🌐ANOTHER STORY🌐

THE ART YOU MADE ABOUT THIS IS FANTASTIC!!!! Thank you so much, I lose my mind a little (affectionate) any time someone draws any of my characters, and I really really love the symbolism you add to the art, it's just so well done <3

Motley Elsik's childhood......man.... Araelia's favorite media trained toddler....So he was pretty much toured around all of Araelia nonstop, constant attention from the time he was around 3 or 4 years old (he's about 8 or 9 in the most recent update) Being a "vessel" means a lot of pressure and a lot of attention for your entire life to do great things for the planet and you never get a break once and you never had a say in the matter. Which is obviously kind of crushing. But Motley's such an outgoing kid, and loves getting attention, so he hasn't realized yet.

His mother's a teacher and his father a professor. His mother sort of puts him on a pedestal, she loves nothing more than getting to put him in cute little outfits and see him talk to and inspire crowds of people. It makes him feel special, and proud of himself to have so many grownups telling him how great he is. He's not proud as in pompous or anything, he's still just a kid and it's all fun to him. His father is really big on manners, he's a little more strict but just cares a lot about Motley being a good person despite all the press. It works out.

Motley kind of has a sticking point of wanting to be able to "help people" directly with his abilities, as in physically alter them to improve their health, but he can't really do that. Touring around a lot means seeing a lot of people who are on the brink of death. He's a little desensitized to the concept of death and illness for a child, but he doesn't realize it. He doesn't want to feel powerless in those situations, especially when they expect him to be able to help, it really eats away at him.

So really, he does most of his interacting with his parents and his mentor, Bing Moseley. Moseley is responsible for most of his schooling while he travels, so he doesn't get traditional school peer group interaction time. Like you said, he isn't super used to talking to kids his age. It's always exciting for him when he gets to, but he tends to dump all the same inspirational word jumble on them too, the way he immediately tells Charles that he is "without a doubt a special individual". He tells everyone that. But he never says it and doesn't believe it, always an individualist, and he has very good memory of the people he says that to.

There's a lot to say out there about concepts of disability in fantasy settings. I want to make it clear that physical and mental disability is a regular thing in the world of the comic. Physical disability is something that is typically well handled on Araelia. As a people, Araelians better shaped their society to accomodate disability from the get-go than Earth did. The field of biomechanics was integral to this, when things comparable to Earth's electronic components quite literally grow on trees, it makes it clear that technological advancement didn't take them "as long" as it would us, as more advanced components are a part of their direct environment. This whole topic of Araelian biomechanics and lifeform types is hard for me to put into words in a way that I feel will read well.... maybe like, imagine if developing indoor electricity was something that farmers did. (Does that make sense? Not sure...this needs to be my next big wall of text, finding out a good way to explain this)

Things such as ramps and convertible ramp-staircases are commonplace, and of course in the Megatower, elevators are too. Something that I've drawn a few times now is these glowing pink walkways,

which are moving sidewalks, and variations of these are found in a number of public places, and can be installed in homes for ease of mobility. Mobility aids are common, normalized, and easily accessed.

Basically, Araelia has disability pretty much the same as us. And they also have their own additional fantasy issues caused by separate but connected fantasy factors. I wanted to say all that to preface that Charles' condition is purely a fantasy condition, obviously "low elsinium" or what have you is not something that we can have. But I acknowledge that it has reflections of real life disability and chronic illness. I looked into childhood narcolepsy as inspiration for his condition, when it comes to how he frequently falls asleep, has long sleep periods, has a cane for something like cataplexy, and has hypnagogic/hypnopompic hallucinations (his accounts of the inconsistent state of the flower and "although I couldn't be sure this wasn't a waking dream" for instance). Sleep issues are a consistent theme in Umbers' life overall, something I'd written for him as an adult character, so it felt like a fitting thing to use as a reference for some of his symptoms in childhood.

Firstly what's your favorite floor of the megatower?

Do you the author think vertical or horizontal expansion is better?

Is this megatower the only type of building left or are there other locations with similar last bastion style hold out going on?

Is there any kind of theology in this world with like gods and such? Or is it very much a sciencey focused society?

What's your favorite dynamic to write and draw? If they're different answers I would love to know why for each

My absolute favorite? I'll have to save for the surprise... but one that I think is very cool is Floor 100. It was the original "top floor" of the building. It's where Elsik and Umbers' offices were originally, before expansion continued upwards. Nowadays, the whole floor is very artsy, and also keeps a lot of historical stuff. Both Episode 8 & 9 take place almost exclusively on Floor 100! (the locations end up having a tie to one another)

*clears my throat* As the singlemost expert on Araelia, I determine that vertical expansion is more practical. The safe line of expansion talk isn't kidding. There's only so far they can expand, even with the way the building's smart mesh mecha-exoskeleton protects the interior as it builds. Either way can pose a threat, the building becomes like a body with poor circulation towards its extremities, but there is much more safe room for growth vertically currently.

The Umbers-Elsik Megatower was ultimately the only building with the right technology to keep out the effects of the EDE. Most made the big move to the Megatower because they had faith in Elsik as the vessel of Araelia, but there were some who didn't. There were plenty of people who didn't make it to the Megatower, stubbornly believing they could make it without relocation. Around 9% of the total Araelian population were lost completely to the EDE due to their inability or (in most cases) refusal to relocate.

There is what I've been calling simply "spirituality" on Araelia, more notable in certain areas more than others. These people believe in the concept of the "Will of Araelia", which is a very nature based spiritual belief, without a real deity, no dedicated type or place of worship, and not organized enough to be a religion by definition. But it is very prominent in certain areas, such as Dovil, the East Araelian territory that Charles Umbers grew up in. His parents' statements to him about how "one day soon he would return to Araelia" regarding his condition were spiritually motivated and intended to be comforting. Those who believe in the Will of Araelia tend to believe that every natural process that takes place in the Araelian system all happens for some sort of larger reason, and take comfort in the natural processes as what was "intended to happen". There is a certain degree of truth to these beliefs, and there are different ways that different people and regions interpret the idea of the Will, as well as a number of social ramifications for those who subscribe or don't to the concept, but it is a very long chunk of text that I will save for another post. 😅

I went a lot more into depth, this helped me develop a bit more of the governmental system, so thank you!

I had to put some thought into how the Board of Directors was formed, so I broke down what the regional governments of Araelia would have been before the elsinium deficit event... It's a lot of text, but I'll attach the full section from my comprehensive worldbuilding document under the cut. It references Araelian territory names, which I'm not sure if I've shared before... it may or may not mean anything to readers other than me... but I'll get maps viewable soon, either here or on the website once it's live!

(TL;DR answer) the Board is a large agency beyond just the 23 reps we saw, with ties to pre-EDE government groups from all over Araelia, a large group of people are in charge of public polls, the system is a combined representative/direct democratic one, and people's pre-EDE origin may reflect how they view the system because of the issue of wealth redistribution or cultural shifts.

The following government systems were found on Araelia before the Global Unification Act:

I've actually been looking into this recently!! I had great experience having some holographic prints done and would love to maybe do the same for Another Story, but I think the demand for that would be not high enough to justify the amount I have to order...

All of the above will be shared in the coming updates for Episode 7, but there's plenty I can share in advance too.

Robotics has been an interest of his since he was a young teenager, and it was something that revolutionized his life and eventually led to him opening his robotics company. Another hobby he picked up on a little later, when he was in his 20s, was painting. It came pretty naturally to him, even though he wasn't the type that was inclined to make art in his adolescence.