#golnar

ANYWAYS the pacing did yield some random thoughts!

Mostly about the contrast between Wolfsong!Isfan and canon!Isfan. Canon!Isfan understandably has some self-esteem issues regarding the fact that he was born from a gholam, like, imagine existing under the same roof with people who must be, by all means, virulently classist and also one murdered his mother and the other just let it happen. Anyways since Wolfsong!Isfan's life differed a lot from his canon counterpart in many ways, I have to wonder if he takes more pride in being Golnar's (the name I gave Isfan's mother in the AU) son.

Also this is a throughline I have been meaning to explore and was initiated in Wolfsong chapter 2, but it had a thing going on w Isfan wishing he'd known or remembered Aýnabat and Sâyezân and Khazān, right. At some point I gotta have him wonder about his own mother, too.

On that topic, what did the other gholams in the castle think of the whole debacle w Isfan and Golnar, anyhow? Did they resent Isfan for escaping the bounds of slavery while they couldn't? Do they feel sympathy for Golnar? Did anyone try to protect her? Did anyone mourn her?

I think there has to be someone who loved Golnar (not necessarily romantically, no, maybe as family, maybe as a friend, etc), right?

Anyways I don't know where I'll insert it just yet but I'd like for one such someone who loved Golnar to converse w Isfan. Help him know his mother better, y'know?

Also I think Golnar was achingly young when all that happened. She was scared and she did NOT want any of that. She did love Isfan with all her heart, though, and wished for a better future for him. She was really glad when Shapur took interest in his little brother. She had hope that things might finally turn out for the better, but alas...

Anyways it comes into stark clarity how Golnar was someone whose life and happiness was cut short bc an entitled man who held power over her exploited and abused her, and Isfan has the headspace to recognize that, oh wait, the man who sired me was not a good person

Which may or may not lead more into him primarily referring to himself as “the son of Golnar”

Also the gholam who helped Isfan learn more about his mother... god I wanna give them a prominent, continuous role too. I just need to figure out who this OC will become, lol

Damn, the OC cast in Wolfsong just keeps growing...

AND I STILL HAVEN'T NAMED NARSUS' MOTHER BTW

Not that she's alive to impact the plot or anything she and Narsus exist to parallel Golnar and Isfan and also is important to Narsus' character but that's besides the point

A tiny modification I plan to make in chapter 1: Shapur does not bury Aýnabat in the new version. It's not like he didn't want to give Aýnabat a burial it's just that he was so panicked and pressed for time, fearing that if he delayed anymore he wouldn't be able to find everybody else. So yeah!

Is there a possibility of an extensive city-wide underground network underneath Ecbatana? Not for any particular reason other than that the capital literally built itself on top of its past selves, perhaps? (Yeah, this was partially caused by that Jacob Geller video essay about buried cities, haha) Maybe it's where Arslan and Ecbatana's ragtag resistance movement thing based themselves in, if there is any. Maybe Arslan and Ashaya, the rascals that they were, found a tunnel and went “ooooh wonder where that goes” and started charting the network out of boredom or something prior to the Battle of Atropatene 😭

Unrelated but maybe the look-for-the-cause-of-the-unnatural-mist-and-deal-with-it squad runs into Hilmes at some point and also ends up chasing him so far they all ended up in the fucking haunted temple

Which is a cave now

For... reasons

Or maybe it could be some other version of an underground thing, like it used to be above-ground but it got swallowed by the earth over the course of three whole centuries

Anyways there's zero fucking light, good luck Hilmes

Shapur will have to grapple w the distressingly high probability that his son is dead :)

But I also want Ashaya to turn out to be some kind of folk “hero” who shanks Lusitanians terrorizing local villages or smth.

Like—

Okay

So

Y'know how rumors started flying that maaaaybe Arslan is the hidden heir because he's 14, the dead Crown Prince is 14, and Arslan is doing Heroic Deeds™ that people want to believe that he's royalty bc they want a figure to believe in, a figure that inspires hope—

So now there's another 14 year old, who maybe kiiiiinda sorta looks like the rumored “prince” if you've never seen the young doctor in Ecbatana and this one is actively curb-stomping Lusitanians

And many people only have rumors to go off of

So they just... assume?????

The two kids got super fucking mixed up, y'all

Also considering giving Ashaya grey eyes instead of manga!Tahamenay's red. Yes yes I know I keep changing their eye color, but HEAR ME OUT

First off: so many red-eyed folks in the cast? Okay, not “so many”, it's just five, six if we might count Haltash (considering both his kids had red eyes, it was probably a trait they shared w their dad rather than their separate moms??), but somehow I am bothered by this??? Shapur, Tahamenay, Alfarīd, Merlane, Ashaya. HM.

I find it hard to scrutinize the eye colors of Andragoras and Hilmes (they both probably leaned some kinda blue or teal in the anime) but what if I went w the manga cover versions and made them a steely grey?

Fueling the Ashaya v. Hilmes mirroring-each-other turbo hatred thing even further?

Still, it's smth I'm only mildly considering. Mildly.

This might not be news to y'all but I kinda conceptualize Wolfsong as having two parts! The first part basically goes from the start of chapter 1 of the fic to... somewhere before the Battle of Atropatene. The second part basically starts when Shapur and co. arrive at Ecbatana somewhere in Pars Era 320, aka the year where the Battle of Atropatene takes place, like he was summoned some time before the actual battle to be on standby, prepare to march at a moment's notice blah blah blah

So anyways I want to fill Part 1 with slice-of-life elements (still grappling w emotional stuff and grief and character dynamics and development and everything) and then Part 2 with... well. Chaos™.

I am in need of some good ideas to fill Part 1 with! 😭 I am unfortunately drawing up a blank rn

There's probably a chunk of time spent in Ecbatana before Atropatene actually happens, some time to stew in the unease and get to know the capital city better before it goes kaput :)

Also had a scenario where Arslan actually encounters a gholam— a man who was rescued by the Mardi only to be captured and enslaved again following the massacre 14 years ago and he's old and sick and dying and Arslan was there for his final days and the man was so relieved and overjoyed but he also grimly warns Arslan on his deathbed that he should leave this place because wolves who leave the wilderness for forests of stone and men do not make it back out unscathed. Arslan is suitably unsettled.

I still don't know where to put Zandeh in all of this.

Player - Purple

Name: Golnar

Pokemon: Lotad

Gender: Male

Goal: Kill all humans.

Nature: Adamant

Home region: Hoenn

A sketch of the lovely Golnar~! I'll probably finish it soon ^^

Gragya and Golnar prepping for the world cup.