Thinking about Jabber being awkward and squirmy with casual affection, and Zanka feels his sadistic brain clock in to work and decides to do this as often as possible to bully Jabber. Like you’d think, it’d be a “he’s just being affectionate to show Jabber that it’s okay to be soft thing”. But no. This is Zanka being very, very mean and getting off on Jabbers discomfort/finding it funny. Which is awful unless you’re Jabber who has to deal with hating this thing, but also omfg Zanka is being mean to me 😍.
Me: writing silly fanfic about silly boys that want to kill each other.
The part of me raised by a Historian: Okay so why does Rudo speak the same language as the ground? Does he have an accent? What does the map actually look like? Did Pangea happen again? Does anyone know where the ocean is? Okay but here’s how agriculture probably works a little. God do they even have antibiotics???
So I went a little (a lot) crazy while writing, my Janka Fic (linked if you want to read it) and one of the ways that craziness manifested is my deep desire to see the world I was writing about and name things so I could make both Jabber and Zanka sound like they genuinely know their way around The Ground. So I made a map.
This map is in no way canon or accurate. Urana has been so specific about Kamuatari being Japanese, and according to the Wiki, that’s the south, which I couldn't get my head around. So that's the point that started my spiral into insanity.
I already had a theory that, however the sphere came into being, if we assume it’s a second satellite orbiting the earth rather than the moon itself, it probably messed with tides and tectonic plates. Basically, it launched the Earth into the beginnings of a new Pangea. Some things have linked up, but I couldn’t deal with the whole one world one continent thing that’s too big.
So I kinda looked at the kind of people we have and the regional environments we’ve seen, and basically got a basic 11th-century map and played around with it. Obviously the borders were a lot different, which is why I went so far into the past and I just began separating the world by centralising Asia then creating a border on some rivers in Russia, throwing in some of the Middle East, and pushing everything up from Australia. This is in no way scientific; I just wanted Australia to be Tori for my own amusement. So yeah, a new continent was created.
This supercontinent is what we’ve come to know as the ground. As for the other supercontinents, which probably also exist they might have contact with “the ground”, but I imagine no one wants to encounter sea or air-based trash beasts to really adventure abroad so it truly is up to interpretation on if people even know those places exist.
So yeah, this is the world as far as our characters know it, in my opinion. (DMs shouldn’t write fanfic, I swear.)
Anyway here’s a breakdown for all my fellow nerds who like this kinda nonsense too.
North Ward
Home of the Volcanic No Man’s Land Lurg - I stole this from the word Lurgy because I saw Mono was an official area, and went, " Oh, I got a theme.”
The North also has the continent's central power plant, which uses heat generated by the magma vents.
Most of the northern air sucks, as it's randomly filled with ash and other fun toxins.
It’s also the main industrial area, with lots of mountains, which means lots of ore and, therefore, many factories, making the pretty mountain area super toxic. There’s a reason why you don’t eat the snow up north.
Follo is from a town called Beira - it’s named after the Celtic Goddess for winter and also jealousy, so I had to use it even though Scotland and Ireland are not connected to this patch at all.
The East Ward
The area with the most landmass and therefore the most cities and animals. In my mind, most farm animals are probably created in labs using old DNA. There are some pets for those who can afford another mouth to feed, but most animals are bred specifically for meat, while other feral, mutated creatures roam the polluted zones. These can also sometimes be used as meat.
Both Mono (The area Rudo landed in) and Penta (Where Amo is from) are in the East Ward.
They are also both close to the city of Kaison, which is a baby name I found meaning "Healer" and "Warrior," which I felt was the perfect name for the town Alice Stilza operates in.
The Cleaners' central HQ is set up in Salus - Named after the Roman version of the Greek goddess Hygeia. It’s pretty much the central location of The Ground, which is why it’s the cleaners' main base. It’s also close to Hole Town and Canvas Town, according to that one bit of map we have.
Last place I’m going to mention is Mefitis - Named after the Italian Goddess of poisons and toxins, but mostly sulphur. This is a small town where Jabber has set himself up for obvious reasons.
The South Ward
The South Ward mainly consists of areas that were pushed up from Pangea 2 electric booglou. It contains the No Man’s Land, Tori, which takes up most of the former Australia.
It’s also where Japan ended up and where Zanka grew up in the Kamuatari District.
The last place I named was Morrigan - Named after The Morrigan, the Irish war goddess often represented by crows, for the town where we met Kuro.
It also has the largest greenhouse and water purification plant, and it’s the best area to get fresh water and therefore to try agriculture.
Because of this, it’s the most expensive area to live in.
The West Ward
Finally, there’s the West Ward, which we have never seen in the manga. Because of this, I placed two no man’s lands in the area named Enza and Legm for influenza and phlegm, respectively.
I imagine since we’ve heard nothing about this area, very few people live here, so I’ve made it sort of a dead zone with some clear factories and towns, but also the place where a lot of sea-based environmental incidents would go down, because I wanted the oceans to have some sick trash beasts.
Everything else is a name from the manga or a water purification plant because that seemed essential to keeping people alive. There are also a lot of abandoned areas and slums all over for people who can’t afford to live inside the walled cities that can only fit so many people before overpopulation becomes a serious problem.
Also, yes, the scaling does bother me. I once went insane after Isayama revealed that Madagascar was Paradis, because with all the colossal titans in those walls, they wouldn't fit. I did like actual math, to check. So let’s assume that things like cars and shit have jet engines, and since no one is on the road, Enjin and Gris could theoretically drive from (compares two maps) somewhere below the Gobi Desert to somewhere around Vietnam in two days. So yeah, clearly not a canon map, but a piece of nonsense I made out of pure procrastination because I hate writing beginnings in fics. Every idea I have is like a post-chapter three thing forever and always. I genuinely have to physically make myself go back or give myself side quests to keep from going insane.
If you would like to make your own map using this as a base feel free to as long as you credit me for using the base part or if you just want to reference a pre made map you can totally just link back to this and use the same names and things I don’t mind ✨:
So I need you to know because Jabber says a lot of out-of-pocket shit, while writing I began thinking you know who else says a lot of out-of-pocket shit, My 80-year-old cultchy Irish grandmother. This woman taught me to swear at like three, her favourite nursery rhyme to sing with was “there was an old lady who swallowed a fly, then a bunch of other shit, perhaps she’ll die”, and when I used to wish for snow (which she hated), she would tell me that I could wish for snow in one hand and pish on the other and see which filled up first. Yes she’s literally my favourite person ever. So yeah when im trying to write this natural batshit cadance my brain will think of something she’s said and I’m like, yeah, that feels like something Jabber or honestly Enjin would say, lll add that in, so ugh, welcome to the Irish grandma slangifcation of Gachiakuta, I guess.
Was watching this weeks The Gladlands and felt inspired to draw the snake that I made up for my Janka Fic because I’m a totally sane and normal person. Anyway say hi to Iris.
I know the fonts a bit tricky so the page reads:
The Toxic Slickback
Named after its pigmented yellow skin and the iridescent sheen of its scales which some compare to an oil spill.
The Toxic Slick-back’s venom is known to be injected with intense force causing paralysis, protruding veins, its venom is hemotoxic in humans, causing pain, swelling, bleeding and hepatomas.
To all of you coming to my Janka fic looking for Janka content know you are getting that but also like 3k words on my thoughts on Mankira and Lovely Assistaff because they are also main characters to me.
