Behind the scenes of the author Laqualassiel. Aro-ace queer. This blog is for anything and everything pertaining to my fanfics. Artwork, drabbles, links to chapters, and writing updates and notices, etc. Feel free to send me questions and prompts. I love chatting about the various fandoms I'm in. Pfp by Eva Balloon.
Due to an influx of unwanted solicitations, despite the clear “No Solicitations” label on said askbox, I have decided to enforce my personal boundaries by closing my askbox until further notice.
Those who follow this blog for my fics can also find all of my work crossposted onto my writing sideblog, under the same name as my AO3 handle. As I do not wish for that blog to get solicitations, I will not list the name of the blog in this post, but those with genuine asks relevant to that blog may continue to submit asks there.
To my followers, I sincerely apologize for and regret the inconvenience, as I do enjoy interacting with you all, and those who have interacted with me have been respectful and a joy.
To everyone else, I will not apologize for nor regret enforcing my boundaries. I will not name names. I understand the financial desperation people are going through. But I will not allow that understanding to violate my own boundaries, so I am removing the possibility altogether.
aka a list of things that certain parts of the One Piece fandom do that I find mildly concerning:
(Do not use this post as an excuse to harass other creators. This is meant as a fandom critique that is not specific to anyone, but rather bringing to light an ongoing issue i've noticed)
Explicitly calling Shanks' crew - especially Beckman - his 'babysitters' (regardless of the context, it's pretty weird imo), or otherwise portraying him as some sort of burden to them. Marco's quips and Benn's quip about him being 'high maintenance' should not be taken at face value and interpreted as them hating him, because they very clearly don't. (with this kind of Shanks mischaracterisation, Benn is often mischaracterised as well)
Anything that suggests that Shanks is entirely incapable of looking after himself and is dependent on others for it. Fics + discussions surrounding his having depression is one thing, but here I mean implications suggesting a dramatic lack of hygiene and the over-exaggeration of his drinking habit. (I just find it mildly obnoxious lmao)
Shanks being overly villainised just because he happens to have a complex moral code and acts as such (ie blowing up Barto's ship, plus generally working behind the scenes)
Erasing his disability in fic (often times it involves his arm being healed/regenerated). This is explicitly about fics that take place in the current time - not fics set pre-Sea King - where said disability is either not written in or straight up cured (aside from being, imo, a lazy writing choice, it renders one of the most important moments in One Piece null and void, and there's the additional subtle implications that those who have that same disability need and/or want to be cured, which is an overdone and ableist trope)
art block is your brain telling you to do studies.
draw a still life. practice some poses. sketch some naked people. do a color study. try out a different technique on a basic shape.
art block doesnt stop you from drawing, it stops you from making your drawings look the way you want them to. and thats because you need to push your skills to the next level so you can preform at that standard
As a scientific illustrator- this is 100% true and going to review your basics will fix it every goddamn time. Not only does it keep your skills sharp, when you’re not emotionally invested in the final product of a piece, you relax and your brain makes more/better art juice for you. So, when you get back to that big/important piece? You’ll know what to do and how to do it.
Nothing in nature blooms all year round. Rest, and take care of yourself.
Write a description of an object. write the weather today. Write a made up characterization of a random photo of an actor from the internet as to the character they are in that picture. Write a little story about your pet’s day. Write about spilling soup and make it super dramatic and tragic. Write about someone’s day being ruined and make it funny. Write a meetcute coffeeshop AU of two OCs you’d never put together- maybe from different stories. Write them breaking up.
Write a bunch of short stuff meant for no audience ever and super duper self indulgent.
I found out relatively recently that it really helps if I write short fiction surrounding the novels I write. Like oh? I’m stuck for a bit? Ooh there was that section I wanted to explore but doesn’t fit in the plot really. There was that what-if that could never happen in the actual story but would be fun to explore. It keeps me in the characters’ headspace (tho that’s not always what I’m needing) but not right where they are exactly.
Yes! I have gotten past writers’ block multiple times by writing drabble collections. Making something coherent happen in just 100 words is a very different challenge from writing a long story and it also lets me get past plot points that I don’t want to explore in-depth.
I am also going to have to start drawing studies now…
🍖 How to Build a Culture Without Just Inventing Spices and Necklaces
(a worldbuilding roast. with love.)
So. You’re building a fantasy world, and you’ve just invented:
→ Three types of ceremonial jewelry
→ A spice that tastes like cinnamon if it were bitter and cursed
→ A holiday where everyone wears gold and screams at dawn
Cute. But that’s not culture. That’s aesthetics.
And if your worldbuilding is all outfits, dances, and spice blends with vaguely mystical names, your story’s probably going to feel like a cosplay convention held inside a Pinterest board.
Here’s how to fix that—aka: how to build a real, functioning culture that shapes your story, not just its vibes.
─────── ✦ ───────
🔗 Culture Is Built on Power, Not Just Style
Ask yourself:
→ Who’s in charge, and why?
→ Who has land? Who doesn’t?
→ What’s considered taboo, sacred, or punishable by death?
Culture is shaped by who gets to make the rules and who gets crushed by them. That’s where things like religion, family structure, class divisions, gender roles, and social expectations actually come from.
Start there. Not at the embroidery.
─────── ✦ ───────
2.🪓 Culture Comes From Conflict
Did this society evolve peacefully? Was it colonized? Did it colonize? Was it rebuilt after a war? Is it still in one?
→ What was destroyed and mythologized?
→ What do the survivors still whisper about?
→ What do children get taught in school that’s… suspiciously sanitized?
No culture is neutral. Every tradition has a history, and that history should taste like blood, loss, or propaganda.
─────── ✦ ───────
3.🧠 Belief Systems > Customs Lists
Sure, rituals and holidays are cool. But what do people believe about:
→ Death?
→ Love?
→ Time?
→ The natural world?
→ Justice?
Example: A society that believes time is cyclical vs. one that sees time as linear will approach everything—from prison sentences to grief—completely differently.
You don’t need to invent 80 gods. You need to know what those gods mean to the people who pray to them.
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4.🫀 Culture Controls Behavior (Quietly)
Culture shows up in:
→ What people apologize for
→ What insults cut deepest
→ What people are embarrassed about
→ What’s praised publicly vs. what’s hidden privately
For instance:
→ A culture obsessed with stoicism won’t say “I love you.” They’ll say “Have you eaten?”
→ A culture built on legacy might prioritize ancestor veneration, archival writing, name inheritance.
This stuff? Way more immersive than giving everyone matching earrings.
─────── ✦ ───────
5. 🏠 Culture = Daily Life, Not Just Festivals
Sure, your MC might attend a funeral where people paint their faces blue. But what about:
→ Breakfast routines?
→ How people greet each other on the street?
→ Who cooks, and who eats first?
→ What’s considered “clean” or “proper”?
→ How is parenting handled? Divorce?
Culture is what happens between plot points. It should shape your character’s assumptions, language, fears, and habits—whether or not a festival is going on.
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6. 💬 Let Your Characters Disagree With Their Own Culture
A culture isn’t a monolith.
Even in deeply traditional societies, people:
→ Rebel
→ Question
→ Break rules
→ Misinterpret laws
→ Mock sacred things
→ Act hypocritically
→ Weaponize or resist what’s expected
Let your characters wrestle with the culture around them. That’s where realism (and tension) lives.
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7.🧼 Beware the “Pretty = Good” Trap
Worldbuilding gets boring fast when:
→ The protagonist’s homeland is beautiful and pure
→ The enemy’s culture is dark and “barbaric”
→ Every detail just reinforces who the reader should like
You can—and should—challenge the aesthetic hierarchy.
→ Let ugly things be beloved.
→ Let beautiful things be corrupt.
→ Let your MC romanticize their culture and then get disillusioned by it later.
─────── ✦ ───────
📍 TL;DR (but like, spicy):
→ Culture is not food and jewelry.
→ Culture is power, fear, memory, contradiction.
→ Stop inventing spices until you know who starved last winter.
→ Let your world feel lived in, not curated.
The best cultural worldbuilding doesn’t look like a list.
It feels like a system. A pressure. A presence your characters can’t escape—even if they try.
Now go. Build something real. (You can add spices later.)
—rin t.
// writing advice for worldbuilders with rage and range
// thewriteadviceforwriters
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OKAY, ME RANT RAMBLING ON LUNA’S CHARACTERIZATION IN DAWN OF THE FUTURE IS A GO.
This is … likely going to get messy, but I’ll try to keep it at least moderately coherent. Lemme start by saying that- for the most part- I did actually enjoy Luna’s chap. I’ve been enjoying the book (kinda-sorta-mostly, I really liked Aranea’s chap at least) and I don’t think it’s like- a BAD book? Necessarily? But I feel like it is extremely telling in regards to how the characterization/lore is treated that my brain is automatically filing this thing under “fanfic that’s not my HC but is okay-ish” rather than “canon I will be gleefully tweaking as I please”. My brain is literally looking at this officially licensed book and equating it to fanfic. To fanfic that NEEDS EDITING.
With that out of the way, lemme attempt to summarize my (main) issues with Luna’s Characterization and then I’ll expand on them from there. Get ready for the salt.
1. Luna’s backstory is inconsistent. She herself states multiple times that Oracle training is grueling and involves both physical and mental trials as well as things like fasting for long periods of time WHILE doing said training, yet she is mostly treated like a well-meaning but overall pampered, naive princess who is only now being forced into hard circumstances and has to adapt accordingly. She is also treated like she doesn’t know “common people” that well and doesn’t know how to interact or pick up things like lies (????). A common example is how she treats Sol as trustworthy but reserved when according to Sol’s POV she is literally debating shooting Luna as a possible threat. And Luna supposedly doesn’t pick up on this danger. But we’ll get back to that.
2. Luna is characterized as being oblivious to how people outside Rich Oracle Circles live. That despite traveling all over the world she has never really seen it’s “ugly” sides because she’s always traveled in fancy guarded processions with the sick brought to her. Pretty sure the book specifically mentions at one point that she’s never “considered” what it would be like to be anything other than an Oracle. Admittedly this issue could go under number 1 or 3a but I’m putting it here because I’m salty.
3a. This and the next problem are heavily intertwined and, not going to lie, I could make an entire rant just about these two issues all by themselves, not just in Luna’s context. The first is that Luna is portrayed as not being able to make her own decisions, not even wanting to make her own decisions, until she is forced to or has her “eyes opened” by Sol, our jaded Long Night survivor character. The author treats Luna’s sense of duty as some form of social brainwashing she needs to “get over” and spoiler alert I hate it with every fiber of my being.
3b. Playing right off the whole “Luna is incapable of making her own decisions and that’s why she does her freaking job until someone ‘opens her eyes’” is the idea that Luna’s faith is a character flaw. Lemme reiterate. The story treats Luna’s faith. As a character flaw. Rather than the entire cornerstone to her character and one of the big reasons she’s as amazing as she is. Her faith is treated as foolish and shortsighted, something that has only survived for this long because it has never been challenged and, heads up, the rant I am going to go into on this one specific thing is going to be long and extremely salty.
Alright I think I’ve covered the basics. Starting from the top, BRING ON THE SALT.
PSA to fan creators who don't have a lot of regular contact with children: They are almost always bigger than you think. A 1-year-old baby may already be walking. A toddler is likely already hip-high. A 10-year-old may already be taller than at least one of their parents. A 14/15 year old may already have reached their adult height.
kind of a side thought from a couple of my posts about writing but I think it deserves its own post, so here goes:
when you’re writing a conflict between two characters or factions of characters, you need to consider whether their disagreement over the premise or over the methods. put another way: do they disagree on the problem or the solution?
this is a genuinely tricky thing to identify, especially in very complex narratives, so let’s do some very simple examples.
the situation: pacifist nation X is about to be invaded by empire Y. the laws and cultural practices of the Xians make violence and death so abhorrent that even accidental death is as minimized as possible. the Ylings, on the other hand, are totally cool with straight up murder and think diplomacy is for wimps, but are also pragmatic enough that they won’t waste troops if they don’t need to. the king of X calls in his council and asks for their opinions.
character A: It is more noble to die for one’s beliefs than to live having broken them. We should allow the Ylings to invade us and if we die, we die.
character B: If all life is sacred, then our lives are also sacred. We must fight back against the Ylings, even though that means we’d be committing violence.
A and B agree on premise but not solution: they both acknowledge that the Yling invasion is a bad thing that will lead to their deaths if unopposed and that the nonviolence code is important; what they disagree on is priorities and methods.
character C: We should invite them into our nation as honored guests. Maybe they’ll spare us or at least kill us more mercifully.
character D: We should propose an alliance and intentional annexation in exchange for our lives. Being part of the Yling Empire is a pretty sweet deal, actually.
C and D agree on solution but not premise: they’re both okay with just letting the empire walk in and invade, but C thinks the invasion would be a bad thing and is just trying to minimize the damage, and D thinks it would be a good thing and wants to maximize the rewards.
character E: We should fight the Ylings and stay a sovereign nation; the nonviolence code is stupid and holding us back.
character D: We shouldn’t fight the Ylings and try to be peacefully part of their empire instead; we’d be true to our code and reap the rewards of an alliance.
E and F disagree on both premise and solution.
Now, all possible permutations of this argument are fine. “Is this the best way to solve the problem?” and “What actually is the problem?” are both great sources of conflict. Captain America: The Winter Soldier’s entire plot is an argument over the methods to prevent death and crime, but everyone agrees that crime is bad; one of Zuko’s big character development moments is when he realizes that the problem with the world isn’t the other nations ungratefully rejecting the prosperity and unity offered by the Fire Nation, but that the Fire Nation routinely commits genocide in their quest to colonize the rest of the world.
The issue is when a disagreement over methods is treated like a disagreement over premise. The characters are positioned like one side’s entire worldview is correct and the other is wrong, but it turns out they actually disagree with what the other does rather than what the other believes.
A big giveaway that what you’re seeing is about methods and not underlying beliefs? If at any point it is said or implied that one character “goes too far.” “Too far” implies a point before that cutoff that the other characters or the reader would be okay with. You can’t go too far if going any distance in that direction is wrong. “Frollo in the Disney version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame goes too far when he tries to kill all the Romani in the city” implies that the problem isn’t racism in general, but mass murder specifically, and that if Frollo was only nonviolently racist, that would be fine!
Like, you know the joke about the guy who offers a woman a million dollars to sleep with him, then ten dollars after she accepts the million dollar offer, and when she’s offended and says she’s “not that kind of woman,” he says, “Oh, we agreed you were that kind of woman, now we’re just haggling over price”? If your characters are arguing about the best way to solve a problem, they have already agreed about the existence and nature of the problem. Now they’re just haggling over price.
Again: that kind of storyline is okay if you actually do want to discuss extremism v. moderation of the same basic principle. It’s okay for two characters to argue over the best way to free all of their country’s slaves. It’s also okay for two characters to discuss the best way of practicing slavery, if you want to show how ingrained it is in society or how even the character you think is a moderate is still evil or something. What doesn’t work is if your intention is to say how awful slavery is, but then the entire conflict is over the treatment of slaves rather than whether slavery is okay.
tl;dr: setting up the conflict as one over premise and then having all the action be a fight over methods undermines your story; at best it’s just confusing, at worst it turns your characters into hypocrites.
I would add a third piece to this (or really split out “solution” into two pieces):
There is the problem, the end, and the means, and those are all things that can be disagreed with in different ways.
Let’s take a very basic scenario. Two people live together. There is a bookshelf full of books and there are books all over the floor.
Disagreement on the problem:
Person 1 thinks there are too many books on the floor. Person 2 likes having books on the floor because it makes the house feel lived-in.
Disagreement on the end:
Person 1 and 2 have agreed that there are too many books on the floor. Person 1 thinks the ideal end is that the house has exactly one bookshelf worth of books in it. Person 2 thinks the ideal solution is every book remaining in the house but simply being somewhere that is not the floor.
Disagreement on the means:
Person 1 and 2 have agreed that the ideal solution is every book remaining in the house and being on a bookshelf. Person 1 thinks they should buy more bookshelves to fit every book. Person 2 thinks they should double- or triple-stack their shelves rather than spend money on new bookshelves.
This is obviously a very light example, but I think it’s not just problem/solution but “do we agree what problem we are solving, do we agree what the solution should be, do we agree on how to get there.”
character who is sun-coded but not in the traditional ray-of-sunshine way. character who is sun-coded in the sense that they burn hot and bright and powerful, that they're a raging fury of fire and passion, and that maybe, just maybe, they are destroying themselves as they do so.
Weapons. Trained, tested, forged in steel and fire. Failure is an inevitability that ends in death. Pain should not be felt--it should be recognized, familiar, and inconsequential
Martyrs. In the form of servants and princes, of leaders and underdogs. If blood is necessary, the martyr will lift their hands and offer it all
Shields. Like tempering a sword, but only to bear and not to lash out. Wounds are medals--not symbols of pride, but symbols of worth. A pretty shield is useless; scars mean a job well done
Experiments. Raised on the cold comfort of a lab table. Restraints are only necessary when they're not in their right mind. Is it honorable, to be twisted beyond recognition? Or is it just a necessary evil?
Monsters. Cruelty, caution, and regarding one as a creature beyond reasonable thought is tempering in its own right. But if you keep a leash at the right length, perhaps the massecre won't reach you. One can hope.
Idols. Pretty face, pretty name, pretty hands around their shoulders and throat. There to seduce, manipulate, force any feeling to come to the surface and twist it to their favor. Any genuinity stays locked behind the guilded cage that surrounds their pretty little heart
Trophies. Status and wealth and the traditions that keep someone at their heels, on their knees, to display and serve and decorate one's ballroom.
Sacrifices. Drenched in honorable clothes, prepared and adored and cleansed. The gift of hope at the cost of one's life. Is it taken with no fight? How can you escape the ropes you were born in?
thinking about the duality of ace looking like the very definition of trouble but is surprisingly and disgustingly polite, while sabo looks like a proper gentleman but will be the rudest bastard you'll ever meet. sigh.
THIS, writers. Unless your characters are very wealthy (can pay people to be very industrious in growing, spinning, weaving, sewing on their behalf) or live in a post-textile-industrial-revolution world (aka modern/futuristic), they're not going to have that many clothes.
What they will have is protective outerwear. Aprons are a very real necessity for a lot of jobs, from cooking to blacksmithing and beyond.
Women wore aprons and housecoats into the 1940s and 1950s when doing cooking & cleaning because it was still a bit expensive to own a lot of clothes...so this is within 100 years. Within living memory for many folks.
Coveralls were created to protect clothing, and were handed out as uniforms by factories because the workers complained that their own clothes were getting damaged by their workplace. (Unions helped with this, strongly encouraging the companies doing the damage to their regular clothes to step up with replacement garments that could get damaged and then replaced by the company whose work was damaging them.)
Businesses started having their employees wear uniforms to make them look good and as a signature of their company (UPS brown, for example), but unless the design teams are idiots, those outfits are going to be stitched in ways that you can move easily & comfortably while doing your assigned tasks.
In corporate culture in Japan, the salarywomen are often given a uniform dress to wear, and I know of one business that held a work-slowdown because the way the sleeves of those dresses were cut and stitched, they literally couldn't bring their arms forward to type on their computers in a comfortable way. The company balked at replacing the uniforms, until a section manager agreed to let his female workers wear their own "office-dressy" clothes for a day...and productivity leaped forward by over 200%, literally because they could move their arms and position them comfortably.
Another example of those who effed it up are the officers' uniforms for the Germans during WWII, which were focused on looking fashionable--and they were!--but were horrible to don quickly, awkward wear in actual combat, etc, and it took them far too long to "drop trousers" to use the bushes in a swift, efficient, and safe manner. (Not saying they didn't deserve to be shot for supporting such an evil regime, but you should be able to go to the bathroom without worrying that it'll take you over a minute to put your clothes back together enough to run for cover in summer.)
Prior to the 1700s, servants in manor houses & noble estates often did not wear a uniform; they just wore whatever they had, and depended on aprons and watchcoats and whatever to protect their clothes. Then it became a status symbol to put one's servants into uniforms, also known as livery. If you could afford to do that then, by gum-golly, you were wealthy, and people could literally see that you were wealthy!
As for those famous black maid's dresses with white aprons that every manga loves to draw? Black dye was still a bit expensive, but black hid most stains. White aprons were protective, and were to be changed out frequently...and it was far easier to bleach cloth than it was to dye it black, plus the stark contrast was very eye-catching, and since the aprons could be swapped out frequently (very small amount of cloth compared to a whole dress), the fact that your maidstaff were wearing clean aprons was another sign of how wealthy you were, rather than just making the maid wear the apron all day long, progressively getting dirtier and dirtier.
With all this said, how valuable clothing was also affected how armies moved. Throughout most of recorded history, armies were composed primarily of men...but there were almost always 2 categories of women who followed them on the campaign trail. One, of course, was sex workers (for obvious reasons), but the other was Laundresses...and the laundresses would be ransomed first, ahead of the sex workers, if captured by enemy forces. (Not all were women by any means, btw, but the majority were, so I stuck with that gender.)
They worked hard to get the clothing clean, helped with getting leather armor clean, and provided other grooming services such as lice-combing. "But Jean, why would getting the soldiers' clothing clean be that important?" Dudes, dudes, my dudes...if you need to take a piss or a shit, combat will not stop for you. Peristalsis will happen mid-sword-swing. This was one of the sources of "deadly infections killed many of the fighters who went to war," and laundresses literally cleaned that shit up.
When you're a warrior in an army, marching off through the forests of Gaul, you can only carry so many spare sets of clothes because you're also carrying your armor, your weapons, and your rations, etc, etc. You will want to take care of your clothes, because you don't have many replacements, and you won't get many replacements.
So, writers, when you're writing about pre-industrialized cultures...go easy on how many clothes people own. Also realize that accessorizing can make an old outfit look new, which includes small parts of the clothing that can be swapped out for other pieces in a mix-and-match style.
...One last note:
The most expensive, time-consuming part of building a Norse ship to go a-viking on wasn't the actual ship, which took many men 2+ years to craft. It was the sails, which took many people, males and females, 3+ years to spin and weave and stitch together. There are literal stories of brash sailors robbing other norsemen of their sails because thieving it was faster & easier. (It also explains a lot of the fury of certain blood feuds between clans & holdings, if you think about it.)
Bringing this back to writers again, your period fantasy or historic characters are also going to know how to do upkeep and basic repairs on their own clothing. Laundries and tailors might be a thing in their world, but spot-cleaning and being able to mend small tears before they become big ones is crucial when off doing quests or campaigns or world-saving missions or what have you. Garments are expensive to replace. It may be sexy to have your hero discard their bloody, torn, and ruined shirt after a fight, but even if the garment is ruined beyond repair or wearability, woven cloth is still so valuable that it's worth keeping and cleaning to be turned into something else (legwraps, bandages, resewn into a hat, or used as patches to repair other garments, etc.).
We live in an unprecedented era of wastefulness, where our clothing is often so cheap (and cheaply made) that it's barely worth the efgort of repairing once it begins to wear out, and so easy to replace that we end up amassing more than we need of it. Even less than a hundred years ago, this kind of frivolity was reserved for the EXCEPTIONALLY wealthy. Even fairly well off people would continually recycle their old garments again and again. (Think of Cinderella's mice making that old pink dress into something new with just bits and pieces of the sisters' discarded accessories.... taking ribbons or lace or whole sections of an old dress to use in a new one was very common until quite recently!)
And never underestimate the usefulness of rags. If the clothing is beyond all repair or salvage, it has a new life as rags. You can wrap food in them, stuff them in your shoes for warmth and fit, pad your pillow with them, use them for cleaning, for bandages, for tying and belting your drawers, for patches.... rags are invaluable in a world where paper towels and disposable hygiene products do not exist.
This, and I'll add, vast secondhand market in clothing. That one simple tunic would cost the equivalent-in-labor of a new car today, and it would change hands as many times as one.
People in Ye Olden Times--the earliest garments we have evidence of, up through the middle ages (and well beyond, for all but the wealthiest people)--didn't wear simple, box-shaped garments because they didn't know how to sew anything fancier.
They did so because a Big Rectangle had the most resale/re-use value, since it could be tied, laced, belted, or otherwise fastened to fit a wide range of bodies. The same garment could be worn throughout pregnancy, as well as before and after. If it was no longer needed, it could be passed down or sold to virtually anyone. And when it became worn at the seams or hems, it could be re-sewn as a slightly smaller rectangle, and still fit a lot of people.
In Renaissance Europe, clothing got a lot more structured--and to a significant degree, this was as a status symbol. If you wore a fitted, short jacket over tights and those silly-looking puffy shorts (or a doublet, nether-hose and trunk hose), everybody who saw you would know that you could afford to buy all that fabric and then waste a bunch of it by cutting it into very specific shapes.
And if it fit well, then they'd also know that you were (probably) the first owner of said garments. Because the clothes were still expensive, they'd still be passed down, but there was a lot more need for clothing resellers, where secondhand clothes could wait for a buyer whose body they would fit. (Used clothing was a common gift or tip for servants, and if it was something they couldn't wear, they'd sell it.) In this way, clothing styles would percolate their way down the class ladder, both in the form of actual garments that had once belonged to a very rich person, and dupes made with simpler/cheaper materials and techniques, and perhaps modified for practicality.
And that's how you get fashion cycles: once something starts showing up on too many of the common people, the rich would move on, either exaggerating the trend to a point that, outside of that fashion context, looks ridiculous--
Like these silly, silly shoes:
(Note: these are probably exaggerated; the name of this picture is "Young Man Meeting Death," and we're presumably supposed to see him as a frivolous type of person who is about to find out why he should have lived a more serious and pious life.)
--or going in a different direction entirely.
So yeah, if you're writing secondary-world fantasy, give some thought to where the clothes are coming from, and how that's going to affect the styles and choices the characters make. If your working-class character in a Vaguely Medieval Fantasy Land is wearing fitted clothing, either that society has magic spinning and weaving technology, or your character is a serious fashionista/o, who is putting in a lot of time and effort into the project.
Similarly, if that type of setting has courtiers in a dazzling variety of impractical and elaborate garments--and several different outfits of it apiece--that implies a significant degree of urbanization and upward mobility, driving a secondhand market for those items, as well as providing the skilled labor to make and maintain those types of clothes. (You know these?
There was an entire trade centered on washing & ironing these things. Separate from actually making them, I mean. It involved tiny, specially shaped irons, and buckets of starch. Royalty or major nobility might have a servant dedicated to this highly specialized labor, and people a little lower on the ladder would send them out to be done. Ideally, you'd have each of your ruffs washed and re-set every time you wore it; people did re-wear them to save money, but they got droopy fast--hence the emphasis, in paintings featuring this trend, of crisp stiffness.)
just as a random addition to the "super fitted clothes are signs of wealth": buttons were a symbol of wealth for a long time BECAUSE it meant your clothes were fitted. a line of buttons up a sleeve was the equivalent of getting all your clothes made by hand by yves st. laurent or whatever.
OKAY, ME RANT RAMBLING ON LUNA’S CHARACTERIZATION IN DAWN OF THE FUTURE IS A GO.
This is … likely going to get messy, but I’ll try to keep it at least moderately coherent. Lemme start by saying that- for the most part- I did actually enjoy Luna’s chap. I’ve been enjoying the book (kinda-sorta-mostly, I really liked Aranea’s chap at least) and I don’t think it’s like- a BAD book? Necessarily? But I feel like it is extremely telling in regards to how the characterization/lore is treated that my brain is automatically filing this thing under “fanfic that’s not my HC but is okay-ish” rather than “canon I will be gleefully tweaking as I please”. My brain is literally looking at this officially licensed book and equating it to fanfic. To fanfic that NEEDS EDITING.
With that out of the way, lemme attempt to summarize my (main) issues with Luna’s Characterization and then I’ll expand on them from there. Get ready for the salt.
1. Luna’s backstory is inconsistent. She herself states multiple times that Oracle training is grueling and involves both physical and mental trials as well as things like fasting for long periods of time WHILE doing said training, yet she is mostly treated like a well-meaning but overall pampered, naive princess who is only now being forced into hard circumstances and has to adapt accordingly. She is also treated like she doesn’t know “common people” that well and doesn’t know how to interact or pick up things like lies (????). A common example is how she treats Sol as trustworthy but reserved when according to Sol’s POV she is literally debating shooting Luna as a possible threat. And Luna supposedly doesn’t pick up on this danger. But we’ll get back to that.
2. Luna is characterized as being oblivious to how people outside Rich Oracle Circles live. That despite traveling all over the world she has never really seen it’s “ugly” sides because she’s always traveled in fancy guarded processions with the sick brought to her. Pretty sure the book specifically mentions at one point that she’s never “considered” what it would be like to be anything other than an Oracle. Admittedly this issue could go under number 1 or 3a but I’m putting it here because I’m salty.
3a. This and the next problem are heavily intertwined and, not going to lie, I could make an entire rant just about these two issues all by themselves, not just in Luna’s context. The first is that Luna is portrayed as not being able to make her own decisions, not even wanting to make her own decisions, until she is forced to or has her “eyes opened” by Sol, our jaded Long Night survivor character. The author treats Luna’s sense of duty as some form of social brainwashing she needs to “get over” and spoiler alert I hate it with every fiber of my being.
3b. Playing right off the whole “Luna is incapable of making her own decisions and that’s why she does her freaking job until someone ‘opens her eyes’” is the idea that Luna’s faith is a character flaw. Lemme reiterate. The story treats Luna’s faith. As a character flaw. Rather than the entire cornerstone to her character and one of the big reasons she’s as amazing as she is. Her faith is treated as foolish and shortsighted, something that has only survived for this long because it has never been challenged and, heads up, the rant I am going to go into on this one specific thing is going to be long and extremely salty.
Alright I think I’ve covered the basics. Starting from the top, BRING ON THE SALT.
hot take here but the way people talk about “redemption arcs” and how they require that the sinner repent, debase himself, and then atone for his sins in order to be accepted back into the warmth of readers’ love, but there are some unforgivable sins for which no atonement is enough
[I wrote a whole-ass essay with citations here I’m sorry]
[Also, if anyone has better/other examples (or any other input!) I very much welcome discussion and contribution. I’m working from an extremely limited point of view myself, here, and I’m very aware of that.]
There are potentially infinite ways to write a narrative arc that takes a character from antagonist to protagonist, just as there are potentially infinite ways a religion or culture can align its values. And I am way too long-winded to be allowed to just keep talking indefinitely. So I’m going to limit myself to two topics:
Option 1: get rid of “sin is in the heart, not in the deed”
“No matter how clean we are on the outside, if the inside, the nature, the heart, remains unchanged… we will return to what we came from and once more be filthy both inside and out.” - 2 Peter 2:20-22
“I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” - Matthew 5:27-30
This is a general Christian concept: an evil thought is as bad, and as tainting, as an evil action. A Christian-based antagonist-to-protagonist arc, then, will typically focus far less on good actions than on good thoughts. But this isn’t true for all cultures - and is frankly a minority view!
Let’s look at, hmm… Loki. A huge portion of myths with Loki in them follow a very specific arc: Loki does something dodgy; it causes problems; Loki fixes the problems, not only saving the day but leaving everyone far better off than they were at the beginning of the story. Did Loki have a change of heart? Nope! They’ll be the exact same trickster bastard in the next myth. But at the beginning, they were the one causing problems (antagonist/villain). And at the end, they were the one actively improving things and saving the day (hero).
Loki’s a particularly useful example, because a) this is a very standard arc for a trickster deity, which exists in darn near every polytheistic religion and b) we can specifically see what happens when Christians interact with this sort of narrative. They recast Loki - who normally ends up helping people, and in some myths is just straight-up benevolent beginning to end - as their “Satan” equivalent.
For a pop culture example of “was doing bad deeds, now doing good deeds” as an antagonist-to-protagonist arc, I suggest Spike, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. [We’re going to ignore the end of season 6 and all of season 7, because things went off the rails there.] Spike’s arc was: super evil villain; villain who helps the heroes a couple times for selfish reasons; villain? who is physically prevented from villainous actions; villain?? who starts doing heroic actions purely as an outlet for violence; villain??? who protects specific innocents because he cares about them as individuals; villain???? who does heroic things because he doesn’t want people he loves to hate him/ be disappointed; hero who’s willing to sacrifice his own life to save others because, darn it, he’s in the habit now.
He didn’t have a ‘come-to-jesus moment’ where he regretted the centuries of torture and murder and then mope about in self-flagellation and do metaphorical Hail-Marys to pay for his crimes. He did go from the primary villain of the series at his introduction, to a primary hero by the end, over a period of several years with intricate and engaging character development all the way through.
Option 2: Rehabilitation, not Retribution
“Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation.” - 2 Corinthians 7:10
“When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’ Peter replied, ‘Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.’ ” - Acts 2:37-38
“If we don’t feel some sort of immediate guilt, then our hearts are not sensitive to what God desires from us. If we just move on with no second thought then it is likely that we are seeing grace as a license to sin.” - pursuegod.org
“I will speak of that second region, where the human spirit is purged, and becomes fit to climb to Heaven.” - Dante’s Purgatorio, Canto I
“The biblical approach of equivalence (lex talionis) and nineteenth-century British theories of intolerable wrongs, deterrence, and retribution (vergeltung) form the dominant theories of punishment in Canadian society. They try to ensure that certain individuals physically suffer for their human weaknesses, conduct, and mistakes… Most Aboriginal peoples have never understood the exotic passion of Eurocentric society for labeling people as criminals and then making them suffer.” - Justice As Healing: Indigenous Ways, which looks like a spectacular book
The character suffering is a primary feature of the “redemption arc” as characterized in my original post. They should be absolutely miserable from the inside out - “cut to the heart;” full of “godly sorrow”. And then they should suffer from the outside in, as payment for their crimes.
Normally, of course, a villain should end the story “in hell”. (Dead, imprisoned, fate-worse-than-death - somehow punished.) So in order for that to not happen, our aspiring ex-villain must go instead through Purgatory. I’ll use the visual from Dante: his Purgatory is an near-infinitely-tall mountain up which a sinner must climb. The sinner’s labor and suffering as he climbs cleanse his soul, leaving him worthy to enter heaven.
Likewise, in the Christian-based “redemption arc”, the ex-villain needs to not only want to do good things now, and not only regret having done bad things in the past, but to pay for having done bad things in the past. The priority is not so much that there are good people doing good things; it is that people who have done bad things get punished. (This is of course manifested in many ways IRL. For example, the most statistically-proven-effective way to reduce the number of drug-related offenses isn’t to put addicts in prison, it’s to put them in rehab; but that’s not a punishment. The most statistically-proven-effective way to reduce the number of abortions isn’t outlawing abortion, it’s comprehensive sex ed; but that doesn’t punish the sin of promiscuity.)
The point being, if you take out the need for Godly Sorrow followed by Purgatory in order to achieve Salvation from your narrative: you open the option for narrative arcs where the focus isn’t on people being punished for the bad they did before, but the good they do now.
Let’s say we bring back the “change of heart” that we largely dropped in the previous option. Now we have space for an arc that is about why they choose to change. What causes them to realize what they did before was wrong? What causes them to want to do something different? And then what keeps them compassionate, when not caring hurts so much less? What keeps them from lashing out again, when lashing out relieves their anger and hurt?
Or - what if we made our arc about healing? Remember that bit about putting addicts in rehab - focusing not on punishing them, but on helping them recover from the pain and illness that caused them to do illegal things? What if we do that? Fictional villainy tends to come from pain; so what if, instead of causing them more pain, we help them heal from it?
The majority of indigenous cultures take this approach IRL: justice is focused around healing. The goal is to heal both the person who acted out of pain or foolishness or simple human frailty, and the society or victim which that person has harmed.
Honestly, in terms of accessible Western media? A lot of the best examples of this are in fanfic. In terms of published media, though - with less of a focus on healing, superhero media do get a lot of “villain changes heart and becomes hero, focus is that they are now doing good things and another person doing good things is good, not that they should be hurt for having been bad” storylines. It’s most common with team-based stories. The X-Men, for instance, swap sides pretty regularly, but the important thing when they’re saving the world is that they’re saving the world now. Not what role they played in last year’s crossover event.
For a movie example, though not a great one, see Magneto at the end of X-Men Apocalypse. He realizes that continuing to do evil will result in the deaths of the only two people he still loves; has a change of heart; assists in saving the world; and then is brought home to help rebuild. No retribution necessary. His former partner/recent enemy is mostly just really delighted that Erik’s back, and that he’s happier now. In Dark Phoenix, we learn Magneto’s spent the intervening time building a safe haven for persecuted mutants, complete with recycled building materials and community gardens.
In Conclusion
It may sound like what I’m doing here is just a lot of “take that out”. If you just take out half the elements of a “redemption arc”, doesn’t that automatically make it less complex and interesting and, y’know, good?
But what I’m saying is not to take out elements. It’s to ponder the necessity of requirements. Give yourself - and others - more room for narrative freedom. If you don’t have to fit the extremely restrictive godly sorrow-repentance-purgatory-salvation formula, imagine what other aspects of the character and the narrative you can get a chance to explore!
She remembers her first time here, on her own Coming-of-Age. The Crystal's soft glow, reflecting off the water in the surrounding pool and onto the white and black stonework. The elegant arches and the pillars stretching towards the high ceilings.
Elegant, serene, and calm.
It had given her the creeps.
It still gives her the creeps, and Sola feels a chill slip down her spine as Libertus leads her to a spot just off to the side of the walkway, at the edge of the pool, and Sola has to fight the urge to shudder.
Magic is thick here. Before, all she could feel was the swirling sense of light and steel that vaguely feels like her father and little brother's magic but not quite, the exact sensation shifting with every passing second.
Like then, the weight of it falls across her shoulders, a heavy mantle she cannot shrug off. This time, however, Sola recognizes the threads of magic that caress her skin.
-Light gleaming off cold steel, blood dripping down her blade's edge-
-Sunlight dappled across her face, moonlight illuminating her path as the stars guide her way-
-Light shining in a rainbow of colors, delicate chains around neck and wrists, not steel but gold and silver-
-Light refracting mid-air, the only sign of the barrier to protect her people, fueled by adamantite and magic and desperate determination-
Strong arms wrap around her. Sol leans back into Libertus' chest, breathing in the echo of her own sun-fire-fury. Shaking off the weight of her ancestors' magic and the chill that she's only ever been able to describe as akin to what she feels visiting her mother's tomb in the royal mausoleum.
Purple light shifts to blue, and Sola opens her eyes to see Noctis starting down the walkway towards the Crystal. The magic in the air thickens, pressing up against the magic Libertus has wrapped around her, until Tredd takes a step closer to her and adds his own gifted magic to the bulwark keeping the Crystal's magic at bay, enabling Sola to focus past the magic coating her lungs with every breath.
Not that she's missed much - the Crystal lighting up with more blue light with the approach of a Lucis Caelum.
The same thing Sola's seen dozens of times in dozens of memories through dozens of generations.
Only, not even halfway down the walkway, things decide to take an abrupt left turn.
The Crystal's glow turns to wisps of light. But almost before she can register that change, another bigger change in the Rite captures everyone's attention.
The wisps of light curling through the chamber suddenly coalesce, rising into ghostly figures.
Some very familiar figures, and Sola stiffens as the Kings of Yore materialize, bracketing the path in front of Noctis, ignoring her Retinue shifting their positions to better guard her from the less distinct ghosts surrounding them in the rest of the room.
No, Sola's attention is focused on the marks glowing blue through Noctis' suit.
Libertus' arms are steel bars across her shoulders and ribs. In the back of her mind, Sola can here someone screaming. She doesn't know who's screaming, doesn't know what they're saying.
All Sola knows are the scars glowing from Noctis' skin, the magic dripping blue bloody fractals down his back. She knows the weapons protruding from his body, has seen and held those weapons in her hands over countless years and now they're sticking out of her baby brother like a pair of demented wings-
No.
Sola knows how this will end, knows as clearly as her memories, know that once the weapons go in-
Not again. Astrals, please.
The Mystic steps forward, grasping his sword and wrenching it from Noctis' body.
Please, no, he's only just come back-
-they must come out.
Her knees buckle. One hand clutches at Libertus' arm where it's pressed against the scar over her heart. Her breath feels like it's been punched from her lungs and Sola gasps desperately for air.
The Pious steps forward next, then the Tall. When the Fierce pulls his mace free and Noctis screams, Sola forces her feet under her and tries to reach for her brother.
But something, someone, is holding her back. She can't free herself. Her magic won't answer her call and she tries to claw her way out until her hands, too, and trapped-
Her magic wraps around her, trying to soothe her. Sola keens. She can't, please, that's her baby brother-!
Noctis collapses to his knees. The Wise steps back, sword held aloft, and fades.
One ghost remains. She doesn't recognize him, can't see any of the details of the last Royal Arm from this angle, and the tears blurring her vision.
The last King grasps his blade, the blade that will ultimately kill Noctis. Sola yanks her hand free and lunges against her restraints, hand outstretched in a final, desperate attempt to reach her brother, a wordless plea for Noctis to stay falling from her lips.
The blade comes free.
The world turns blue. And Sola-
-laughs as Abyssus races Nyx through the Warp-course. The glaives around her cheer them on and place wagers. But there's no extra braid in Axis, Tredd, and Luche's hair. No extra braid in her hair, when Sola turns her head and only feels her Furia braid brushing her shoulder, only feels the weight of one Hero braid above that. She-
-screams from the fortress ramparts over looking the ruins of a battlefield. In the distance, a magitek larger than the statues of the Old Wall roars back. Skin cracking and burning with magic as she grasps-
-at her throat. Sola chokes, blood pouring down her chest, filing her lungs. Tredd's face is pure horror, and the last thing she sees-
-as she tells Lunafreya to run. The MT units crumple like tin cans under the force of her magic, but the airships are made of sturdier stuff. She pulls on her magic-
-but it doesn't come. Sola's strapped to the table, screaming with every slice of the-
-the blade piercing her shoulder. She claws at the foot on her chest. Noctis calls her name, reaches for her from where he's sinking into the Crystal and Sola reaches back, begging-
-for Lara to open her eyes. Around her, Insomnia burns, a ruin of death and daemons-
-battering at her Shield. Sola tightens her grasp on glaive and magic both. She will not allow them past her, not while she still lives. But she falls to her knees. Her barrier begins to falter, and she knows she can't hold it much longer. Magic crests, a wave of blue washing over her-
A small, cramped restroom. Dingy white walls closing in around him, suffocating under the flickering light.
This… this isn’t her memory.
Hands on the sink. Larger than he remembers. He finally got that last growth spurt he’d hoped for in his teens.
Ten years. Not slumbering, but unaware of the passing time all the same.
He should be stumbling. He’s taller than he was, shoulders a touch broader and his reach just that much longer. He remembers countless previous growth spurts and how long it took them him to adjust. His stride should not be so sure. His fingers should not be so nimble.
The Ring still fits.
His mind keeps coming back to that. To the weight on his finger.
Heavier than the mantle across his shoulders, black wool and silk and golden ornaments - Sola's handiwork. No one said anything, but he knows his sister's work, knows the touch of sun-fire-fury woven through every stitch, wrapping him in all the bristling protection his Sword can give him.
Colder than the crown upon his brow. Warmed from more than just his skin, his sister's magic carving channels through the thin circlet of silvery adamantite and golden orichalcum, guiding his own magic to twist into her regenerative ability. Burning with that same fierce, whole-hearted devotion and love he's felt for as long as he can remember.
Hundreds of lives he's lived without that warmth. Ten years and two thousand more since he's felt his sister's embrace.
Come tomorrow, he'll never feel it again.
He hasn't told her.
How can he? This is something only he can do. The gods chose this path for him before his birth, and not even his Sword can fight it.
How does he tell the person who so fiercely protected him all her life that she must step aside and allow him to die?
He can't. He knows her. She would try to save him, no matter the consequences, because she is his older sister and his Sword, and that duty she has carved into her bones.
And so he cannot allow her to make that choice.
His brothers know. They will grieve, when he is gone. But they will survive. They will heal, in time.
His sister won't. For all her strength, this is the one fault like that will shatter her to her core. This is the one would that will never heal.
It's selfish, but he can't bring himself to see the moment when she finally breaks. Can't bring himself to know with certainty that his sister will never forgive him for not allowing her to try.
A shuddering breath. Rough hands dash away the tears tracing down his face.
"I'm sorry."
Sola staggers. The memory of Noctis' ragged whisper is lost in the roar of voices washing over her, and she's left clinging to wisps of pain and grief in the deafening silence that follows as the magic of the Crystal goes out.
Noctis.
Where is he? Where is her little brother?
Her eyes find him, too-pale and crumpled on the floor.
This bird is close enough in color and pattern to the spotted lanternfly that it activates the same “CRUSH IMMEDIATELY” neurons in my brain. I assume the size of the thing would make me feel differently if I saw it irl, I do not think I would reflexively murder a whole live bird. I do not think I could. But that is the instinct that seeing this bird triggers in me.
Lassie's Musings @laqualassiel - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
