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Yeah, it's one of Those Days.

I don't know if I'm actually going to attempt rewriting it again (lololololol this is an injoke even to ME now), but one of the problems with all drafts is the lack of solid canon, SO. If I try to rewrite original version, here's some rules. And I mean rules, kk, not guidelines.

1. Elen's dead. Dead and buried. How she died, where she died, do what you want with that: but this is Original Canon and she is DEAD. Not missing. Not present-but-mysterious. Dead.

2. Vey is alive and present. I know, I know, annoying girl who gets in the way of slash, GET OVER IT. She's there, Aivlen loves her, and she saves Brya's life once or twice.

3. Brya is Elen's kid. Seriously, do all the identity nonsense in a later draft if you want; it REALLY CHANGES THINGS, and this is Original Canon.

4. Jinn's his brother. I know, speaking of people who get in the way of otpvomit. But he's Brya's brother and he's in the story, okay?

5. They are Catching Things--that is the main plot. They're trying to catch these creatures. Reasons, nature of the creatures, whatever; that tends to change like the tides; but they ARE chasing living-ish things, in order to catch them, in order to reclaim them.

If I think of more absolutes, I'll add them, but this is The List for now. :P
form_mage: (Default)
...should i stop doing daily prompts then, and start posting story? i don't know who to ask. i'm scared to start for real. XD

theme: the land where even sleep doesn't exist
characters: jinn and myrrh

well, they ARE brothers. )
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much to my DELIGHT. :D

theme: the world will never return
characters: bryashi~ because i wrote vey yesterday, and that means i get to reward myself.

can you call it deafness if the noise isn't there anymore? )
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theme: a mechanical doll that falls to pieces every night
characters: the bryas

things just aren't allowed to get any easier, are they? )
form_mage: (Default)
theme: it's now, or never again
characters: dead!brya

one thing leads to another. )
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theme: still we are the past together
characters: aivlen and brya

every time he shifts, marbles fall off the bed. )
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theme: wonder cannot be understood from the inside
characters: main four
note: the word "myrrhan," in this world, is used to refer to something mystical and awe-inspiring.

everything's magic. )

Thingy

Feb. 17th, 2006 11:41 am
form_mage: (Default)
Circle-within-a-circle: something strange happens, have no idea what.

Mages can shrink and expand the "sinking world" at will, if they're skilled enough, and you have to, to do certain things. See also: idiots who cannot do detail work and will have serious problems in teh desert of stufe.

Decoa, icoa, decoa used to be killed at a certain age to, like, keep the icoa from coming back and wreaking havoc or something, and they..."aren't" anymore? Except people talk about it where Mae's from because of Aivlen and Vey and some people say he was the spirit-thingy?

Basically I'm just babbling.

Note to self: scene involving foot-bandages and unbound hair. K/B. <3
form_mage: (back in days past)
MORE worldbuilding, clarification, the like.

The wire-and-tower communication came as a result of the same event that drove Emphia's people into the desert. Some sort of thing involving refugees; don't know yet. Think it had more to do with human society than sandangels/drugs, but that's just my instinct.

Voclen were originally, way way way WAY back, mountain-dwelling creatures. Groups of them migrated down (again, way way way long ago) and the first ones, I think, who really had a coherent, organized little mini-society were the ones who happened upon the plant that the drug is made from.

(it's a desert something; grows near oases)

The communication between humans and sandangels had already picked up when the Emphia things happened. Following Emphia, though not as a direct result of his actions/the Phaists, certain things started changing.

1. The Voclen tongue, Ancaien, used to be an exclusively Voclen language; they communicated with humans through a sign language, and neither race made attempts to learn the speech of the other, 'cause Voclen are egotistical bastards. However. Once the towers were built, primary modes of communication were written. This, coupled with the fact that Voclen and humans had a lot more contact, resulted in a linguistic mingling.

Nowadays, the Metaan teach language as well as keep the towers intact. They act as interpreters when needed, as well, and the sandangels generally trust them a whole lot. God-like thing.

2. Exclusivity. This could really go for the first one, too. Voclen society is really different from human society. One of their most "sacred" ceremonies involves the composition of a symphony that is only played once. The score is burned; none of the "players" see any but their own part; basically, the composer is the only one who could reproduce it (and there are those that have, but it's frowned upon). Everyone else gets to hear it once.

At least until the last festival thingy. One of Anaite's "spurring" moments was when her friend the composer (who may/may not have been Illvais) had at his symphony a small group of humans, copying the score verbatim.

She was young, and very upset by this.

3. Religion. I'm not sure on the details yet--but there'll be conflict here; there's gotta be.

I do know that Metaan are forbidden to teach religion to the children. Probably has something to do with the fact that their religion says that the sandangels were built from the sand by a Metaan. Voclen history's a bit the opposite; humans are the fortunate beneficiaries of their benevolent attention.

Annnnnnd...

The current Violen is Phaist. Brya's related to him. And Phaist. Related through his father, then, probably.

Koloka's trading in sandangels because he, like the other Metaan, is dependent on avedagavel; he, however, has his own agenda. He believes in the dragon. He won't admit it, but he does. He doesn't want to be it. He wants to control it. And when he gets it, he doesn't much care about the sandangels--he feels rather the same way everyone does about them, I think--but he's going to take on his own people.

'Cause he's a fucker like that. :D

note to self: baby voclen drinking blood...?

Oh. And the drug, taken over prolonged periods of time, starts to numb your extremities; nerves die in your hands, your feet, and your *ahem* well. Withdrawal alternates periods of intense sensation and completely diminished; fevers are common, usually accompanied by delirium. :D

Elen wouldn't trade slaves.

Would Aivlen?
form_mage: (Default)
She'd have to kill him.

Not that it would be much trouble--she figured that an arrow shaft would be sharp enough and she could "procure" one without a lot of effort, then just catch him off-guard, stab and be done with it--still, that was the part that irked her. It wouldn't be much trouble, but she was the only one in all of Bentiel...no, that was being optimistic. She was the only voclen alive who'd actually murder another.

Sad.

Anaite clenched her hands in the silk of her skirt, and continued to watch Caillis pull himself hand-over-hand along a taut, gleaming line of rope. The sun kept hitting the beads webbing his sleeves; she had to squint through it, and after a few moments longer she gave up, pushed herself off of the tower wall, and glided towards him.

"Can we go back yet?"

Just as she asked, the wind shifted. Anaite flapped her wings without even thinking about it, and Caillis, unbalanced, cried out and tumbled sideways. His fingers and feet, gravity-aided, leaped away from the rope, and then he unfolded his wings and his cursing voice rose to meet her.

"I don't see why you want to do that, anyway," said Anaite, beckoning him to follow her higher.

Caillis shook his head, gestured towards the nearest netted tower--the Caya Indical. "I'm just being prepared."

"For what?"

He didn't answer until he'd landed--hands and feet curled around the grooves cut into the tower walls, wings folded against his shoulders. "Half of the city can walk the ropes without falling."

"Which means half the city can't," she said, landing beside him. "Are you up to win a contest?"

"I'm being prepared."

She shook her head, and started to climb. If only she'd decided to kill him before this morning, she'd have been prepared. Probably she'd missed at least three opportunities already. That wasn't very becoming of a Caya: they were supposed to be intelligent.

Then again, she thought, Caillis had just spent at least an hour trying to figure out how not to use his wings; if he could get away with that, she could fail to kill him for at least one morning.

Actually--Anaite paused, and craned her neck to see the smaller towers and the space between them. Caillis had taken up with another rope, this one stretched between a postal station and a tower whose inhabitants she couldn't recall off the top of her head. He wasn't having any more luck, though he was being quieter. But other than him, and her, Bentiel slept, a sprawling trap for the drifting clouds.

Better not to kill him now, then, after all. There needed to be witnesses.

As the air became thinner, Anaite started glancing up. The climb wasn't hard--she'd been doing it daily for the last six months--but it was long past sunrise, and she'd arranged all of her soft things, her pillows and shawls and a skin of cool water, to cushion her just the way she liked them. It'd be so much better than the thin, hot morning, which scratched at her like fingernails. Leave Caillis to that, and good riddance. She would enjoy her sleep, especially now that she'd figured out a plan of action.

The sandstone seemed to stretch forever upwards. Anaite, instead of thinking any more on that, started whistling. The notes dropped over her shoulders like handfuls of dust. She imagined them falling on Caillis, and smiled to herself.

At long last, she reached up, and gave herself a final drag over the sill of their tall, thin windowledge. Anaite clambered hands and knees over the pale carpet; perhaps she'd been more tired than she thought.
form_mage: (back in days past)
okay so

here we have illdaishen :D

and here is our explanation of!

So first there were these sandangels--nomadic, nocturnal, winged, and rather fragile. They have an annual mating season and they hunt using mostly bows and arrows, because they'll get killed in any sort of combat (hollow bones). So they mostly eat vegetation BUT

[pause. aivlen-dude. holycrap. :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD]

mostly eat vegetation but they hunt, too. Anyway.

So they find the pitiful little coast-crawling humans that are scared and angry and violent and they're like hay try this drug thing (they use this drug to keep them "sane" during mating periods :D 'cause otherwise they're like totally not functional. but since it's incredibly addictive there's, like, religious rules about only taking it a bit. they like teh sex anyway).

Humans try drug. Humans find out they can manipulate the land while under the influence of said drug. Humans have a much happier existance. :D

They're like hay give us summore drug! and the sandangels are like fine will you get food for us? :D

And a happy alliance is formed. Humans kill meat for the sandangels, the sandangels get the humans high, humans can then manipulate the land and they do, like, that agriculture thing, with much more success. This is the same time that sandangels start viewing killing of ANYTHING as a taboo, rather than just a dangerous idea.

Humans also start up with this "creation myth" which attributes the existance of sandangels to a Metaan, who later becomes a god-like (or at least saint-like) figure in mythology. Sandangels don't like this but they figure hey, stupid humans--it's also debatable how much attention they actually pay to the creation myths of humans, 'cause they're proud motherfuckers and they really would rather not sully themselves with the affairs of lesser mortals. :D

So this drug comes from the desert, right.

So the humans (who btw somewhere along the line went up into the mountains and developed those rope-and-pulley communication things) decide to start settling the desert.

Sandangels are like wut. All right. Okay. And they sorta move there because the humans are like "hay we'll pay you!" and they're like "ancestral land wut" and also they (initially) like the idea of permanent housing. :D

And it really seems all right. The sandangels are hired to maintain the communication lines, and supply the drug, and the humans pay them lavishly and keep them in one place. :D Keep in mind also sandangels are now totally against the killing thing.

Okay.

Unfortunately, somewhere along the line, someone let the humans know how to make the drug. Or the humans figured it out. Maybe in that mountain trip. So they no longer need the sandangels quite so much--but the sandangels are pretty, they aren't dangerous, and they're obedient. So, fine. They still provide the raw materials for this drug anyway so...

Well, then, Emphia shows up.

Emphia (known later as a saint) discovers that one can perform land-magic without the drug. This is about 150 years prior to storytime. He basically founds the Phaist sect--a radical group of Metaan who swear off the drug, and who also (sorta by necessity) live calmer lives--they're celibate and they...well, let's say they wouldn't be the life of any party.

Phaists can also do some seriously weird shit, which isn't entirely documented, but will definitely, DEFINITELY come into play, 'cause I'm a whore for shapeshifters.

By this point, sandangels are almost entirely in the desert. They are dependent on the human transportation--and therefore their maintenance of it--for food, water, etc. Also they're treated very nicely on their own land, so there's really not a huge incentive for them to leave.

Except they're being traded as slaves by the Metaan. :D Who are discovering new ways of creating that means that they might actually BE able to make a sandangel pretty damn soon.

HELLO CONFLICT. :DDDDDDDD

Anaite wants her people to kill again. That's the first thing the humans took from them.

Lisuce wants to keep things the way they are--they aren't treated badly. They're protected. They're even "worshipped," she says. Why rock the net?

Caillis wants to raise the dragon. He wants the humans gone, and he doesn't much care how he has to do it.

Koloka wants to cripple the sandangels--that's his job. So that even if Anaite and Caillis managed to get their ways, it wouldn't matter. He doesn't believe in the dragon. That silly bitch. :D

Illvais wants to write a pretty song. :D

Aivlen wants to get the hell out. :D

Veylital wants to be younger and in control again. :D

And Brya's just trying to do his job.

...dear Lord, this is going to be so, so, SO much fun. <333333

Drabbling

Mar. 25th, 2005 12:58 am
form_mage: (reach)
...Because it's late at night and I have slash in my blood.

And hell. I don't know. I miss them. I miss them a lot, and I'm sick of trying to write the Snarky One, so. *pout*

Props to anyone who actually GETS the layers in this conversation. )

--

...Brya. My love for you is at this point in time absolutely huge and unconditional. Like, you know, a truck. Berserker. <3
form_mage: (reach)
I'm...wanting to play Suiko4. I hate your face, Brya.

She leans away from him for the first time... )
form_mage: (back in days past)
Ack. I want a Tani icon but I gots no space for one. Darn you Joe and your LOTS of icons. ...Not that I really use this journal for anything but brainstorming ANYWAY...

...and yes I should be sleeping, and damn it this is all [livejournal.com profile] limyaael's fault and also P'quet's, because he got me thinking about the insanity thing. DAMN YOU, CRAZY ENGLISH MAN. And damn W Juliet as well. Because for some reason genderbending things always get me thinking of the Shi family.

...Wow. It must be tired; I didn't even try to say something like that. :P

Anyway. Madness.

I think it's common.

I think, because Eletyr are so vulnerable to energy from the land and from EVERYTHING, it's probably really really normal for them to go crazy. Really strong mages, I'll bet--they're the worst. That's why they have to get tattooed so damn early and why they're sent to do speshul stuff, because they're USEFUL but they need to be kept away from normal people, just in case.

Eeeeeeeeek.

So madness--so mad people--they have to have something to do with them, right?

So they send them away. Like, to the mountains, or something. Perhaps they have a couple tribes of Lijiel that they just call up when they've got crazies to move. Transport-a-Nut Hotline. They leave; their names are stricken from records and they're no longer considered a part of society.

Delikar didn't want that to happen to Elin but recognized she was dangerous--or perhaps--no, perhaps he never really accepted that she was mad. Perhaps he just wanted to be away from her. Hell, he might just not have known what to do. But he didn't want her cast out. And he REALLY didn't want to take care of her sandangel brats, which would have fallen to him in the natural order of things...yet I don't think he'd kill them either, so it's easier just to let her keep them...hmmmmmm...

So Tani, Tani doesn't run away--she's cast out. She's made to leave. Then she finds Shytan, natch, and decides she's going to try and get Athellin, except she's repelled at the gates of civilization and ALMOST killed--and then Cleta interferes.

Because he knows she'll be a better guard for Athellin than, like, twenty of his normal people, all of whom have to work in shifts, are sane enough to be manipulatable, and don't have the devotion to Athellin that Tani does. Also, if for some reason Athellin manages to sweet-talk his "guards" (which I think he's done before, actually), it's a lot easier for Cleta to kill one person than twenty.

...Also why don't they throw Athellin out then?

I mean it's not like--well. I guess he's a symbol. I guess they REALIZE that he's more dangerous out there than he is in their hold. God. They should kill him; don't see why they don't. Except that the Lijiel will twist that against them if the Lijiel are still alive--well they are I suppose just not in the--argh, lack of sleep catching up to self...

Also. While Tani is stricken from Father's records, she isn't from Mother's. Inheritance lines and all that, I mean. Maei didn't know that her daughter was cast out (and quite frankly wouldn't have cared; she was loopy as all hell by then). So.

So Brya posing as Tani could inherit. It's a STUPID, stupid plan.

But who's going to tell him that?

And hell, he's desperate.

...I'm interested to see Aivlen's reaction. Somewhere between a "HOLYCRAP NO" and a "...waaaaaaaitaminute, you are DEFINITELY not the girl who raped me, which is I suppose a good thing but could also be bad because what the hell to DO with you now..."

DAMN YOU GENDERBENDING MANGA.

He is NOT going to crossdress. He will NOT. He'll try. He just won't; he'll suck at it. He doesn't have the voice or the build, and he's too clumsy, and he's a terrible actor. ...I wonder if they'd let him think he was succeeding, though. :P That'd be kinda funny.

"Brya smiled to himself, pleased with the perfect deception.

He couldn't have known how hard Vey was laughing behind her carefully-schooled frown. Aivlen, thinking his sister had fallen for it, looked Brya up and down--no, still gawky and very male. Perhaps this was a joke. Or they'd both lost their minds."

*shrug* It would be amusing. For a little bit. He'd really suck at it, though. I can just imagine his falsetto. Ouch.

...ACK. NEED SLEEP. WTF ARE YOU STILL DOING UP, SELF, YOU HAVE CLASS YOU MORON. >_
form_mage: (back in days past)
I still have some serious questions to answer in order to work the whole thing out.

Most of these, naturally, are Tokal-related. You let a dragon into an otherwise not-too-cliche fantasy world, and all hell breaks loose. >_< In a BAD way.

There's the marriage question, too. Why Delikar, socially inept emotionally stunted scared devoted religious perfectionist Delikar would EVER marry a woman like Maei...is entirely beyond me. Chalk it up to physical attraction. Lust. A love of the unknown. But while he IS naive, and while he IS emotional, he's also very good at fitting himself into the shape that others want him to be.

Why, then? Why Elin Maei?

And if he never actually trusts her, which might well be the case, why does he leave the manor in HER name? And why does he have four children with her, as opposed to just Jinn (who's the only decent one anyway) and Levia (who, I suppose, makes a crappy "spare," but still...)?

And why on EARTH is Brya sent to live with Cleta? Maei is not quite crazy yet--she's getting there, but Delikar and the other kids don't move out 'til Brya's, like, eight. So why is he with Cleta for so long? Or in Sistakis, really, even when he's not with Cleta?

Delikar must find out that she's a Pheist, or something.

Then why just BRYA? Why not take ALL of the kids? Brya may be the stupid young impressionable one, but Tani's not quite a lost cause YET, and Levia is showing a disturbing tendency towards polygamy even at that age! WHY just Brya?

What the hell is special about Brya.

NOTHING, sir.

...Maybe it's something mundane, like he's always sick as a child, so they move him to Sistakis because it's a warmer climate. Sort of. Never mind that the sandangels are probably miserable and you'd think Elin would move them first.

Oh wait. Doesn't she think Brya's dead? Or something like that? And that's why she didn't--yeah, yeah, I still like that idea, that they mime Brya's "death". ...Only why WOULD they? And why would Ruka go along with it when it's clearly not good for Elin's health?

And Tani still manages to be totally ignored. What the hell did that girl DO when she was young, besides the Aivlen-raping? >_< She fought. And fought a lot. And probably made Mommy look sane.

Okay. We need to get Tani more involved and we need to have a reason for Brya leaving other than HE'S SO SPESHUL. However, we need to avoid the "hiz angste iz pastede on yay" syndrome. Perhaps Tani is kinda a nutcase from the getgo? Well, that would make sense. She's FAUN from the getgo, after all. Faun-Manus. Faunus. Man...aun...us...f. ANYWAY. The Faunthing.

Soooooo...if she's a nutcase...why do they move BRYA instead of HER?

I mean seriously now.

-_-;; Resolutions? Are very far off.

Essentially, I'm still worldbuilding. Yay, though. It's fun. Just frustrating. In a fun, beat-my-head-against-the-wall sort of way.
form_mage: (Default)
Well, I'm thinking I'm actually going to try and post the whole thing in here as I write it. Since I'm not going to write on weekends, I figure I can take the week's work and get it in workable lj-comment format every weekend, or whenever I have a decent chunk of story done.

So this is my obligatory warnings-post, for anyone who may stumble across this and doesn't already have an idea what they're getting into.

Possessions, this evil head-eating thing that will be posted here, is going to be written pretty much without an outline. And that's the only warning, really, because even I don't know what in it yet. :P

Talk about anticlimatic.

*shrug* Blame the To!
form_mage: (reach)
Am now officially signed up for NaNoWriMo 2004.

Time to start worrying. More.
form_mage: (Default)
There's something disturbing about discovering you could make five separate stories out of two. o_O

And the worst thing is when you realize that it might work better that way.

Desperately needing development are the Shi siblings, Brya included but mostly Jinn, Levia, and Titani, and I'm afraid they won't get near enough screentime in Possessions--not to mention I've already decided to restrict my POV characters to Brya, Aivlen, and Veylital. This narrows the focus of that story quite a bit, especially considering the type of story Sequel Fodder is liable to be.

I mean, do more personal stories ever successfully branch out into semi-epic fantasy? It seems like the focus of Possessions is so much more narrow, whereas Sequel Fodder pretty much DEMANDS that we get into as many heads as possible. Sure, BA&V will be important (at least B&A, since V is such a spineless wimp now), but we also NEED to know what Jinn, Titani, Levia, Cleta, Athellin, Delikar, Ferabyn probably, possibly Faolan too, are doing and thinking and such. It won't work without exploring all of them; it just won't.

Possessions, though, really suffers with that sort of mindset. At least I think so. It seems to. I don't know. o_O I'm actually considering just ditching the "spirits" idea and using Possessions as an honest-to-God prequel, but the problem with THAT is that BA&V become so much LESS important and I'll have to flit around through a bunch of different heads, since BA&V are all in one place and most everyone else is NOT with them except at certain times.

...Also there is my inherent OTP!shipper screaming that I cannot CANNOT give B&A less screentime if I want to have the least possible chance of them starting to get along or heaven forbid LIKING each other.

Yeah, it is disgusting when your discussion of your original fiction starts to read like a rant about fanfic.

...At any rate I have a paper to write that has nothing to do with this, so I need to stop now.

(would it be better if levia and jinn and tani got their own stories, too? would that make it more even? do they even HAVE enough material to fill a whole story? jinn maybe, tani perhaps though hers shouldn't end until around sequel fodder, i don't know, but LEVIA definitely...well, his story would read more like a datebook--"girl a, sunday; girl g, monday; repeat performance with girl a then girl c, tuesday"...'cause he's SHALLOW and doesn't do much but wallow in everyone else's shadow. grrr.)
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