I was wondering what the lore is behind the cultural tattoos that I see the reyes family have?
ah, i'm so glad i finally got this question !!!!! i am, however, woefully unprepared to actually answer it skdfsd long, so see below for more & for reference images and such:
i decided at some point to lean more heavily into actually representing the world the way i imagined it—after i went on the hiatus with part iii, i suppose? part of that was reconsidering the aesthetics, which includes tattooing. i'm familiar with the traditional tattoo revitalization movement going on in the u.s. and canada right now (and elsewhere in the world), and i wanted to incorporate it ! i had already sort of included tattoos, but it was in the background (literally, see alfonso's aide). i'd done some sketches in the past with coastal carolina tattoos, so it was pretty easy to draw on those as inspiration (see blanca below or zuriñe's foremothers).
obviously, however, this is not the region that i've chosen as the inspiration base for the story's worldbuilding. for that, i've taken inspiration from designs and depictions of either body paint or actual tattoos. (one source is this comic, which is super well-researched and interesting!) the actual process has been really slow-going because i don't want to ?? misrepresent anything i'm borrowing inspiration from ?? even if it's being put in a fictional space, you never want someone to be like "that looks familiar, but it's wrong and offensive." the body paint, for example, is from a set that is, i believe, brazilian, but i haven't been able to figure out to what indigenous communities it belongs or what the meanings may be. feels a little weird, tbh, but the content for this whole entire hemisphere is SO limited. so, i have been hesitant in part because i don't want to lift designs without trying to understand what they might have meant historically or may currently mean to descendants.
i also would, ideally, like to have meaning ascribed to the details in my own mind? like, if there's a style of tattoo that people are getting across generations within the context of the story, then the elements have to have meaning. probably. the other limitation is that i can't spend all of my time figuring this stuff out or, worse, in photoshop trying to master the line art and fight the way sims destroys image quality sdjksdg
for example: the tattoos depicted below on alfonso and rui are comprised of stepped frets. my understanding is that they're called xicalcoliuhqui in nahuatl, and they're at least a couple thousand years old, with connotations related to the feathered serpent and mountains—a primordial motif with deep roots in the worldview(s) of the region's religious complex(es). the bird on their shoulders is a fantasy bird, apparently, that is frequently (mis?)identified as an eagle ... for my purposes, it's probably an eagle sdjsg i've decided these are military tattoos, but i'm still in the process of figuring out what the military orders are and how these tattoos fit into that ... this is the problem with creating details then having to retroactively refit them into something you create later on down the line !!!!!!
the body paint on arnaut (below) is also a military design, in my mind. he doesn't have the tattoos because he's not in the same order that alfonso and rui were/are/will be. safya's body paint (below) is funerary since she's a corpse in that picture. there are distinctions based on occupation, gender, life stage or accomplishments, whether one is considered nobility/royalty or a commoner, and so forth. same with the tattoos ! i imagine the clans also have their own specific designs (halima has a face tattoo from the aforementioned set; blanca's are based on zuriñe's family's, so i guess they'd be an armendariz design rather than a reyes one, which ... fascinating choice, blanca ????). the body paint is ceremonial, so it's most likely to be seen at an event like a funeral, a coronation, etc. i've been thinking a lot about royal orders lately, and i think they're more likely to be represented with tattoos (or body paint) than a little thing you pin on yourself.
okay, i'm going to stop now because i'm rambling and have nothing left to say of substance skgsjg if you have follow-ups, feel free to ask :^)
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7. do you plan everything out before you write or do you sit down and go with the flow?
it's a bit of a mixture. i think i am, by nature, someone who just goes with the flow—more of a gardener than an architect, to reference the grrm quote. however, i feel like the plot is tighter, and you have more opportunities for foreshadowing and callbacks and deeper characterization, and less opportunities for plot holes, when you scaffold things out. i have a super brief, one-sentence description for each scene i've got planned for most of part iii, but i move things around and delete stuff and add new ones at will. it's the same with what i've been planning for the leonor series. i scaffolded it out like a television show, with episodes bucketed into acts and stages, but the actual scenes themselves are vague and flexible. i feel like i get new ideas when i'm fiddling around with screenshots in the game or drafting a random exchange in my mind ... i don't want to emphasize planning so much that i feel locked into a plan or like i can't surprise myself anymore.
15. what two characters did you never expect to work together?
i mean, gabe already answered this with the best answer of all, andre and leonor, so—! i think the nicest surprises have come from our collabs, which is probably why i enjoy them so much. some other answers: i've had rowena and zuriñe hanging out in part iii, which i didn't really expect initially, but i think it came from my desire to both include more of zuriñe and complicate her role as the Hateful Mother-In-Law; i've also set up alfonso and xochitl for subsequent plots that see them working together, and i'm excited about that because poor alf will be entirely out of his depth with her.
12 and 13!!! i can't remember if i asked you a question or not...
WRITER QUESTIONS / accepting !
12. what is one character you love but rarely/never write?
i answered this here, but another answer would be ... miss blanca ! i've given her a couple scenes in the leonor spin-off. i think it's fun and cool that she's a professional musician, but she's also someone who's spent her whole life successfully running away from the obligations that would tie her down—you know, such as to her family, to the institution of the crown, etc. internal conflict about that isn't what interests me so much as how she reacts to other people trying to pressure her into being more "selfless." hers is a different kind of selfishness than that of others, like beatriz's ... she reminds me a lot of rowena, i suppose, which now makes me wonder what their relationship was like ... wow, maybe blanca was her Favorite sdjfhsf
13. is there one character that always fights you when you try writing them?
actually, no one is coming to mind. i do think a lot about how to distinguish the voices of characters i'm writing, and some are easier than others—rowena, for example—but that's more surface-level. i feel like the characters who are actually part of the story in a substantial way have distinct roles and motivations to me. when i pull them into a scene, their presence is not arbitrary; if it is, then the scene doesn't work for other reasons, and i scrap it. maybe there is someone, but ??? characters don't pose as much of a problem for me, typically, when it comes to writing as ... idk, trying to produce the mood of a scene in prose—the actual wordsmithing, if you will, to make the character's presence and mindset and actions as strong and beautiful as possible. in that case, it's a matter of whether i can think of the right metaphors and turns of phrase for them that unlock my best writing, and those tend to be situational as much as inhered in the character themself. unclear if this makes sense to anyone, but it's the rambling i have to offer ....
it changes ! i think, in my heart of hearts, i still love rowena immensely as a character. she's deeply flawed and makes bad decisions, but she's so earnest, which is always exciting. it's been fun to both write her in a given moment or scene and piece together what her life looks like over time. i'm looking forward to returning to her story in the not-especially-near future, although she'll be increasingly sharing the main character space with alfonso.
runners-up, for now, would be leonor and alfonso, for similar reasons that play out in wildly different ways. i think the three of them have tragedy in common but, spoiler, rowena's life wraps up much more happily than either of theirs does.
12. what is one character you love but rarely/never write?
one of the 1284194 secondary reyeses, i suppose ! for the time being, i might say julian. i listened to a lot of incubus today, so he's on my mind. i've really only put him out there as part of a silly teenage duo with german, but he's so much deeper and complex and sadder than that suggests. i'm happy someone is writing him now, since i can't dfjksg if he had a story of his own, i don't really know what the plot of it would be, but we simply can't deny that a slice-of-life spin-off about a hot, messy, single dad with a lot of secret angst and royal obligations to fulfill would be fun :^)
14. what is your go-to ‘self-indulgent’ genre of writing (such as comfort, angst, enemies to friends, etc.)?
it's not exactly a genre but my supreme favorite is
thank u gabe for this funny one-liner and also the clowns whom it describes
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i love writing rowena ! i was rereading part iii last night, yet again, and i'm still delighted with her dialogue. she's fun and free-wheeling, even when she's upset, and i think i had a very clear voice for her. beyond that, as i mentioned elsewhere, it's nice to have a character whose trajectory is ... digging herself into a deep hole and being all "who, me? oh, gosh!" about it the entire time skfjsg
2. who’s your least favorite to write?
hm. i'm enjoying everyone i've chosen to include, but i guess it's slightly less fun to write the children? i feel strongly that stories need to take children seriously as substantial characters in their own right, especially as far as royal simblr goes, but it is harder. there's a baseline expectation for what children are like—what their concerns and desire may be, how they behave under pressure, how they communicate with each other and adults—but it also varies so much between individual children ... feels like the stakes are higher, i guess, with depicting them plausibly, especially when it's someone like baby beatriz, who is supposed to be precocious but is still, you know, a kid.
5. what’s the easiest thing to write for you?
something i am feeling inspired to write ... sjfsdf that's a cop-out, but it's true ! beyond that, i guess i gravitate toward writing thoughts and feelings—like, the internal state and perspective of characters in a given moment, but omniscient, never first person. i hate first person.
6. what’s the hardest thing to write for you?
uhhhhh describing settings and sex scenes :^) i don't care about locations, by and large, and also i am a demure and delicate lady
i don't really dislike any of my characters that way, to be honest ... there aren't, to me, any clear cut villains who're objectively heinous. i introduced mrs. barbola as someone to be hated, but she's mostly just obnoxious to me (and everyone in the story) sdfsfg if anyone, i am increasingly disliking fernando. that man is on his worst behavior ! my hope is that beatriz will be someone other people love to hate, but i personally just love her.
9. do you have songs that you associate with certain characters?
i do ! i have a whole playlist for beatriz. there are a ton of songs on it, but maybe the favorites are "king" by florence + the machine and "the tradition" by halsey. for rowena, lana's "mariners apartment complex," from time to time, or lauryn hill's "tell him." i associate "life is but a dream" by the harptones with alfonso ... i had to have madonna on the leonor spin-off playlist, so i associate "bad girl" with her now :^)
18. what is one theme/storyline/idea you wish to write but never have?
i can't fully answer this without getting into spoiler territory !!!!! another answer, as far as simblr is concerned: vampires.
Any tips on how to cleanse Larimar, Fluorite, and Celestite? I see a lot of things around the internet, I just don't want to do the wrong thing and wind up with damaged crystal babies
All of those stones are below a 7 on the mohs hardness scale– as a rule of thumb, anything below a 7 shouldn’t go in water, because it will damage the crystal. I don’t know if any of them are toxic once they dissolve in water, but I wouldn’t put any of them in water anyway because of the hardness so I wouldn’t worry.
All three of them also will fade in direct sunlight. If that’s your preferred method, you could try to put them in shade, or indirect sunlight– I usually place mine at the window on the opposite side of the house the sun is on depending on time of day, if that makes sense.
You can also cleanse in safer ways:
moonlight - you can leave them outside in the air if you feel that’s safe enough and they won’t get rained on or lost, but I find that leaving them on the windowsill works just as well!
smoke - if that’s allowed where you live– it’s not where I live, so I can’t speak on that,
selenite - if you have selenite, it can cleanse other crystals nearby it! this works for me, it’s very helpful for when you forget the moon phase you usually clear crystals with
sound - I don’t use this as much but it seems legit and safe for most crystals
breath - this one is more intuitive for me? though I know there are more accepted ways to do this. It just feels right to me, after deconstructing a crystal grid, to blow off the energy connecting them to the task, to release and cleanse them? I still clear the energy with moonlight or selenite but. It just feels right. Also, a soft kiss as a thank you sometimes feels right? idk i probably sound nuts
earth - this one never appealed to me personally but a lot of people like to bury or place crystals in soil to ground them? sortof to reset them to earth energy. I’ve also heard of placing them under potted plants. I wouldn’t bury these outside, as they’re relatively soft and there’s a lot of unknown factors you’re working with when you leave stuff outside (animals, weather, etc).
This isn’t great as an extensive list, i’ll see if I can find one and reblog it for you, anon! But the tl;dr is: don’t put them in water or direct sunlight. moonlight is the easiest and safest bet!
