#pyronimbus

                                                                  sexual sunday!

ooc.

was this a loaded question bc you know or

it’s hard to make a list of things that leif considers attractive or ‘looks for’ in a person because he tends to fall in love with the person rather than a set of traits ( not that the latter is a bad thing; it’s just hard to be like ‘leif is a ____ person’ because it honestly varies from person to person ). 

in one, it might be a particularly radiant smile; in another, it might be the way they look at him or the thing they do with their hands when they’re nervous or the way they carry themselves when they walk. if you asked him to talk about what features / mannerisms he likes in a specific person, he’d be able to answer it ( and it’d probably be a list because he tends to fall a little in love with everything about someone when he does ), but generally speaking, it’s more difficult.

not to say he doesn’t have a type. i’ve talked about that before – kickass pretty girl and cute, soft-looking boys ( whether they are soft or not doesn’t really matter ).

it’s not a make-or-break, but leif likes a bit of meat on his SO’s bones; they don’t have to be a curves god, but he tends to like having “a bit more to hold at night”, to quote that song. again though, varies depending on the person, and specifics like this are more of a cherry on top rather than something he looks for.

and bc i know no one’s gonna ask, here’s the more nsfw answer:

ooc.

that’s really interesting you should phrase the question as mutually exclusive like that, actually, because i don’t really think they are! this is of course open to critique from you and the other jugdralis, but the sensation i’ve always gotten from jugdral is that, across the board, they’re very formal where governance and monarchy are concerned. in other worlds, you have different forms of government ( etruria v. bern in elibe, jehanna v. renais in magvel, tellius is all over the damn place ) but in jugdral the system is pretty much uniform across the entire continent – you’ve got a king, and that king’s got his pack of nobles he wrangles with. heck, the different countries even seem to run on similar social systems; they even all have matching knight brigades. 

in this way, jugdral is a lot more culturally homogeneous – while this means that, at least in terms of how power should be displayed and how governance should take place, all countries pretty much see eye to eye – meaning that diplomacy is relatively streamlined across the board – it also means that there isn’t a lot of room for discourse on the nature of governance itself. as far as i’m aware, the performance of rulership seems to be attached to the same guidelines everywhere.

so leif’s ideas on how a ruler should behave are certainly influenced by those immediately around him ( finn, the leonster knights ), but also the ideas that come from himself or how he personally wishes to be seen are a direct result of what all of jugdral seems to expect of kings. if we look at any projected royalty in jugdral – eltshan, quan, jamke, shanan; heck, even arvis – they’re certainly different people but the concept of a ‘ruler’ seems to be the same. when eltshan chooses to sacrifice himself for duty to his king and country, this is meant to be a sympathetic ideology to those around him. even if other people might not take the same actions, the social systems are set up similarly enough that his path makes sense everywhere, nonetheless. 

so like, actually answering your question:

to that end, leif does have a very set idea of what a ruler should be. a king should put the welfare of his people first, value impartial justice over bias, be noble in spirit, speak and present himself accordingly. the “image” of kingship is honestly just as important as what you yourself do as a king – you must be someone the people will follow and look to for guidance, so in a way you must be “greater” than them. this point is also tied into the idea of rulers almost always being of major holy blood – they are, very literally, protectors of the people as the only ones able to wield the holy weapon. you must be unshakeable, a figure that the common man can look to and depend on for their welfare. it’s very much a shepherd & their flock situation.

you can presumably see where a lot of leif’s ideas therefore come from finn, but finn is also a product of culture and upbringing, so what comes from finn also comes from the rest of thracia and jugdral at large. these are qualities that i don’t think are specific to just the people surrounding leif, but speak to expectations held by people across the continent.

i do, however, think that one thing that makes leif’s view of kingship a bit different from the rest is that he places a great emphasis on understanding the common people. this definitely comes from his own humble upbringing, and in fact directly contrasts the overarching idea that a king should somehow be “above” the crowd – they care for their men and the citizens of their country, certainly, but they have to maintain a certain distance in order to still be respected and held with a certain degree of awe and esteem. leif doesn’t believe in that distance. he prefers to understand each and every person, and would want to involve himself in the lives of every person under his governance, if it were possible. of course, it’s still seen as somewhat “improper” for a king to do this, and the cultural blockades are strong, but he does try to put himself on equal ground with those around him as much as he can.

for : @pyronimbus

it’s the sudden buffeting wave of wind that nearly knocks him off his feet that catches his attention first, && not so much the cries of alarm and surprise from the nearby people. they register a moment later, when his hand has already gone to the hilt of his sword and his feet are already moving -- not away from the source of potential danger, but towards it. when has it ever been any other way? shouldering his way through the small crowd, he searches quickly for any sign of what’s going on ---

a man lies on the ground, sprawled, likely from the force of the magic. another man is standing before him, body language brimming with aggression, a wind tome in his hands and open. the nearby cabbage stall is splintered, support beams collapsing from the attack, heads of green spilling from the tossed cart, rolling across and down the street -- the target, or simply collateral damage?

            ❝ what’s happening here? ❞

fully unsheathing his light brand now in case of further conflict, he steps forward, raising his voice so that his sharp demand can be heard over the dying whistles of the wind spell. murmurs of ‘ it’s his majesty! ‘ and ‘ the king is here! ‘ trail behind him through the gathered populace; his presence brings relief to an otherwise tense situation, and he’s glad he’d been in the right place at the right time. 

there’s no way to tell how bad this is; it doesn’t look like anyone’s been seriously hurt, and it could simply be some disagreement that had escalated -- not uncommon, but usually people didn’t bring out tomes in the middle of a crowded marketplace. as the wind dies down, however, and the standing man’s lilac hair settles, revealing his face, leif suddenly realizes he looks familiar. ❝ wait, you’re -- ❞

                                           send me a topic to write a meta on!

ooc.

cries why do you do this when i’ve actually given very little thought to thracian cuisine orz i do know a few overarching points, which i’ll try to lay out here, but overall…….i don’t have much in the way of food, honestly arg i’m sorry!

i’ll speak first to northern thracia because of the disparity between the two halves of the peninsula – they differ in culture and thus culinary practices rather widely. overall, the climate of northern thracia is hot and dry – as you get further north towards the yied desert, it gets even drier. in fact, leif is a little bit unused to just how dry it gets up in leonster, but at least it gets a bit cooler as well the further north you go. ( i actually hc that the yied desert is a cold desert; lower on-average temperatures, but it just doesn’t get much rainfall. ) because of the heat, though, mansterian food tends to be spicy. there’s a lot of various spices and the flavor is pretty thick and rich – sort of think indian food. there’s a variety of sauces and elaborate curry recipes, for example, and each household seems to have its own variation on how to make mansterian curry. leif often thinks that the foods of other countries are very bland.

spicy is typically what one thinks of when imagining mansterian cuisine, but there’s also a bit of variety too. for example, the towns and cities along the coast have fantastic seafood. fiana, where leif spent his most formative years, for instance, relies heavily on fishing and shellfish; you haven’t been to manster until you’ve been to iss and had their crabs. people from iss crab everything – crab cakes, crab and chips, chili crabs, plain crabs, you name it. 

as you go further south, the food becomes a little less elaborate and more simply filling and simple, as the northern end of thracia is actually the most agriculturally developed. ( vague hc’s about northern thracia being jugdral’s version of the fertile crescent with how leif talks about how there’s never been a shortage of food there, but not totally hashed out. ) one of the biggest differences between leonster and, say, meace or tahra is culinary-cultural differences. for instance, i imagine that in southern thracia, breakfast is traditionally a simple arrangement of milk and a kind of fried dough that one gets delivered or purchases from the local market or makes oneself. in the north around leonster, breakfast often consists of a selection of salted and spiced vegetables in various dishes and bread of a different consistency from the south, more like naan. grains are important across the peninsula, though, and make up a large part of the diet. as mention in my thread with ares, mansterian alcohol is made from fermented rice and grain rather than fruit.

southern thracia is, of course, different and much less diverse, being severely lacking in subsistence and also not as divided as the manster district ( the north is divided into four kingdoms – manster, alster, leonster, and conote – and as a result the four regions have sort of become their own sub-cultures over time ). canonically, the mountainous terrain of thracia is completely barren; you can’t grow anything there. i imagine that southern thracians traditionally survive on bare necessities – very basic grain products and roots, tubers, etc. the places along the coast likely do some fishing like northern thracia, but they likely simply don’t have the means or infrastructure in place for that to be sustainable.

slip some dirty thoughts about another muse into my askbox and see how my muse reacts.

❝ d-don’t -- talk about klein like that --- ❞ he protests, albeit weakly because the teasing has done its work && he can’t help where his imagination goes: to calloused fingers and hands made deft with the repeated action of drawing and notching arrows. he’s skillful; he’s always been, in everything he does. 

make me choose between … !

❝ for what? ❞ he demands softly, regarding the inquirer with undisguised skepticism. ❝ they’re both valuable allies. am i choosing who i would rather have stay? neither of them should feel an obligation. ❞ he looks down, off to the side, brow furrowed. his memories return to the years in fiana -- the dirt roads and humble houses. i want to become a great swordmaster like you, mother. a strong sensation blooms in his chest, aching and leaving an aftertaste in his body like morning sunlight filtering through dust. what a long time ago that feels like; has it only been not even three years?

Meta questions

So I HC that Pelleas doesn’t really feel too strongly attached to his ability to wield dark magic. It was sort of… a necessary byproduct of the pact he made with the spirit that gave him his magical prowess to begin with. Interestingly, his secondary element is Thunder, but he can’t learn any other anima elements, and it should be noted that in his official art, he appears to be wielding a Thoron or Rexbolt tome - not a dark tome. I feel that this is partly because dark tomes are so hard to find, but also because Pelleas prefers Thunder magic. It has less of a negative impact on his body, and is less horribly destructive.

I also have a few headcanons regarding spirit charmers, one of which being that spirit charmers are almost always experts in Dark or Light magic. These are two of the rarest, most difficult elements to master, so unless a mage has a huge store of latent power, then few learn to wield them with any skill without the help of a spirit’s possession. Pelleas, I believe, was relatively uninformed about magic types prior to making his pact with a spirit, and so he didn’t do so in pursuit of this rare power. As I’ve written his background, he actually didn’t intend to make a pact with a spirit at all, but became so fed up with life that he tried to take his own. His life force, however, was too enticing and drew the attention of spirits seeking a host, but because he entered this pact while in a very bad emotional state, the spirits that entered his body were Dark in nature.