But I do know that nationalism, ownership of land and pride isn't worth the price that's being paid in blood. It's the civilians being killed I can't stand, and there's lists and lists of Palestinians who are dying and who've been killed and Israelis are dying and have been killed. And none of them, of either side, should have had to die.

It's just nothing but sad and senseless, and the rest of the world can only watch helpless as those in power squabble with not the slightest guilt of how their own citizens die from their greed and desire for each other's land. And for what? Scorched dirt filled with each other's blood? A land with no one left to occupy it because you're fighting each other by butchering anyone who lives on that land?

I don't know how to solve this conflict, but I can say with confidence that the citizens aren't to be killed for the sake of those in power who can't see past their own ambitions. I do think that both leaders are criminally corrupt to allow such bloodshed and brutality, to let citizens pay the price of their respective leader's desire for land. Land is land. When both countries are nothing but giant bloodstains, land won't matter because there won't be anyone to inhabit them. It's ridiculously idiot of these leaders to place their pride ahead of their people.

Again, perhaps I'm wrong, I don't know what others do and I'm just some young adult who lives far from this reality. I don't have the information to judge off of and all I have is the attempts to understand with what I have. But I do have the common sense to say that this bloodshed is wrong and senseless, and that the leaders must surely be corrupt to not have the slightest care for the people being killed, even in their own nation, while strangers look own and have more compassion for their own people.

It all makes me sad, angry and endlessly grieve for those who suffer for those in power who don't care for the suffering of those outside their pristine windows.

#palestine #israel #writing #politics #tw genocide #tw war #this is why i hate power and governments #they're so often corrupt and only care about money land and pride #I'm sad and angry of the senselessness of it all #Let the violance end for gods sake and allow people to live #I don't understand and granted perhaps this makes this foolish and silly #but I think the killing of innocents is wrong #civilians shouldn't die for a leader's ambitions #yet every war always ends up this way #I deeply wish that a compationate leader came to power on both sides and let the past just be #and stop killing #if they must settle this then led the leaders loose in an arena stop murdering civilians #a baby born Palestinian or Israeli didn't cause this shit so no I don't think butchering a baby will help #borders are concepts and lives are real #blood shouldn't be spilled when the land will just be desolate as a result

[dailyadventureprompts]

Do the ethnostates inherent in major fantasy ever feel real weird to you? You’ve got elftopia (full of elves, where everyone speaks elf and worships the elf gods), orc-hold (full of orcs and maybe their slaves, where everyone speaks orc and worships the orc gods), and dwarfton (made by the dwarves! for the dwarves!).

You might have some cosmopolitan areas, usually human-dominant, but those are usually rare enough in-setting that they need to be pointed out separately. Is this just based on a misunderstanding of the medieval era, and the assumption that countries were all racially homogenous?

This has been bouncing around my brain the last little while. Do you have any thoughts on that? Is it just in my head?

I think what you've noticed is a quirk of derivative fantasy writing, which like a lot of hangups with the genre originates in people trying to crib Tolkien's work without really understanding what he was going for:

Though it contains a lot of detail, Tolkien's world is not grounded. It functions according a narrative logic that changes depending on what work in particular you're focusing on at the time (The Hobbit is a fairytale full of tricks and riddles, Lord of the Rings is a heroic epic, The Silmirilion is a legendary history).

One of the reasons the races are separate is to instill the feeling of wonder in the hobbits as POV characters for the reader, other folk live in far off places and are supposed to feel more legendary than our comparatively mundane friends from the shire. The Movies captured this well where going east in middle earth was like going back in time to a more and more mythologized past.

In real life, people don't stay static for thousands of years, no matter how long their people live. They meet, mingle, war and trade. Empires rise and fall creating shrapnel as they go, cultures adapt to a changing environment. This means that any geographic cross section you make is going to be a collage of different influences where uniformity is a glaring aberration.

What the bad Tolkien knockoffs did was take his image of a mythical world and tried to make it run in a realistic setting. Tolkien can say the subterranean dwarven kingdom of Erebor lasted for a thousand years without having to worry about birthrates or demographic shifts or the logistics of farming in a cave because he's writing the sort of story where those things don't matter. D&D and other properties like it however INSIST that their worlds are grounded and realistic but have to bend over backwards to keep things static and hegemonic.

Likewise contributing to the "ethnostate" feeling is early d&d (backbone of the fantasy genre that it is) being created by a bunch of White Midwestern Americans who were not only coming from a background of fantasy wargaming but were working during the depths of the coldwar. Hard borders and incompatible ideologies, cultural hegemony and intellectual isolation, a conception of the world that focused around antagonism between US and THEM. These were people born in the era of segregation for whom the idea of cultural and racial osmosis was alien, to the point where mingling between different fantasy races produced the "mongrelman" monster, natural pickpockets who combined the worst aspects of all their component parts, unwelcome in good society who were most often found as slaves.

This inability to appreciate cultural exchange is likewise why the central d&d pantheon has a ton of human gods with specific carveouts for other races (eventually supplemented with a bunch of race specific minor gods who are various riffs on the same thing). Rather than being universal ideals, the gods were seen as entities just as tribalistic as their followers.

#dnd meta #history #tolkien

[writingwithcolor]

Creatures of Folklore Who Represent Cultures Preventing Wars Throughout History

Anonyomous asked:

Hi! I’m writing a story which is set in a fantasy version of our world. The main difference between our real world and my fictional version is that the spirits and fairies of each culture and folklore exist, and that the majority of them basically stop war from happening because they react very badly (and potentially violently) when invading forces etc try to start battles. 

I’m doing a lot of research into the histories of the various cultures that will be featured in the books set in this world so I can hypothesise how they might have developed without, for example, violent colonialism, and where trade and so on might have flourished in its place. However, it’s possible for colonialism to happen through more insidious ways, such as assimilation. In one of my books, I’m intending to use this as part of the plot, where Japan will try to colonise the Ryukyuan Kingdom through assimilation, but will be stopped by the Ryukyuan Kingdom making allies with other nations (amongst other tactics), but I was wondering if you had any advice for respectfully handling the colonialism that very much did happen in real life in a fantasy setting where it didn’t manage to occur, without erasing the history and ramifications etc of what actually happened?

Do fox spirits have citizenship? 

You mean well with this concept, but there are multiple key problems. 

One major issue with cordoning off spirits and folklore creatures by “patron” culture and have them fight said patrons’ battles is that there’s a lot of overlap. It’d be hard for there not to be a conflict of interest. 

For example, everyone knows about the kitsune fox spirit from Japan. But the story of the fox spirit was introduced to Japan and Korea by China, where they are called húlijīng. These foxes are remarkably similar, with their characteristics and stories almost borrowed wholesale. Are they all the same “species?” If so, when small differences emerge in the countries’ folktales, how do you resolve this? Do these spirits also morph and specialize, or does one interpretation win out? How about when kingdoms are unified, like the Korean Three Kingdoms–do separate versions of the kumiho reverse-evolve into a single variant? What side do they pick when these kingdoms and empires try to battle? If they live apart from humans or aren’t very friendly with them, why would they have a reason to care about invasions when they have no reason to be allegiant to said borders, or whatever name they’re called in whichever country whose land they live on?

Folkloric beings are never static, and are influenced over time by cultural shifts and exchanges, including shifting borders. Human history is stuffed cover-to-cover with events of what we called “conquest” then and “occupation” or “colonization” now. And through these changes, cultures diverged and came together, creating new stories. In other words: not even fairy tales are immune to colonization. 

Leigh can explain the rest. 

~ Rina

The Problem with Retconning War

A very simple question for you:

How are you going to rectify every single historical war that’s ever existed?

Like, the whole plot of the Trojan War as we know it is that the gods of the same culture were on different sides! And the gods made the war last as long as it did. Alexander the Great was a colonizer. Romans were definitely colonizers. Ottomans and Mongols, also colonizers. It wasn’t to the scale of modern colonialism, but it happened. If you look at census records from the 1800s of Indigenous populations in North America, you’ll find that the men 20+ have way lower numbers because they died in war! 

I’m not of the opinion that the basic state of humanity is war and we are barely contained by base instincts. But I’m also not so far in the other direction that I believe humans lack any sort of warring instincts. It shows up in chimps and other primates, so it shows up in humans.

In a way, it sounds like you’ve taken a very Christian-fundamentalist-centric view of things, which is: humans need religion to be “contained”. That humans are amoral without some sort of religion or folklore or spirits telling them to not do a “bad thing.”

This is ignoring how people have been using religion to justify wars since religion was invented. As Rina said, there can be overlap in groups’ beliefs and deities so there’s the side-picking issue, which as I mentioned is the whole plot of the Trojan War. Even when humans write about gods meddling in war, they have the gods not all be on the same side.

Humans have war. Humans try to take over other groups because they want the resources that group has. Alliances shift. Territories shift.

This is also treating humans as a monolith—there are populations within the colonized groups that agree with the colonizers because they get benefits. Claiming that all colonized groups hate all aspects of their colonialism all of the time is deeply ahistorical and flattened. Sometimes the benefits were only for a small group, but sometimes the benefits were far-reaching. It’s in the India tag on WWC, varying views of the Mughals. 

Also, how will you handle the Christianization of Europe? How will you handle all of this folklore that only got written down via monks and nuns making notes and modifying beliefs to fit the Bible? Will any area with only Christianity’s records written down not have folklore? 

And how will you handle folklore drift? Religions are not static. If you look at Greek myths, there are ten to thirty versions of each story and those are just the ones that survived. Each city-state had its own mythology, using the same gods, modified to fit the local needs.

And what about folklore that deals with war and thrives in war? What about the gods of war and destruction? I know Norse mythology is Christianized beyond recognition, but even in its Christianized form half of it is about war. Would the Valkyries, whose whole purpose is to find valiant soldiers slain in battle, not want war? Their whole purpose is war.

Also, on top of it—how will you handle revolution?

You say yourself, colonialism could still happen subtly. Colonialism and injustice can still happen. Will these subjugated spirits force an already disadvantaged group to exclusively use a rigged system to try and politely ask for their rights back? Or would these spirits want to be free and support the means necessary to take it back?

War has happened to upend the divine right of kings. War has happened to free slaves (Haiti). War has happened for basic workers’ rights (some union strikes have resulted in war). 

You’re basically removing a whole toolbox in the fight for a better world. Yes, not being able to colonize because of fantasy AU sounds fine, until you realize that pretty much all of human history from the Romans has been created via war to some degree.

You’re basically just saying “violence is bad and humans need fantasy babysitters to not dive into it”, which really doesn’t sound that great once you sit with it. It removes human agency, removes human nature, and ignores the entire history of the planet.

-Leigh (Lesya)

Marika interjecting here:

We had an ask (Linked here) envisioning a story set in a de-colonized Hawai’i and the socio-political issues with that. Same problem.

#folklore #fairy tales #war #Religion #worldbuilding #world history #colonization #colonialism #history #mythology #asks

[butchfairyzine]

“FEY: A Guide to Fairies of the Butch Variety” themes (Text version)🐸

This book will explore butch fairies, arranged into six differently themed sections. Below are descriptions of these themes, as well as a number of example concepts that might fall under them! You can choose one of the examples we’ve provided, or come up with something yourself - as long as you run it by the mods to approve!

We will be choosing five (5) artists and one (1) writer per theme - one (1) artist to illustrate the ‘title spread’, and four (4) to illustrate the ‘guides’ within. The writer will be asked to provide snippets, comments, short poems, and descriptions to intersperse with spot illustrations on the ‘guide’ pages.

🌱 Garden Fairies

Garden fairies thrive in the world’s backyards - they can be plant-themed, critter-themed, and insect-themed. Large or palm-size, they tend to their surroundings with care and good spirit, and are often brightly colored, eye-catching things. This is your ‘Seelie’ group, for a real-world folklore equivalent.

Example concepts:

A fairy taming a grasshopper steed

A petal-winged rose fairy sleeping in a flower bud

A butterfly fairy collecting nectar

🏡 House Fairies

House fairies reside in and around the home. They are usually small, hiding from humans in nooks and crannies and forgotten places - and will get stuck between the couch cushions. They come out when the coast is clear to make mischief: rearranging trinkets, pilfering snacks, turning up the corners of carpets - all heinous behavior!

Their own dwellings are not to be trifled with, however. They’re of the utmost coziness, warm and safe and full of . . . ‘collected’ goods . . .

Example concepts:

A fairy facing off against a housecat

A fairy in their little home surrounded by myriad stolen trinkets

Fairies scheming to throw something nasty in a human’s stew

🕸️ Dark Fairies

Dark fairies dwell in the domains of shadow - in fairytales with unhappy endings, in childrens’ nightmares, under the surface both figuratively and literally speaking. They rejoice in sowing discord and causing mayhem, and shun the light. These are your ‘Unseelie’ equivalents.

Example concepts:

A murderous moth fairy poised to strike

A hag-like fairy offering a bargain one can’t refuse

A gaggle of tooth fairies

👑 Courtly Fairies

Courtly fairies are those who spend most of their time between lavish palace walls, voluntarily or otherwise. Towering spires, silkspun sheets, all wreathed in swirling gold filigree - a fairy court makes itself known for miles around. Most other fairies consider them the least carefree, though every once in a while a monarch does crop up who rules the land with wild abandon, whipping all fairykind into a frenzy for a decade or fifty. 

As an aside: dark fairies enjoy courtly fairies as particular targets for their curses, twisting their beauty and opulence into ironic reflections.

Example concepts:

A cursed fairy monarch chained to their throne

A rogue fairy prince on the run

A fairy knight in beetle armor

🌆 City Fairies

City fairies have bid the splendors of the fey adieu for the neon-splashed fast lanes of a human metropolis. Usually, they try to (more or less) blend in, bask in humans’ energy, break their hearts and leave them wondering how you do that thing you do. Little city fairies exist, too, trying their best not to get crushed underfoot as they go about their busy lives!

Example concepts:

A raver fairy stealing the show in a color-soaked warehouse

A mundane-looking fairy creating otherworldly pastries with the help of some friends

A fairy guardian of some public property

🔥 Wyld Fairies

Wyld fairies are closest in essence to magic itself, to nature and those primordial forces they let flow through them: the elements. They eschew court-made laws, borders, customs, and causes, simply forging their own paths through life with little consideration of worldly issues. They are bright like fire, deep as water, free as the wind.

Example concepts:

A fairy fire dancer

A seahorse (or, ‘kelpie’) herding underwater-fairy

A fairy exploring the edge of the upper atmosphere

#butch fairy zine #fairy zine #fey: a guide to fae of the butch variety #art zine #long post #text post

[agendercreature]

I need to be autistic about history for a second. Bare with me. Bismarck was one of the worst people in the history of Germany. Sure he "unified" Germany in 1871. By which i mean the borders looked nicer. Did any minorities benefit from that? Poles, gypsies, frenchies? No of course not. If anything things got worse because yay we have a centralized Germany now so now EVERYONE has to behave like a German. Oh youre Polish? Well better hope we dont increase your taxes so youll have to leave the country hehe. Dont worry your old house will be settled by REAL Germans when youre gone. Oh the French are mad at us because we stole their land? Im sure that wont come to bite us for the next hundred years. In the meantime lets make sure that the Poles hate us forever. Oh they liked us before and Germans got along with them very peacefully? They could practice their own culture even though they didnt have their own country? Nonono thats over now. We are Germany now and we cant have any of that Polish people being happy nonsense in here. Lemme just completely throw our international friendships away for nothing and replace it with violent xenophobia that will make literally everyone hate us. Who needs peace and cooperation anyway when we can have racism and hatred. But atleast we "unified " Germany (for everyone who we consider to be German enough to live here). Thanks Bismarck, thanks nationalism. Good job. Nationalism is and always was a cancer on this planet and i cant wait to see the concept of nationstates burn

#196 #history #rant post

[morbidology]

When considering human sacrifices, the concept often seems more suited for a movie plot than a grim reality. Unfortunately, in 1989, Mark Kilroy, a 21-year-old student from the University of Texas, learned firsthand how tragically real such practices could be. Kilroy was on spring break with university friends in Matamoros, Mexico, when he mysteriously vanished during an outing to local bars.

Cross-border authorities initiated an extensive search for Kilroy, but their efforts yielded no results, causing the case to go cold. It was only reopened when Serafin Hernandez, a Mexican national, evaded a police checkpoint, prompting a pursuit that led to a remote ranch named Rancho Santa Elena. Investigation revealed that this ranch served as the headquarters for a drug-smuggling cult led by Adolfo de Jesus Constanzo. This cult engaged in bloodthirsty rituals, seeking supernatural protection through the sacrifice of a human victim, whose heart and brain were then cooked and consumed by the members.

An excavation of the ranch on April 11, 1989, brought to light the mutilated body of Mark Kilroy along with 14 other victims. While Constanzo and some cult members managed to escape the ranch, they ultimately took their own lives as authorities closed in on them. The shocking discovery highlighted the gruesome reality of human sacrifices perpetrated by this drug-smuggling cult in Matamoros.

#true crime #cult

[justburningdaylight]

The Art and the Aesthete

Eddie Munson x Fem Henderson!Reader, Best Friend Steve x Fem Henderson!Reader

Summary: The first time reader meets Eddie is also the first time she truly appreciates art.

Warnings: fluff, slight paul mccartney idolization, a LOT of art comparisons, ted bundy reference, no real ending at all (sorry guys), like one f-bomb i think, no spoilers!

Word count: 1.4k

a/n: i finished stranger things and naturally i wanted to write a lil something for eddie so here we are. p.s. requests are open come talk to me! 

You were sitting on the floor of your bedroom with your back pressed contently against your bed, silently willing your best friend to stop talking. Steve had come over to complain after what you could only hyperbolically guess was his hundredth date this month.

“And it’s like okay, it’s cool if we have similar opinions! But there’s no way you actually agree with every single thing I say! I mean seriously (y/n), I said the Beatles were better than the Rolling Stones just to see what she’d say and she agreed!”

“That’s because the Beatles are better, inordinately better actually-”

“Woah, hey, I just wanted to make sure you were listening! Please don’t give me the Paul McCartney is a god speech again.”

“I was listening, I just wasn’t sure how to reply. You don’t want to go out with her again because she agreed with you? You really dodged a bullet Harrington. I mean imagine if you had gotten serious with this girl? ‘Hey honey do you want to go out to dinner tonight?’ ‘Yes Steve, that sounds nice.’ I mean seriously? What a psycho!” You quip, making sure to use a vocal impression of him that you know Steve hates.

“You’re not funny, Henderson, anybody ever tell you that?” He exclaims, flopping backwards onto the plush fabric of your duvet.

“I do! Tell her all the time actually.” Dustin suddenly appears in your room without knocking you can’t help but notice.

Steve lets out a diminutive chuckle, unsubtly attempting to cover it with a cough.

“You know what I tell you all the time? To knock, like on my door, before you just walk in. Does that sound familiar?”

“Hmmm. No, no not really.”

“Oh? Do you want me to tell you again in a way that you won’t forget?” You threaten, trying less than gracefully to pull yourself off the floor while conjuring up the most menacing look you can and aiming it toward your little brother.

“Ooh I’m real scared. I shouldn’t have to knock anyway cause you were supposed to drop me and Mike off at Hellfire Club like five minutes ago.”

“So because I forgot, the basic concept of privacy is thrown out the window?”

“Yep! Let’s go, chop-chop! I’ve got a campaign to win.” Dustin throws haphazardly over his shoulder as he walks out of your room, knowing you already agreed to drive him and wouldn’t want to chance getting another lecture from your mother about the importance of being there for each other.

“Hey how much do you know about this Eddie guy? Dustin hasn’t shut up about him for weeks,” Steve says as you start your walk to the driveway.

“Well I’ve never actually met him, I just drop the boys off for their club sometimes.”

“You’ve never met him? And you just leave them there? That sounds right to you? What if he’s some Ted Bundy type?”

The look you give him is the middle ground between amusement and confusion. Though you’re sure a small part of him could be worried for your brother’s safety, it seems far more likely that he’s jealous Dustin has another older friend to hang out with.

“Please! If you were a killer, would you let Dustin live this long?” You’re joking, but you’re completely convinced that your little brother is far too annoying for someone with murderous tendencies to keep around long-term.

“Ha! And I said you weren’t funny,” Dustin’s voice sounds again, dripping with sarcasm, “Seriously (y/n)! If I’m late to this thing you’re gonna have to explain it to Eddie.” He’s bordering on whining now and you resist the urge to roll your eyes and take twice as long just to spite him.

“Alright!” You shout and turn back to Steve “See you later. Oh hey! Watch out for agreeable girls on your way home! You can never be too careful.”

“Alright, okay, point taken. Maybe I’m being a little too picky.”

“I’m glad you picked up on that.” You say getting into your car.

“See you later Hendersons!” 

“Bye Steve!” Dustin’s impatient form calls out waving goodbye from the passenger seat.

“Finally!” Mike and Dustin chorus in unison as your car pulls into the parking lot. You silently praise yourself for mustering up the strength not to fling an insult or two at the boys after what was one of the more infuriating car rides in your recent memory.

“Well, well, well, look who finally decided to show up! Glad you boys found the time to fit me into your busy schedule.” An unfamiliar voice weaves its way through the crisp evening air.

“We’re sorry!” “So sorry! My sister doesn’t seem to know the meaning of the words I don’t want to be late so y’know here we are, late.” Mike and Dustin sound as they promptly scramble to get unbuckled and out of the car.

“What was that Dusty?” You question sarcastically, “Thank you for driving me even though I’ve been a proverbial thorn in your side for the entire night? Oh you are just so welcome!”

Unappreciative little-

Your internal strife is short-lived as you hear a chuckle sounding from the unfamiliar boy, who you’re now certain must be Eddie. You finally look over at him and your eyes widen emphatically at the sight you behold.

You’d heard tales of Eddie Munson. Word of mouth told you that he’s a Hawkins aberration, an unwelcome presence in a town with an already less than stellar reputation. Hearing what you have, you weren’t entirely sure what to expect. What you hadn’t expected, however, was for him to look so entirely beautiful.

His face was comparable to a work of art, an ancient roman statue permitted to be standing in a museum somewhere, as though his cheekbones could have been carved out by Michelangelo himself, dimples and all. His eyes were the purest shade of brown, tantamount to a jar of honey, warm and saccharine. Sinuous dark brown hair lay lustrously on his head, winding its way toward his broad shoulders. Perhaps he was a recently stolen work from a modern museum.

You were staring, taking in his statuesque form nearly unabashedly until you realized how impolitely it could be perceived.

You found yourself lifting your gaze back to his eyes, only to find them already looking into your own. 

“Forget about it.” He’s talking to the boys but his caramel eyes haven’t moved from yours.

Dustin furrowed his eyebrows at the interaction but muttered a quick ‘bye’ to you as he and Mike hastily dashed inside.

“So. You’re the sister huh? (y/n) right?” He asks, the beginnings of a smile leisurely forming on his delicate lips; a true masterpiece in the making. 

There’s a flicker of something in his eyes and, though you can’t discern what it is precisely, you don’t mind it for a second. Surely there was an art gallery somewhere itching to put him on display. 

“Yeah, mmhmm, yep, that’s me.” Okay. That’s definitely something you just said. Cool. “You must be Eddie.” He nods, that same ghost of a smile still perfectly haunting his graceful lips. You’re pulling it together, a coherent sentence and everything! “I feel like I should thank you or something,” He furrows his eyebrows together in a winsome display of confusion, and you hurry to continue before you make yourself appear nervous again.

“Y’know for looking out for Dustin. All of the boys, really. They’re good kids but high school can be hell and they’re insistent that it would be if it weren’t for you. So thank you, really.” You smile widely, visibly pleased that you haven’t made a complete fool of yourself in front of the perfectly composed work of art before you.

He’s smiling now. An expertly crafted smile. A smile that makes it feel as though the sun itself is rising higher into the sky. How does he do that?

“They’re good kids you know? And high school is a fuckin’ nightmare, I would have wanted somebody to do the same for me.” He’s downplaying his kindness, but you can see straight through the display.

The two of you stay like that for a while, gentle small talk flowing between you like a river through a secluded valley. His caramel eyes locked on yours and both of your faces adorned by unwavering smiles.

Reluctantly he releases a soft sigh and straightens his form out “I should probably get in there, give ‘em a little hell.”

“Yeah, go on. Have fun! Preferably kick Dustin’s ass.” 

“Always do.” He smirks at you, bowing his head in a near imperceptible nod before turning his back and walking off.

And without a moments notice, you were an aesthete.

#stranger things

[lelanida]

Attention, there will be a VERY personal crossover with a ten years old game.

What is the original Knock-Knock? We play as a scientist living in a house in the middle of a dying forest, who suffers from insomnia due to his loneliness and gradually goes crazy. He has nightmares that monsters from the forest have entered his house. In the end, the Lodger either locks himself in the house or leaves it, going into the forest.

"Wow. This is the certified Lamed moment," I thought, and this thought completely took over my attention!

Maybe I just liked the concept of "Lamed fighting off monsters in the Vault." But I just couldn't stop the flow of sketches. The Longer's replicas are perfect for Lamed. And the idea itself, too. Let's take it in order.

We have Elder Lamed trapped in limbo. It's been 1300 years since the Shattering, and she spends all this time cut off from the rest of the Vault's inhabitants. Even if her mind is as strong as steel, it begins to fall apart due to prolonged loneliness. Lamed begins to slowly but surely go crazy. In fact, anyone else in her place would long ago. But Lamed holds on because she is a rationalist who evaluates everything from the point of logic. She is completely coming to terms with the idea that there is nothing in this world that she can not explain.

Lamed suffers from insomnia because she constantly has nightmares. To distract herself, after another awakening, she goes through the archives of the Vault to make sure that everything is in place, and most importantly, that the front door is locked.

She has the same dream every night. It was as if darkness had penetrated the archives. In fact, the protective systems of Vault of Knowledge, although old, perform their task. But in Lamed's nightmares, all the walls have fallen, and the shadows are already inside, roaming the halls. Lamed is constantly on the border between two worlds, and he can not decide which is a nightmare and which is reality.

Monsters are called guests here. There are two types of them in the game itself: seeking and hiding.

Guests come only from dark rooms, and when they get into a light room, they break the light there. Sounds like a job for the familiars of darkness. In fact, they are not the size of a Lamed, but much smaller, but everything that happens in the second Vault is a bad dream, so things look a little different. Lamed is afraid of shadows. That's why she imagines them as her equals. The seeking guests move through the Vault behind the Lamed lamp light.

The hiding guests are different. Unlike the familiars, they're not here to give old Lamed creeps. They are here just like that, that's why they don't move from place to place, but wait patiently. Perhaps they are more afraid of Lamed than she is of them. I thought about who to take on this role for a long time and still decided not to invent new shadows but to take tlp spirits. In principle, everything works pretty well, given that they are a distorted reflection of the Lamed's long-lost family, and the second Vault is a nightmare filled with all her fears.

Everything that happens in the second Vault is a nightmare. Therefore, the guests can't really harm Lamed. Instead, they throw her back in time, prolonging the night. The goal of the whole adventure is to live until dawn so that the light will drive away Lamed's nightmares. Moreover, this is the goal not only in a dream but also in reality. In a real Vault. It's only there that time really goes by.

The original Knock-knock has three endings. The first one is game over. Some people really consider it a separate ending, and I can't blame them, considering how easy it is to get it in the second half of the game. The bottom line is simple: Lamed is going crazy. So simple.

Ending two: Lamed becomes convinced of the danger of the outside world and decides to lock the entrance gate once and for all. Now, the darkness will not penetrate the archives, but Lamed herself is unlikely to ever be able to get out. And most likely later she will go crazy too, because she was already close to it in the beginning.

Ending three: Lamed gets tired of running away from her fears and hiding. She decides to do something that will forever change her life. She wants to see her guests. Lamed opens the main gate, leaving the Vault of Knowledge and going out into the Wasteland. Most likely, she will immediately meet Tsadi, who has been guarding the entrance all these years, as he did during his lifetime.

There is still a lot of content in the game itself that I have not described here. There is a second character, an invisible girl, who gives the Lodger fragments of reality and guides him throughout the game. There is a Buka. A monster that approaches the Lodger's house in reality and drives him crazy in the second half of the game. There is a lost Lodger's diary, which we collect as the game progresses, realizing that someone is actually wandering around the house. But I don't have the energy for that anymore. Let's talk about it next time, if at least someone appreciates this crossover. It's better to play Knock-knock yourself and feel its atmosphere.

#sky children of the light #thatskygame #sky cotl #that sky game #sky cotl elders #lamed

[cuckoo-on-a-string]

Hello, Mr. Monster (Five. Sidhe)

Summary: Eros and Psyche inspired Soulmate!AU, Morpheus x female OC/reader

Masterlist The Nightmare's Interlude

Chapter Tracks: "Milk and Honey" by Delain, "Lacrymosa" by Mozart

18+/TRIGGER WARNING: Kidnapping, involuntary drug use, involuntary body modification, cutting (not self-harm), vague threat of SA/brainwashing

A/N: I LIVE!!! Thank you all for your patience. The story is jumping into a new arc!

Don't miss the bonus interlude chapter I posted! Linked above.

5: Sidhe

“Be careful on the road.”

Aisling’s ears rang with Fay’s parting words.

The fairie always treated the end of the season with a little too much gravitas, but this time she looked at Aisling like she could physically see danger growing over her. Brambles breaking through the asphalt or boulders crushing the van.

“Know something I don’t?” she’d asked.

“I know you find trouble, and trouble finds you. I know the world is trying to settle back into an old order, and it’s the hour of chaos and hungry hands. I know you’re alone, and the road is dangerous.”

Now, many hours and miles away, the conversation replayed on an endless loop in her head.

It haunted her. From the moment the words dropped from Fay’s lips, they settled around Aisling’s neck like a loadstone. They became a tale still furled in a fiddlehead, a glimpse of wyrd lurking in the road ahead, and she’d run off without a real destination in mind. Never a great plan. Even less so with this warning tossed in her lap like a dead fish. It stank of prophecy, and the age-old fight-or-flight response kicked in. There was nothing to fight, so she fled the entire concept of fate, driving in a vaguely New York direction.

A little distance helped. It gave her space to breathe. To think.

The wind combed tangles into her hair and some of the fear from her thoughts.

When she spied a rest area with lots of trees and very few guests, she pulled off the highway.

She sat in the van, cross-legged on the floor with the windows and sliding door open, letting the breeze cleanse the space. Well. All but one window open. Plastic sheeting rustled over the window the Not Deer shattered. Someday she might have money to repair it properly, but it wasn’t a priority.

There was so much to work through.

She meditated, looking inside, listening for the tidal rumble of raw intuition. The cards danced between her hands as she relaxed against the border of the unknown, trusting instinct over logic until fold, after fold, after fold she knew she had the right order. A three-card read. Quick, efficient.

No time for nuance on the road.

She turned the first card and found the Ace of Cups in the past position. The very recent past, she would guess. It practically sang the Dream King’s name. The Ace of Cups celebrated creativity, awakenings, and new feelings – new loves.

Heat crawled up her neck as the reading conjured memories in her skin. The touch of his hands. His mouth. His voice. The ash of the stars he teased to explode still drifted across her mind, sparking new life in places she’d been sure it would never grow. It made her curious. It made her wonder what else he could do if she let him. It made her wonder what she could do to him.

Forcefully shaking off the goosebumps creeping down her arms, she refocused. She wasn’t asleep. And daydreams could be dangerous. There would be more than enough time to explore all that after dark.

The Moon marked her present. It had as many meanings as the moon had phases, most of them based on changeability and shifts in course. But only one – intuition – felt right. It looked back at her through the card, acknowledging her as she sat open to it, listening and feeling, like meeting her own eyes in a mirror.

Finally, her touch drifted to the future. Her breath stuttered. The eight of swords appeared in her hand, and she set it down quickly, fumbling, like it could bite her. If paper and ink could bite, it just might. The card of prisoners. It thrummed with warnings: imprisonment, helplessness, restriction, and malice. It jarred with the other two cards, unlinked from the common thread of her choices.

Fay was right.

Something was coming for her.

The breeze nudged the eight of swords, canting it off-center on her altar cloth. She imagined she could taste the threat in the air, fate cinching tight as she shadows of the future loomed over her rising hope.

Her palm settled over her chest, following a familiar pattern around an old ache.

It couldn’t be her monster. She refused to believe it. Not after his sweetness in the dark, not after his reassurances and promises. She simply didn’t want to imagine he’d snare her, strip away her agency as easily as he plucked away her anxieties.

That choice remained hers, and she chose hope for once. It’d been too long since she had anything to believe in but herself, and the whisper of that promise was addicting.

Caw Caw!

Jolted out of her spiraling thoughts, her eyes flicked from cards, to van, to the world outside, moving between the distant highway to the overhanging trees. Eventually, they fell on the feathered thing waiting right outside the open sliding door.

A bird that wasn’t a bird.

A dream.

Her eyelashes flickered over her vision as she tried to understand what she saw. Dreams were all gone from the waking. Her eyes never lied.

Hadn’t they all been called back?

It cocked its head, looking her right in the eye. She blinked, slowly, and it caught itself, looking to the side and pecking aimlessly at the barren parking lot, like it could fool her.

Something high in her chest fluttered. She couldn’t say if it was nerves or joy. But she didn’t recognize this dream.

“Who are you?”

It froze. Looked back at her. Spitting out a pebble it had valiantly pretended to be a bug, it croaked.

It was definitely new, at least to the waking world, and that made her intolerably curious.

“I can see you.” She let the words spin out slowly, amused and patient.

If it stayed, they were having a fucking conversation, and she didn’t imagine it came all the way from the Dreaming to play make-believe with cracked fragments of asphalt.

“Uh.” It cleared its throat. Not all dreams could speak, but the voice suited him, and she was glad they wouldn’t need to play charades to understand each other. Black feathers puffed up with half-raised wings as it hunted for the right thing to say. “I’m Matthew. Are you – are you okay?”

She glanced down at the cards, then back at the faux raven. Starting a new relationship with a lie felt wrong, but she couldn’t explain the intimate dread and trust she felt for the bird’s maker in that moment.

“Mostly. Maybe. I don’t know you. Are you… new? What are you doing here?”

She wasn’t accusing it of anything. Her worry for herself redirected into concern for the little creature risking her monster’s wrath. She didn’t want anyone getting hurt because of her. A trite desire, but a desperate need a fleet of childhood therapists hadn’t managed to shake.

The dream ducked, looking side-to-side for eavesdroppers, and hopped just a little closer. She leaned over her cards, closing the distance, humoring its covert antics. It must not be very familiar with the waking world if it thought strangers who saw a woman talking to a bird would see anything but a hippie on a bad trip.

With a flapping burst, he landed on the edge of the van’s floor.

“The boss sent me,” he said, still glancing around warily. “You know. Dream. Your… whatever the two of you are.”

A fair description, really. ‘Soulmates’ was too much. They weren’t exactly friends, and lovers sent uncomfortable heat rushing into her face.

Let the dream thing be confused. That made two of them.

“So, er, what’re you doing?” He twitched to study the cards with one beady eye, and she caught a glimpse of swords reflected in the convex mirror of his gaze.

She swept up the spread, folding it into a fresh shuffle, like she could tuck away the danger before it infected her new little friend.

“Reading.”

“Ever heard of books?”

Oh, so the little dream was actually a little shit? That worked. As a little shit herself, she approved of scamps on principle. Even if they insulted her talents.

“Not that kind of reading.”

The dream scoffed. “Those things really work?”

Funny, such cynicism coming from a talking bird. Seemed like bad manners to call him on it, though, so she shrugged. “Depends on what you’re trying to do with them.”

“Tell the future?”

All too well. “Sometimes.”

That caught him off balance, and he physically shifted from foot to foot, nails tapping on the floor as he found it again. She took pity on him.

“Why did your boss send you?”

“Just, you know, to keep an eye on things.”

She raised her eyebrows, easily folding the cards into new configurations without looking down, and the dream cleared his throat.

“Can’t really speak for the boss and all, but it’s a dangerous world out here, and he thinks too much about that. Sometimes. I’m guessing.”

The cards felt right, and she let them settle into a neat stack in one palm, waiting to be cut and dealt.

“Are you spying on me, Matthew?”

He croaked in naked offense. Or because she’d caught him out. “No.”

“Babysitting then.”

“I wouldn’t put it that way.”

Setting the deck on the altar cloth, she propped her chin on her fist. elbow balanced on her knee, and stared the bird down.

“I might.”

Sighing so hard his feathered shoulders rose and fell, the bird looked down, muttering things under his breath she pretended not to hear.

“Have you ever had your fortune read?”

His attention snapped back to her, picking up the opportunity for mutual distraction.

“No. Do dreams have fortunes?”

“I assume so.” Since he didn’t have fingers, she dealt for him. Another simple three-card spread. She didn’t have energy for much else after an evening of drinking, a night of wildly vivid dreams, and the shock of her own reading. “I don’t see why you wouldn’t.”

“But you’ve done this before. For things like me.”

“Oh, yes.” She thought of long nights at the festival when she’d been too young to drink, sitting in the dark with dreams and nightmares as they came up with their own fun. She remembered the first time she’d found The Lovers in Fin’s fortune and how she’d hounded him for weeks after. “Many times.”

Less than a day and their absence itched like a phantom limb. So stupid. Months apart without problem, and now she felt entitled to mope after a few hours.

She hoped they were okay.

She hoped she’d be okay.

Matthew puzzled over his three cards, his claws sinking into the loose weave along the edge of the altar cloth as he inched closer. She’d turned all three over in one fell swoop because she wasn’t in the mood for dramatics, and sometimes fortunes were easier to explain as a whole.

The dream’s, however, didn’t make much sense at all.

Death. Two of Swords. Three of Cups.

What the fuck.

He seemed particularly interested in the first card, and she began her usual spiel. “Death isn’t always death. It can mean and end to a phase, transformation…”

“Oh, it means death,” the raven interrupted. “For sure. I died, like really recently. Then I became -” He flapped his wings, sending the cards askew. “This.”

Until recently, Aisling thought she knew an awful lot about dreams and nightmares. She thought herself an expert. But she had no idea a dream could be anything before it was, well, a dream. And Morpheus had power over the dead? More news. Less welcome. The hair along the back of her neck pricked up, and she rushed on with the reading – something simple, something she could make sense of.

“Well…” She straightened the card. “This represents your past.”

The raven bobbed, a bird-like motion attempting to imitate a human nod. “So far so accurate.” He gently pecked the second card, pushing it even further out of line. He and his fortune defied order. “What does this one mean?”

She didn’t bother straightening it. The illusion of control wouldn’t last. “Two of Swords. Means you find balance in opposing forces. You have a tendency to repeat your mistakes.” Struggling to hold down a blooming smirk, she added, "And you're talkative."

“Talkative? Psh. Does that sound like me?”

“I don’t know.” It absolutely did sound like him. “But you do seem like the type to make the same mistakes.”

“Rude.”

“Blame the cards.”

He croaked, probably cursing her out in bird.

“Sure. So, what about this last one? My future, right?”

The Three of Cups. “Good luck and abundance. Kindness and pleasure. All the good things, usually after solving a problem. Have any problems, Matthew?”

“Plenty.” He shook his head and swayed between feet, warming to the subject.

Once upon a time, tarot readers served as talk therapists. She had a feeling Matthew would make her a historical reenactor.

“You wouldn’t believe what’s happened in the past few days.” The bird gossiped like an old crow. But that was good. No one told her anything, and this would be a nice change of pace, so she settled in to listen, happy to let the little dream spin her a yarn. “There was this woman – I guess that’s not too strange – but anyway, there was a ruby, and this man tried to change the world, but the boss stopped him, and we went to Hell before that. And I’d just met the boss, and that Constantine woman –”

Wait.

“Constantine?” She abandoned her relaxed position, leaning in to question the bird. “You’ve met Constantine?”

“You mean you’ve met her, too? Small world, right?” Matthew cleared his throat, cawing.

“She’s an old friend. She… warned me…”

Of course. That was how Johanna knew her monster was back on the scene. But she didn’t understand what her monster might want with the occultist. Was it her fault? Was it coincidence? Not that those happened very often, but a girl could hope.

“How did you meet Constantine?” Fuck. She should probably text her back, just to make sure she was still alive. “Is she alright?”

“Oh, she’s fine.” He croaked again. “Promise. Anyway…”

A redirection and a half right there.

“Are you not supposed to tell me?”

“Honestly?” He fluttered, spreading his wings like an open-armed shrug. “I have no idea. I’ve never done something like this before. I’ve only been a raven for, like, a week. I used to have rent, and a job, and fingers. If you’re looking for answers, I’m really not the bird to ask.”

Of course. Answers never came easily. She had to work for them, earn them like minimum wage – enough to keep her on the cusp of a breakdown without quitting entirely.

“I don’t suppose you could point me towards the right bird?”

“Can’t you just, you know, ask the boss?”

She glanced down, brushing a wrinkle out of the altar cloth where the dream and the breeze had disturbed it.

“I don’t know.”

Silence sat between them like a wriggling slug. Ugly, awkward. Neither wanted to touch it as it grew. She had a whole life to explain, and as a dream, he understood things she’d never grasp. Neither knew what to tell the other, or what might get the other in trouble with the elephant in the room.

The longer the silence grew, the more she wondered why her monster sent a minder. Maybe he’d foreseen the threat in her cards. Or maybe he wanted to slowly exert control over her waking life until he held perfect sway over her hours in any world. A bloodless war with an easy victory.

No. She physically shook the thought away.

No, she wouldn’t think that. Nope.

Maybe he was… concerned. She didn’t know if he felt fear, but if he did, he might have the usual long-distance relationship woes. Anything could happen when they weren’t together, and how would he even know until she failed to appear in a dream?

She liked that idea better, the myth of the anxious boyfriend who texted a little too often in an effort to feel closer across the borders he couldn’t erase, so she chose to believe it.

“Can you tell me about him?” she asked. “Your boss?”

“Listen, lady –”

“Aisling.”

“Right.” He softened, just a touch, and his empathy shone through their mutual frustration. “Aisling. I’m new new, if you catch my drift. I know about as much as you do.” Twitching to peer around the inside of her van, he strung together ideas until he had a mouthful of sentences to trade. “He’s a lot, but I’ve seen him be kind when he didn’t have to be. He’s scary powerful, but even when he wasn’t, he was proud. He’s a king, I guess. More than that, but that’s what I know.”

When he wasn’t powerful? She couldn’t imagine him as anything else. Fuck, did she want to ask, but she didn’t want to get the bird in trouble.

“I’ll try…” She swallowed around her misgivings. “Asking him sometime.”

“If it helps,” the dream bounced two steps closer, “I think he’d like that.”

She was out of things to pick at, and her smile fluttered awkwardly through her emotional kaleidoscope.

“You hungry? I’m starving.” Creeping around the bird and the spread cards, she escaped the van. “I need to wash up, and I’ll see if the vending machines are shit.”

“I never turn down junk food,” Matthew said, suddenly and deeply serious. “I miss human food. Rats aren’t bad – when you’re a raven – but I’d murder for a basket of fries.”

“Chips do?”

“You’re a saint.”

Patting her pocket to check for her wallet, she started the hike across the empty parking spaces towards the rest area. “And you have low standards, pheasant.”

“Raven!” he shouted after her, but she ignored him, hands in her pockets as she swaggered away.

The women’s was blissfully empty.

She had lots of time to splash cold water on her face and stare into the mirror. She let the water run, listening to the gathering echoes trickle and crash around the tiled space. Wasteful. She didn’t care.

She needed the noise, the wordless crush on her senses keeping her grounded as the warning, the reading, and the raven cycled through her thoughts.

And beneath all that, a girlish curiosity she struggled to accept.

Her monster played her well. She found herself wanting to fall asleep just so she could dream of him again, to see if he’d answer questions, if he’d touch her, if he’d let her touch him back.

But she didn’t quite trust it. Things only went well when they were about to go very, very badly, and until she knew which direction danger came from, she’d stay on guard. Hopeful or otherwise.

She drew her knuckle over her upper lip, thinking, and dry skin snagged. It wasn’t painful, but she couldn’t help comparing the texture to the palm she’d studied in the Dreaming, and an uncomfortable sense of her mortality prickled through her thoughts. Like the way people noticed their tongues and pooling saliva after someone pointed them out.

Something as simple as the weather damaged her. Air turned too humid or too arid made her flesh crack and peel.

She thought of the silken hands ghosting through her dreams, untouched by eons of labor, and her rough, human finger passed back over her mouth. How could she compare to an Endless? She made a poor match, and she knew it. Too weak. Too fragile. Too young, even. And age wouldn’t make her any worthier.

How could he stand to touch her when she’d crumble so easily?

She squeezed the edge of the sink, feeling too much of herself.

It wasn't fair to assume she knew his thoughts. It wasn't fair to assume he knew hers. But the ugly feeling to too many - varied - doubts curdled in her stomach, and she wondered if she'd ever have the strength to voice these kinds of insecurities.

A pity party would just make her more disgusted with herself, and she shoved away from the sink, pacing over the dirty tile, down the row of stalls and sinks.

She needed to calm down and get the raven a snack. No hysterics. No blubbering. She could contain herself, and everyone would be fine.

She looked up, face to face with her own reflection again.

Had that mirror always been there? Intuition prickled under her thoughts, drawing her attention to the details she’d failed to notice when she entered.

She counted the sinks. Seven. Seven sinks with matching mirrors and one long looking glass at the end of the line, tall and wide as a person, a surprisingly thoughtful investment in the utilitarian rest stop.

It wasn’t the strangest thing she’d seen, but she couldn’t recall the blur of motion her reflection should’ve made in her periphery when she marched in. Not the biggest thing. Nothing too alarming. Not even out of the ordinary really. But traps never were.

Fairy circles disappeared in tall grass and fallen leaves. Helpful goods and little treasures always appeared just where someone might’ve dropped them. The mirror was a little too clean compared to the others. Maybe it just didn't get splashed with soap and water from the sinks like the rest, but she wasn’t willing to risk it.

She didn’t like that mirror.

It rubbed her the wrong way, and she started moving towards the exit before she finished her thought.

One, two, three steps. Rubber soles squeaking on cement painted green as she moved towards her world of sunlight and dreams and rest stop vending machine snacks.

The long fluorescent light closest to the exit blinked. She stopped, and it went out. The next light buzzed, popped, and sparked as it died, and she took a step back.

She couldn't see anything approaching, but fuck if she didn't know her horror movies, and something was playing with her.

The third light winked out like a snuffed candle. Backing up, refusing to look away, just in case, she tried to stay out of the growing shadows. It was close to noon. Why did it feel so dark?

The fourth light. The fifth.

By the time the seventh flickered and died, she'd gone to the far end of the sinks, and as her hand pressed back against cool glass, she realized it wasn't a horror movie.

It was just another trap.

She made it all of one step away before long, wisened fingers coated in crumbling moss seized her upper arms and yanked.

The mirror dragged over her skin like mercury taffy, sticky with an aftertaste of poison. Shiny and wrong beyond her powers of description, it clung to her eyelashes and stuck to her skin as the hand in her hair dragged her through, away, and back – back - back into darkness. She struggled, writhing and shouting as her nails pried at the offending grip. But her fingers didn’t meet skin. Bark and lichen flaked off, crumbling over her cheeks as the gnarled spriggan hissed over her.

“Stay still, little prize. Wandering soulmate. Stay still!” It had a shrill, groaning voice. Wind shrieking in the creaking trees. Rot and new life in the same breath, rich with the age of soil. “Take you down. Take you back. Make you a pretty, pretty bride!”

Aisling did not stay still. She snarled, trying to escape through the light ahead, but the spriggan took her by the jaw and hauled her away into the crushing dark. It lunged headfirst into a tunnel too small to really fit them and chittered away, grinding its captive against the wall as it went.

Choking, trying to keep the fae from popping her head off her spine, she kicked along, catching breaths as she could. The spriggan’s many free hands pulled them along, and each handhold pulled earth loose from the sides. It fell in Aisling’s face, clogging her nose and eyes. Little beetles and worms fell, too.

Roots stinking of grave dirt caught in her hair, scratched her skin, but the grip on her neck locked her screams in her chest.

Her heart thundered.

Fingernails snapped as she tried protecting her face from the unforgiving path, still wrestling against the spriggan’s hold. Tears of shock and pain leaked out, mixing into mud over her cheeks. Her thoughts faded under the onslaught, melting into a tumble of sensation and abject horror.

They moved faster than they should. Magic warped the natural world and tugged them through adjoining planes. Aisling lost all track of up, down, or the way back to the mirror. The roots grew with their progress, and the spriggan cackled, so wildly pleased it didn’t notice how the fragile human in its grip struggled to breathe.

The world flipped, and she landed hard on a dirt floor, half-pinned under her kidnapper's bulk. Still holding her by the neck, the unseelie tugged her through a growing crowd of things with claws, wings, and half-grown faces, moving towards something she couldn't see. Black bars threatened the edges of her uncanny vision, and she grasped after her fading rage as her legs spasmed, tangling in the spriggan's trailing cloak. Terror choked her as much as the grip on her throat.

Oh, hell.

Matthew was still waiting for her to come back with a bag of chips.

Fuck.

Losing control, losing consciousness, she realized: she really was going to die this time.

Maybe that was better than whatever the unseelie planned, but she didn't want it. She wanted to struggle a little longer, find a way to steal a kiss from her masked monster, maybe. Sit in the sun. Let Constantine know the occultist hadn't lost another friend.

'You are killing our prize, spriggan."

Dropped, she crashed face-first into the dirt, coughing more than breathing as her ears rang. The whole scene felt a step removed, like she was wandering a dream or watching through fog. But that wasn't right. Magic bitter as wormwood coated her throat, and she curled into herself, feigning a fetal position as she reached for the long, iron nail hidden in the sole of her shoe. Her broken nails grated over the head, the blood leaving the metal slick as she tried to tug it free. Heavy feet approached - goblin guards ready to haul her off again.

She wouldn't roll over that easy.

The nail came free just as the bigger of the two guards reached for her, and she stabbed it in his hand. Green blood spattered over the dirt, and the beast howled in anguish. As it fell back, the other lunged, the nearby crowd taking notice.

Iron made friends of all fae. Even the natural enemies in the unseelie court. Like she'd shouted "Fire!" in a crowded theater, everyone had two reactions: run, or put it out.

Stabbing and waving her poisonous weapon, she whirled in a circle, looking for an escape, a passage, light, anything. But everywhere she glanced, she found more eyes and bared teeth.

They mobbed her. Many hands took her arm, grabbed her hair by the roots, and clambered onto her back. More and more joined the fray until they had her spread prone. A redcap took the nail with a long pair of silver tongs, nearly tearing the skin off one of her fingers to break her grip, and darted away, eager to separate weapon and wielder.

"Get its mouth open."

Clawed fingers pushed between her lips. They forced her jaw wide and slid filthy flesh, scales, and fur past her teeth, cutting into her gums, cheeks, tongue. Heat pricked in her eyes at the helpless pain as a tall unseelie with hair like moonlight over pond scum approached with a stoppered amber bottle.

Screaming, twisting, she tried again to save herself. Maybe, worlds away, the dream bird would hear. Or his master. Johanna, Fin, anyone. But the fae uncorked the bottle, and he poured it neatly into her open mouth.

"Let it swallow."

The hands all disappeared from her face, but they kept her anchored to the floor, prepared for another fit, another hidden weapon. She reflexively swallowed a mouthful of blood and potion to keep from choking, coughing desperately to clear the drops she'd aspirated.

Salt, iron, and elder berries.

“Gently now.” Taloned fingers massaged her throat, ensuring the draught went down. “Isn’t this better?”

She groaned through clenched teeth, pushing against the poisonous lethargy freezing her from the inside out, against the forbidding chill stripping away her agency but not her awareness. Inch by inch, she lost the war, and hand by hand the creatures restraining her let go.

The potion didn’t put her to sleep. She had no opportunity to escape into dreams. It only allowed breath and tears as she turned into a limp rag doll for the unseelie to manipulate like the hollow, powerless thing they believed all humans to be. They didn't need her to rest. They only needed her to be quiet.

Satisfied, the tall unseelie nodded to someone she couldn't turn her head to see. "Prepare it."

They carried her into more tunnels, broader than before, more than wide enough for them to march through without scraping the sides. A team of monsters handled her, murmuring ideas and instructions as they moved into a room echoing with running spring water.

Roots tangled overhead, and she watched them pass like waves, imagining they were the ones really moving as the unseelie court swallowed her up.

The terror swallowed her, too.

Trapped in her own body, she reached for disassociation as hooked claws and stone knives sawed through her clothes. Oblivion, however, floated out of reach as panic chained her to the bare stone they laid her over, left her drowning in every prod and poke as her handlers discussed how to improve on the fragile human flesh she hated a few minutes ago. She'd do anything to keep it.

They bared her to the frigid air, and she couldn't even shiver. Couldn't shout, or swear, or save herself.

The spring water was bright cold. Lights popped in her eyes as the first splash washed over her belly. Chill translated into pain, something too sharp to be liquid, even though she felt it rolling down her sides. Her captors cleaned her, scrubbing and muttering and pulling her hair as they combed it out. Her discomfort and fear simply didn't matter in a place where she had no voice. No choice. They tutted over her scars - a lifetime of chasing nightmares and living on the road patterned in bites, slices, and other imperfections.

"These are old," one unseelie muttered, tracing a fingertip rough as gravel along the Not Deer's old fang marks in her shoulder. "I can only smooth away fresh."

"Then make them fresh," another suggested. "Nothing else for it."

They took a knife to her, skinning her history by inches, peeling stories, tearing fascia, and baring muscle. The blade cut out the imperfections, erasing the glossy moon on her knee where she tripped on the playground as a child. It erased every line and mark loved ones would use to identify her body, leaving her naked and new in strange and terrible ways.

She watched them throw pieces of her into the corner. Hiding at the edge of the dim light, a spider the size of a small dog plucked them up like table scraps, jaws clicking just above the wet sound of the knife.

Butchered alive, her mind filled with static, rattling with captive screams and pleas. If she lived, she would not escape unscathed. This was killing something. This was changing her in ways that couldn't be undone, and she didn't want it. Someone had to make them stop before she couldn't recognize herself.

Warm blood soothed her goosebumps, and one of the voices sighed as her skin regrew.

"We'll have to wash it again."

More freezing water. More pain. She kept still as they worked, and her sanity squealed like glass under pressure. On the verge of shattering.

One began spreading a smooth, white cream up her arm, working it into the new skin. When the unseelie found Aisling watching, it smiled. "Ground pearls and unicorn horn, so you'll glow for the Dream King."

It explained like she'd be happy, like she wanted to be a pretty bride delivered in chains. If her stomach was still under her control, she would've thrown up.

Magical ingredients like anything off a unicorn would not come off in the next bath. More permanent changes worked into her flesh for her monster's sake. She would be more beautiful and less herself.

What she wouldn't give to spit in the unseelie's face. Or curse her monster's name. Anything. Instead, they worked the potion from head to toe, and the fuckers looked damned pleased with their results, assuming her gratitude as their rightful due.

Dozens of spiders crept from the corners, and the unseelie set to work on her hair and face as a thousand little legs tickled over her limp body. She wasn't wildly arachnophobic, but she'd jump and shout if a spider crawled up her arm. Now countless spiders wandered her naked body, and she couldn't shake them off. Instinct demanded she try, but she was as helpless under the spiders as she was under the knife. After a few moments of blind horror, she realized they were moving in patterns, leaving lines of silk they built into a gauze-lace dress over the next hour. She closed her eyes, desperate for even that much of an escape, and the unseelie painted her lids and lips to their satisfaction. Their concoctions smelled like roses and mercury.

When the spiders finished, the unseelie stepped back and sighed.

"Ready."

A troop of gnomes carrying some kind of box rushed in, and the unseelie handlers pulled back the box's front curtain, revealing something between an animal carrier and a royal litter.

"It's time to deliver you to the Dreaming, little bride."

They packed her inside, careful not to ruin their good work, and the curtain fell. She counted the walls. Seven. All the same soft white fabric shot through with silver threads. A pretty box for a pretty bride.

And her first hint of privacy. Alone, without unwanted hands, spider legs, and the sight of her own blood on the floor to distract her, her thoughts gathered behind the scrim of dread. She felt her heart beating in her chest, not just the hollow echo in her ribs. Her fingers tingled, begging to move, and one curled as the box rose, swaying on low shoulders down the labyrinthine tunnels of the unseelie court. It wasn't enough to save herself, but it was more than she had an hour ago.

She didn't witness the journey. She measured the time in twitching muscles and waking limbs, counting breaths instead of minutes. They moved between worlds, but all she cared about was the distance between her consciousness and any control over her hands. She wanted to pull open the curtained wall, and slowly, slowly she pushed her hand towards the edge of the screened box. A lifetime measured in millimeters. And just when her nails scratched the fabric, the box shifted, and she rolled back to her original position. Foiled by gravity. Of all damn things. A laugh brushed with madness fluttered around in her chest, caught like a bug in a net, and she wondered what kind of potion would give it life and get it out. She needed it exorcised. If she started laughing, she'd start crying, too.

The box must be enchanted, because she didn't hear anything outside it. The unseelie made lots of noise, and if they brought her to the Dreaming in any kind of official capacity, they'd have to announce themselves. She heard fuck all. She hadn't even heard the gnomes' feet marching towards her doom. Her soft prison kept her safe and stupid as they took her away.

When the front curtain pulled back, all she knew was she was somewhere else, somewhere with light and color, without the wormy, wet smell of the underground court. Two unseelie women reached inside, taking her wilting arms and guiding her to rise much more elegantly than she could've managed on her own. She was surprised her legs worked at all, but they must've timed this carefully.

She still wanted to bite them and run. But when she couldn't really keep on her feet without their support, that was impossible. She could watch. She could wait. She still didn't have a choice.

A weak little bride who couldn't fight back but didn't lounge like a slug in her cage - a lovely, tidy gift.

The unseelie with the pond scum hair swept up, taking her hand as the two attendants stepped back. She wanted to bite him most of all, and almost like he could sense her plans to draw blood - fuck the cost - he took her by the chin and faced her towards something much worse.

They stood at the foot of an impossible staircase in a room too grand for a ceiling. A cosmos moved overhead, catching the graceful statues along the columns between daylight and starlight. The steps curled through the air to the foot of a throne, a seat for a king, set above the receiving hall where lesser creatures stood and begged. Sunlight cut into dazzling colors through arcing stained glass windows backlit the monarch's place, on high. Beautiful. Breath-taking.

Yet it was the king's face that froze her heart.

She knew many things about Dream of the Endless. The King of Dreams and Nightmares. Lord Morpheus. Since she was a child, she'd been told he was cold and capricious, particularly with his lovers. That he was possessive and vengeful. If he was a good king to one he was an awful tyrant to someone else.

He was dangerous.

She knew he touched her gently and had a voice darker and deeper than the spaces between the stars, but she hadn't known until she stood a prisoner at his feet that she knew his face.

When she saw the beautiful entity trapped in the dead wizard's basement, she knew he was powerful. She freed him anyway. Her intuition led her to him, and she gave him exactly what he needed.

Her chest filled with lead. Heavy. Crushing. Pulling her down in the unseelie's grip. His hand tightened on her arm, and he refused to release her jaw, forcing her head back so the Dream King could see the fae's good work.

The Endless looked down on them all, starry eyes burning through her cobweb dress. Terrible and aloof.

Feeling drowned her reason, and she picked fragments of thought out of the swamp with shaking hands.

Why?

Why not show his face when she'd already seen it? It didn't make sense if he'd been honest with her. Was he that hungry for a little more power in their dynamic? Had he played a game, amusing himself with the dumb little mortal wyrd had already trapped in his name?

The unseelie, she realized, was speaking. He'd probably been talking since before they pulled her out of the gossamer prison.

"...one of our own. We've brought it - her - to atone for that one's error and ensured she is as fair and flawless as a mortal might be made. We cannot undo the sins of the first, but we have made a better gift of her in the end."

The creature made her humanity something fetid. She was not even as good as a dog, because her free will pushed her to snap back. But she'd been made fair, and what else could a mighty Endless desire from such a lowly thing, marked or not?

And Morpheus listened. He sat still as stone and let the fae hold her up for his inspection. She thought very carefully of every promise he'd ever made, and in this new light, she quickly found the gaps in his word.

She'd been such a fool to trust him.

A deep breath lifted her shoulders, the biggest voluntary motion she'd enjoyed since they drugged her, but she struggled to breathe. The air just wouldn't stick. Fuck. Fuck it hurt.

What an idiot.

What a romantic little idiot who had every warning and swallowed the poison anyway. It was written clearly on the label, but it looked right and it felt right so she ignored her mind and followed her gut, and look what that earned her. Belly pain and tears. They rolled hot and ugly down her face, creeping over the unseelie's hand, sinking into his skin.

He tutted. Releasing her arm, he reached into umber robes, confident in his hold on her face. Her jaw ached under the pressure.

"We understand you prefer... willing partners." The unseelie pulled out a white and purple flower for the king to see, and her blood ran cold.

She thought she'd been heartbroken before. She thought she'd been frightened. This was worse than anything she could've imagined, and she finally remembered to struggle. Sinking her nails into the creature's wrist, she tried to pull his hand off her face, but his hold was sturdier than the roots of a centuries old oak. Chances were, she'd drop the second he released her, but she'd rather eat pavement than be anywhere near the simple pansy flower.

"Love-in-idleness will woo her to your hand in a heartbeat."

It really would, too. A few drops of its nectar in her eyes, and she'd forget she was anything other than madly in love with the first face she saw. Her power to consent would evaporate as the spell took hold, and she'd be her monster's happy little fool for the rest of her life.

"No." Her voice joined the fight, and breathless as it sounded, it still carried through the chamber. Her monster must hear it, up on his throne, watching someone else manage the breaking of his new pet on his behalf.

She'd curse him with this. He'd hear her denial whenever he reached for her. She'd infect him with it, let it creep under his skin until he couldn't meet his own eyes in the mirror. Maybe. Hopefully. If he ever cared the way he said he did.

She chanted her refusals through grit teeth as the unseelie lifted the flower. As much as she wanted to hurt Morpheus, her fear drove her actions. She begged, pleaded, using every scrap of her meager strength to just get away.

"Stop. Don't. No." When did her voice become so small? "Please don't." Panicking, scrambling to escape the unseelie and his curse, she fixed her eyes on the blossom's purple streaks. Folklore said it used to be pure white until Cupid shot it with one of his arrows. She'd be the opposite. It would bleed her mind white, a placid death in life.

"Stop."

Her words. His voice.

The command froze the scene. Every unseelie. Every mote of dust hanging in multi-color sunbeams. The hand on her face went from oak to rock, and she trembled, fighting to breathe as she dared glancing away from the damned flower to the entity on the throne. Her lead heart forgot how to beat.

Dream of the Endless glared down, hands curled into fists. Had his eyes always been so bright? Fury burned like the sun, a cutting light sweeping across the gathering, wrathful and inescapable as the end of day, as the coming of dreams. They dazzled her through the scrim of tears, and she teetered on the cusp of hope.

The unseelie, after several long, painful moments, cleared his throat. "Lord?"

"Do you think it a challenge for me to find any sleeping mortal, mauled by your kind or whole?" His voice rumbled with the threat of an earthquake. Or a flood. Something old and deep that crushed civilizations without effort or consideration. A natural consequence of assuming control over something beyond even the idea of command. Ancient. Endless.

The unseelie hesitated.

She waited, too, frightened to trust again so quickly. She fought to breathe, to reason out what was happening. If he'd order that fucking plant burned in Hell, she'd feel a lot better.

"N-no, Lord Morpheus."

The Dream King rose, and every member of the unseelie delegation took a step back. Caught in the leader's grasp, she stumbled with them, clinging and whimpering as she tried to find strength to stand on her own and wrestle free.

"Did you think I'd rejoice to see one so intimately linked to my fate dragged to my throne against her will?"

The sun faded from behind the stained glass, and shadows curled out from between the columns like living things. They didn't obey the light, and they twisted hungrily on the verge of attack.

The unseelie's grip shifted. A sharp nail pressed into the side of her throat, and long fingers circled her neck. Rather than showcasing her to the side, the envoy swung her forward to block the king's ire. A literal human shield.

It was a bad idea to threaten a king in his own palace. Even discreetly.

"You are guests in my realm, and therefore protected by the laws." His eyes blazed, and a warning pulled his voice so low she could feel it in her spine, reverberating through the realm. "But if you do not release Aisling Hunt to my hospitality - safe and well - you will have harmed another guest, and your protection shall be revoked."

He didn't negotiate. He simply explained. And the unseelie holding her knew it.

"We had always intended to leave her in your care," he whined.

"Do you wish to leave my realm alive?"

The unseelie stuttered, and a cruel sliver of a smirk ghosted over the pale king's face.

"But if you'd rather stay - Well."

The unseelie considered, flexing his grip. He'd come on a mission, and it had gone poorly. The Dream King was not grateful, and now the fae had to decide if it was safer to keep his shield or flee. A moment's thought. And he shoved her forward, hard. She landed hard on her knees, yelping at the impact, and the unseelie moved out of the chamber in a rush of half-hearted apologies.

Murmurs and footsteps faded, a distant argument breaking out like a clap of thunder. She flinched, still on hands and knees, trapped in a spiral of breaths that wouldn't come fast enough and shaking limbs that couldn't fully support her.

The flower was gone. The unseelie were gone. But she wasn't alone. Wasn't safe. And the sticky spiderweb lace plucked on her nerves without keeping her warm, so she shuddered on the hard, stone floor and gasped as she stared down at her strangely pretty hands with their unicorn treatment, and -

She was not.

Not on the floor. Not on her knees.

With Morpheus.

He seized her, caught her up close with fingers that hooked into her shoulders like talons. The world seemed to quake, but maybe that was only the chest beneath her cheek and the arms around her back. She didn’t see him change shape or size, but his presence swelled, thick and biting like ozone as he pulled her so deep into his embrace she couldn’t see his splendid throne, or the retreating unseelie, or anything beyond him.

Was this better? Was this safe? She didn't know, she didn't know, she didn't trust him. Her ribs crowded her lungs, and her breathing fluttered, never drawing a full inhale or exhale, only pulling enough oxygen to keep her lightheaded, broken hearted, and awake.

"Sir?"

He dragged her deeper, long fingers gathering her by the handful to pull inside his shadows. At least, it felt that way. He might not break and bend her like the unseelie, but she had no doubt he could consume her, swallow her up until she blinked in the dark like a little star.

"Sir."

"What is it, Lucienne?" His rough, begrudging question flooded her senses, and her fingers spasmed where they dangled at her sides.

"Sir, she is not well."

She couldn't see the speaker, but they weren't wrong. Aisling felt very unwell. She hurt, and she ached, and she was worried something was irreparably broken, but she couldn't remember its name. She spun in eddies of failing thoughts, struggling to follow the basic conversation.

"I know." Sorrow, frustration, and darkness there.

But the stranger outside Morpheus's embrace remained undaunted, insistent. "Sir, she cannot breathe."

A cool hand cradled the side of her face, summoning her to meet his radiant eyes. A frightening place to be - in his hand, under his gaze - made worse by the fact she didn't know whether or not it was the perfect escape or some fresh hell.

His thumb rolled down the tear tracks, memorizing them by touch, teaching himself the shape of her pain. The face he denied her was very, very near, but she couldn't read it. Couldn't plumb the depths of whatever he tried to express.

"You must breathe."

It didn't sound like an order. He nearly whispered the three words, a private request for her ears alone. A plea. And she wanted to. She wanted to thank him for asking by filling her lungs, relaxing in his arms, and assuring him everything was fine. But she couldn't, and she didn't, and it wasn't. Another tear broke loose from the pools gathered over her lower lashes and rolled over his thumb, washing him in the agony he tried to explore.

"I have you now." He spoke like a song, the cadence pulling around her mind, soft and sweet as a lullaby, and she wondered if he was consciously trying to charm her. Any other time, she'd welcome it, but she couldn't find her courage, or her attraction. All she felt was small. Frightened. Vulnerable and nearly naked in the arms of a creature she didn't trust.

She couldn't decide to calm herself. Panic stopped being a choice several hours back, and as her body woke up, it demanded the reactions the unseelie potion refused it. Her shaking was her answer. She had nothing to give his searching eyes. Words were human and she stood there as a mess of fears and silent prayers tangled in a web of nerves.

He leaned in, pressing his lips to her third eye.

"Let me help you."

Tensing, expecting more magic or power to crush over her mind, she felt him brush her subconscious. He waited there, at the gates, and the part of her that understood him best accepted his hand. Guiding her from the frightful awareness of her own body, her monster sheltered her in a softer darkness, wrapping her in the blurred sensations of a peaceful rest.

Sleep.

She blinked, and slumped, and he gathered her up. As she faded, she saw him: the worlds beyond the face, and the smooth white skin of a being she was on the verge of loving without understanding.

Fuck.

She was still a fool, and his arms seemed like the safest place in all the world.

A very good place to fall.

Asleep.

#morpheus x reader #sandman x oc #sandman x reader #dream of the endless x oc #fic: hello mr. monster #sandman fic

[felassan]

just some thoughts on these (source: this article) original sketches of the Dragon Age world through time / concept sketches of the Thedas map at different points in its history:

(the linked article is worth a read for extra info and context on the maps). like the article says, whenever a name of a place or people is typed as opposed to handwritten, it means that the place or people originally had a different name which was changed by EA's "sensitivity team" due to it clashing with something from the real world. Names of things change when worldbuilding anything all the time ofc, but it’s just interesting to me to look at what's been typed over and list places / peoples which at one point in the creation of the world were called something else before being renamed for that reason:

Arlathan, Frostback Mountains, Alamarri tribes, Anderfels, Par Vollen, Antiva (used to be called "Calabria"), Orlais / Orlesian Empire, Seheron, Orzammar

I wonder what the ones (besides Antiva) used to be called? ^^ there are other names on the map that appear to have been renamed at some point in the process (see below), but they weren't typed over like this.

On the time periods given in some of the bottom-right hand corners: “F.A.” refers to the Founding of Arlathan (elven calendar), where 1 FA is the year in which Arlathan was founded. “T.E.” refers to the founding of the Tevinter Empire (Imperial Calendar), where 0 TE is the year in which the Imperium was founded. Does “F.C.” refer to the Founding of the Chantry, making this an alternative way of notating the Chantry calendar? (the Chantry was founded in 1:1 Divine and World of Thedas tells us that the founding initial event honored in this calendar is that in its first year the original head of the Chantry, Divine Justinia I, was appointed). Was this the original name/way of writing of the chantry calendar before they decided (either in-world or devs doing the worldbuilding) that instead of notating it like FC they would have ages like “-150 Ancient”, the Divine Age/1:10 Divine etc? Is “600 F.C.” the Steel Age? In that map it shows the Qunari Empire borders really quite far south into what became Antiva and Rivain, and we know that in the Steel Age the Qunari pushed deeply into Antiva and Rivain, so it could track. Ferelden would also have been founded as a kingdom at that time, explaining why Ferelden now appears.

These maps are also interesting as instead of purely geographical they are also political in places. (I think DG said at one point on the old forum that the lack of exact borders on the Thedas map we see is intentional, with the rough area controlled by each nation being pretty clear, and “when it comes to areas where they border on each other the exact ownership is probably in question”.) ((there are some cool fan-made maps out there where different people had a go at headcanoning or approximating borders to make political versions of the main map btw)). On some of them we can see dotted lines presumably representing borders or approximate borders of nations/states and the territories claimed or controlled by at that time of different groups of people, past and present, including in many cases the naval territory/their waters. It’s really interesting to see where some of these borders approximately are and to see how they changed through time in the world timeline. There are no border lines on the final sketch/most recent [in-world time-wise] version of the map, I guess as it’s the present time in which DA:O is set, or close to that time.

For example, it’s really interesting to me to see in 1100 TE the borders of the Dales, the borders of the Kingdom of the Ciriane and the borders of the Kingdom of the Planasene. (the Ciriane were the loosely-defined tribe from ancient times that lived in what’s now central Orlais, and the ancestors of modern Orlesians. The Planasene meanwhile were a farming tribe that became the ancestors of most humans in Nevarra and the Free Marches.)

And to see in -100 TE/6300 FA those of the kingdoms of Neromenian and Qarinus before the formation of the Imperium and before they became absorbed by the Imperium.

And it’s interesting to see Tevinter’s borders expand and contract over time, and stuff like how when the Kingdom of Rivain was founded, it was originally a much smaller nation in the northern part of that peninsula only, whereas in the modern day the peninsula looks to all be part of the kingdom of Rivain.

(in general it’s really interesting to compare these sketches with the map of Thedas as we know it hh).

The first map set in -100 TE/6300 FA clearly places the city of Arlathan, capital of Elvhenan, in the forest now known as Arlathan Forest. Codex Entry Enasalin says:

"An example of such a place is Sundermount in the Vimmark Mountains near Kirkwall. According to Dalish legend, this was a burial site for elders and the location of a great battle between Imperial and elven forces—nowhere near Arlathan (if one believes the city was near the forest of the same name in northeastern Thedas).)"

^ The dot there is the settlement of Arlathan.

Some other things I noticed/was wondering about:

It seems like the Venefication Sea during development used to be called the "Venefician Sea".

The ancient elves are noted as “the Elvhenan race”, rather than the elvhen race

A name is given for the tribes that presumably were the ancestors of modern Rivaini humans/the human tribes that inhabited the area around what became modern Rivain: the "Riverian Tribes". This is notable to me as I don’t remember hearing this before, and they aren’t listed in the list of known human tribes.

We can see the “Yothand tribes” noted in the area that became the Anderfels. Before seeing these sketches, the Prima strategy guide for DA:O mentioned that the main population of the Anderfels in ancient times in 500 TE, were called the Yothandi (note the "i" at the end isn't on the sketch map). parts of the info in that guide seem to be of debatable canonicity so that’s interesting too (maybe those segments of the guide were written earlier on during DA:O’s development before some changes were made in the worldbuilding?). In the Anderfels there are also the Orth people who live in the Wandering Hills today, but originally this was an old name for people[s] of the Anderfels (Orthland) in general. “Orth” doesn’t appear on these sketches. So what do we think? ^^ Were the Orth people called the Yothand[i] people earlier on in the worldbuilding process then the devs changed it? Did the Yothand people come first in the in-world timeline, and that was the name of those peoples in ancient-ancient times, before they grew into, came to be known as, or were otherwise absorbed by the Orth, in still-ancient but not super-ancient times? The map with Yothand is set in -100 TE, so in this scenario they were still called Yothand for another ~600 years going by the Prima guide. Are Yothand and Orth synonyms, like the Ciriane/the Cirean? Maybe one of the two terms is/was an umbrella term that includes the other, like Alamarri includes/included multiple tribes (Clayne, Chasind, Avvar)? Maybe there were simply multiple tribes like in Ferelden (Clayne, Chasind, Avvar) in the Anderfels (Yothand and Orth both). Maybe it’s just a case of loosely-defined groupings, like the Ciriane, with different parts or groupings within that having their own names? I'll note that interestingly "Yothand" seems like a combination of Anderfels and Orth.

Maybe "Yothandi" is a variant form of "Yothand" or plural or something?

Whatever the situation with the Yothand[i] and the Orth, given that e.g. the Ciriane for example are a loosely-defined group, given that the Alamarri are/were made up of multiple tribes (Avvar, Chasind, Clayne), given that the sketch gives these groups as “tribe[s]” plural (Ciriane, Planasene, Inghirsh, Yothand) just like it says “Alamarri tribes”, and given human history irl, since there are multiple named groupings underneath the Alamarri umbrella (Avvar, Chasind, Clayne), I’m choosing to headcanon that Ciriane, Planasene, Inghirsh etc are similarly umbrella terms with multiple other named groupings within them, just that they're names that we don’t know, unlike with the Alamarri tribes. makes sense, Ferelden is the most fleshed-out human nation in the setting.

Who are/were the “Shaelan” [sp?] race and the “Olvenene” [sp?] race?? (if you can make out those words better please let me know!!) I don’t think these words crop up elsewhere in known lore. On the sketch that they appear on, human tribes are called “[Something] tribes” and the elves (a people that is not human) are notated as the “Elvhenan race”. Were there a few other races that weren't human on Thedas this far back in the world’s time? Or at this point in the creation of the world in the dev process, were there a few more races who are not humans in the lore and they were then removed? I wonder what these groups were like/what these people were concepted to be like at that point. The “Shaelan race” are given as living in the now-Free Marches area south of the Minanter River. If the way Arlathan is drawn is anything to go by, the “Olvenene race” are given as living in what looks like a forest, north of the Tirashan and near the Hunterhorn Mountains, near where Kal-Sharok is. They have a capital city/settlement in that forest called “FaeFran” [sp?], which to me sounds kinda fantasy-elfy or fey. Maybe the patch of the forest north of the Tirashan on the map sketch became the green bit around the Blasted Hills on the map we know? I wonder if they were a different type of elf or a significant elven subculture within the greater culture Elvhenan, given the way the name sounds and the forest location. (also, like the Elvhenan and their capital in Arlathan Forest, in the next time period, they have also vanished...).

I'm also excited to see the Orkney Mountains appear (below the Tirashan, west of the Frostbacks)! Context on this from the DA wiki:

"The Orkney Mountains are not marked on any of the official maps. Traveler's Guide section of the Dragon Age: Origins: Prima Official Game Guide, Ultimate Edition provides the following description: "The Orkney Mountains, a rugged chain of mountains that stretches from the icy wastelands of the southeast deep into the continent's center, dominate the southern lands of Thedas." They are distinguished from the southern range of the Frostback Mountains, which are described in the following way "A smaller mountain chain called the Frostback Mountains juts between Ferelden and Orlais and holds the dwarven city of Orzammar (thought to be the last until the rediscovery of Kal-Sharok)." The status of the Orkney Mountains (including their supposed existence and location) remains unclear, as they were not mentioned in any other Dragon Age media."

Things I noticed on the later time-period maps:

From the map at 300 FC, it looks like there is a settlement called “Orlay” in Orlais. (again if you can make this out better than me, let me know!) On this map the only other settlement marked is Minrathous, the capital of Tevinter, and they’re marked with the same symbol (dot inside a circle), so I wonder if at one point in the worldbuilding process, the capital of Orlais was called Orlay? In later sketches, I can’t see Val Royeaux and Orlay is the only settlement in Orlais marked with the ‘capital’ symbol. Maybe Val Royeaux used to be called "Orlay" and then the devs renamed it?

On the map at 600 FC, it notes the Qunari as the “Qunari Empire”. I don’t remember hearing this phrase in published lore, unlike e.g. “Orlesian Empire” or “Tevinter Imperium”. Similarly, while Tevinter is called an empire in the lore, you don’t really hear “Tevinter Empire” like the map notes so much as "Tevinter", the "Imperium" and "the Tevinter Imperium".

On the last, most modern-day map sketch, specific locations for Qundalon and Sundarin are given in the form of dots marking them, as opposed to the map we’re familiar with which doesn’t mark them specifically and just has the text nearby in the general area. Sundarin might at one point have been “Sundurin” but it’s hard for me to make it out.

It’s on this last sketch that more settlement detail and more specific settlements that we’re familiar with start to appear, like Vyrantium, Marnas Pell, Neromenian, Redcliffe etc.

Interestingly, the capital of Seheron on the last sketch is given as Alam (marked by the capital symbol of a dot in a circle), with the settlement of Seheron marked with just a dot. It seems that at some point in the worldbuilding it was decided that the capital of Seheron the nation would be Seheron the settlement as opposed to Alam, as the lore we’re given states the capital is Seheron.

Treviso could have been “Trevis”, but the “o” could also just be obscured by the line of coastline. also it's odd to me that Calabria had to be renamed because it was the name of a region irl but Treviso, which is a city irl, just stayed Treviso?

Ansburg used to be on the coast of the Free Marches in the east, south of Rialto. As we know it, it’s to the west inland, north of Markham.

Lothering’s location also changed, quite a bit. In this map it’s on the northern coast of Ferelden, east of where we know Highever is and west of where we know Amaranthine is. (It is there, the first bit of the word is just obscured somewhat by the line of the coastline). In the map that shipped of course, it’s in Ferelden, south of the Bannorn and north of Ostagar.

I’m reading this settlement in the east of Ferelden on the map sketch as Highever. Anyone else also think so? Maybe this is where it used to be in the worldbuilding process until at some point like Lothering it changed? (or the changes also could have been a result of when the artists drew the map-proper, based on what the article says).

I’m reading the red box settlement here as Val Chevin. I wonder what the letters (looks like the end of a word that was partially cut off after “Orlesian Empire” in typeface was added by the sensitivity department) marked in blue said? maybe “-way”, as in the Imperial Highway? And I can’t make out the name of the settlement in brown is or match it with anywhere on the map we know. “Fourehatie”? [sp?] Maybe this place became “Val Foret”?

Lastly, in the Anderfels, I’m guessing that these settlements (“Laro-velanie”? [sp?], “Melo-orthanic”? [sp?]) are Nordbotten (left) and Hossberg (right) respectively. I guess they got renamed at some point in the world-building process. (Note the presence of “orth” in the name of what we know as Hossburg, like the Orth people/Orthland).

Is there anything else you noticed? any other places that changed name or locations, or people/group names that we can only guess at what they were? or maybe I missed something or you can make out any of the words better than me, or you compared the sketch maps to a different Thedas map like the DA:I war table map and noticed something? If you have any thoughts or corrections, let me know. ^^

Image credits: David Gaider [source link]

#dragon age #bioware #video games #long post #longpost #mj meta

[adaptacy]

A Found Flame {Pt.8}

Pairing: Mentor!Gale Dekarios x Apprentice!GN!Reader

(Previous Chapter) – (Next Chapter) ➔ (AO3)

A/N: got to the astral boat scene... cried a lil. got to the mystra meeting... punched my monitor a lil. /j anyways i made a new divider thing cause the other one was a placeholder and uhmm dont judge it pls i am nawwwt an artist i just slapped together some bits n pieces

Word count: 1.2k

He couldn’t have been more than sixty miles from Daggerford when he first felt it. Hardly subtle was the sensation that bordered on the edge of painful – a stinging pain, like a papercut or a pinch – as the orb was disturbed. He pulled his brown mare to a halt, who offered only an irritated whinny, and his palm pressed to his chest. Even when it was buried beneath three layers of fabric, he could feel the buried beat, thumping against his ribs in some attempt to escape. He wasn’t sure if it was the cold or fear that rendered his throat so irrationally dry, and his eyes flicked to the saddlebag to his left, reminding himself that his dagger rested mere inches away, should he need to use it. 

Not that he felt it was truly an option he could make – not when they remained in Waterdeep, waiting for him. Not when his mother sent letter after letter requesting his presence, worrying about him spending all of his time in that damned tower. Not when he still had so much to do, to teach, hells – to learn.

But the weave didn’t care. Mortal worries, mortal fears, mortal disobedience. What the weave wanted from him, it would take, and no bargaining would score him any better. 

It beats again, but the reasoning is beyond him. He stumbles, awkwardly shifting off of his horse and staggering off of the road, the saddlebag now in his hand. The horse whinnies once more behind him, giving a stomp of disapproval, but it doesn’t yet flee. 

Another beat, and this one echoes in the very earth around him, the leaves of the woods – the Misty Forest, he concludes – trembling at the power that he holds? The ground shudders, and again, he stumbles, falling to his knees, dirtying the plush plum of his coat. One hand presses against the trunk of a tree, desperate for stability, and the other rustles through his bag, hissing as his fingers grace the silver blade of his dagger, staining it with fresh blood. Then they find the hilt, and the weapon is retracted. He meets its eyes – his own eyes – and he feels the judgment. The shame. 

What a mess he’s become. A terrible waste of talent. A miserable slum of what was once a wonderful wizard. How far he’s sunken, wallowing as a lowlife where he once had a seat at the very table of the Lord’s Helm. A short-lived seat, it was, but the stark difference of status is nauseating. 

He hasn’t said all that needs to be said. He hasn’t seen his mothers face in, what, years? Certainly not since this gods-forsaken blight has invaded his body. He hasn’t told her he loves her, not face-to-face, in perhaps even longer. He used to share tea with her every other week. He used to brag to her about his newest studies, read his journals to her as she praised her son as though he’d done something truly life-changing. He’d promised her – promised her that he would do something with them. That, one way or another, he’d change the world, for her, for his prodigious talent, for Mystra–

Gods, Mystra. 

They’d never understand. Perhaps nobody could – the mere idea of godhood isn’t something the average mortal fumbles with the concept of. To touch godhood, real godhood, to feel godhood’s embrace, to taste godhood, to love and argue and plead with godhood? 

No, nobody could understand. 

There was, once, a reason he wrecked his body to such unfathomable levels. A beautiful, divine, wonderfully perfect reason. A reason he’d hunted down the extent of her reaches, dared to tussle with some influence even larger than his goddess, a reason he threatened the very origin of the weave itself. 

There was a reason he’d gotten so far, and fallen even further. He liked to believe there was a reason he was chosen. A reason beyond his charm. A reason beyond her playfulness. How arrogant everyone else must have been – reminding him again, and again, and again, that he was not special. Not to her, not to them, hardly even to himself. How sweetly she spoke to him. How highly she praised him. How generous she’d been, to so fondly accept his kisses, his touch, his love, only to sever all ties the instant he strayed too far. 

His grip tightens on the dagger, and the earth trembles again – he wants to find a purpose. Beyond being the plaything everyone says he is. Beyond being just a muse in her long history of flings, of mortal manipulation, of abandoned chosen after abandoned chosen. His eyes close, and he tries to find a sense of belonging in his memories with her. Whether it be in her lectures, her fleeting warmth, her luring coos or her mystical prowess. 

He tries to find a sense of belonging seated at her side. So many years of his life, wasted to entertain her for a mere fraction of her trite immortality. In decades, he’ll be nothing more than a few lines in even fewer books, a word of warning to young wizards everywhere. He’s read them before, the names thus far belonging to men all but unfamiliar to him. Karsus, Dornar Silverhand, Khelben. Even Elminster shared such similar encounters, only ever brought up in quickly-fading exhales, shame stringing the sentences along, unwilling and cold. 

Youth lent him such forgiveness. Disregarding the tales were easy – this Mystra would be different. This Mystra would love him the way he loved her. 

But he’s no longer the doe-eyed seventeen year old he was when he granted her the benefit of the doubt. Instead, he’s nearly forty, and tired, and weary, and finding himself at the receiving end of a ridged, steel-forged blade, the orb pulsing, twisting, battling to overrule the beating of his heart.

And the woods shake again, and he feels the apical tip press into his skin, earning a hiss of discomfort from his bared teeth. 

He pressures the blade further, but the earth shakes again, and he’s thrown off his balance, the blade lodging instead in his shoulder, and he groans in overwhelming discomfort, his irritation for the misplacement only overshadowed by the pain searing through his nerves. 

The orb doesn’t erupt, but the sky certainly does, splitting to cast a large darkness over the forest – over the entire world, for all that he knows. He rolls onto his back, fighting to remove the blade from his shoulder, but his grasps are awkward and far too hesitant. A large, snaking mass of flesh-like anatomy swipes over the forest, knocking trees around him, and his chase for suicide is halted by an intense horror, completely unaware of what in the hells is happening above him. He coughs, choking on his pain, and another curse of biology crashes into the forest. 

He’s able to follow the form to its root, finding a terrifically unfamiliar hard-encased body of flight soaring the sky above him. At last, he rips the dagger from his shoulder, crying out at the tearing of muscle, and he instinctually tosses it aside. He hears the horse, at last, galloping to a safety he can only yearn for, and he’s not even granted a chance to see which direction it ran before the appendage of likely certified doom separates into smaller tendrils, the trees knocked aside once more until one grazes his torso, perhaps only by a mere stroke of luck, or the lack thereof, and he’s whisked into a pitch-black loss of consciousness.

#baldurs gate 3 #baldurs gate #baldur's gate 3 #gale baldurs gate 3 #gale x reader #gale of waterdeep #bg3 gale #gale bg3 #gale dekarios #gale dekarios x reader #gale dekarios angst #gale dekarios bg3 #baldurs gate 3 fanfiction

[majachee]

Trying to moralize what's happening in Palestine really shows one's own lack of, well, morals.

"Israel has the right to defend itself!" — self defense does not include bombing hospitals with children, doctors, families, the injured, etc. inside. That is a war crime. Self defense does not include bombing and shooting evacuation routes. That is a war crime. Self defense does not include bombing churchs and cultural artifacts. That is a war crime. Self defense does not include cutting off all access to food, water, electricity, humanitarian aid, etc. That is a war crime and a crime against humanity.

Israel has been doing this shit for years, decades. They are using Hamas as a tool for propaganda. The West hates Arabic countries and its people, it's blatantly obvious here in America with depictions of the Middle East post-9/11 and even before 9/11. Israel is taking advantage of this blatant bigotry and xenophobia.

Every country has it's own unique issues regarding human rights, equality, and separation of religion and the state, unofrtunately. The Middle East is not "uniquely evil" or even UNIQUE for whatever issues the Western media decides to hyperfocus on. I assure you, you can find an equivalent in America or any European country — whether in the modern day or throughout history. This does not make the civilians any less human, this does not make anyone less human. You're not at fault for simply being born in a country the world has unfairly deemed as "evil" or "subhuman." Your purpose in life is to live freely and happy, it is your birthright to live. You do not have to justify your existentence. You don't have to moralize your life. You shouldn't have to. You are human, you were born, and you should be free to live to life you were given.

You cannot moralize killing an entire population of people. Every person on Earth has their own beliefs and values, their own stories. Their own families, histories, passions, hobbies. You can't justify killing an entire civilization of diverse people because of one singular, small ass group. And even then, Israel has lied about Hamas again and again and again. We cannot trust a word that the Israeli government says. Nothing Israel can say about the Hamas will ever justify what they've done for 75 years.

People have the right to live. It's basic human rights and yet so many zionists and self-proclaimed "liberals" in the West refuse to acknowledge that. I suppose it's easier to ignore/justify genocide when you remove the personhood and individuality of the population. They're not people to you if you justify genocide, they're just faceless, void concepts.

Trying to moralize genocide is the same shit Hitler did. It's what Nazis and Neo-Nazis did/are doing. It's what Klansmen are doing. I don't give a flying fuck what Hamas did or did not do, the Israeli government is full of lying scumbags and nothing will ever justify the 75 years of bloodshed that stains Israel's stolen borders. In a parallel universe, everything they're saying about Hamas could be true and it still won't justify shit, because they aren't acting in self-defense and they're killing civilians in the tens of thousands.

By moralizing genocide, you are actively dehumanizing the victims. You don't see them as real people with real personalities. You are justifying murder, rape, torture, cultural erasure, historical revisioning, and wiping out entire societies off the face of the planet. It's blatant eugenics and facism.

#free palestine #from the river to the sea palestine will be free

[kairiscorner]

i was scrolling thru ur works and i loved the concept of ai assistant miguel sm i rarely see those type of things in his tags 😭😭 could we perhaps have sum hcs abt him maybe a lil angsty idk go wild!! >:3

HELLOOOOO aww, so glad you liked it :D AND OFC !!! i hate yet love how much i've thought of this tbh LMAO but anyway, hope you enjoy !!!

(yes, the barbie movie inspired me yet again 💖💖💖)

(reblogs are greatly appreciated, it helps get my content out there! if you guys like what you see, please reblog it too <:D)

AI assistant miguel headcanons

ever since you updated him with that emotions and shit mod, he's been... busy discovering what it means to exist and the very fun part that comes with it, an existential crisis !!!

he's been going on youtube just listening to video essays and philosophical shit on there and just questioning: what was i made for? does my existence have a point? am i not to go beyond the borders of virtuality and remain as i am, still and immortal, but unliving?

he also goes through a rabbit hole of human experiences–the good, bad, the grand, the mundane; and as he's looking through all these experiences that people share and have shared, seeing all the beautiful and ugly things in the world, he sheds a FUCKING VIRTUAL TEAR FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER.

he also, without your knowledge, looks into the other versions of himself in other universes, and he's a little surprised (at least he emulates surprise) that there are indeed other versions of him that are human and live out a human existence.

he looks through every one of them–those who have lived, died, became spider man, became fathers–and every single one of them was doomed to have an ending. but what was his ending? what was his purpose? was he ever going to leave a mark on the world? would... anyone miss him? why did he exist, why did he end up as an AI assistant when every other version of him was able to live a life. maybe not very happy or full lives, but they were able to live lives, have an ending, while he... he's just there.

he so desperately wants to figure out what it is he wants in life, if you could call his existence living at all. he has all these emotions that, no matter how much he convinces himself it's all just an emulation of emotions, compel him to want some things–to need some things, or someone.

he usually knows the answers to everything, what with the answers being a click or scroll away for him, though when he tries to ask himself what it means to live, to love... he's unsure what they mean, it doesn't compute to him at all what they mean. the only thing that comes up in his mind when he pictures both life and love, all that comes up is... you.

it scares him, he's unsure why you are the first thing that comes up when he searches deep within himself for the answers, but when he thinks of you, there's something that throbs at him, despite him being unable to feel, the feeling of his hypothetical heart throbbing in his chest of code is real to him. he wants you, he needs you, he... he loves you–but he'll never let you know, never. it's best if you live without that knowledge bearing on you... right?

tags !! @miguelswifey04 @binibinileonara @meeom @arachnoia @popeheywardssecretgf @fiannee @fictarian @yuridopted0 @ophanimgold @melovetitties

#miguel o'hara #spiderverse #across the spiderverse #miguel o'hara x reader #miguel o'hara angst #miguel o'hara x you #miguel o'hara x y/n #miguel o'hara fanfiction #atsv #atsv miguel #atsv angst #atsv imagines #atsv x reader #atsv x you #atsv x y/n #spiderman across the spiderverse #spiderman across the spiderverse x reader #spiderman across the spiderverse angst #spiderman 2099

[businesstiramisu]

For an American with an internet connection, I manage to grow up with some pretty big gaps in my pop cultural awareness, and one of those was DC superheroes (Marvel too, until the MCU became a thing when I was in high school)

Like, I was aware that Superman and Batman are characters, and even that they live in the cities of Metropolis and Gotham. I just always assumed that those were fictional analogues for New York City and Chicago, respectively. (As the two Big US Cities, and I guess as a kid I thought Chicago was really dark and gloomy? which visiting it as an adult hasn't really been my experience but w/e).

But last month i got into batfam fanfic and learned that no, NYC and Chicago totally exist in the DC universe, and Metropolis and Gotham (plus a bunch of others with boring names) are entirely fictional with no real world geographic counterpart. Also I was entirely wrong about their approximate locations.

Gotham is in New Jersey, which, sure, explains why it's so cursed.

But Metropolis? IT'S IN FUCKING DELAWARE

most famous on here for tumblr collectively refusing to believe it's a real state?!?!

IRL it's mostly relevant as a corporate tax shelter!

I just can't wrap my head around the concept of Delaware having any important cities. IRL its biggest town is Wilmington, population just under 70k. Which, like, not tiny, but still smaller than every city i've ever lived in. (It's basically a surburb of Philly that just happens to be across the state border.)

Placing Metropolis in Delaware automatically downgrades it in my mind from "important enough city to be the stage for alien invasions" to "what the fuck is Lex Luthor doing there, why doesn't he take the tax break and put his HQ in a real city like a normal billionaire"

#batman #superman #geography #actually idk if there's any alien invasions in metropolis #i know there's alien invasions in some Superman movies but i suppose they could be happening somewhere else #i've seen the 1978 movie and THAT sure made metropolis seem NYC-like. but there wasn't an alien invasion i don't think #unless you count Superman himself. which i don't. he's very polite #MCU had the good sense to set its alien invasion in NYC. of course aliens want to invade NYC

[merakiui]

The Malleus idea with the forest... losing my mind over here, a whole a five course meal is being served

THE HORROR POTENTIAL????

There's so much horror potential!!! Supernatural horror, the horror of invasive nature, mental horror as you struggle to differentiate what's real from what's fake or simply a culmination of sleep deprivation. I love horror stories where the main character adamantly insists they aren't crazy, only to then seem crazy when unbelievable things happen. You think you're safe, but you're not sure if you truly are and even then you struggle to trust your judgment because what's even real anymore???? Malleus can't cross over onto your territory because you have not invited him, so he can only stand at the border every day and night and wait for you to either invite him into your life or, inevitably, until the creeping forest brings you to him. :) or he can simply trap you with all manner of fae trickery and deception, but with your guard being so high up already that may be a little difficult.

Also, I just love concepts in which there is a creature of the forest. "Over the Garden Wall" is a good example of this, with The Beast being the titular monster of the forest. :D aaaaa I just adore how sinister a forest can become when it is the home of an unknown terror. Malleus makes for such a foreboding entity in yandere stories.

If I write it (which I really want to!!), I am obligated to add Rollo as your best friend who is like, "See? I told you so. This is precisely why you never live near the strange magical forest." >:( but then I also like the idea of narrowing the list of characters to just Reader and Malleus (and Silver because he has to appear in Reader's dreams as their protector of sorts; this is essential to the plot). I feel like that, coupled with the forest as its own character, makes for such an isolating experience because Reader has no one to turn to. It's just them, the forest, and the horned stranger off in the distance...

#twisted chit chat #the only times you're able to have a dream-filled slumber and all you're dreaming of is a princely man... T_T just what is this symbolism? #reader is like 'are you my soulmate?' #and silver's like '???? um. not exactly...' #silver good luck in saving reader!!!! <3

[thenixkat]

Mundane AU!Laios thoughts

Note:

Probably contains spoilers

Mundane au= no magic and no fantasy 'races' (like... little people are a thing, they exist in reality, some people just have dwarfism. The elves are just skinny racist and xenophobic Europeans like? And there's already parralells made with the demi humans so if I do anything the orcs are Afro Native and Kobolds are somewhere African or Arab. And for the ogres... gigantism is a thing that exists in real like and totally a teen girl would just wear some horns.)

Thoughts:

The Toudens are European-born. From somewhere cold as hell, really isolated and conservative, that's close to some mountains, that's racist towards the local indigenous people.

(The sibs, but especially Laios got chewed out about some shit and has been trying to be better, slips up every now and then but takes criticism well so long as folks tell him what he did/said wrong).

Local weird kids put off vibes that the rest of the village didn't like, Laios and Falin grew up bullied and ostracized. Falin got sent off to schooling in the big city and later to a university in Italy where she met Marcille.

Laios dropped out of high school and joined the military as soon as he was able to b/c he wanted to get the hell out of dodge. Served for a few shitty years b4 just... deserting and backpacking across Europe just straight up homeless and working whatever odd jobs he could find. Man was going through it. Wound up in the same city where Falin was studying at a university in and decided to visit her. She took one look at him and refused to let him just go back to what he was doing, so Laios started couch surfing with her (very much against dorm rules but he looked terrible and Falin wasn't about to let anyone stop her from making sure her brother has a roof over his head and food).

Eventually, she takes him with her when she does a work-study in the USA for her ecology degree and they ended up staying/Falin kinda maybe sorta dropped out and got a job with a vet near where she was doing her work-study.

Laios and Falin are technically illegal immigrants but they're white so no one really questions their citizenship (their working on getting citizenship/papers)

Laios gets a GED. Does some self-study from Falin's textbooks and online stuff but that's about it for his schooling.

Laios definitely, like, lives in Falin's basement. Falin is the primary breadwinner in this household, Laios is aware of this and has learned to accept it even tho he would like to take care of his baby sister and sometimes feels bad about not being able to. They used to share a room in a cheap apartment but after building up enough savings they managed to buy a suspiciously cheap house in a rural town bordering a reservation and not far from a national park.

Laios still works odd jobs, mostly physical labor and stuff where they won't ask for a degree. Has worked retail, where his customer service was trash but he's darn good at just stocking and shelving shit.

Met Chilchuck while working retail, Chilchuck introduced him to the concept of a union which Laios thinks is really neat.

The town where the Touden's moved has a sizable population of people with dwarfism, Chilchuck is a notable member of the little person community in the area. The Touden's go to Chilchuck for help with paperwork (they pay him a small fee) and he doesn't ask too many questions about why they don't have this or that piece of documentation.

Laios enjoys doing citizen science and bird watching. During the tourist season, he runs a small wilderness guide giving campers and hikers tours in the local national park.

There's a hermit that lives in the national park illegally (Senshi) that Laios and Falin made friends with. They love his cooking.

Laios is active in the online furry community. He does commissions, mostly of digital and physical art or people's fursonas and vore stuff. He does great ferals, and decent anthros, but his human art is not good (he's working on it).

Laios is decidedly chubby in this, his weight goes up and down depending on the season and how much physical activity he's doing. But ever since he reunited with Falin, she's been making sure he doesn't skip meals if they can afford to eat. And ever since he met Senshi he's gotten heftier since he loves that man's cooking.

#nix meows #dungeon meshi #laios touden #mundane au #just a few thoughts