#malkaleh

Liiiiiiil I'm gonna need more specifics waugh this is my fault

So this is a world that I started brainstorming while talking to @animatedamerican and complaining about what I've been mentally thinking of as The Elf Problem. The Elf Problem is a thing you see in fantasy, mostly medievalesque fantasy, where a fictional group takes the societal position of Jews without actually bearing enough resemblance to Jews to count as representation. This is a problem I have complained about before with the elves in Dragon Age. It's also a rather glaring problem in The Witcher.... also with the elves (and to some extent the Witchers, too). Discworld has elements of it with the dwarves. I have a lot of theories about why this happens, but the summary of it is that it's very frustrating, particularly in fiction that is not shy about its other allegorical cultures - although rarely well done, it's extremely common for fantasy worlds to have an Obviously Fantasy Arab culture or an Obviously Fantasy Chinese culture. But the Jews are layered under enough fantasy that they're much harder to find.

So this is not that. Ilfhan is to ancient Judea as Ankh-Morpork is to London. Ilfhan is a country that was originally filled with immortal elves until a human empire came in, sacked their cities, stole their sacred artefacts, and, for an unknown reason, brought death, disease, and old age. By the time our story actually starts it's been a few hundred years since then. Elves have mostly settled into being mortal, but are currently fighting off another human empire, Civitas.

Making things more complicated is magic. The easiest way to power magic is to draw it from the sacrifice of a living being - Elven law forbids the use of people for magic, but Civitan law doesn't. In fact, many Civitan mages believe that due to their past immortality, elven blood casts more potent spells. Elven life is disposable because it's (seen as) powerful.

At the moment I have three extremely loosely outlined stories I'm planning set in this universe:

The first one is a tragedy set during the Civitan occupation of Ilfhan, following Kalavan, a slave who joins an Ilfhan revolt which eventually fails. This is the least developed of the three.

The second is.... the closest genre descriptor I can come up with is romance, but I'm pretty sure it's a romance that would get me strangled if I were to market it that way. It follows Geulah/Gallus, who is first a gladiator attempting to buy his way to freedom and then a concubine of Kyrillus, the heir to a wealthy Civitan family. It's set a few decades after Kalavan's story, and mainly focuses on the inner workings of Civitas as a city and culture. I mentioned Tryphaena the other day? Yeah, she's Kyrillus's wife. This is the most developed of the three.

The third is a revenge tale set about a thousand years after the other two, set in what used to be the Civitan empire and is now roughly analogous to 11th/12th century Europe. At this point, the former Civitan empire has long since converted to the worship of the Threefold God, but the elven lot hasn't improved all that much. The combination of the politics of a plague outbreak and a Crusade lead to the local king Lysander agreeing to help the main character Nekhama get revenge for the massacre of her family and the local Elven community.

i HAD A WHOLE LONG RESPONSE BUT THEN THE TAB CRASHED

the centre absolutely has electrolyte drinks & protein, this is part of their regimen (they also have like ... steroids lmao they need it)

the thought of some poor researcher in 3 let alone wherever the actual production is having to make sports drinks to get shipped to the d2 murder factory is kinda sending me a little bit

d2 victor village is split between the people who will never drink a protein shake EVER AGAIN (claudius) and the ones who religiously have one every single morning (brutus) and the debates are heated

i was thinking about commercial availability and decided that while the centre has its own privilege, and you could get drinks at bars/cafes in central towns, at home you're buying tubs of powder for both electrolytes and protein - if you've got money you can just buy them, if not then you're relying on rations (like lyme, emory, brutus, devon needing those for milk, eggs, sugar)

i had a whole list of flavours for victors and justifications but essentially: brutus goes for original and no one can tell if he actually likes it or is just being stubborn; devon likes vanilla but also doesn't mind original bc it reminds him of cereal milk; misha thinks those are GROSS and prefers chocolate or peanut butter; lyme doesn't super care but likes peanut butter or pumpkin; emory prefers to put powder in baked goods so bases it on the recipe; nero used to eat the saddest flavours and had to be convinced to eat things that tasted good; petra went for whatever selene hated whether she personally liked it or not out of spite

Long or short (anon) message on what you think of me?

Yes yes yes yes! Both can be SO fun to explore and I love it! Like, most often I tend to see CJ as bisexual (and she and Danny can really be such a good bi4bi couple too?? Like recently I’ve been toying around with Danny having a crush on Josh for a while there and nothing really Comes of it but it’s There and CJ can tease him mercilessly honestly), but there is Such a fun kind of tragedy to her just not realising she’s a lesbian until she’s in her forties or fifties and it all falls into place. And !!! Exactly I am always such a big supporter of just, different headcanons by the same person can contradict each other because they don’t all have to exist in the same universe, they can be fun alterations of the same beloved character to play with! I love it.

#7. What fic are you the proudest of?

Hmmm, that's kind of a hard one. Making me say nice things about myself, how dare. In terms of sheer prose, that I actually just find very pleasant to reread and that accomplishes what I set out to accomplish, a tie between Longinus's Wound and let our formulas find your soul [...]. With both of those I just think the writing is exactly what I wanted it to be.

On the other hand, Monster Hearts remains the longest thing I've completed to date, and chapter 7 in particular remains one of my favorite pieces of my own writing yet in terms of successfully pulling off and completing the fic. I'd admittedly be a lot more proud if I were finished with Apocalypse World, but I'm trying to be nicer to myself about it. I am still working on it, albeit very slowly.

Gonna go ahead and do a sentence per rose because why not hehehe

(EDIT: lol I just realised that is in fact the point of the ask game - ignore me!)

‘“But if they cannot abstain, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn,”’ Edward finished smoothly, nary a hiccup in his speech. ‘You have conveniently neglected that part, sister.’ Elizabeth let out of derisive puff of air. ‘I hardly burn for anyone.’

EXCELLENT PLAN. Brains are stupid and need to be reminded who's boss.

Anyway. Thank you so much for such a lovely message, m'dear, it was a very nice surprise. 🩷 And you're such an unfailingly kind, sweet, creative presence on my dash, I love having you as a laptop friend, so you can tell your brain to shut the fuck up from me. :D

YESSSSS, I do love the idea of Eönwë just going balls-to-the-walls peak sparrowhawk mode in Angband. He deserves to let rip, frankly. :')

fyi, I was daydreaming yesterday about Mairon wrapped up in Eönwë's cloak. That is like one of my go-to comfort scenarios these days. 🥰🥰🥰

Thank you so much for the question, Lil!