#wip:sotsk

[treesandwords]

"He dreamed he saw little Nysel Alderras in her white dress, standing in an empty room somewhere. When she turned to look at him her body became a wax candle, her face the wick and flame and shadows around it. Her shadow-hair swirled, and she smiled, and melted." -Chapter 18

"The yellow walls of the tent gave everything a warm sheen. Torchlight glowed against Nysel’s skin, amber and gold. She looked like a white candle, her face all aflame." -Chapter 31

[treesandwords]

Whiteboxes: an idea I've been toying with

Aka: playing around with my magic system

Pic taken from googling "white decorative box" idk even what these things really look like. They're white. They're boxes. Idk.

So the way I've envisioned magic in my world is that it's basically a natural force that makes up all that can't be seen or understood. It creates/causes/allows hypothetical possibility. And it exists within a sort of shadow plane alongside our own, and what we see is just sort of a reflection, bits and pieces peeking through a veil.

This plane is where it is drawn from by a user. However, it must be drawn through a conduit of some kind (a staff/wand/other instrument) that is made of substances from this plane, because this is what filters out all the Bad Stuff that would be harmful if it came through in its pure form from this other realm.* Sometimes rifts occur and "dirty"/unfiltered magic comes through and this can be Very Bad. It can cause plague, crop failure, drought and extreme weather; or smaller, less noticeable effects like static in the air and untraceable humming or buzzing sounds.

Another way in which magic can be harmful is through energy loss. When magic is channeled into our realm, some fractions of its power are inherently lost in the process, and this ‘wasted’ magic can be equally harmful in large doses.

This is where Whiteboxes come in. A Whitebox is a device used when a magic user does Something Big which causes a lot of waste, to trap that wasted energy so it can’t escape into our plane. Because of this, Whiteboxes are highly dangerous - magic users will keep them close at hand or store them somewhere safe and hidden to ensure nobody will come across them by accident, but it does occasionally happen, and if they are handled incorrectly and that magical waste is let out...bad things happen. And the longer the waste is left in a Whitebox, the stronger and more concentrated it becomes.

Here's the bit I'm not sure about yet. What exactly are they made of? It must be some material that contains the wasted energy, but what could that be? I'll think about it.

*The danger, of course, is people who don't know this and use magic inadvertently. There is such a stigma and taboo surrounding magic at all, that nobody thinks to ask and further understand, and therefore mistakes happen. A lot of inexperienced and/or uneducated magic users often end up channeling magic directly through their own body rather than an instrument, which can both cause further leaks and physical harm to the user.

Taglist for SOTSK: @kaatiba

[treesandwords]

I haven't talked about it yet but I've divided my main WIP Sons of the Summer King into 3 main segments, so here are the moodboards for each of them that took me way way too long. Made on Canva

Taglist (lmk if you want to be added/removed): @kaatiba

[treesandwords]

Katiya gave him a long and steady look. “It could be dangerous. For us both.”             He shrugged.             “You did not choose this. You can walk back to those tents and dance with your bride, and pretend this did not happen.”             “No, I can’t,” he said, and knew that it was true. He was weary of pretending things had not happened.

-Chapter 31

[treesandwords]

Having Emotions about Gevin again. There's an element I want to add in with my next round of edits, that some of the Dalions (mostly Jerod and Bronwyn) question whether or not he's really dead at all.

Because already there's a thing where Jerod, as a badly injured POW sees a guy he thinks *kind of * looks like his brother being led away by guards, and thinks about calling out to him but doesn't, and is never sure if he watched Gevin being taken to his death or not. And that haunts him on top of everything else.

But Then also we have the fact that he and Bronwyn are twins. Not identical, and they aren't even described as looking that alike, but there are definitely similarities. And I want Bronwyn to have actually seen his body, where Jerod (and Ciaran) did not. And note that he didn't look like her anymore, possibly because of his injuries but I'm being deliberately unclear as to exactly how Gevin was killed so we don't really know why she says this. Only that, to her, he didn't look like himself in death - or like her.

So there's a part of her that always wonders after that, if maybe they found the wrong body. If maybe the person they mourned and cremated wasn't their brother at all - if it was some other soldier who's family never saw them again, or someone with no family of his own, or an enemy. And if Gevin himself is still somewhere out there, on his own and free. Wandering the wilds.

(And for all the times Jerod sees maybe-his-ghost, it might as well be true)

And that maybe that's part of why Bronwyn leaves herself - to find him.

---

But of course they're wrong, he is dead. In the end, though, it doesn't matter because he's still gone either way. And they don't know that. Only I do.

[treesandwords]

Clothing concepts for my world/characters:

So I'm gonna talk a bit about costumes. I'm Obsessed with coming up with fashion ideas in my worlds, it's one of my favourite worldbuilding aspects. I have a TON of sketches and also a Pinterest board (which I'll link here), and I want to discuss not the super detailed stuff, but more so a few identifying characteristics that occur in my world's fashion.

Here we go!

Side fastenings

A lot of garments have asymmetrical cuts and fasten on the side of the body instead of straight down the front. This is a relic of the Dviric people's ancestry; their people came from the northeast, in a land that is now part of the Saldigan Empire. Royalty and nobility in that place and time often wore clothing like this. Often you'd see this in jumpers or long sleeveless tunics, and in cloaks.

Knitwear

This comes from the Idrinic people who already lived in our main region by the time the Dvirics arrived. Their knitting styles were really elaborate and complex, often weaving secondary patterns into an already decorated garment. They wore sweaters! And like. Long knitted tunics and dresses that were. Basically just long sweaters.

Neutral/earth tones

This is interesting, because the three major cultural groups of the area have different colour associations when it comes to clothing. The Idrinics wore a lot of soft blues, greys, and browns, while the Dvirics wore shades of forest green, yellow, gold, and warmer rusty browns. They also never wore red, as it was a popular royal colour where they first came from, and as a group of essentially rebels to the throne they didn't want to be associated with it.* The Gamilar invaders tend to be the most vibrantly dressed, in bright blues, greens, teal and aquamarine, and shades of red. Though because the populations have become less distinct and the cultures a lot more mixed (especially the first two) at the time of the book, there's a lot more overlap than there once was.

*many modern Dviric people will wear dark rusty reds or brownish maroons, however

Long coats

They just really like em. This started as mostly a Dviric thing, but now most people wear them. Traditionally they were more of a male-associated garment but a lot of contemporary women wear them too.

The Pinterest (hope the link works?? I've never linked a Pinterest board before so idk)

@kaatiba