I Had Several Big Reveals Spoiled For Me Today, So I'm Coping By Diving Head First Into The Lore And

I had several big reveals spoiled for me today, so I'm coping by diving head first into the lore and theories.

Theory: Messmer's timeline and story will only make sense if you consider him Marika's beloved firstborn

Aka, welcome to my doomed Mother & Son presentation slide 🔥🫡

This is written with the assumption that readers are aware of the big reveal regarding Marika's past.

(spoilers for SoTE and long discussion from Messmer’s birth to his final moment)

edit to add this dialogue from Gideon:

You know the Grimm version of Snow White makes more sense than most versions if only because in that version Snow White was like 7 years old.

Palestinian patients found in a mass grave with catheters still attached.

I recall some time ago, I wanted to make a series of ballet designs for various Disney characters.

So yesterday I started working on it while at work...... Aaaand promptly forgot the paper at work. So this is probably the furthest this particular design will ever get until I'm inspired to try again. Anways here she is

I started with Asha from Wish. I haven't seen the movie, and tbh I don't really want to, but I loved her outfit design. Layered purple fabrics my beloved.

Finally replying to all the tags I've missed out on. Thank you for thinking of me :)

I'll also do three WIPs, because I love to talk about the things I'll never fully finish

What has been your biggest struggle with your wip?

Whitegarden: Just finishing the damn thing ;-; I have everything planned out, from characters to plot, but the urge to actually sit and write it out continually escapes me.

Sielsi: Wrangling my original work into something less... Juvenile. The original parts I wrote were borderline plagiarized from the Inheritance Cycle, with sprinkles of Vampire Diaries mixed in there. I love the characters I made, but everything else needs a lot of work still.

The Bandit Queen's Bride: Inspiration is the biggest struggle for this one. I wrote the first handful of chapters in a blind haze, and haven't had any inspiration to keep going.

If your story was a TV show, what would the theme song/intro be?

Whitegarden: Something dramatic, like the Game of Thrones theme song. Maybe a cool map graphic to show off the map I made of the continent, and symbolism to represent the various characters and factions............... So the Game of Thrones intro.

Sielsi: Something that starts out hopeful and cheery, that slowly darkens over the course of the season(s), until its got a noticeably sinister quality. Perhaps later it brightens again, but never quite returns to the cheerful sound it was before.

The Bandit Queen's Bride: Taylor Swift, but make it bardcore.

What other pieces of media do you think would share a fan base for your story?

This, I have no idea how to answer. I have a really poor understanding of why other fandoms are popular, so I feel zero confidence in guessing what kinds of audiences I would have from other fandoms.

What was the first part of your wip that you created?

Whitegarden: This song. The first time I heard it, I honestly didn't like it that much. Then I kept listening, and inspiration grew from there. Now it's permanently stuck in the top 20 most listened songs for me lol. I wrote up a rough draft of two children, separated in childhood because of a cursed bloodline. That rough draft is a far cry from what I've settled on by now, but it'll always hold a special place in my memories.

Sielsi: I was in middle school when I read Eragon for the first time, and I thought to myself, "I could do that, but with shapeshifters". So I did that, with shapeshifters. Wrote almost 40k words in a word document, just making it up as I went.

The Bandit Queen's Bride: Had the idea for a story and came up with a handful of characters. Spent a solid few hours trying to decide what sort of accent to get the Bandit Queen.

Are there any animals in your story? Talk about them!

Whitegarden: Most of the world is populated by animals very similar to what real life has. There are also monsters of various sorts, some more animal-like than others. My favorite is the Enochria, a shadowy beast with multiple arm-like appendages that lives in dark caves in the coldest parts of the continent. They emerge once a year at mid-autumn, then migrate south for the winter/early spring. They climb trees to find mates, then gestate their offspring for variable amounts of time until they find a suitable cave in their northern habitat. Due to magic interference from [Redacted for spoiler reasons], Enochria are moving further and further south, causing many to die from overheating, starvation, or being hunted by frightened humans.

Sielsi: There are natural animals, but nothing relevant to the story. Since half of the main cast are shapeshifters, all the animal shenanigans are their fault. Also I haven't decided if I want standard earth animals, or maybe to add some monsters too.

The Bandit Queen's Bride: There is a very good, very wonderful horse named Tore. A huge bay roan stallion who is extremely loyal to Jin, the Bandit Queen. He originally belonged to Jin's mother, and was passed to her when her mother left the gang. The rest of the bandits have their own horses, but so far, Tore is the only one with any fleshing out.

What part of your wip are you working on rn?

Whitegarden: I flip flop between making more character art and thinking of new monsters to add to the world.

Sielsi: Still struggling with how to lay out the story in a new way ;-;

The Bandit Queen's Bride: Trying to figure out all the secondary/tertiary characters

How do your characters get around? (ex: trains, horses, cars, dragons, etc.)

The answer is the same for all three. Walking or riding horses is the most common way of travel. Those who can afford it will take carriages or ships. For Sielsi, the shapeshifters can turn into birds and fly.

What are your hopes for your wip?

I just wanna finish one of them. Please I am desperate to finish something. Anything.

WIP Questions Tag

I wasn't actually tagged by anyone, but @owlsandwich opened it up to everybody so I'm giving this a try! Open tag, but also no pressure tags to @somethingclevermahogony , @queen-of-the-weenies and @sarandipitywrites !

We're gonna do my main current WIP, God-Touched, and also a couple I've tabled for a bit due to stress, which are called Gods of Steel, and Nico after the name of the MC, respectively. I copy pasted the questions and I may have missed one or two.

What has been your biggest struggle with your wip?

God-Touched: This is more of an overall writing struggle for me, but underwriting/being too concise. I tend to make unnecessary time skips when outlining and not add enough descriptive passages.

Gods of Steel: The world building. I usually enjoy complex world building, but I may have bitten off more than I can chew with this project. I'm taking it slow and building one aspect of it at a time as I'm motivated to do the necessary research, so fingers crossed that works out.

Nico: This one's kinda stupid, but keeping myself from imagining my protagonist as Nico di Angelo. She's completely different in appearance, mannerisms, etc, but I'm a rabid PJO fan and that was my first association with the name.

If your story was a TV show, what would the theme song/intro be?

God-Touched: Definitely something by Imagine Dragons, probably Natural.

Gods of Steel: Probably some kind of epic orchestral thing, I haven't found a specific track yet.

Nico: Song Of Women by the HU and Lzzy Hale. Going purely off of sound and vibes.

What other pieces of media do you think would share a fan base for your story?

God-Touched: Supernatural, Firefly, the King Arthur reincarnated as a space lesbian book (Once and Future) and the book Spellhacker by MK England.

Gods of Steel: This is gonna sound really presumptuous, but I'm trying to make it similar to Dune and the Na'vi Avatar movies.

Nico: Honestly, Tamora Pierce, even though my story is more sci-fi than fantasy. Also slightly the Divergent movie (haven't read the book in years), in that the MC slowly realizes just how much of a dystopia she's actually living in, even though she started out compliant.

What was the first part of your wip that you created?

God-Touched: The general concept of Christian mythology put into a queer science fantasy context.

Gods of Steel: The setting, (humanity's original non-Earth home), and some of its history.

Nico: The idea for the relationship arc between the two main characters. It was the first time I'd ever wanted to write romance, and it was an interesting challenge to come up with how that would play out.

Are there any animals in your story? Talk about them!

God-Touched: This is a major spoiler, but the main gang ends up adopting an iridescent rainbow baby space dragon. She looks majestic, but is actually a huge derpy goof. She's heavily based on Banana, my little sister's big ginger cat who is not exactly the sharpest crayon in the box

Gods of Steel: The main villains on this story are cyborgs, but some are cyborg animals rather than people. They started out as normal robots, but then got this virus that made them grow flesh, skin and other organic parts, but many of the animal-like ones still have working blades or guns as part of their bodies that they use when hunting humans for food.

Nico: The fauna of the setting for this one is very ice age influenced, the main character has a war mammoth that she's raised from a calf to be her mount and companion.

What part of your wip are you working on rn?

God-Touched: First draft of the first two books, if all goes well it's gonna be a five book series.

Gods of Steel: World Building.

Nico: In my first stage of outlining.

How do your characters get around? (ex: trains, horses, cars, dragons, etc.)

God-Touched: spaceships and hover bikes

Gods of Steel: spaceships, then on foot after all their tech gets infected by the cyborgs.

Nico: Mammoth-back riding.

What are your hopes for your wip?

This is the same for all of them so I'll just do one answer: A devoted fandom that uses my books as inspiration to create their own awesome content. Fanart, fanfic, animatics, those character analysis YouTube videos, anything like that.

One of the worst feelings in the world: when you are just desperate, like claw-your-own-skin-off desperate, to create, but the only thing that even vaguely appeals to you to work on is a nebulous half-feeling that might be dreamily related to some half-formed notion of a concept. I must! Make! No thing! Only make!