Okay, so,I got REALLY obsessed with In Stars And Time and have started writing a fanfic.
It goes like this;
What if Siffrin couldn't keep their memory if their body reset after every loop, so the Universe revived them with Wishcraft after each death?
What if the parts of their body that they lost when they died were replaced with craft, so they just become a Siffrin-shaped blob of Wishcraft in later acts?
And I'm sure not just having their past and their future taken from them, but their humanity aswell would just do *+*wonders*+* for their mental health.
Edit: I've posted the first chapter on Tumblr, it's called Four Portions and the first chapter is here
(Act 0, Scene 1)
An In Stars and time fanfiction, isat spoilers under the cut!
Well-done wishes hurt you like needles. They produced small
some people think writers are so eloquent and good with words, but the reality is that we can sit there with our fingers on the keyboard going, “what’s the word for non-sunlight lighting? Like, fake lighting?” and for ten minutes, all our brain will supply is “unofficial”, and we know that’s not the right word, but it’s the only word we can come up with…until finally it’s like our face got smashed into a brick wall and we remember the word we want is “artificial”.
I don’t have a full body of her but I drew a bust so…
If this is a safe space, here’s my TEK OC, independent knight Deep Wine Raven Maeve… and I probably will not be dropping more lore LOL but just wanted to share ig!!
Rereading is wonderful because why did I forget about this little detail. Apparently they have chewing gum in the TEK world! A quick google search tells me the first chewing gum was patented in the late 1860s, which is interesting. Since TEK takes place in a fictional world and not on Earth, it’s hard to compare technological advances and eras.
On the same note, the reason why I went back to the earlier chapters in the first place was because I remembered that Nagyunn bought a magazine of Najin:
Which is interesting because having Najin’s picture on the cover and such (as magazines are) implies the existence of technology able to capture a person’s likeness and print it out. Either that or it is hand drawn and then printed, which is viable (unlike the possibility of every copy being hand drawn, because that is simply not plausible and entirely impractical/not cost efficient).
The extent to which the technology in TEK has advanced is unclear; there are magical scrolls distributed among the knights that are used for communication, and they seem to work like a messaging app or social platform on a phone (not sure if they have other applications or uses because we’ve only seen knights scrolling through chat logs or receiving an announcement/message).
But the question is… how long have they been around? They clearly don’t have actual scientifically made cell phones, as is common in fantasy worlds with the existence of magic, but Wild Dog Fidorance seems inept at communicating through the scrolls (I don’t have the screenshot sorry) as if they’re something new. Of course, it might just be because they don’t seem to be in the use of the common people, which would mean that those who become knights would not be accustomed to them growing up, but… I don’t know. Sure, Qilin and other knights, as well as Nagyunn, get the hang of it quickly, but that doesn’t mean it’s been around for a long time. In Nagyunn’s case, he didn’t even know they existed until he met the magician.
So, we know there must be a device used for printing copies of something, there is a magical device that is used by knights to communicate, and that somehow magazines with pictures are printed in color. Is there some device, likely magical, used to take pictures? Is someone meeting with people like Najin and having them pose for hours to capture their likeness? Who knows.
If you were looking for a crazy theory with an answer, I sincerely apologize… but I only bring questions, not answers!! Maybe you can think about it and come up with something, with these details presented to you. (And if you do, please share!! I’d love to talk about the TEK world more! I’m slowly in the process of rereading TEK and taking note of details whenever I have time, which is not too often. Originally I started rereading from chapter 20 and onward—the latest chapter I was working on was 66—but I came back to the first chapters to refresher my knowledge.)
Idk, but I’d love to see if they have electricity! I think if they do, that would say a lot about where they are technologically because there’s no way they’re using magic for that. When Nagyunn first meets that magician girl he asks her abt magic and this shows he isnt very familiar with it or how it works—which would definitely not be the case if magic was normalized enough to light up their houses and whatnot.
So right now, I see three possibilities!
1. They have electricity and cameras -
I doubt they have central heating—and if they do, they certainly don’t have it in smaller towns like Woodion where it’s been shown the twins had to rely on their fireplace to stay warm—but electricity in the context of light bulbs is possible and if they have electricity they could certainly have cameras
Though I’d assume the cameras they use would be like the first cameras that existed irl where they were super bulky and took several minutes to take one photo. And I doubt it would be something just anyone could get their hands on either at this point. Only the rich or businesses like magazine publishing companies would have access to them—and that’s one way that could explain how there’s a magazine with a photograph of Najin on the cover
2. The photograph was taken using magic-
If they don’t have electricity then it is definitely possible they used magic to get that photograph of Najin too. So far we’ve only really seen magic combined with technology in the form of weaponry, but it could very well be possible that Regia is also creating magic technology that could be used for everyday tasks like sending messages or even taking photographs.
And if this was true then it would still be new technology for the central continent, and that would also explain why we've only seen knights communicating via magic scrolls while the east were passing messages to the dragon descendants via messenger birds. That the dragon descendants could communicate this way at all, and that Nagyunn not only predicated they would do this, but was familiar enough with the birds to handle one shows that the central continent uses these birds for the same purpose as the east. This wouldn’t be necessary if the general public had access to those magic scrolls so it definitely has to be new and restricted technology.
Magic technology that can be used to take photographs would also still be restricted but they may have been willing to snap a photo of a once in a lifetime prodigy like Najin to make the knight’s look good, and to show off their progress with developing magic technology to the general public
3. It was hand drawn-
Najin’s picture wasn’t the only one in the magazine, there were also pictures of the continental attractions that Nagyunn wanted to visit, including the crystal sea. This suggests the pictures of the continental attractions were likely drawings. Because when general Haejin showed Nagyunn the crystal sea, Nagyunn revealed it was only rumored to exist and that he didn’t know it was real until that moment.
If the picture of the crystal sea had been a photograph, Nagyunn would have known it was real! So the continental attractions were definitely hand drawn. Which would suggest Najin’s picture could have also been hand drawn.
However!
Just because the continental attractions were hand drawn doesn’t mean Najin’s picture was also hand drawn. Like I said in 2. they may have been willing to use it but that doesn’t mean they gave the magazine company access to the magic technology. Regia or a different magician working under him could have snapped the photo themselves then given it to the magazine company. That would explain why there would be an actual photograph of Najin despite everything else being hand drawn.
And in 1. you could argue just having the continental attractions drawn would be faster, easier, and cheaper then having someone travel around the central continent taking photographs, especially since they aren’t even sure all of those places exist (like the crystal sea)
Personally I think option 2. would be the most interesting one if it turned out to be true, TEK is set in a fantasy world so it’d be really cool to see them use magic in place of electricity! Especially since the magic in that world has so many different applications, I’d love to see it explored more deeply in TEK!
But, I honestly couldn’t say for sure which one is true until we get more details from canon
I totally forgot that detail about the crystal sea!! Thank you for bringing it up! So even if a device did exist it would have to be a mix between both utilities. I didn’t get too into the color printing aspect of magazines, but if they have something for pictures and chewing gum for the common people, I’m sure they’ve figured out some sort of color printing press.
I’d have to reread Gilgamesh for any hint of electricity, but I doubt there will be one. In the United States, the electrification of homes occurred in the late 19th century, which is somewhat close to the invention of commercial chewing gum. However, as I previously mentioned, it’s hard to draw a connection between timelines of technological advances of our world and that of a fantasy world.
Plus, in one of the last chapters of Gilgamesh (spoilers ahead), we see a flashback to when Kandentia met Tludia roughly 8 years before the events of Gilgamesh. There, Kandentia makes a comment about a wad of magical papers for starting (camp)fires that are supplied to the knights. The way she says it implies that this is also not a commercial item for the common people, which seems to be expected of magical items in general. Of course, a lot can change technologically in 8 years! Our age of technology in the real world is proof of this, as well as the work of geniuses like Regia greatly accelerating and changing the world of magic.
About the topic of magazines and interviews, though—I want to discuss this in a separate post!! When I have time!
Honestly Qilin’s title makes me wonder. I mean, why would there be a creature from Chinese mythology in the Central Continent? The people of the Central Continent do appear to have myths and legends; dragons are considered creatures of the legends, despite being real. They also have the tales of fairies and other beings living in the Eastern Continent, though this is false and is a result of the limited contact between the continents. However, a creature of Chinese mythology…? It’s probably just the concept of the Qilin, but a mythical creature is an interesting choice for a knight title.
On the other hand, I’m considering the possibility that the author meant 기린 as in “giraffe” rather than Qilin, due to the mistranslation across cultures that occurred some centuries ago. This is a rather lame possibility, though, because… come on. Qilin is just way cooler. Also, I want to trust the translation team with this one.
So, if we are to go with Qilin being Zius’ intended knight title, then I guess that either means mythical creatures are viable options for the emperor to choose from or that Qilin exist in the world of TEK. It’s probably the former. Who’s to tell the emperor what to do, anyway?
Speaking on this again, another huge question is… if the knights are named after animals, then that must mean all those animals exist in that world. However, not all animals exist in the same continent. This implies that either 1) they all just. exist in several different areas of the Central Continent, as it is quite large and we have only been presented three existing continents in the TEK world (to my knowledge) or 2) animals from other continents are used as well, meaning they are somehow heard of or known. The last part is mentioned because it can be something like medieval Europeans hearing of African animals, Indian spices, etc. due to exposure from trade. The only issue with this is that the continents do NOT have friendly public relations. Still, that doesn’t mean information is entirely barred, but generally the second option is not as plausible.
That aside, the myths!! I was thinking of vampire bats (for some reason), which I realized were named *after* vampires, meaning that the myth of vampires had to exist before they were named. In other words, if vampires didn’t exist, “vampire bat” would not be a possible name for a knight. Of course, it could always be that if “vampire bat” were to be used, it is just for us as the audience to understand what kind of bat it is, and that it is named something else in the language of TEK. There’s also that a knight would probably simply be named “bat” rather than a specification like “vampire bat”.
Of course these thoughts sent me into a spiral of researching the history of the myth of vampires. I didn’t thoroughly read everything I found (it was 3 am) but I do want to bring up what I did find: creatures similar to vampires have been described in several myths across cultures around the world, whether as some sort of demon who feasts on newborn babies, or whatever else. The common idea of a vampire today is quite new and also largely influenced by depictions in media, but if creatures similar to vampires have naturally come about in so many separate places, it’s not wrong to assume this might happen in the TEK world. In other words, maybe there is an animal called a vampire bat!
Sorry about the vampire bats. It’s really not that important; I don’t know why I had to do all that. The point was supposed to be myths and animals, not vampire bats. But this was the example. If human nature inevitably leads to the creation of myths, it’s not out of left field to think that maybe the TEK world has many similar to ours. Not only that, but many myths involving creatures and monsters are produced by fear, another recurring feature of humans! What humans are afraid of can change throughout time and depending on the location, but other fears last, and leave a mark. The fear of death is an easy example. If the fears that created monsters like vampires exist in the TEK world (which they probably do), then the monsters created must exist in a similar fashion in the TEK world as well.
And those are the mental gymnastics I did to justify certain myths. I’m still confused on the Qilin part though, because where did you get the Chinese from, but also this can just be another case of “this is the mythological creature that already exists that I want to use to represent this character and is already familiar with my audience so I will use the right term for it instead of making up my own creature that nobody knows” …or it’s giraffe, but I REALLY hope it isn’t!!! (If I haven’t made that clear already)
Rereading is wonderful because why did I forget about this little detail. Apparently they have chewing gum in the TEK world! A quick google search tells me the first chewing gum was patented in the late 1860s, which is interesting. Since TEK takes place in a fictional world and not on Earth, it’s hard to compare technological advances and eras.
On the same note, the reason why I went back to the earlier chapters in the first place was because I remembered that Nagyunn bought a magazine of Najin:
Which is interesting because having Najin’s picture on the cover and such (as magazines are) implies the existence of technology able to capture a person’s likeness and print it out. Either that or it is hand drawn and then printed, which is viable (unlike the possibility of every copy being hand drawn, because that is simply not plausible and entirely impractical/not cost efficient).
The extent to which the technology in TEK has advanced is unclear; there are magical scrolls distributed among the knights that are used for communication, and they seem to work like a messaging app or social platform on a phone (not sure if they have other applications or uses because we’ve only seen knights scrolling through chat logs or receiving an announcement/message).
But the question is… how long have they been around? They clearly don’t have actual scientifically made cell phones, as is common in fantasy worlds with the existence of magic, but Wild Dog Fidorance seems inept at communicating through the scrolls (I don’t have the screenshot sorry) as if they’re something new. Of course, it might just be because they don’t seem to be in the use of the common people, which would mean that those who become knights would not be accustomed to them growing up, but… I don’t know. Sure, Qilin and other knights, as well as Nagyunn, get the hang of it quickly, but that doesn’t mean it’s been around for a long time. In Nagyunn’s case, he didn’t even know they existed until he met the magician.
So, we know there must be a device used for printing copies of something, there is a magical device that is used by knights to communicate, and that somehow magazines with pictures are printed in color. Is there some device, likely magical, used to take pictures? Is someone meeting with people like Najin and having them pose for hours to capture their likeness? Who knows.
If you were looking for a crazy theory with an answer, I sincerely apologize… but I only bring questions, not answers!! Maybe you can think about it and come up with something, with these details presented to you. (And if you do, please share!! I’d love to talk about the TEK world more! I’m slowly in the process of rereading TEK and taking note of details whenever I have time, which is not too often. Originally I started rereading from chapter 20 and onward—the latest chapter I was working on was 66—but I came back to the first chapters to refresher my knowledge.)
Just look at the way Lauzun runs straight to Nagyunn after class. Like a puppy. Look at his face! So earnestly asking about Nagyunn’s plans. I don’t know, I just think this was amusing.
jbbartram-illu
blakekathryn
baratheonpilled
stormborns
janainaart
annaxmalina
yousharknotpass
