How My Oldest Stories Fit Into My Shared Universe!
Content warning for death and blood. Hello! And welcome to another post which will probably be very long! Here, here, and here are posts about the universe and how my stories fit in! Tagging: @ratracechronicler, @maple-writes, @pen-of-roses, and @drabbleitout! There will be spoilers for Concealed Darkness and We Stand United, We Fall Together in this post.
Ok! So, with me figuring out the shared universe, I realized that I needed to figure out how Concealed Darkness and WSUWFT fit in. And I think I’ve figured it out. So, Concealed Darkness and WSUWFT take place on the same world, but they’re separated continents. The different continents used to be a lot more connected than they were, but about a thousand years ago, a huge war broke out. The Celestials had been watching over the world and mingling with the people, and there were people who hated the Celestials and wanted them to not meddle in affairs, while there were others who thought that the Celestials should rule. And they got into a war about it.
Now, there are still Hikari and Tenebrus in this world, and the Hikari are still immortal. But a young Hikari who had just gotten the spell of eternity placed on him went to war believing that the Celestials should leave them alone. His wife followed, and she was killed, and he was blinded by grief. He blamed Celestials for everything, so his belief that they should leave the people of this world alone turned into the belief that all the Celestials should be killed, that they only brought pain and grief. So, he set out on a quest with his friends and actually succeeded in killing a Celestial and using their blood to create a weapon. Because Celestials’ blood is almost pure magic, this weapon is magical, and it especially has effects on other Celestials. He succeeded in bringing the other nine Celestials down to the world and depowering every Celestial with the weapon. That he deemed Shizen (for now). He made it his mission to kill every Celestial.
Shizen could also do a lot of other different magic. He sent all the people who wanted the Celestials to rule to another continent and separated them with magic. Some of the Celestials followed them, and I’ll explain more about that later. He then made everyone forget, and he split up the rest of the continent into four separate regions. Because he makes a failsafe. If something happens to Shizen, he can still gather four people, one from each region and take them to the center of the continent to touch a rock that will suck their lifeforce from them to paralyze all the remaining Celestials for a specific amount of time.
He took the magic from every other person in the other regions, but he kept the original magic in the western region where he lives. For nostalgia’s sake. However, he took away the magic from the plants and land in the other regions as well, so the magic had no other place to go, so the people of the other regions still got magic. But in the center of the continent, the Hikari’s wife is preserved perfectly, and there’s a kind of shrine to her. And the rock that’s a failsafe is there too. And a lot of the death flowers (that I don’t remember the name of at the moment) because a huge battle was fought here. There are magical barriers for people to not leave their regions, so most people don’t even know there are other regions on this continent.
There are seven Celestials left still. The Hikari isn’t being very effective in killing them, even when they don’t have any powers. Lol. An “empire” started up in the western region but was destroyed 100 years ago. And a group called Imperium has started to fight against the Hikari. Guess what? Both of those groups are led by Celestials (they still retain their immortal lives even without powers)! And the main characters of Concealed Darkness have changed some too.
This will be major spoilers for the first book in the Concealed Darkness story. Cassian now has the light and dark magic that Luneth had before this. Complete with the wings. But this time, the Hikari actually made him to be like this. As a champion to go and kill Celestials and people who have Celestial blood. Totally because the Hikari loves getting other people to do his dirty work. Tamra now has a Celestial ancestor and a Hikari mom. So, she can use the lightning Celestials can harness and nothing else because the Celestial genes are all diluted. And she can also use her potent magic where she can affect the mind of other people (like for example, she can make them fall unconscious with a thought). And she’ll be more important than before, with the empire focusing on using her because they don’t want to use Cassian or Luneth because they’ve already been claimed basically. Luneth (who I’m contemplating being nonbinary, so I’ll use they/them pronouns right now) now has a Tenebrus for a father and a Celestial for a mother. So, they have their full Tenebrus powers (because Celestial blood doesn’t change that), but they also have Celestial powers like Eclipse does. So, they can change into a dragon and can use light and lightning and can see what other people are going to do when they have their magic activated. They’re being claimed by Imperium to fight against Aston.
With the shift in who’s going to be targeting with main protagonist, that shifts how this story will go. But I’m excited to see where it goes!
WSUWFT isn’t getting changed nearly as much. There are some Celestials in this story too, and the emperor probably also is a Celestial drunk on power from the people who begged him to rule them. And these people were also stripped of magic when the Hikari forced them away, so the emperor gave them his blood so they would all get random magic. So, that’s why everyone on this continent has magic! Other than that, I think the story will basically play out the same. Thank you so much for reading my ramble!
I have been thinking long and hard about where We Stand United, We Fall Together is headed, since I’m awful at actually writing it (when I have enough planned to write more, I just don’t for some reason). So, I have been thinking about what my four main characters are going to working towards while they are in the hands of the enemy, and I’ve come up with a plan that actually involves six POVs, since there will actually be six different important stories going on at the time. Also, with this story, I’ve already thought there were a lot of characters, but the plan I have will introduce even more characters (that I know nothing about), so I’m seriously considering making a chart for all the characters just to keep track of what’s going on with them at a given time in this story. And I think this will make this story even more convoluted than the first draft.
Alex is going to figure out that she can still be useful even when she feels useless (this is actually a big step for her because she hates feeling useless). This is probably the closest to the first draft for any of these characters.
Shane is going to learn to forgive himself and keep moving forward all on his own while everyone around him is trying to get him to stay down and drown in self loathing.
Becca is going to use her skills she learned while she was in the Rangers on the outside, and she’s going to get others in on the plan to fight against the empire in the most subtle way possible. Her story is probably where most of the new characters will be introduced.
Sutomi is going to step up to the leader position because Fulmini isn’t there to do it. He has to figure out how to escape on his own (and hopefully he’ll learn how to rely on and trust others as well along the way).
Xandra and Theia (two new characters I came up with during Nanowrimo) will be teaming up with Lucan to try and get everyone out. And Fulmini and Mizu will probably be joining them.
Kialos and Anais (two other new characters I came up with during Nanowrimo) will be teaming up with their friend, Arai, to fight the leader of the Rangers on the outside, since the leader is a huge jerk.
So, as you can see, this story is becoming very convoluted, and I love it. I’ve always loved these characters, and I can’t wait to see where they go! Tagging @ratracechronicler, @nightskywriter, @whollyart, and @thewritingcaddy!
This is actually a powerpoint for We Stand United, We Fall Together again, but this time, it’s for the big changes for the second draft. Since I’m planning on starting the second draft for Nanowrimo, I thought it would be good to work on a powerpoint for the second draft. Since I finished it, I wanted to post it. So, please enjoy! Since it’s long, I’ll put it under a read more. Tagging: @ratracechronicler, @whollyart, and @nightskywriter!
This isn’t really a prep post because I won’t be talking about the story or characters. Tagging: @ratracechronicler, @whollyart, @nightskywriter, @purpleshadows1989!
So, this Nanowrimo will hopefully be a redemption for me, since I started the first draft for my very first Nanowrimo. I didn’t win that time, so I really want to win this time with the second draft. I’ve been excited for a while about this Nanowrimo, but now I’m starting to get nervous about this, since I haven’t actually written for a while. However this works out, I’m going to try my hardest and just enjoy it! I can’t wait to work on this story again, especially with how different it will be now! I hope everyone else has a good Nanowrimo too!
Also, if anyone wants to be buddies during Nanowrimo, please message me! I lost all of my buddies when the website changed.
Tagging: @ratracechronicler, @nightskywriter, @whollyart, and @purpleshadows1989!
I wrote 643 words yesterday, but I didn’t have much of anything to post about, so I didn’t. And I wrote 1,812 words today! It was all Shane’s chapter, but it was a really good chapter for him. He has some down time, since the empire probably won’t be looking for him among the nobles (since Xandra and Theia brought him to their parents’ house). He and Xandra are fake dating (since I like that kind of thing) to give an excuse for him being there. And I learned a lot more about Xandra and why she is the way she is, so that’s good! Shane has someone who understands him and will believe in him and support him when he can’t, so that’s awesome! And I might have already started the actual romance between Shane and Xandra, but I’ll need to do some editing and figuring it out to make it so that it’s not too quick or unbelievable. All in all, a very good day, and I really enjoyed writing a chapter where Shane feels safe and at least a little bit better about himself.
Highlights include: Xandra being flirty the whole time (until they’re alone and she can be more serious), Shane just being flustered about the whole thing since he’s never dated before, Xandra opening up about her past and the things she’s done to let Shane know that he’s not alone in what he’s feeling, and Shane being worried about his instant death magic (with gloves covering his hands to keep him from accidentally using it) and Xandra taking the gloves off and holding his hands.
Favorite quotes: “Move forward, don’t look backward. The past is the past, not your future.”
“We’re broken, Shane. It will take a long time to put ourselves back together. That doesn’t mean that we don’t deserve happiness.”
I have a template that my sister found on Pinterest that I filled out for my characters for We Stand United, We Fall Together! Note: Lucan is the son of Lori, the leader of the Rangers on the inside, and he’s best friends with Ryu, Mizu, and Fulmini (just wanted to let y’all know since he hasn’t had a character intro). Tagging: @ratracechronicler, @whollyart, @nightskywriter, and @purpleshadows1989!
Hi, how are you? Some ideas for your NaNoPrep: what we your inspiration for your story? Are there elements of diversity? What s the world/country/city like? Is there anything illegal or legal that's different to the real world? What kinds of magic are rare or don't exist? What kinds of religions are there? Do any involve magic?
Thank you so much for the questions! I’m doing good. How about you? For some of these questions, I have answers that I’ll put in different posts for Nanowrimo prep, since they’re longer answers. For the inspiration, I’ll write about it in another Nanowrimo prep post. For the diversity: I’m sorry, but I have not thought enough about it to respond yes. I don’t want to come up with something on the spot and pretend like it was that way the whole time. So, I apologize, but I need to take time to think about it more. For the next question: that’ll be something I’ll post about for Nanowrimo prep to elaborate on it more. For the legal/illegal question: magic is seen as awful and not allowed, at least when not used for the empire. For the magic question: there are unique kinds of magic. Normally, they’re the ones that are really powerful, like Shane’s magic that instantly kills people, or the elemental magic for Sutomi, Kasai, Kori, and Chikyu. Since most of the magic is pretty random, there are a lot of different possibilities for what kind of magic a person can have. It’s just that the weaker magic is more common. And finally, for the religion question: I haven’t made any religions for this world yet, so I have no answer for that one.
Thank you so much for the questions! I’ll respond to the other questions during my Nanowrimo prep! I hope you have a good day! Tagging: @ratracechronicler, @whollyart, and @nightskywriter!
Tagging: @ratracechronicler, @nightskywriter, @whollyart, and @purpleshadows1989!
I wrote 2,065 words today! Hopefully, I can keep this up! Alex is trying to figure out what is worth her staying at the palace in a loveless relationship. Shane’s just still having a bad time. Burke is a manipulative jerk, telling Shane that everything is his fault. I made sure to stop in the middle of his chapter so tomorrow, it will be pretty easy to start writing again.
Highlights include: Ryu still not being subtle as he hints that he’s more than he appears, and Tilary calling Burke out for being a horrible person
Favorite quotes: “What if I could help you escape?” I started at him with a frown. “Excuse me?” He laughed. “Hypothetically, of course.” (I had paragraph breaks in the actual quote, but I left them out to differentiate between the quotes)
He wrapped his hand around my throat and squeezed lightly. Crap. Maybe that was a little too much sass?
“Just because Burke refuses to truly torture someone, doesn’t mean we all do. I’ll dirty my own hands and no one else’s.”
