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Post by Starchaser on Dec 21, 2020 3:23:44 GMT -5
I think all your explanations were fine, it's just me having a problematic brain xD
I mean, I know none of this will ultimately have an impact considering we're all using the same language, I just think about hypothetical instances too hard.
I think that's a good explanation, so we'll go with that for simplicity's sake. I don't have much to say about Veuxdelian yet, just that it would be designed in a way intended to make any species trying to learn it not have much trouble. We can say they put adjectives before nouns, mostly cause I don't have anything very solid yet.
Yeah, I figured that would be a problem with vampires. I wasn't certain if there'd be exceptions, like with High Vampiric when interacting with other nation's governments, but it can be explained by important vampires learning Veuxdelian. Lilah not getting to learn something isn't gonna sit well with her though, or really any Mages.
Sorry there isn't much substance or addition to this, I've kind of exhausted my writing ability with all the RP replies.
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Post by mossecho on Dec 21, 2020 3:38:46 GMT -5
Who would win, vampires' stubbornness or mages' curiosity? vampires' stubbornness. definitely. the yee-haw vampires might betray everyone else, but they speak so weirdly that learning their dialect wouldn't be any help, lol
Ugh, I am so nervous about writing my next RP post, there's no way I can live up to anyone else's recent ones xD also still thinking of making another character, although I really should work with Lu before I do that. she just doesn't have a good spot right now. and she was mainly made just to give avani someone to hang out with for a bit but... idk. don't want to say goodbye to her yet
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Post by Starchaser on Dec 21, 2020 4:31:45 GMT -5
Unstoppable force meets immovable object vampires might win, but only because they have longer lifespans. the mages die before they can complete their mission, but there will always be more to take their place... they know for a fact they're wearing those stubborn old vampires down, most definitely
I was nervous, but I have so many posts to write I'm excusing myself for any typos/mistakes/lackluster-ness/whatever. Seriously, Moss, I always love your posts. Your writing style makes me jealous, my posts never turn out that nice. Mostly because I end up giving up, but it would take much longer for me to respond otherwise. Yet I continue making characters. Who will never have descriptions. And I oop-
No, I love Lu! We can't say goodbye to her. Even if prophecy crew leaves most of the side characters, they can always hang with each other. I have plenty of side characters that haven't even seen the light of day yet, so we can definitely have more interactions.
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Post by mossecho on Dec 21, 2020 18:18:34 GMT -5
meanwhile border vampires are happily chatting with their neighbors while all the rich Mages and vampires fight over the generations xD
Awww, thank you so much! Although I'd say all those same kind things about you. It's always a joy reading your work. Honestly, everyone in this RP is such a great writer. It's really a joy to RP with everyone, I always look forward to reading everyone's new work. (: also the description thing is like to opposite of my character creation process xD I can come up with a good description but never a personality. then the personality evolves and the description just disappears because... brains. idk
Oh no, I don't want to say bye to Lu! I just need to figure out what to do with her. And then also figure out how to get my other character (or characters) in there and also manage my time well enough to write for them 😅
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Post by Starchaser on Dec 21, 2020 22:57:14 GMT -5
mage: so are you ever gonna let us learn vampirirc??? vampire: please drop it, i have already had this same argument with every single one of your ancestors for the past 18 generations
Yeah, I definitely agree with that. I love reading everyone's replies and learning more about their characters, though I do feel you're all more adept at it than me. I know I could do better if I put in more effort, but I guess RP is just one of the few times I'm willing to let my perfectionism go because it's the only hobby I can enjoy right now. I am indecisive so my character's descriptions and personalities change pretty frequently. To be fair, people grow and change, so the evolving personality thing isn't really an issue.
Time management? Never meet them. That's good to hear about Lu! I have something of the same dilemma because I've now created multiple characters for each Family and doubt they'll all have enough screen time to develop them. I'm always open to stuff on the side though! I've probably overbooked myself a bit already, but I love RPing with y'all so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Post by mossecho on Dec 22, 2020 4:59:12 GMT -5
ok so that meme is pure gold and i love it but also i misread it (missaw it?) and thought the old dude threw a chair at the younger dude. and may i just say, that it would be hilarious if Official Vampire Policy™ when the annoying little Mages came around asking about Vampiric was to throw a chair at them. "well, it worked 50 years ago, it will work now." "if they get seriously injured, then they might learn." "if they die, it will be fine. it will blow over in a century." "they really should learn to respect their elders. if they cannot do this, then it is no wonder that they ended up in chair-related accidents."
Ugh, that perfectionism thing is too true. Yet it's easier for me to let go with this RP. That doesn't mean I'm not always cringing when reviewing my posts (dear heaven help me x-x), but... it's easier, you know? I'm enjoying it much more than anything else. This RP has become such an escape in the past few weeks. It just makes me so happy to see another notification that someone has posted something. Even if it's just a quick "hello, can't post anything rn but still thinking about you guys," it's so heartwarming.
This is not a healthy time management RP, lol. Maybe a pro-hopefully-improving-our-time-management-(one-day) RP. Maybe. At any rate, I honestly sometimes feel a bit overwhelmed with Alex and Lu on their own. Not in a very bad way, not at all, but... you know. Sometimes. It's more the control freak in me than anything else. Now that said, I recently got back into using those online portrait makers and the like to make my new character idk if she'll ever even show up, but I still need to figure her out because i have problems
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Post by Amber on Dec 23, 2020 15:09:54 GMT -5
Okay, so sorry for butting in, but maybe Lu could join Zane in the prophecy crew? Maybe if everyone's okay with it, Lu and Zane, maybe even Cris, and Lys (and potentially a few others) could partner up and journey with them together? I'm not sure if everyone would want to juggle all those characters (it would be between 7 and 9 at least, counting the prophecy crew and whoever goes with them) together or if we'd want such a big group, but it's one idea for those of us who aren't ready to say goodbye to our side characters yet.
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Rainbow
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Post by Starchaser on Dec 23, 2020 16:11:47 GMT -5
You're fine! The conversation isn't exclusive or anything lol
Anyways, I think I actually mentioned that being an option if people wanted a while back, but it probably got lost in all the other rambles I'm always doing on my replies. I don't personally mind bringing along some side characters, I think it could be really interesting. The only problems I really foresee are the ones you already pointed out. I'm already kind of feeling the difficulty of juggling everyone with how many characters I've made, and I'm sure some of you relate. I still enjoy RPing them and would love to explore more, but it can feel like I'm not giving anyone enough attention (not in RP, they get plenty of interaction, just that I don't personally spend enough time developing each of them and thinking up good responses). That said, as long as the respective roleplayers are fine with it, so am I.
I do think it has the potential to become a bit convoluted though. Honestly, our planned group (of just the chosen ones) is a bit small, so I definitely think throwing a few extras in could spice it up, but I also see that it might become too crowded. Since a lot of the RP is dependent/built on the bond that needs to be formed between the prophecy crew members, adding a bunch of additional characters could get a little tricky. Mainly because I then see the possibility of divides forming. Not that all of the group wouldn't become friends necessarily, but with more people to interact with comes the choice of who to spend time with, if that makes sense. While the group probably would all grow to care for/like each other, there would undoubtedly be stronger connections with certain individuals. Not that that wont still happen (already Alex/Lilah and Clari/Avani/Zane have somewhat formed groups within the crew, but that's mostly because they haven't met each other), but letting everyone have the chance to properly develop a bond with everyone else could be hard if there are enough characters.
I'm also worried about the amount of screentime everyone would get. Obviously, everybody's prophecy character would get the most attention and priority in the plot, but I don't want to sideline any of the side characters we're bringing. With that many different personalities and skillsets though, making sure everyone played a satisfying role might also prove a problem. The side characters would inevitably be pushed aside at times, whereas just having them in their own side plots would eliminate that problem.
Also, it might be sorta hard for people to make interactions between their own characters consistently. It's just not as entertaining, at least not for me. I mean, the dynamics are still interesting (I do already make Gabriel and Lilah interact a lot), but getting to react to what other characters do without already knowing what's going to happen is usually more fun.
I still don't mind bringing more side characters, I've already got one in the mix, so I can't really deny the right to anyone else. I just think we do have to be mindful of how many. Seeing as in our old RP, we were going to have eight characters, it's not really that big of a deal right now. But depending on when Spider returns, we might also be adding Veive to the mix. I know we discussed him being a villain, but at the pace we've been moving at (not that it's a completely bad thing, we've just added a lot more elements and arcs that weren't present in the original imagining of this; and we've also been busy), they may very well be around before we're too far into the plot. Probably around 8 characters in total would be fine, but I could see more than that becoming somewhat difficult.
Ultimately, I think we should maybe just let things play out naturally? Like, let the side characters exist and do their own thing, still showing up to participate in the main story when the plot calls for it (kinda like we're planning with mage gang), but otherwise being involved in other areas. Then let the characters who it makes sense for join up with the crew as a sort of honorary chosen one. A lot of why Zane is coming along with prophecy crew is because I basically created him for a relationship with Clarisse (whether it turns out romantic or they just end up being good friends), and much of his own plot hinges on what she does. Some side characters might end up having reason to join up with prophecy crew, while it might not make as much sense for others. Btw, I didn't mean to imply anyone was forcing their characters into interactions, basically I'm just saying that for the characters who don't end up joining prophecy crew, we can find stuff for them to do too rather than trying to figure out how they'll fit into the main plot. I really enjoy learning about everyone's characters and it'd be a shame not to continue seeing them, but I also don't want them mains to get overshadowed because they're in a place where they have to share the spotlight with tons of others.
Since Lu and Avani are friends, I could potentially see her getting involved, but Lu also has her family and job (?) to deal with. I don't know as much about her, but she might not want/be able to join up permanently with our crew. Cris and Lys I could see, considering they're thieves without a set home and all, as far as I can tell. Plus, Cris did make that promise to Lilah, and you said he would've taken something like that pretty serious, so I could see that being a factor. Lys would probably be inclined to go if Cris did, but I don't know if she would otherwise want to deal with that. Obviously I'm not going to say who can and can't go, just lending my thoughts on it. I'll let everyone make that call for their own characters, of course
I'm not going to add anyone else of mine into prophecy crew, considering I've already got the majority of important characters, I really don't need to be taking up any more slots.
Anywho, that was a very long way of saying, I'm cool with anything, it's up to y'all.
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Rainbow
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Post by Starchaser on Dec 23, 2020 20:48:13 GMT -5
mossecho Mages now come to every meeting with vampires enchanted with a shielding spell xD Oh, gosh, now I just really wanna think about the intricacies of Mage-Vampire politics. Like, all the other species got the hint that vampires they don't want to bother making nice the silly humans. Every species has left them to their own devices except for those irksome, insignificant mages. Do they have no sense? No matter how many times the vampires send them away with insults or threats, they just wont quit coming around. For some reason it seems to make them more insistent. What do they mean they want to be "friends"? Honestly, who do they think they are? How arrogant do they have to be to think they have the right to interact with vampires? Inviting that chaos into their orderly, structured society would only bring about trouble.
Mages are the only species that tries to interact with vampires outside of necessity and do genuinely try to find ways to better the relations... but they have made it their mission to just pester and inconvenience vampires forever since they wanna be petty like that. They insist on celebrating the birthdays of important vampires every single year. They only give them gag gifts and send stupidly flashy and annoying virtual cards using anima. They refer to vampires as "those uptight batty bois" (or basically anything other than their actual name) in all legal documents. They once sent an extremely long letter that they said had very important contents. It was written in the Mage language instead of Veuxdelian, so it took a super long time to translate. It was a bunch of jokes about vampires.
They also give me general boomer vs gen z vibes. And, yes, these are all interactions with the national government.
Vampires: You need to be more respectful, we have been around for far longer than you. Your existence will amount to a millisecond of our lives. Mage: Bruh, my bloodline is older than your entire species. Shouldn't you be groveling to me? Vampire: *disgruntled noises of offense*
Mage: And this is called a "meme." Vampire: I do not understand. What purpose do they serve? Mage: They're just for fun. Vampire: That is ridiculous. It is no wonder your species has not accomplished anything meaningful. Mage: Well, we also use them to make fun of you a lot *scrolls through phone to show them a mocking spongebob meme about something vampires commonly say* Vampire: :/ ???
Mage: *calls vampire by nickname* Vampire: *lectures them for an hour on their utter audacity and lack of respect* Mage: *films it and uploads the video to YouTube* The video: Crazy Old Dude Flips Out Over Nothing - NOT CLICKBAIT
Vampire: So you see, human. Our society was designed to preserve order and stability, with the utmost care and attention to details. A lowly mortal like yourself could simply never comprehend how to- Mage: *making tiktoks with a group of very confused vampires who have no idea what's happening in the background*
Mage: We just wish you could be more updog with us. Vampire: What is "updog"? Mage: Nothing much, what's up with you?
Mage: That is how Mages say hello. *cut to vampire* Vampire: *making some rude mage hand gesture* Is this correct? Mage: *holding back laughter* Yeah, perfect. Now go show your entire coven.
I usually always start out trying to make my posts sound the Best... but I always end up giving up. Part of it is because I don't want to make everyone wait a very long time, and I want to see the person's response already. The other part of it is just because I enjoy the RP too much to let my perfectionism ruin the fun. I also hate my responses a second after I hit "reply," but it doesn't stop me from continuing anyways. Like you said, in a lot of ways, this RP is very much a nice escape from the real world, which is almost always stressful and/or boring. And I really enjoy just chatting with all of you, working on worldbuilding, sharing stupid memes, etc.
I know what you mean. I really feel like I don't give all my characters the effort they deserve but, well, I try. Also, portrait makers are super fun, but they always frustrate me because I never end up being able to get the character exactly how I want them.
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Post by Amber on Dec 24, 2020 2:12:55 GMT -5
Haha I figured, but it's good to know.
We have so many posts, I'm not surprise that it got lost somewhere. There's probably plenty of things that have gotten lost sotospeak over the course of this. Anyway, that's fair. Besides Lilah, Gabriel, Zane, and Caspian(whenever he comes in) I know you have quite a few characters/idea you're trying to juggle. I think you're doing a good job, even though it does seem tough. Anyway, that's a good start.
Agreed. While it'll be great/exciting to see how they [the prophecy crew] play off each other, I think having a few more in the fray will add some more fun interactions. With that said, you also bring up some good points. Perhaps I'm bold in saying this, but I think we all want some great found family bonds with the crew. It could be made diffcult with too many people in the mix. I also think that occasionally sidelining side characters isn't all that bad from time to time. However, that's just me and I know not everyone will feel the same. With that said, finding side plots/productive things for them to do could be fun. Your point about "roleplaying" with yourself is also something to keep in mind too. For example, while Gabriel and Lilah have an interesting dynamic, and Cris and Lys have the benefit of being close and knowing each other for years giving both pairs enough content to write for, that wouldn't be the case for everyone.
I know I may be jumping the shark because nothing is set in stone, but perhaps we could have a couple of missions/arcs/plots that only can be achieved by the prophecy crew. Like, there's a place only they can enter and everyone else has to stay outside. Or group A(prophecy crew) and group B(their companions) split up to see what they can find. Or group A is captured and group B has to work together to help them. I think there's a lot we can do to make sure we get as much bonding between the main guys as possible while also keeping up with the side guys, it's just a matter of brainstorming and figuring out what to do where (though this does seem like it might be a case of easier said than done).
Agreed again. As I already mentioned, we don't want to make things too complicated or messy. 8 or so does seem like a good number for the main group, however. But yeah, keeping an eye on what to do with Vieve whenever Spider returnes is also something important to keep in mind. I think this should be the kind of thing we deal with whenever we get to that point. It seems hard to plan out something for a character and player who're gone indefinitely. I mostly suggested adding some because the rest of us have secondary characters to throw into whatever plot, except for Shoot (assuming she even wants another character to join in stuff outside of Redis and Al, who, already has her own thing going on). But anyway, I agree with letting things play out naturally and seeing where they go.
I'm sure Moss will figure something out for Lucrecia and whatever it is, it'll be interesting. As for Cris and Lys, they have been living in Sanctum for about five years. Or, I guess, mainly returning to Sanctum the most in that time period. It's really just a convient place they can just kinda set up and do their thing I suppose. Anyway, Crispen does take his promises very seriously after a thing that happened in his Mysterious Past™, so I could see him potentially joining. He and Lysandra are also a packaged deal, so even if she would grumble and complain a little about it, she would still stick by his side.
I'll let you know now that Avani, Cris, and Lys are it for my characters. Besides Avani's family that'll play a minor role at some point, and the ocassional random character like Rolland or Hywel Iver from time to time, that's it. Anyway, I personally don't mind that you have two prophecy characters (not that I want to invalidate your feelings or be rude ir anything). With that said, I'd be happy to help out/occasionally use him, especially because as you already mentioned juggling characters have been diffcult for you. If we're to pass him around between the four of us (or five whenever we get Spider back), then I think we need to come up with a way to handle that so it doesn't get messy or confusing. It would also ensure that no one gets overwhelmed with an amount of views they may be uncomfortable with. And yes, after having so many kind/nice/friendly characters(Avani is the living embodiment of sunshine and happiness, Crispen is very friendly and nice, and while Lysandra can be grumpy, she's not outright rude or anything), it would be fun to have a jerkish character to use.
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Rainbow
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Post by Starchaser on Dec 24, 2020 3:18:48 GMT -5
Well, at least I seem to be doing a decent job of it then. Honestly, it's my own fault for creating so many characters, I just really enjoy this world. It's the type of setting that allows for a lot of really interesting stories/characters/places, and I want to explore all of them despite knowing it's unrealistic. That said, it probably wont be as hard once we get all the main crew together. The only thing I worry about is Lilah juggling Lilah and Caspian. They're different enough that it wont be hard to come up with content for each of them, but in terms of developing their relationship I'm a little uncertain how I'll have it play out. At the start, they're probably gonna avoid each other a lot so I can develop them with the others first (tbh they wouldn't be friends under most circumstances anyways) so I can figure it out.
Anyways, Gabriel will drop off as a character I actively roleplay after the party (or Sanctum), except in a few instances, and I don't plan on making any of my other characters very integral to the plot. I just really wanted to have someone in every Family so I could play with them a bit. Gabriel's arc has been pretty solidly set in stone from the start, so I'm not too worried about him. Mage gang is fun, but we probably wont have that story running constantly, I imagine. Three main-ish characters isn't too bad, here's to hoping I do them justice.
Yeah, while I'm sure they'll all have interesting interactions and I'm excited to explore their dynamic, I think adding a few extra characters would be good. Although I think prophecy crew would be okay on their own, it really isn't that many people, and while it might not ever be boring per se, I could see their interactions being a bit slow (?). I don't really know how to phrase it, I just think adding more characters would improve the dynamic. I agree that putting the side characters on the back burner is fine at times, I guess I'm just concerned at some ending up never really having a chance to develop, or some getting overshadowed more than others.
Thinking up side plots/missions for them would help and could be cool, it'd probably let us explore the world more (which is something I'd like to do). The idea about them not being able to do everything prophecy crew does also makes sense and would help alleviate some of the other problems as well. Since not everyone is Chosen, it might make sense that they'd literally be the only ones allowed in certain restricted areas, and there might also be instances where they wouldn't be able to enter because of some magic thing that only the chosen ones can bypass. I was already thinking of maybe making this the case with some of the areas where the stones are. We could also just physically have them get separated at times. Zane is already not joining up with the crew until later because he gets separated and injured in the attack.
That's true, I think we'll probably just have to see where we are if/when Spider comes back and work something out from there. At most it looks like we'd have 9 characters in total (unless Shoot also wants to throw some into the mix), which is quite a few, but I don't think it would be unreasonable or problematic. I anticipated we might have picked up some side characters on the way, so I never really had issue with it, and I do like all the characters we've introduced. I think they have a lot of potential.
Makes sense about Cris and Lys staying in Sanctum. Most species would have trouble living in a Family other than their own, so most hybrids/mingled groups/interspecies relations stay in Sanctum. I obviously don't know well enough to say what anyone else's character would do, so like I said, just let me know whatever you decide I will say that I do really enjoy Cris and Lys, so having them along could be neat if it's what you wanted. Also, a Mysterious Past, eh? I am Looking 👀 Lilah's past was supposed to be mysterious, but then I got carried away with wanting to shout about my new ideas and headcanons. Not that I've revealed everything (:
Sounds good, I wish I had your self-control lol. Anyways, yeah, I wont force anyone to help with Caspian, I mostly suggested it because I thought someone might want to play with another view (but that was before we all had side characters), and because I'm the only one with two chosen ones. I do see the potential for it to be confusing, so I don't know how we'd deal with that exactly. I guess we'll just figure out as we go, which sounds like not the best plan, but I'm not really sure how to go about it.
I think more of my characters are kinda jerky than not, so I'm not entirely sure what that says about me, and I don't really wanna know. I am looking away.
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Post by mossecho on Dec 27, 2020 5:01:19 GMT -5
Amber & Starchaser : I like the side characters plot. I think that if we have a large main group (prophecy + side characters), that could easily get too hectic. Honestly it's hard for me to follow the action as is with how many characters we have and how long the posts are getting, so it would be easier to keep the character count low. It also means we get to have more interaction between each other instead of having to keep each character up to date. It's just easier to juggle. Besides, we get more time to flush out different relationships. That doesn't mean the prophecy and side characters always need to be separate, but I think it would be better if they were most of the time.
As for Lu specifically, the original plan was to kill her off early. We are still planning to have that fight in the city center, right? Well, that's when she was supposed to die. Again, she was made exclusively to give Avani someone to interact with on her way to the city. Lu's also prettyy hard for me to write.
That said, I am thinking of keeping her around. For one, I don't really want to kill her and use that as a motivator or whatever for the other characters. I just don't want to fridge her. Lu deserves better than that. On the other hand, I don't know if I want to keep her around for long. Again, she's really hard for me to write. Lu is a surprisingly complicated character (using cheeriness to avoid negative emotions and the like, blah de blah), so that could be interesting to develop. Buuuut I also have some other characters on the side. They'd probably be a bit easier to write. At any rate, I am keeping her for right now, but Lu's probably going to go soon. I'm thinking of just injuring her so severely in the battle that she can't leave. Maybe send her to the hospital for a month, idk. also i decided that whenever we finally reach the end, i am writing epilogues because alex will live on to become either a doctor or the highest-ranking vampire politician or something and lu will take over her uncle's tea shop and become super successful but still travel home every three or six months and help her village get better access to education and healthcare and when she finally dies she'll get a huge funeral and alex will speak at it and be hella sad and awkward but also give a moving speech because Alex is going to become a surprisingly good speaker because either doctor's bedside manners or politician's speech writing idk but whatever, this headcanon has gone far enough for now
Starchaser : Vampires' official policy for interaction with the other Families becomes "obsessively research their customs to avoid embarrassing practical jokes" which does not contradict with our isolationist policy and whole thing about keeping our customs and language private because Self Defense Against Scandal, screw you
also, on the thing of portrait makers, I now have two different versions of my new character, Karina (I really shouldn't make a new one but screw it). They both feel so much like her but... they don't look alike! The coloring, hair, nose, face shape, and eyebrows are the same. They both have the same glasses. But the eye and lip shape is completely different and now they look entirely different and ughhhh why. They're both Karina, but they can't both be Karina. and that concludes my TedTalk entitled "Karina: What Does She Look Like"
also i realize none of that last paragraph was particularly relevant but i needed to type it out because, well, idk. it's late and my brain has no filter...? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Post by Deleted on Dec 27, 2020 21:53:33 GMT -5
Hey guys, just an update. My computer is being shipped off for some maintenance so I am currently using my old, nasty, unreliable high school computer. So, if I disappear for a while (I hate mobile and almost never type replies on my phone anymore because of the complicated code we are using), that is why! Also, hope that your holidays are going well and that Christmas was a lovely respite from school and life in general. I know it was for me!
Now, on the important stuff.
Starchaser & mossecho & Amber I agree with everything. I personally think that the side character's are going to get convoluted and slow down the pacing to an absolute crawl. We are already taking a long time to get the real plot moving and I think all the side characters (and life) are partially to blame. Now, I love all the side characters and I think that they should totally, absolutely have a place in the story. However, I do think that they need to be sidelined for a while to allow the plot to progress and prophecy characters to bond.
It becomes hard for me to keep up with everything that is going on... hence the reason why I have not created more than one side character that is directly involved in prophecy affairs. Al is easier for me to keep up with since she has a completely different story line that we really only invented to give ourselves something to do when things are slow for the group. Her story can be dropped or resumed at a moments notice. If the side characters come along, this can't be done and our main peeps will have less and less screen time. Unfortunately, something like this has happened to be in an old rp. Everyone just had too many things going on and the character's that actually mattered ended up forgotten in favor for smaller, less important story lines. People just got bored.
Now, I'm not saying this would happen, but I would like to keep the possibility of it happening to a minimum if possible. I also don't want to tell y'all what to do with your characters. Please keep in mind that this is just me putting in my two cents. I will say that Zane was slated to disappear for a while after the attack; he was going to be the bearer of bad news for the groups that their loved ones had died in the attack. That's why he was coming back eventually. Like I said, I'm chill with having the side character's tag along in small quantities like stated with Zane. We were also going to have a bromance happen between the Redis and him but that's beside the point I guess. Now, I'm just rambling.
So, long story short, my opinion is this: it would be to the benefit of everyone to keep the two groups as separate as possible while also making it organic. Since I love all the character's I want to see more of them, but for the sake of the RP and my sanity while I type replies, simplicity of the five (plus one or two here and there) would be best.
On a random side tangent, I have been working on werewolf lore instead of typing replies sorry not sorry and will have that posted as long as my computer holds out on me. )
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Post by Starchaser on Dec 27, 2020 22:16:13 GMT -5
mossecho Amber @shootforthestars I don't have much to say here, I agree with everything you all said. I personally think it would be best if the main characters and side characters were mostly kept separate, with maybe some intertwining here and there. Most of us only created side characters because the main characters hadn't met yet, which is no longer an issue. The only reason I created the other prophecy member is simply because we didn't have anyone else and the whole thing with Spider. Zane was only really made to give Clarisse someone to interact with and a bit of a side plot, but it's planned to intersect with the main plot. Honestly, if it's too much, Zane doesn't even have to rejoin the main group; his story can still work out regardless.
Mage gang is it's own completely separate side plot that can be used whenever the main stuff gets slow, and I think this would be the best approach to the other side characters as well. Just give them side plots we can use if we have to pause the main thing for any reason. I think already the RP has gotten a bit convoluted with how many characters there are. Part of that is my own fault for wanting to make a bunch of characters to play in this world like it's a sandbox game, but I recognize this isn't very conducive.
As I said before, I don't mind a few side characters being around, but I do think that we really need to cap it at a certain point. I don't really enjoy making my characters interact with each other that much (I've mostly done it to help keep my other interactions more separate, or when necessary), so I'd rather keep them more separate if I can. I agree that the pacing has been super slow lately, and a lot of that is one the side characters. It helped before while everyone was still heading to Sanctum, but now that they're all together it's just way too much to keep up with. I'd also worry about giving all the prophecy crew a chance to interact with the other mains and get in on the action. It would just be harder with too many characters.
Basically, I'm not saying anything new here. I think side plots will allow us to still develop the side characters and get to know them, while not imposing so much on the main plot. So, if we end up having to pause the main story for whatever reason, we can pull up a side plot for a while and drop it again when it gets too much, and keep most of the focus on the prophecy crew.
@shootforthestars Funnily enough, I was just finishing up my werewolf language lore dump.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 28, 2020 1:07:58 GMT -5
Oh my gosh.... I don't understand half of it, but that is the coolest thing I've ever seen..... Star I'm stunned. Can I plug the words into the site that you posted the other day for the Mage language so I can hear it???? I want to hear it so bad!
Side note, did you have a head cannon for Rafe's trail? If you don't I'm typing one up right now. XD)
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Rainbow
#CDC0DD
Name Colour
Starchaser
barbie complex
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Post by Starchaser on Dec 28, 2020 1:36:18 GMT -5
I’ve only begun to scratch the surface of most language things, but I’m working on it. Mage language is about to get a huge overhaul, and I want to transfer all that I have for Heavenlys and Elementals too so people actually know where the words came from.
Also, yep! It all uses IPA so just take whatever is in the slashes by a word and plug it into the IPA reader and it will tell you how it sounds. I’m actually surprised i kinda like how the language sounds so far. Still needs work but.
Also also, I did have a few ideas I was tossing around, but if you have one already, go ahead and post it. I’d love to see what you came up with
EDIT: Btw, I like the Welsh pronunciation (Gwyneth, I think, is the person) option on there the best, but any of the [Icelandic] or the [English - Welsh] could work too. I was testing a few out and idk, I just like it with the language.
Oh, and if you have any specific questions, feel free to ask! I love going in-depth about language stuff, even though I'm not very good at it. I'll probably put some more clarifying stuff in the actual language section.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2020 1:56:28 GMT -5
Ok, some of these are VERY long. Proceed at your own risk. XD Yellow is all the stuff I added. ) ➺ Shifters
OverviewShifters are a large Family of humanoids who utilize Belua magic to its full extent. There are only two distinct subfamilies of Shifters: werewolves and shapeshifters. However, shapeshifters contain multiple species based on their primarily chosen forms.This Family holds the largest territory, taking up a large portion of the Northern and Northeastern lands in Veuxdelys. Shifter Territories are vast and untamed with much geographic diversity. Shifters live in a multitude of packs across the land, often battling for more territory and resources.The Shifter Family is rather tumultuous and active, with much emphasis placed on strength and responsibility to the pack. They experience much internal conflict and rarely interact with the other Families, remaining preoccupied with their own survival.Physical Characteristics Shifters appear quite close to average humans, but are usually easily identifiable, more so by their mannerisms than looks. However, even in their humanoid form, many Shifters possess certain animalistic traits. These traits are mild and vary based on the Shifter's most-taken form. For predatory species, these may be something like sharper teeth and nails.
Magic & Abilities Belua is the magic of the self, an internal form of magic found within all living creatures. Shifters have a much higher concentration of Belua than normal species, and have mastered control over their magic and may tap into the full potential of their abilities.
All Shifters thus have enhanced physical condition, senses, and abilities. These powers are present even in humanoid form, and often amplified in their other forms, though the powers of shapeshifters will range based on their chosen animal forms.
Powers
• Adaptation: Shifters can use Belua to make themselves less vulnerable to their environments/adjust to outside conditions. This may involve, but is not limited too, the hardening/thinning of skin, increase/decrease of internal body temperature, or bolstering of muscles. • Enhanced Immunity: Shifters rarely get illnesses or diseases, are not hit as hard by such things, and tend to make much quicker recoveries.
• Enhanced Physical Condition: Shifters are stronger, faster, more durable, more agile, and have higher stamina than other species.
• Enhanced Senses: Sight, hearing, smell, taste, and the like are all enhanced in Shifters.
• Environmental Reading: Most Shifters are able to make quick assessments of their surroundings and adjust accordingly using their Belua. This applies to reading the body language of those around them. In animal form, Shifter's rarely communicate through "speech" and instead rely heavily on body language. Non-shifter's tend to be harder for shifter's to read due to their heavy reliance on spoken word and tone over things such as expressions.
• Lunar Empowerment: Werewolves' powers grow stronger during a full moon. The same cannot be said for shapeshifters, though it is largely unknown why. However, some werewolf religion points to Rafe's Third Eye being the underlying cause. See Rafe for more.
• Predator/Prey Instinct: Shifters who primarily use predatory forms often extend this understanding to their humanoid forms, making them highly observant. Prey shifters tend to be more alert and quick to sense danger.
• Regeneration: With Belua, Shifters can heal more quickly than other species. Additionally, they are not easily injured.
• Retractable Claws/Teeth: While in "human" form, werewolves and other predatory shifters have sharper nails and canine teeth, and may manifest claws or large, extended canines if needed.
• Shapeshifting: Werewolves can turn into a powerful lycan form. Unlike ordinary wolves, this form is much larger, more powerful, and has amplified senses. This form is especially powerful on nights with full moons. Shapeshifters may take on many forms, though most have only a few they are very skilled with. They cannot maintain these forms as long as werewolves, but have more variety. It is more common for a shapeshifter to take multiple similar forms (such as multiple canine forms, rather than some feline and some avian forms), rather than several vastly different forms.
Weaknesses
• Belua Burnout: As Belua is a magic that exists only on the internal level in living beings, it is somewhat similar to blood. It will replenish itself, but it takes times, and lacking too much of it will cause problems, such as weakness and temporary loss of powers. Burnout in one form results in the inability to shift into another form until Belua is replenished. Moreover, the overuse of Belua can cause the magic to become unstable and potentially damage its user. Werewolves are more prone to this than shapeshifters.
• Silver: The only known material able to seriously harm Shifters, even in small quantities. This metal is able to inflict wounds as it would on any other species, but these wounds will cause more damage, increased pain, and will take longer to heal. Silver-inflicted wounds can scar, unlike most injuries Shifters receive, and may even be fatal depending on the severity. Even coming into contact with silver may cause irritation or injury, and negatively impact the Shifter's powers.
• Stygian: Belua magic is weak to Stygian magic. Unlike other magic types, Stygian magic has a function of negating and draining other species' life-force (usually magic), meaning that the effect is especially strong on Shifters. In the past, Belua users were the prime targets of Stygian users. Culture & Lifestyle
Nearly all Shifters live in packs, social groups of multiple families who live and work together for survival.
wip Government & Politics
Shifter government is somewhat different than most nations in the Kingdom of Veuxdelys. It is very hierarchical; power is awarded to those who have proven themselves and risen through the ranks, and it can be taken away as well. Due to this, Shifter government may be somewhat unstable at times. The Shifter Territories operate as a federation, with each pack within the nation being a self-governing entity, often employing their own rules and unique practices separate from common Shifter law. The official leaders of the Shifter Territories, however, are the Lead Alphas (see below). PacksPacks are ruled by Alphas, often two of them, and usually a mated pair. The Alphas have full control and authority over their pack and its members, creating an autocratic monarchy. However, as anyone is allowed to compete for leadership should they choose, Shifters also demonstrate something of kraterocracy. Since respect for the qualities of leaders is a large part of Shifter culture, it is rare that this occurs in old, established packs though.
Within each pack, there is a strict social order and ranking system. How much power and influence a member holds is generally based on strength and contribution to the community. This is particularly true of werewolf packs.
Just beneath the Alphas are the Lieutenants, a handful of individuals selected by the Alphas to help keep things running smoothly. They carry out the responsibilities the Alphas choose to give them, but are still submissive to them and ultimately hold no true power over the pack as a whole.
Elders are often highly respected in packs, providing counsel to the Alphas and others.
Beyond these positions, pack hierarchy can vary quite a bit. In general, the strongest members who contribute the most to the pack are given higher standing. They are then afforded more privileges and power over their other packmates.
Packs of prey-based shapeshifters tend not to be as strict, often functioning more as communes, with no exact hierarchy in place.
Lead AlphasAs with all most other packs, the Lead Alphas are the supreme authority of their pack. As leaders of the largest, oldest, most powerful pack in the Shifter Territories, they are also the designated rulers of the entire nation.
Beyond representing their nation in international matters, they do not interfere with the lesser packs unless absolutely necessary. Despite their technical status as ultimate authority in the nation, Lead Alphas are not untouchable by any means. They may be overthrown or their positions seized by any individual who so desires, though this is often a difficult feat.
As long as they have the support of most packs, Lead Alphas generally lead unchallenged. They primarily oversee the happenings of their own pack, but will attend to the lesser packs when needed. This typically only occurs if an issue ends up affecting many packs. Such instances might be a massive war that results in many casualties and continues for a prolonged time, a major breach in the magical barrier, or a certain area facing dire circumstances (an outbreak of deadly sickness, severe drought, etc).
Lead Alphas are almost always werewolves. Delegations of Alphas from the larger shapeshifter packs may also be allowed to meet with the, and visit Sanctum to ensure other shifters are represented. As shapeshifters were, and may still be by some, considered heretics, this is considered especially necessary in important matters. Pack StructureAside from the internal hierarchy in packs, there is an overall structure to how the packs operate and interact with each other. Packs are classified based primarily on their size, power, amount of territory, and age.
First Pack
The pack of the First Alphas, which is the only true qualification, although it is rare any pack not meeting the next standards would hold this position. This pack is typically the largest pack, possibly with several smaller, internal "packs" that live and operate mostly separately from the "main" pack, but still contribute to the "main" pack. This pack usually have the most territory and resources, as well as near complete dominance over the others. Often a very old, established pack. This pack is considered to be blessed by Rafe, meaning they are rarely challenged.
Center Packs
Large, powerful, and often older packs that surround the First Pack's land. They are more stable, but there is still a good amount of fighting here, usually with lesser packs, but also among each other. These packs are more likely to ally themselves with First Pack because being so close to them is advantageous. They are typically the only ones who could rival First Pack, but more often fight for them. Center Packs may in turn even be awarded aid in their own battles or resources in difficult times. Mostly werewolf packs, but also made up of some shapeshifter packs.
Outer Packs
Smaller and more numerous packs that are generally towards the outside of the land, which can include up against borders of the other Families' territories (but not the barrier). This is where most of the fighting and territory shifts take place. Most outer packs are medium-sized at best, and made up of different shapeshifters.
Border Packs
Packs up against the magical barrier. They are usually very small and abundant, with dangerous and constantly changing territory. Their land tends to have a lot less prey and more dangers. The territory they inhabit is generally cold and mountainous.
Packless and Rogues
The little slice of land in the mountains and arctic unclaimed by packs because survival there is too difficult. There are other no man's land type areas, but this is primarily where lone werewolves, shapeshifters, and rogues live.
Those living outside packs are considered as choosing to forego the national government's care, subject to the law of whatever territory they may enter. There are, however, packs that may be open to wanderers for trade and temporary stays. Rogues, however, are criminals and barred from entry to most territories.
Other
Prey shifters and shapeshifters who take other, less competitive forms tend not to fit within this organization as easily. There is still a structure in place, but more so based on a pack's size and individual needs, rather than power.
As these Shifters tend to lead rather different lifestyles than the others, such packs are allotted a section of territory in the Southeastern quadrant of the nation. This area is reserved only for prey-based or similar shapeshifters, and forbidden to even enter by the other shifter types. This is to protect these shapeshifters from potentially grim accidents while in their animal forms, and ensure they have enough resources without competition.
Aquatic-based shifters, given their scarcity and unique needs, live in packs alongside the lake and rivers along the border. There is not much fighting or issues among them as their territory cannot be taken by other packs.
Rafe's KeepTo become Lead Alpha, there are only two requirements: defeat or kill the prior Lead Alphas, and secure Rafe's Keep for your pack.
Rafe's Keep is a piece of land on which the ruins of an ancient Shifter civilization resides. The only remnants of this once-thriving settlement is a collections of ruins, though one of the original building remains intact: an intricate masoleum, a burial received by only the highest of werewolves.
This is believed to be Rafe's final resting place, where he died in a mortal form and then ascended to become the Alpha of all: the god of werewolves once more, thereby proving his place and setting the standard for all others who follow him as Lead Alpha (see Rafe's Trial).
ReligionThe Sun, Earth, Sons MythWhen the earth was young and the fires of the sky burned softly, a single goddess wondered the lands. In the wake of her touch, trees and mountains grew; her breath stirred the waters of the world. However, she became lonesome and burdened at heart. One day, as she cried out to the sun, the world darkened for the first time. Though she was frightened at the sudden darkness, she was soon visited by a god.
The god comforted her and soothed her lonely heart. He stayed with her as she cried, embracing her like gentle sun beams on a summer's day. When she asked why she had never seen him before, he explained that it was his duty to be the light of the world. Yet, he had heard her cry for so long that he surrender his birthright for her.
When the goddess heard this, she was distraught. Despite her desire for company, she had never meant to steal the sun from her beloved earth. So, she pleaded with him to return and to forget about her. The god was moved by her selflessness and after being persuaded by the goddess to return, struck a deal with her. He would return to the sky for half of the day and come be with her for the other half. The goddess was overjoyed with this prospect and as the day and night cycle began, she found herself falling in love with the sun god.
After a time of him visiting her, the goddess gave birth to twin sons and she named the firstborn, Rafe, and the youngest, Arfen. Her sons grew in stature and power, each sharing the work load of the earth with their mother.
Rafe began to tire of having few companions like his mother and decided to spin a pelt from fig leaves. He dipped the pelt into his blood and the first wolf sprung to life. The wolf multiplied and its descendants became companions to his family.
Seeing that Rafe had done good in creating the wolf, Arfen set to making his own companions. He made pelts and skins from fig leaves like his older brother. However, instead of dipping them in his blood, he took pieces of himself and in bedded them into the companion animals. With only his brain and bones remaining, he created his final companion by giving it a part of his superior intellect. This being was the first human.
The human saw its creator and wept at the state of him. So, in honor of Arfen giving himself for his companions, the human called the creations to his side and they returned a part of themselves to him. Arfen, now a conglomerate of every animal he created, returned to his mother and brother. The earth goddess saw that Arfen had given everything to bless the earth with creatures and loved him for his appearance.
Rafe saw and ridiculed him for he was secretly jealous that his brother had created more, was loved more by the earthen creatures and the one called human. He vowed to steal this adoration from his younger brother and soon, he would.
See Rafe's Trial.
Rafe's Trial
As the earth blossomed around the life that the earthen goddess and her sons gave it, Rafe became increasingly dissatisfied with his place in the fold. His brother continued to receive praise from all living things while Rafe received little from his sole creation. Believing that he should receivethe worship from mortals and animals, Rafe set out to prove himself to all of creation.
Not knowing where to start, he met his father one night and spoke to him of his frustrations. His father told him about the old gods at each corner of his shared earthen realm. In all his wisdom, even the sun god had no clue as to what had befallen them and any god or goddess to revive the four immortals was bound to receive endless praise.
So, Rafe set out to each corner of the earth in an effort to find the lost gods and goddess. Many days and nights passed before he arrived in the western corner, but when he arrived, he was greeted by a large lake. It shimmered with tint of a wolf's tooth and gave off a fowl odor. Rafe lingered before touching the water. Seeing that it didn't harm or burn him, Rafe waded in with hopes that the western god or goddess would be near.
He swam for a day. Just when his body was leaden with exhaustion, he spotted a small island and collapsed on the sandy shore. When he looked up, a young goddess sat facing him, hands over her eyes and unmoving. She appeared dead so Rafe approached her. He thought how to revive the goddess though there was no indication on how she had died in the first place.
Moving her hands proved impossible; she had no wounds. The bowl in her lap was untouched though empty.
She must be hungry, Rafe considered. So, the earth god plucked a fruit from a tree above and put it in the bowl. The goddess remained unmoved. Perhaps she is thirsty. He took the bowl, filled it with water from the lake, and held it to her lips. Nothing.
Frustrated, Rafe stood in front of her, back to the setting sun. He had determined to revive her with his blood when she started to breathe. Slowly, she removed her hands and gazed up at him from the shadow of his form.
"Why have you come, son of the setting sun?"
"To revive you. Why do you move, western goddess?"
She looked at the shadows, "Before the world was bright, it was dark. The West must be veiled in shadows, earthen one. Build me a house and I will grant one wish of yours."
So Rafe set about making her a house to hide her from his father's rays. once she was done, the Western goddess kept her promise and asked for his wish.
"To be loved by all of creation."
The western goddess smiled and pointed north, "Go north and your wish shall be granted. Now leave me so that I may bring winter."
Rafe left on the first snow cloud and when he arrived at the northern corner sun cycles, he was greeted by a massive tree. It was rough like a wolf's scruff and gave off a sweet aroma. After testing the branches to see if they would hold his weight. Rafe began to climb in hopes that the northern god or goddess would be near.
He climbed for a day. Just when his body was leaden with exhaustion, he spotted a hole in the tree and collapsed within it. The hole was large enough to hold ten men within it so he got up and looked around and noticed a young god with hands in his lap. The young god was naked save for the two rings on his fingers. He appeared dead so Rafe approached him. He once again considered how to revive the god.
Moving his hands proved impossible; he had no wounds. The rings on his hands were his only possession.
Perhaps he too needs to be blocked from my father. Rafe stood to block the sun, but the god remained motionless. Maybe he is hungry or thirsty. So Rafe prepared a meal for him out of leaves and nuts from the tree itself. Still, the god remained.
Frustrated, Rafe threw his covering at the god, eyes alight with anger. He had determined to revive him with his blood when he started to breathe. Slowly, he removed his hands and clutched at the covering. He wrapped it around himself and looked up at the god.
"Why have you come, son of the weeping earth?"
"To revive you. Why do you move, northern god?"
He looked at the covering, "Before the world was cold, it was warm. The North must be clothed in coverings, earthen one. Weave me a pelt and I will grant one wish of yours."
So Rafe set about making him a pelt to protect him from the chill of the earth. Once he was done, the Northern god kept his promise and asked for his wish.
"To be loved by all of creation."
The northern god frowned and pointed east, "Go east and your wish shall be granted. Now leave me so that I may bring spring."
Rafe left on the first rain cloud and when he arrived at the eastern corner, he was greeted by a canyon. It was jagged like a wolf's claw marks and sang a wonderful melody. After gripping the sides to see if the rocks were stable, Rafe began to descend the canyon in hopes that the eastern god or goddess would be near.
He descended for a day. Just when his body was leaden with exhaustion, he noticed a large and expansive ledge and collapsed onto it. Jutting out from the sides of the canyon, Rafe inspected the ledge, but decided to sit in the middle and listen to the canyon sing it's melody. When he came to the middle, he noticed a large goddess with her hands over her ears. She appeared dead so Rafe approached her. He thought how to revive the goddess though there was no indication on how she had died in the first place.
Moving her hands from her ears proved impossible; there were no wounds to be seen.
Does the east need shade like the west? He built her a house but the goddess remained motionless. Perhaps the East needs a covering like her brother, the North? So, he weaved a pelt from the plants in the canyon and placed it over her. Still, the large goddess didn't spring to life.
Frustrated, Rafe sat down next to her, quickly growing weary of the looping melody from the canyon. Minutes later, he cried out to the canyon and commanded it to stop so that he could have a moments peace to think. He had determined to revive her with his blood when the melody stopped and the goddess started to breathe.
Slowly, the goddess lowered her hands from her ears and sighed in relief. She looked at the small form of the earth god.
"Why have you come, son of the rising sun?"
"To revive you. Why do you move, eastern goddess?"
She looked into the canyon, "Before the world was loud, it was quiet. The East must be concealed in silence, earthen one. Convince the canyon to be always quiet, and I will grant one wish of yours."
So, Rafe set about convincing the canyon to never sing again. The canyon obeyed his command on account of his mother and once this was done, the Eastern goddess kept her promise and asked for his wish.
"To be loved by all of creation."
The eastern goddess bowed her head and pointed south, "Go south and your wish shall be granted. Now leave me so that I may bring summer."
Rafe left on the first hot wind and when he arrived at the southern corner, he was greeted by expansive wheat fields. The wheat fields were soft like a wolf's pelt and quiet as the canyon after the eastern goddess was revived. After stopping to use the wheat to make himself flour for bread, he started to wonder the fields in hope that the last corner god or goddess would be near.
The god wondered the fields for days without any trace of the dead immortal. He checked the far stretches of the wheat field and came up empty. For a time, Rafe became very frustrated and returned to the sky to plead to his father to aid the journey. His father denied the request, saying that this was his trail. All of creation would love him if he succeeded and the sun god would not help.
Weary at heart of traveling and not finding a trace of the last god or goddess, Rafe determined the burn the fields in his anger. Taking a ray of his father's beams, he set fire to a portion of the field and cried out for the god to see his wrath and listen.
When the wheat fields had been turned to ash, Rafe wandered the wastes again. As the ash drifted with the hot wind of summer, Rafe was suddenly struck by the folly of his choice. He sank to his knees and wept. When he had dried his eyes, he looked up and was greeted by small child.
"Why have you come, son of the joyful earth?"
"To revive the god of the south, but I have committed a grave injustice on the land in my anger. I have failed to find the god; I have failed the land."
The child stooped to the ground and gathered the ash of the wonderful wheat fields. He held it to his lips, "Before the world had life, the world had death... The South needs to be brought to death, but it was not your duty to do so. You have defied the order of my land and must be punished."
Rafe, understanding that the small child was the god of the Southern corner, bowed before the primordial god in shame, "Forgive me. In my quest to be loved by all of creation, I have destroyed yours. I will accept punishment at your hand, oh great Southern deity."
The child pointed to the center of the land where the humans resided with his brother Arfen, "Learn to cherish life and die, son of the joyful earth. Only after you have died and shed your blood on My Wheat Fields will you be forgiven."
For a moment, the god stilled and closed his eyes, "Because you have revived my brother and sister's, I will fulfill their obligations and grant your wish. But you must die a mortal death. Choose today if you will learn to cherish life."
As the god vanished and left Rafe to his shame, Rafe wept for the burden of his punishment. To live a mortal life meant to live in pain and suffering. To live a mortal life meant to go without his family. To live a mortal life meant to die and to be forgotten.
Rafe didn't leave the fields for many hours after, but he knew that he must accept the punishment. He traveled to the center of the world, past his home and family, and settled with the humans by a sacred lake. It was here that he shed his immortal form and became mortal to live out his life and eventually die.
The humans welcomed him as one of their own, unaware that the god had given up his immortality. In the following years, he served the humans, learning to cherish the things that they cherished. As he began to truly love the humans and the animals they had as companions, he began to receive the love that he so desperately wanted.
Many years went by as he continued on with his mortal life. He began a family and had many children, all with their own family lines. These children went one to be great heroes, but that is another story for another day.
Twenty years after he shed his immortal form, the settlement was attacked by a great five headed beast. The town folk ran out of their homes screaming for help and Rafe, having become greatly attached to the mortals, vowed to slay the great beast.
He called the first wolf to his aid, grabbed a sword, and together they slayed the great beast. However, one of the heads lashed out in the throws of death and struck Rafe in the stomach. He cried out as the great beast breathed it's last and the settlement of humans gathered around him to grieve their beloved friend.
As his wives and children wept, the wolf gathered his blood that stained the ground in his mouth for he knew that Rafe's wish would be granted if his dying blood was poured upon the Wheat fields.
Rafe died a hero and loved by all.
The first wolf traveled to the Southern Wheat Fields and spilled Rafe's blood upon the ashen ground. As his blood gave birth to the ancient Wheat Fields, the southern god approached the wolf and said, "Because the son of the joyful earth has atoned for burning my fields with his dying blood, I will fufill my duty in bringing autumn to the earth and granting his wish. Now leave and return to him."
However, when the god of the South saw that Rafe had already gained the love of creation by his good deeds as a human, he had mercy on the god and set to revive him like he had revived the four corner gods. Noticing this, the first wolf helped the god by being the pelt in which to wrap his dead body.
The first wolf loved the god so much that in exchange for giving him life, he laid down his life and was skinned by the Southern god. The Southern god captured Rafe's mortal soul and encased it within the immortal pelt of the wolf. Rafe began to breath again as the shape of his first and beloved creation.
Rafe thanked the Southern god for the second chance, vowing to never again take the mortal life of any creature of plant for granted. The southern god blessed him and gave him the Wheat Fields as an inheritance.
"In order to bring autumn to the world, I must die. The South must be brought to death; it is my duty to complete this. Take the fields over for me. Now that you have learned the value of even a stalk of wheat, I know I can entrust my beloved fields to you."
It was with that that the Southern god died, hands over a smiling mouth. Rafe did as the god asked and labored over the Wheat Fields in the shape of his wolf, now with the love of all creation to bolster his heart.
The moral: love to receive love in return. The Wheat Fields
The Wheat Fields are Rafe's chosen domain, gifted to him by the Southern god before he died to bring autumn to the world. He prowls through the fields to keep them safe from harm. In a way, this is Werewolf heaven, but Shifter's have little myths on "heaven" and "hell". The more devote the Werewolf, the more they tend to wish to one day be welcomed in the Wheat Fields that Rafe inherited after humbling himself as mortal.
One legend states that Rafe can grow large forests and mountains from the wheat stalks. Werewolves hunt with Rafe in these terrains, living in abundance and plenty for all eternity. Arfen's Demise
WIP still not sure if I have many ideas here on this Rafe's Third Eye
After Rafe inherited the Wheat Fields and started to welcome devote blood sworn into his paradise, he noticed something. Many of the werewolves and humans stated that they felt disconnected with him and wished to be seen by him. Since Rafe was once again immortal and living apart from humans, he began to convince a way to forever watch over them.
Thinking back to his father and his rays that touched everything, Rafe took the third eyes on his head and rode a cloud to the sky. He waited until his father visited earth that night and hung the moon next to the stars. When he came back to earth, he realized that he could see everything that the light touched, including his blood sworn.
Pleased with himself, Rafe went to sleep. However, the wait to the next night was so long that when his eye graced the sky, he was forced to blink. This continued every night and his eyes slowly began to close as time went one. Almost 15 days went by and Rafe closed his eye completely to rest. Over the next 15 days, he slowly opened his eyes back up until it was wide open again on the 30th day.
This myth explains why the moon has cycles and why werewolves have increased strength under the full moon.
Foreign RelationsShifters tend to be the least involved in foreign affairs. This is largely due to their lifestyle revolving around survival and the protection of their packs, as well as their closed-off culture and general wariness. Shifters tend to be distrustful of other Families, but not entirely hostile, as they experience much of that within their own Family. Due to both the geographical and cultural separation from the other nations, Shifters remain distant from the other Families. They do, however, trade with the other Families on occasion.
Elementals - Good
Despite their distance from each other, Elementals and Shifters are on good terms with each other. They share a similar love and reliance on the natural world, if experiencing rather different cultures and lifestyles. Nonetheless, these Families get along well if they happen to meet each other. Heavenlys - Neutral
Heavenlys and Shifters share a border, but don't interact much. This is partially due to the large river separating their territories, as well as them both being Families that keep to themselves. Mages - Neutral
Shifters and Mages rarely interact. Their nations are quite distant from each other, and Shifters have no desire for the technology Mages most commonly trade. Neither Family has strong feelings about the other, though some Shifters find Mages too weak and cowardly for their soft lifestyle. Infernals - Poor
Belua users have long had a bad history with Infernals. While Shifters have become more neutral towards many Infernal species, their relationship with vampires remains tense, and many still distrust Infernals. As Infernals are users of Stygian, the magic most dangerous to Belua users, many Shifters are wary of being near the Infernal border.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2020 2:03:57 GMT -5
Starchaser UGGGG Star those names are sooo cool when I listen to them. I really like Myrek's pronunciation, but Zane's is so different and I'm in love. T-T "Summoned protector of the rank" is legit. I still can't get over how much I love it right now. )
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Post by Starchaser on Dec 29, 2020 2:24:44 GMT -5
@shootforthestars Okay, I just finished reading all that you added and I love it! You're really great at telling myths in a way that I think Shifters would. I always imagined Shifter language would be largely vocal and not have any written forms, so I just love the idea of pups being told this story by the elders or whoever around a campfire and just ugh.
Also, your story for Rafe's Trial is sooooo much better than the half-baked idea I had, it was beautiful <3 As for Arfen's Fall, I did have some ideas there, and a bit more inspiration from your myths. Basically, since Rafe inherited the Wheat Fields, which essentially seem to be the afterlife/domain of death, Rafe would be the one who decides who is allowed to enter there. Arfen was the technical "death god" in my original imagining, but perhaps that is just in the sense of who dies and when. So, for his fall, I'm thinking he would start to realize his brother was sending all of Arfen's creations away and only allowing Rafe's bloodsworn into the "heaven." He gets angry about this and basically tells Rafe he can't do that because the souls are then forced to wander the earth forever as ghosts because there is no other afterlife. Rafe denies his request to let other shifter types enter and the two fight. Rafe wins and Arfen is banished from the mortal realm (he can see it, but no longer interact with the living at all, including his creations). He is then assigned role as "punisher and destroyer" of bad souls in the underworld (I'm not sure if it always existed or got created after this or what but). So he does that, but he also decides to create a sort of "side afterlife" for his creations, separate from the mortal realm and the Wheat Fields. Not sure what it would be yet. Honestly, I don't have a very fleshed out idea yet, but I'll work on it.
Side not that's not really important: for the Lunar Empowerment thing, I mostly meant the reason was unknown scientifically, though I doubt the Shifters would see it that way. Since we're making the deities of this world real anyways it doesn't really matter, but I just thought I should clarify.
Also also, I'm glad you like them! It was really fun to come up with names that would sound right and were cool in meaning. Zane was definitely the hardest, hence why it doesn't sound very similar, but I like the meaning well enough. I actually like all the meanings, even if they are convoluted.
EDIT: M'kay, I was playing around with the words a bit, and I think I might have a somewhat closer-sounding name to Zane. Zaa̋à́ngg /ða̋ɐ́ŋg/, which I decided can very interpretively mean "born of lightning" (thought it would more literally mean "native to/of electricity") because it's awesome so.
Or we could use Zaāà̄n̥ /ðʲaː̄ɐ̄n̥/, which would mean something like "bringer/leader/deliverer of the wind" or whatever, which is also pretty neat.
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Post by mossecho on Dec 29, 2020 3:14:22 GMT -5
Alright, finally got to reading through the werewolves' language. I like it so far! Looking forward to seeing future expansions and versions of it. (: I have a few notes and questions, but they're pretty minimal.
First, is there any markers of the tone in the writing? I can see the IPA markers (the vertical lines with horizontal markers), but those are not always accompanying vowels. I am just trying to see if the occasional double accent marks (like "uÌÌ" or "oÌÌ") are communicating this or something else that I'm not seeing.
Secondly (and this is less of a question than a comment but whatever), how often are all of the vowels and consonants used? I counted them up and there are around 135 unique consonants and over fifty unique vowels (it's hard to tell, my computer is boxing some of them). There are also five tones (also, I'm assuming these tones do not shift pitch within a syllable) (so they are flat and do not fall or rise in pitch). If we assume that there are 130 consonants, fifty vowels (and exclude diphthongs), and five tones, then we get 33,750 unique consonant-vowel syllables. In comparison, General American English (or Standard American English) has 24 consonants and 15 vowels, including diphthongs (according to Wikipedia). This means we have 360 unique consonant-vowel combinations. Now, it is not unheard of for languages to have a lot more consonant-vowel combinations. The Taa language (also known as !Xoon) has as many as 164 consonants and 44 vowels. It also has two to four tones, varying depending on the dialect. This means that there are between 14,432 and 28,864 unique consonant-vowel syllables. This does not even include all possible syllable permutations, since their syllables are not strictly CV. As a result, Taa words are often (if not always, idk) only one or two syllables. Because they have so many possible syllables, they do not need as much space to express different concepts. From what I can tell, so far Rooian's root words are currently one or two syllables. That's no problem. In fact, it lines up pretty well with Taa's whole "more syllable combinations, less syllables per word" thing. I'm only pointing this out to suggest that words should stick to minimal syllables. Or maybe some of these consonants and vowels are really rare? Or there are strict rules about which sounds can go with which other sounds? If you want longer words, that would reduce the number of syllable permutations. Of course, just because there are so many combinations does not mean you have to use them all. I'm just pointing this out because it stuck out to me.
Also, and this is a small thing, but should the pronouns be a bit similar? If you look at the 1st person singular pronouns, they don't have a lot in common with each other. In contrast, English's versions are "I, me, my, mine, myself," Russian's are "ya, menya, mne, mnoy" (the middle two have are used for two different cases) and Turkish's are "ben, bana, benim, beni, bende, bende, benden." For the most part, these pronouns are all similar, although they appear for different cases. Russian and English both have an exception for this ("I" and "ya," both the nominative case). This might be an Indo-European thing, idk, but you still get the idea. Now, this does not mean that Rooian needs similar pronouns when the person is the same but the cases are different. It might be a bit more realistic. But again, we are operating in a world with magic and shapeshifters and supernatural creatures and the like, so you don't need to go for something just because it is more common among natlangs (:
Also I like the idea that all these languages have tones because I want to incorporate them into Vampiric and that's the only change I anticipate making to what would otherwise be plain Spanish phonology (Mexican Spanish in particular... probably). Also also, since I decided that vowel harmony was a good thing to incorporate into Vampiric without checking the already-established names, here are the new versions. I am not changing them in the RP per se (figuring Alex is speaking Veuxdelian and that language would pronounce these names differently, ergo the inconsistency), but whatever. This is for fun and avoiding sleep... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Alexander Rojas Lopez â Alexander Rojas Lopez (haha, planning!) Antier â Antier (because haha, it's an-tjeɾ in IPA i think and /j/ is a consonant, so mwahaha Sinresol â Senresol (the first casualty... ) (I might just get around this by saying since it's a compound of "sin" and "resol" that the harmonization rule doesn't need to be applied...) (but that would be cheating) Derramar â Derramar (it survived!) probably just going to get rid of vowel harmonization, honestly, i am too attached to "sinresol" xD
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Post by Starchaser on Dec 29, 2020 4:17:11 GMT -5
mossecho Glad to hear it's at least interesting, if nothing else. It will definitely need a lot of editing and revision, but I really wanted to get a basic idea laid out for it. Anyways, I'll do my best to address any questions, but I'm still pretty stupid when it comes to lingusitics and all the terminology, so forgive me if I don't explain these concepts decently.
As far as I can tell from the settings, tones are represented in the spelling using tone letters rather than diacritics right now. I'm not 100% certain why some of the vowels don't seem to have tone markers, but I think that for certain words, for some reason some tones show up as diacritics, while others only have tone letters. This might be because I've included sound change rules for phonological changes (according to Vulgar, "all languages have phonemes that change slightly (or sometimes dramatically) based on the effects of other phonemes around it... and they can be expressed in rules").
Oh, yeah, I'm definitely aware I included a ridiculous of different consonants and vowels, even in comparison to other languages with large inventories (like the one you mentioned). A lot of this is just me going wild with the phonemes because it's so fun, but I'll probably phase some out in later languages as I study them more and actually learn all the sounds. The other reason for this is just that I think werewolves would use a lot of different sounds in their language, particularly vowels, though I don't think I have much rationale behind that idea. In fact, going off my canine modified IPA chart, they should have fewer available sounds than humans. Once again, something I need to work on more. I definitely thought they should have a tonal language (you are correct, there's no pitch shifts, largely because it's a bit too complicated for newbie me, and also because I don't believe there's yet an option to include them in Vulgar). I think shorter words kind of fit the werewolf language, so I don't really mind it, although there are a few longer words in there. I doubt all the possible combinations would be used, but I have done a few things to try to offset this. For one, using the same syllables twice in a row is banned. I've also set it to where there are certain consonants phonemes are very frequent, while the others are pretty rare. There aren't any illegal combinations yet, but I plan on dealing with that more in later versions. I have not gotten into it yet, but I have the ability to toy with the language's word structure a bit, which I can use to make phoneme classes and word patterns, and adjust their frequency, so that's probably something to look into.
I see your point on the pronouns, but I don't really know how to go about making them realistic. I think the main reason they're so different is because of all the cases and genders? I don't yet understand noun cases and how they influence pronouns yet, but that's what I can think of. The pronouns I have seen are pretty similar for most languages, but there are the occasional few that seem a bit unrelated, but that might just be me not understanding enough. Vulgar generates most of the words just based on the options I select, so I don't really have much say in the specifics like that. I can manually edit a lot of things, but I haven't done anything to it yet, though it wouldn't be that hard. I'm not 100% sure how Vulgar generates everything, just that the process is modeled after real languages so idk. When you have someone like me throwing around stuff they have no clue what they're talking about though, I imagine things happen.
I didn't mean to make so many languages tonal, but here we are...
EDIT: I think I might have made the Heavenly language have vowel harmony. We shall see how that goes. Also, idk how to break it to you what Mage language is like. You might not be able to handle it's ridiculousness.
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Post by mossecho on Dec 29, 2020 22:57:43 GMT -5
Starchaser : Honestly, I still don't quite understand how the tone is represented, but I'll do my best but it's much more me misunderstanding than your explanation, don't worry
Ok, glad you're aware of it. I'm not super great at phonetics, so I'm not great about talking at this either. From what I can tell in the IPA-ish chart, a lot of these sounds have similar "base sounds" (that is not an official term at all, but idk what to call it). For example, the "base sound" /p/ has ten different versions. That's a lot for speakers and listeners to differentiate. Now, it is probably possible, it would just be a lot of work. Given the fact that werewolves' mouths are different, I don't know if they would be able to easily produce different sounds with enough accuracy to separate them in their speech. That does not mean it would be impossible, just... hard. Very hard.
If you don't want to think about small stuff like pronouns' similarity yet, that's completely fine (: it just jumped out to me. To clarify, I was talking about how the pronouns for the same person (1st singular, 2nd singular, 3rd singular masc, etc.) were different across the cases. In other words, why each pronoun in a row looked so different from the other pronouns in the same row. Does that make sense? I don't know if that helps at all. In the examples I listed, those pronouns all referenced the same person (first person singular) but represented different cases. Anyways, if/when you go back to make manual adjustments, you could adjust this. But you don't have to. We're not making a language for us to speak, we're making a language that our characters are hypothetically speaking, so you don't need to make those changes if you don't want to.
I kinda like having all the languages be at least a bit tonal. If they had a similar origin point, that could be a trait they have in common. From what I've seen so far, they all involve cases, tones, inflectional verb conjugation, and the perfect and imperfect aspect. There are plenty of differences too (amount of consonants+vowels, pronouns, cases, etc.), but the big similarities of cases and tones could help make this supposed language tree a bit more realistic. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ also, we don't need to prioritize that or anything, just... i'm obsessive xD i just need to learn not to be
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Post by Starchaser on Dec 29, 2020 23:41:25 GMT -5
mossecho To be fair, I doubt I'm explaining it well either. Even if I understand what I'm trying to say (and I rarely do), it can be hard for me to phrase it in such a way that I think actually makes sense to others.
I'm not great at anything to do with linguistics, but I understand what you're saying most of the time (I think). I think the "base sounds" are technically phonemes, while all the variations in how the sound can be produced are called allophones, though I don't know if that explanation is exactly correct. Anyways, I noticed that too upon listening to a lot of the words. Just going down them alphabetically, a lot sound almost completely identical, which I agree could make things difficult, especially given werewolves having a different vocal tract and such. That's probably because I was going based off the canine IPA chart, just adding more allophones to their proposed phonemes. I was already planning on cutting a lot of the allophones out, so that will probably improve in later versions.
Well, I'd like to make the languages somewhat realistic, I'm just not really the best person to do so. Also, yes, I figured you were talking about pronouns referencing the same person. I did start talking about them as a whole though, so I can see where the confusion came up. Honestly, I'm still not really sure why that is beyond cases, but that doesn't make much sense to me either. I can't really pinpoint any unifying features either between the person or case in any row or column, no matter which group I'm comparing so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I don't really know why that is. Even just comparing it some of what the other languages I've produced of Vulgar, their pronouns make sense.
That's a good point. I'd previously been thinking about how to make them all as different as possible, just because I wanna play with all the cool language stuff, but it really does make more sense for them to have at least some overarching similarities because of their original common origin.
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Post by mossecho on Dec 30, 2020 2:30:07 GMT -5
Starchaser: Eh, I'm just going to blame everything on Vulgar. It probably just came up with random stuff for the pronouns. As for the tones... I'll blame that confusion on it too. Just blame the computer, I guess xD
I like the ideas of all the languages being related, but I also understand the impulse to make them as different as possible. I would really like to try an analytical language, but I'm too focused on Vampiric and don't want to work on someone else's Family. Speaking of which, kinda, I'm probably going to make Vampiric go a bit crazy with tones. I figure vampires have ultra sensitive hearing so they can easily differentiate between different pitches while also feeling superior about how no one else understands their language's Immense Nuance™. also, if the languages are related, vampires probably would have changed theirs the least since they rarely get new speakers who change the way the language is spoken, thus contributing to their superiority complex because wow they adhere to tradition so well unlike all these linguistically blasphemous humans, harhar
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Post by Starchaser on Dec 30, 2020 3:03:05 GMT -5
mossecho Honestly, most of the time the pronouns it comes up with seem reasonable, so idk what lever I've pulled here, but whatever. I actually just made the newest version of the werewolf language and I think it's a bit better in terms of realism and understandability.
I think it would be neat to have them somewhat related. Mage language will then probably have turned out the most different because they like to overcomplicate things. I like working on all the languages because I like trying to figure out how they should sound and why they turned out that. Please go crazy with the tones. I love language stuff and going crazy with it, personally.
Also, unrelated, but I feel like if Lilah ever interacts with vampires (like an actual coven or government officials instead of just Alex and yee-haw vampires) she's going to try so hard to be polite and do things right, but ultimately snap and go ballistic (since we know nobody can get vampire stuff right except for vampires; anyways, not that she'd fly into a literal murderous rage, but she'd have a lot of strong words towards them), because she hates superiority complexes and strict social rules because they remind her of her family. Hence why she tends towards being casual (well, socially awkward, but casual in terms of who she interacts with and how). I have the feeling she's very sensitive to criticism given how she grew up, even if it's just her perception and not truth, so she can get extremely defensive when she thinks people are putting her down or undermining her. It's not even that she believes she has any worth, but she can't stand it when there's any implication she isn't trying or is just inherently inferior. She's nice, but will become very cold and harsh if she feels her constructed reality/self is threatened. It's a self-preservation tactic. Come to think of it, if Alex starts acting differently towards her (now that he knows she lied about her background) she's gonna panic at first and then go straight into shut-down mode. This should be very fun.
also also, sorry this is super messy, my brain is fried because i wrote so much today
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Post by mossecho on Dec 30, 2020 3:32:45 GMT -5
Starchaser: huh, that's weird. well, good luck finding the troublemaking lever? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I could totally see a bunch of mages just screwing around with new slang terms or grammatical finangling and then those words and constructions becoming part of the language xD
Lowkey want to force an interaction between Lilah and an ultra posh, snooty vampire now xD it would be hilarious. Alex would try to mediate but then give up and just try to ride it out. Speaking of which, I am really looking forward to seeing how Alex and Lilah's relationship continues absolutely no intended pressure, but i'm really looking forward to your post. idk how much of alex's expression reflected his changing attitude about lilah, but there was still something she could notice (i.e. him not saying anything, asking her about whether or not she wanted to go, his trademark jaw-clenching and sleeve-pulling, idk) (and alex hopes nothing was obvious but thinks that his new views of her are totally obvious and why is he not good at subtlety and all that stuff)
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Post by Starchaser on Dec 30, 2020 4:19:26 GMT -5
mossecho Here's to hoping, but I lowkey doubt it xD To be fair, I'm probably confusing the poor generator by throwing so many random consonants and vowels in together that wouldn't normally make sense, and it's trying to figure out how to incorporate them all. I think having fewer phonemes will help, but we'll see.
Mages just wanna have fun. Vampires just wanna have structure. Problems ensue.
You should totally do it xD Mages are already kind of the only species who really interact with vampires at all, and that's usually just in the national government, and even then it's more of just Mages pestering vampires.
Lilah, four hours into a rant: and furthermore- Alex, sweating nervously: I do not know this human.
I am so looking forward to the Alex-Lilah friendship. I really like their dynamic as characters, but I think the worldbuilding we've done adds an extra layer of intrigue. The way I see it (based on worldbuilding we've done, but also Alex's thoughts in RP), Lilah kind of the antithesis to vampires, both in terms of her origin and just general personality. She's moody, prone to overemotional outbursts, and just kinda brutally honest about herself in general. I mean, she's secretive about her background and stuff, but she doesn't approach her feelings or flaws with much subtlety (tbh she never really learned to properly regulate them since it was all "conceal don't feel" for most of her life). She's impulsive and somewhat unpredictable given her tendency to let her emotions get the best of her. I see her as a sort of "what you see is what you get" type of person. Vampires meanwhile have all these social regulations and see shows of emotion/honesty as weak, but Lilah is blatantly herself without much restraint. She spent most of her life having to be someone else and live up to impossible expectations, so when she finally has a chance to be her own person, she makes sure she's very much herself (which is in itself difficult because she doesn't really know who that is, but). She also very much wears her heart on her sleeve, though not intentionally, and it shows in how she interacts with people. Alex clearly doesn't want to be seen as attached to anyone, least of all a human, but Lilah wouldn't be shy about showing her care for him. She's open and gets attached to people far too easily. Not to mention, Lilah is a hybrid bastard child who was denounced by her family, which seems like something vampires would be really wary of. As you said, they're a very insular species, so someone like Lilah wouldn't even be able to exist in their species because it goes so strongly against their lifestyle/culture. I doubt a hybrid vampire would ever happen, but if one did I'm sure there would be a lot of skepticism and distrust. Vampires are all about superiority, so I imagine mingling with another species would be deeply frowned upon. Then there's the whole bondless connotation of Lilah not belonging to her House anymore. Honestly, she was basically the result of people being chaotic and hasty.
Considering how their relationship might develop and what you have planned for Alex's future, it could be interesting to think about how it influences his views. Everything about vampire custom dictates Lilah is, well, a mistake, to put it harshly. Someone like her shouldn't exist and wouldn't among vampires. But she is (or will become, probably) Alex's best friend, so of course he doesn't think that way about her. But if his family does hold that view, and his entire culture basically condemns who Lilah is, then how does he reconcile with that? Conflicting views, and all. I wonder how that'll play into his future when he becomes an important vampire politician person or whatever he does and has influence.
As a side note, I have no clue what "epilogue" Lilah will become. Part of that is probably from me being unable to see her as not dying since that's what was originally decided. I have some ideas for her being alive, but the angst of if she chooses to die...
I also think seeing how they help each other will be nice. Alex is always so afraid of showing too much emotion or weakness, but Lilah would definitely be the type to encourage it. Maybe she'll be able to persuade him it's fine to embrace feelings and get at the root source instead of just burying them. If any of that makes sense. I don't know, I just think they're good for each other.
You want angst? You'll have it *evil laughter* Lilah is the type of person to pick up on people's traits quickly and figure out their intricacies early on. She's very in tune with the emotional state of others and shifts in mood, so she'll definitely know something's up quickly. I'm not certain how Alex will go about things now that he knows something's up, but I absolutely know how Lilah will respond. I feel like this will have to lead to a confrontation eventually, and I wonder how the revelation of the full truth will impact Alex. It should be interesting, no matter what comes about.
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Post by mossecho on Dec 30, 2020 19:37:05 GMT -5
Starchaser : vampires and mages in a meeting. mages asking about their language, culture, trying to provoke a response. vampires just wanting to discuss tariffs.
vampires: "we just want to debate your 7.5% import tax on nanmu." mages: "yes, well we want to hear you say something in vampiric, promise" *hides translation and transcription spell under the table* lol, me attempting jokes xD
My plan for Alex's emotional arc was for him to become more comfortable with self-expression. For one, he's pretty anxious and self-conscious and I want to see him learn to overcome that. Honestly that's a wish-fulfillment sort of thing (I'm pretty nervous myself), but whatever. I just want him to work up enough courage to believe in his own ideas and act on them. On a related note, if it is not way too overstressed in my posts, Alex follows very strict rules (especially when it comes to his emotions and self-expression). That is partially a cultural thing, but it's also self-imposed. Vampire society is incredibly strict and hierarchical, but Alex internalizes it way too much. His whole blank face thing is appropriate in certain situations (i.e. vampire politics), but he shouldn't be maintaining it at all times (like when he's around friends or allies or just not in a formal situation). I want him to express himself more. He shouldn't have to keep everything hidden and maintain this idealized, stone composure. Finally, Alex needs to be more sympathetic to those who don't follow vampires' customs. He is more open than many of his fellow vampires, but he still has room to improve. He sees his culture as the default which is... not great. I'm trying to get that across a bit (mainly in how he uses the word "human," which is mildly derogatory in vampire culture, and "species" instead of Family, which recalls vampires' isolationism and perceived separation from everyone else). He is open, as far as vampires go, but that's not exactly a high bar. He needs to learn that his culture has plenty of downsides too and has room for improvement (i.e. letting people express themselves freely, not maintaining such a strict hierarchy, etc.).
Honestly, I think his relationship with Lilah would help with a lot of that. As you said, Lilah's the antithesis of traditional vampire culture. Alex could really benefit from knowing her better and just being friends with her. Looking at the current brewing issue between them, Alex's anger stems from vampires' strong belief in hierarchies. Lying is an issue, yes, but vampires mislead people and twist their words all the time. They won't lie to you per se, but they will twist the truth all the time. (Vampire politics are a mess.) It's like saying "your chances of developing X-disease double after eating this apple." That might be true, but if your chances increase from 0.001% to 0.002%... that's really not that much. Alex is saying that his anger comes from Lilah lying, but that's an excuse (not that he knows that quite yet). Lying is bad, but ultimately not that big of an issue. The problem is that she mislead him about her status. She broke his perception of the hierarchy. So the issue here isn't her lying, it's her violation of his cultural norms. Which is dumb, because their strict hierarchy system is dumb. Alex just hasn't realized this yet.
Of course, Lilah is not a plot device for Alex's growth, nor is their friendship a plot device either. Their friendship is just very... organic. Very natural, very... right, for lack of a better word. It just also happens to play into my plan for Alex's development.
Mwahaha, good luck breaking my heart! I survived the Davies and Moffat era of Doctor Who. I have loved many characters, only for them to die after five minutes of screen time. My heart cannot be broken by fictional characters no more. please read: Rita from "The God Complex" also it was only a matter of time before I mentioned Doctor Who xD I'm very predictable that way
as for how Alex will respond... idk. we'll see once I start writing it. I rarely know how he's going to respond to stuff, honestly. He just kinda goes off on his own. if you can't tell, I very much feel like I'm writing on his behalf instead of actually writing a character
Completed unrelated side note that's long and pointless and you don't need to read it but I need somewhere to keep my thoughts so here we go:
as was vaguely mentioned, vampire territory now has a lot of nanmu because... i like those trees are cool? nanmu is a fragrant wood from southern China and vampires have sensitive senses of smell so they'd like it a lot. it's an evergreen, from what i know, so i guess vampire trees are now mostly evergreens. Admittedly I don't know much about nanmu, but it's supposed to be a great wood for construction. Vampires don't trade much with other species, but I could see nanmu being a popular trading good. Mages might like it a lot, so maybe that's a reason they use to schedule meetings with vampire officials who would otherwise avoid them like the plague
The Antier coven's territory is based on the Californian coastline (specifically the central Californian coastline, like around Monterey). Their trees are mostly Californian, like the Monterey pine, the coast live oak, and the Monterey cyprus (it's very obvious that I went there once in my life and fell in love with how pretty it is). I'm keeping this, because the aesthetic is too pretty, but I guess these trees are now related to the nanmu evergreens so they smell nice too.
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Starchaser
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Post by Starchaser on Dec 30, 2020 23:12:01 GMT -5
mossecho Don't apologize for side notes, honestly. I love random and pointless bits of info. Also, they might be interested in nanmu for both aesthetic and scientific purposes. We could say it channels anima really well. I now love the idea that Mages impose rather high tariffs only on vampires. "Well, they rejected our attempts at diplomacy. It's not our fault they don't want to be friends, ergo they wont reap the rewards. If vampires are going to be petty, so shall we >: )"
Anyways, I think that makes a lot of sense for Alex, and it would definitely be nice to see my fave fangy boi comfortable with himself. I also totally understand the wish-fulfillment thing. I dream of one day being able to overcome my anxiety and just feel okay with being myself. Maybe one day. This RP should be pro... -coming-to-terms-with-oneself? That sounds a little depressing, but I'm not sure how to word it. Pro-self-confidence? Also, I mostly surmised Alex's hesitance to express emotions and whatnot as mostly a result of vampire culture, but him internalizing it to the point of extremity makes a lot of sense. I think it's pretty true to real life seeing one's own culture as the default, but I imagine it's exacerbated with vampires, just given how they look down on all the other Families and species, and that they have so little exposure to others.
I think being forced to interact with all the different Families will already help a lot with Alex's arc, but knowing Lilah could definitely play more into the being okay with self-expression and emotions side of it. Lilah definitely does not shy away from showing feelings, and she's not uncomfortable dealing with them in other people. Besides that, she wants to get to know people as deeply as possible (which I think plays into Mages' desire to learn as much as they can about everything), so she not only is comfortable with people being brutally honest, she expects and wants it. I see her approach to relationships as being "ride or die," so she doesn't really know how to do casual friendships, probably because her culture deals in extremes a lot. You're either a stranger/barely acquaintance, or a super close friend/whatever to her. If Alex and Lilah do end up becoming besties, I could see it helping him become more comfortable expressing himself and not trying to keep up a façade.
As for the thing with lying vs. the social hierarchy issue, that also makes a lot of sense. Especially given that, as you said, vampires mislead others all the time. I feel that's very on brand for them, I get the sense that vampires actually have more similarities to the other species than they think, but they consider themselves "justified" in those cases because of their reasons or whatever. It was sort of funny, I noticed in your latest Alex post, how he was upset and suspicious about Lilah lying, but almost immediately he's thinking about how he has to keep up false appearances and it's not that wrong to lie because of the situation. I just think it fits well with what you were saying, especially since it's not like he even knows to what extent she was lying, or the circumstances behind it. Like you said though, he's more upset about his understanding of hierarchy being broken, but that also makes things interesting, since he's applying his society's standards to a completely different culture. So it's a misinterpretation because the action is taken out of context. So perhaps he'll start to realize the inherent hypocrisy of certain aspects of vampire culture the more he hangs out with prophecy crew. Mmm, I love thinking about how the group is all going to have to deal with trying to understand each other and how their perceptions will change given how they all have such different cultures and lifestyles.
Oof, I feel that. I've loved and lost so many fictional characters. That may be why I'm so determined to have as much angst as possible with mine.
That's the case for me with most of my RP characters. Unlike with my story characters, I think I end up feeling like more of a conduit for my RP characters than the one who wrote them, though most of my characters end up surprising me with how they turn out to some degree. I think it's far more common in RP though, because you usually don't have a clear picture of what will happen to them at the start. With novel characters, you create them for a specific role in the story, with an arc in mind, and certain goals, etc. RP characters feel more malleable and organic to me, because you don't always know what's going to happen to them or how their interactions will change them. You can predict to a certain degree what others' characters will do, but you're not writing for everyone, so there's an added sense of them all being real people (?), I suppose. If that makes any sense at all.
Btw, sorry I got off on a bunch of tangents (again).
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Post by mossecho on Dec 31, 2020 2:50:08 GMT -5
Starchaser : it's lowkey hilarious that we're practically writing a literary analysis of our own characters xD
Also, I realize I'm not talking a lot about Lilah. I should clarify that this is because I don't want to impose on your... territory? Area? idk. Essentially I just don't want to question her character because, well, she's yours. I don't feel very comfortable speculating about other peoples' characters (aside from what we have seen of them in the RP) because I don't want to impede the other person's work. I am perfectly okay with anyone speculating about Alex and what has not been written about him already, just I don't want to do that for anyone else's characters quite yet. I just haven't spent enough time with them. Alex is a decently flushed out character rn (and Lu is just... Lu, lol), but... yeah. I don't know. Again, I am 100% ok with anyone else talking about how his thought process works or whatever, I just don't feel like I know anyone else's characters well enough to do that 😅 just wanted to clarify why I only talk in-depth about Alex (also this is kinda why I only discuss vampires, just I don't want to step on anyone else's toes) (again, I am 100% happy if other people talk about how vampire society works, this is just me being me and socially nervous)
Alex is such a surprisingly hypocritical person. That's mostly vampire society being hypocritical, so therefore Alex is also hypocritical, but that's not an excuse. He'll get better with time. Honestly, I'm really looking forward to seeing him grow. He's a baby by vampire standards (little guy looks his age, so adorable), so his new role as someone mildly important will be strange. The fact he's going to be interacting with people from other Families (and a werewolf, the scandal) will certainly be interesting. Well, whatever the case, I look forward to seeing where this RP takes him and everyone else (:
Ugh I just want to write for Alex more now. Again, I still have no concrete idea how he is going to act. He does not seem one for explosive anger. Besides, that type of rage tends to lean a bit... dangerous. I don't like the idea of Alex yelling or anything along those lines. For one, that is not how vampires would want their own to deal with anger. From my poor understanding of Star Trek (I am a shame to my sci-fi-loving family), Vulcans were very emotional and, well, explosive. This led to a bunch of destruction. To resolve this, Vulcans became restrained and suppressed their emotions. Vampires probably did the same thing. As a result, they would prefer cold, tranquil anger. Thus, well, Alex would not explode. Secondly, that type of anger can turn, for lack of a better word, abusive pretty quick. It's a more physical manifestation of anger. Seeing as how dangerous that could get, especially since Alex is one of the more physically threatening of the group (in terms of actual ability, not appearance, we all know Avani is the unintentionally terrifying giant (although we also all know that she is a sweetheart and probably a great hugger) (Amber , is Avani a hugger?)). Just... if he got explosively angry, that could become dangerous, very fast. In short, I really, deeply dislike the idea of Alex responding to anger physically.
I like the idea of Alex turning to quiet rage a lot more. ("Rage" is perhaps a stronger word for what Alex is feeling, but the phrase "quiet rage" is too good not to use.) I think TV Tropes calls it "tranquil fury" or something like that. I'm predicting a lot of eery calmness and the like. This will be a pain to write (need to differentiate between otherwise similar responses to anger and anxiety), but I'll do it. Me predicts many a cold stare in his future. Or maybe Alex will finally turn to drinking, I don't know.
Oof, that was a ramble. I guess I just can't wait to get back to writing for Alex xD I'm unreasonably excited about it
Honestly, writing RPs is so much easier for me than writing novels or short stories. I have before recreationally (hello nanowrimo), but RPs are weirdly so much easier. It still takes a long time to write and plan out (I write a bullet-point-style draft for each post before starting, just so I have *some* direction), but it's a lot more fun. You brought up the point about how it feels more real because you're not writing for everyone and thus cannot predict what will happen. That is really, really true. I can't predict what everyone else will write. Alex's reactions become more genuine because I myself am reacting to what happened. Obviously Alex and I don't have the exact same reactions, but at least we can both be surprised
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