askerian | tyr story blatherings

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tyr story blatherings

That's the one I tried to write for NaNoWriMo last time, with the ex-black ops werewolves.

Basically...

1) it's an alternate universe where Homo sapiens is sharing the planet with, amongst others, Homo Superior (ELVES.) and Homo gigapodos (yes. Bigfoot.)... but in the beginning it reads like any normal AU, just with secret werewolves.
a) Yes, it happens in the 21th century, but they've been on-and-off at war for the last *five centuries*. Differences should be more obvious. Where's the worldbuilding, Asuka!
b) the "everything magical has a perfectly scientific explanation (except for the werewolves' ability to friggin SHAPESHIFT) and/or no one ever noticed, say, the elves' hypnotism/mesmerisation ability or chalked it all up to some collective hallucination born from stupid old legends, so they don't know it even exists" thing is unbalanced and clunky and stupid.
Therefore! => I oughta be working on a world where low-level magic/stuff you can't entirely/perfectly explain with SCIENCE is more common, and people know about it. I kinda want something where it's so commom to them and always so low level with most humans that they don't really go OOOOOO MAGICS (apart from the New Age types XD), and also they assume that if you're a bit strong with magic then it means you have Evil Elf ancestry and that's Suspicious.

-So the werewolves are assumed to be another subspecies, but an extinct one (they're just undercover, because science? urk no.)
Now i'm trying to figure out whether they're really a subspecies, meaning you can only be BORN a werewolf and the black ops treatment is gene therapy, or whether there's some, possibly magical, means of contamination. I can't decide.

-If the society is different then the naming themes are possibly subtly different... I really want to name more people after greek and roman gods. XD So Tyr's name would only be strange because of the pantheon, there would be OCs named Athena and stuff like that, and I might be able to rename Duane to ... I dunno, Dyon for Dyonisos. (Or even Dian for Diana, though a guy being named for a female goddess is more unlikely. XD the problem here is that I like the look of Dian better than Dyon, I have an irrational problem with -on sounds and the letter Y when a I would do. XDDD;;; Other suggestions?)

2) What the fuck were the main characters' motives for going to war.
a) Xiang was always a martial soul, and she didn't want to be married off; okay, that says why she wanted to be army. Why'd she choose to go to the suicide squads? Maybe as a woman it's the only way she had of being allowed to fight on a battlefield. They've been at war so long that a good fourth of their forces are women but usually they'd probably try to shuffle them into areas where they don't come directly mano a mano against the enemies, even men have enough of a disadvantage there... hrrm. I don't know, she seems so ambitious.
b) Gabriel actually went because he was a little fucktard with self-destructive impulses and that's fine with me. XD
c) Serrano went because, hm, I just think she saw it needed to be done and she was young enough for the treatment to work... hrrm. Self-sacrifice, someone has to? Probably a death wish as well. Naturally depressed? looking for meaning? I have no idea.
d) Duane = revenge. Don't care if I die, taking you down with me. Okay, that works fine.
e) ... Tyr.
It's probably a bad thing if I'm not even sure of my main character's motivations.
Okay. he was 16. Everyone makes bad decisions at 16. His guardian and only family was dead so he was alone, and he wasn't even born in the ... let's call 'em USA for now, even though they'd likely be called something else. Okay. ... I think he was looking for meaning. Just... not knowing who he was, not knowing what he was living for. Figured, hey, that's the biggest cause I will ever find, maybe? Gah. He's so weird.

Wait, wait. He was born in Europe. Huh. There's a plot hook in here, it just won't come out in the light just yet. That's only been enemy territory for the last fifty years or so -- well, not the nordic countries where he'd be from, but still REAL close and they were always spreading out, harrassing their neighbors and stuff...

And, since he's the main character and there's now magic in this book, I should probably figure out something a little less than mundane for his background.

He's not gonna be a super powerful mage. Or even much of a mage, except for basic cantrips. The mage of the group is, hm, I think Gabe, and Duane knows a few handy spells as well. and Xiang doesn't believe in that bullshit. XD But in his backstory, I man, his great-uncle who was raising him (absent-minded professor type) was killed. Why?

Aw shit. I have two books here. One about Tyr getting used to the pack and the pack getting used to him. And one about Tyr's and the other guys' past catching up to them.

Considering that in their past there is a looong war that only recently ended, the issues and enemies it would bring up would be a lot more action/adventure/violence/mystery than the other, more domestic/character interaction story I was planning to write when I started out!

Also the "bad guys" would be totally different.

My first idea for a "bad guy" would be the alpha werewolf Tyr would have to kick out of office, and I didn't want him a cliche abusive asshole, so he was a soft-spoken schoolteacher, who's 95 year old (so he has a somewhat antiquated mindset) but only looks 45~ yay werewolf metabolism. That would make conflicts more nuanced, less about who beats up who (though there would be some of that, but dude, ex black ops, okay they've been wrewolves all their lives but. equal grounds here dude.)

If my plot is more about magic and secrets and repercussions from the war, then the bad guys have to be more dangerous as a direct result. ... eee. kickassery. way more challenging!

The first one was what I wanted to write, but it's just weird that in the backdrop I have this five centuries long war, and no visible repercussions save "oh yeah, that's the reason why we're black ops werewolves who totally kick ass. Yeah." I dunno. It bugs me. And of course now that i've started thinking about backstory things there's all these possible things twisting in the back of my mind like a nest of snakes in the dark and I have no idea what's going to come out. I just know it's there. Moving.

... I really want to figure out a way to merge the two plots that doesn't come off like "okay these two plots happen in parallel but thematically and otherwise it's really kind of... random and they don't really mesh"), but i'm braindead from nosleep and I keep losing my trains of thought. Friggin wagons, come back already, where was I going with that sentence? I can't remember.

Mergh. Anyway. Yeah. I need to develop shit more. I really can't write first and learn about the characters and plot that way. Okay, lesson learned.

edit: omg I love Kurai008. T^T *translates the gist of her frenchy babble*

-They've been at war for so long, so war/hunt/violence/other dangerous things! gods/goddesses baby names are in fashion, and it's not necessarily seen as extremely feminine/weak to be a guy named for Athena or Diana, because, *WAR* goddesses. (i mean, there might be some teasing. But.) Most kids will become soldiers at some point, so, in a way, protection. (Later on, gods being in fashion, softer gods' names might have started appearing as well.)

-"As well, with 500 years of war, this AU's society might have become almost totally militarized at some point and so almost all human resources served the war effort. Since the story happens at the end of the war, the characters might have simply stayed in the spirit of "(almost) everyone goes to war at some point" without thinking about it too much, since that was mostly what society as a whole has known for the last centuries. Now that they have to scale back their involvement in military things, problems appear."
=> eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee yes yes yes yes yes YES. *flails with glee*

Also I should totally show that even civilians are drilled often on emergency procedures and where to go for shelter, and they take it more seriously than we would and a lot of them aren't half as laid back as we would, not being sure of their safety as we are. They've been at it for a long while now so they're very organized about it and by now it's tradition/custom/just how people are raised. Oh yeah. *_*

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Re: names and spellings. The common English spelling is Dionysus -- or, for a variant, Dionysius -- either of which will let you use "Dion" as a nickname. Voila, no nasty letter Y! (Actually, I have never seen the spelling Dyonisos. Is that French or Greek?)

Maybe the plots can merge in the sense of the domestic plot is what the characters want to be dealing with -- they are tired of this war shit and want to figure out who they are now -- while the repercussions-of-war plot is what keeps sneaking in and complicating the domestic plot, and also maybe helps the pack gell via saving each other and trusting each other and stuff? And there could be different kinds of trust, too, because shooting someone who's out to kill you is different from, I dunno, going in to town and buying groceries, but the pack is dealing with both?

French, yeah. XD Well, the -os ending, I couldn't remember where the Y and I went so um yeah. And I know I'd forgotten something in my babble! I did consider Dion. But then it turned out that for me, Dion = Celine. I can't get that association out of my head. DX Nnnnno.

Maybe another god, but I can't figure out which. Looked at pantheon lists but nothing pinged me much. I am sad.

Hmmmmm. This is a good way to see it. ...I have no idea what I can *do* with it, though. *flops* mrghrhrhrhn.

If you want Greek and Roman gods, why not go for the Roman name? Bacchus. Or you could name him Pentheus (Pen or something for short) after Dionysus' cousin who refused to worship him and ran a military state and got killed by his mother while she was driven to a state of ecstasy by Dionysus.

If you do go with god naming, I think Tyr could work. Still a god, but from the wrong pantheon. If there are periodically others named for different pantheons (Xiang, for example) it could work. It wouldn't feel weird for people from different areas to have different naming conventions.

I don't think I could take Duane seriously if he was named Bacchus instead. XD;; I don't know, it's a good idea but the sound of it just *really* doesn't fit him.

Pentheus (or modern deformations of such) might make for an interesting name... Hmm.

Thank you for the suggestions. ^__^

If the war's five centuries old, that roughly coincides with Columbus and the age of exploration/colonisation, which did kick off a lot of wars of conquest. And if it's against elves... are elves mostly Europe or are they global?

From the naming scheme, it looks like Christianity didn't get as much of a foothold as it did here? Which would make some sense. But the fall of Rome might've still led to a Dark Age; here, the Church banned knowledge for both political and religious reasons, keep a stranglehold on the population, but other things changed from rejecting Roman customs. Like baths. Rejecting books, when you're subsisting anyway, wouldn't be too much of a stretch. So science-and-technology can arguably be pretty much on the same path.

Mostly european, yes. ^^ I developed it more in another comment, lemme get it.. aha.

"elves are in europe, spreading into russia (they like temperate climate -- the sahara desert is an efficient barrier). they used to share territory with humans but more and more as their population grew they started kicking people out. In the last 50 years of war no human enclave has been left alone, and they keep pushing the russians back.
(...)
Religion: Hmm. There's the three monotheistic religions, since they were started long before the war, but there's also leftovers of american Native religion and Incan stuff (much watered down XD no more human sacrifices!), since the discovery and conquest of America also happened at about the same time as the start of the elven wars back home -- it was more of a refugees than a conquerors situation. Plus the natives had magic to counter the europeans' superior weapons with, so they weren't totally flattened. They did mostly lose, but they managed to keep more of their culture."

I'm keeping science and tech mostly the same level as ours. there might be a few magic-powered tech things but they don't consider it very reliable since it depends on mindset and magic energy can't be stockpiled.

I so would love to read this story ! <3 It seems all ploty and gorgeous mmmm...

Have a few questions :
1 - Comment s'entendent les différentes espèces connues de tous ? Société plutôt égalitaire, plutôt un système de classe, plutôt c'est la naissance/le mérite/l'espèce qui définit ta place ?

2 - Les espèces ont-elles des positions fixes dans le conflit (je suppose que non s'il a 500 ans), ont-elles changé de camps ? Toute une espèce est-elle d'un coté plutôt que de l'autre ou cela ne dépend pas de ça ?

3 - Répartition géographique des espèces/personnes à capacités magiques/loup-garous ?

4 - Tu as les grandes évolutions du conflit ?

5 - Religion : quelles religions et combien, comment sont elles réparties (par espèce, par région) ?

♥ J'en ai écrit un peu, (clique sur "roarr nanothing" pour les trouver) mais c'est surtout du genre "machin rencontre truc" et autre développement de personnage, y a pas encore un vrai scénario.) ... et je vais écrire le reste en anglais si ça te dérange pas, au cas où d'autres personnes auraient les même questions, ou ca leur donnerait des idées. XD

1) the species, um, well, actually humans and elf-things are the only two that still matter -- there are some bigfoot surviving but they're all in reservations and other protected areas. they're treated like humanity's senile old uncle -- humans take care of them and respect them as an elder, but they also don't think they're relevant to modern humanity... or dangerous enough to bother killing either, which is a good thing. Other subspecies are extinct -- I don't know if anyone apart from the werewolves is around and in hiding but i'd be surprised, most cousin species can't really pass for human and they'd be noticed eventually.

2) did species switch sides during the war? Well, since elves and humans can crossbreed, some of them did, and some of them are born stuck in the middle. Also on both sides there were peace advocates. Other species aren't relevant any longer, so...

3) elves are in europe, spreading into russia (they like temperate climate -- the sahara desert is an efficient barrier). they used to share territory with humans but more and more as their population grew they started kicking people out. In the last 50 years of war no human enclave has been left alone, and they keep pushing the russians back.
Werewolves can't pass for elven so they went with humans to America to hide amongst them.

4) Um. Evolution of the war, yes, that WOULD be nice to have. >__>;; *ponderponder*

5) Religion: Hmm. There's the three monotheistic religions, since they were started long before the war, but there's also leftovers of american Native religion and Incan stuff (much watered down XD no more human sacrifices!), since the discovery and conquest of America also happened at about the same time as the start of the elven wars back home -- it was more of a refugees than a conquerors situation. Plus the natives had magic to counter the europeans' superior weapons with, so they weren't totally flattened. They did mostly lose, but they managed to keep more of their culture.
(oh hey, I didn't really know all of that when i started writing. yay for free babbling! XD)
There's also New Age type religions -- wicca and stuff like that, and a religion/philosophy that takes the Bigfoot as enlightened leaders and tries to understand their philosophy of life. (I think bigfoot can't speak with articulated sounds, or not the same sounds we make, so there's no language to learn and their way of thinking is very different)

Ouéééé merci pour les questions, ca m'a bien aidée. ♥

Niiiice =D

C'était le but des questions de t'aider un peu, aussi... alors tant mieux ! ^^

Soft spoken schoolteacher who is also badass just reminds me of Iruka.

Pffft XD Man, that's a link I hadn't made.

From the description, yes. In reality he's closer to Danzou pretending to be Iruka. XD

An idea of how the two plots might integrate could might be (if it works with what you're planning) that the political fallout from the war means that the were's need to become less old-fashioned in order to properly grow/not get fucked over in the new political climate. One side might want to be more hidden and isolated and keep everything the same-y, while the other wants to try and integrate better into society at large so as to not appear too different (and thus less likely to freak the populace out).

Or not of course. I'm not really sure what you had planed for the political climate so that may not make much sense.

HMMM. This is a good idea, and it fits pretty well -- I don't have that many ideas about the political climate yet. I'll poke and prod it, see if anything develops. Thank you, dear~ :3

Sorry, I wish I could help but instead I'm just going totally sparkly-eyed at your worldbuiding. *____*

...Yeah. If something bites me I'll warn you. Sorry ^^'

XD it's fine. i've been given a lot of great ideas already. Thank you, hon. ♥

Personnellement, Dian, moi ça ne me dérange pas du tout, surtout avec l'évolution des langues. Par exemple, en Russie, le nom Valérie est pour les hommes. Avec un AU, le switch du féminin peut être bien s'expliquer si la déesse en question, Dianne, qui représentait la chasse et la nature sauvage, avait une certaine importance (ce qui pourrait bien être le cas vu le passé avec les guerres de l'AU que tu essaies de créer). De plus ton perso pourrait soit ressentir sur certaine gêne de porter un nom originairement féminin, soit en tirer fierté et expliquer un peu son coté 'Don't care if I die, taking you down with me. Okay, that works fine'. Dans un sens, ton idée d'utiliser les nom des dieux pourrait presque s'expliquer par les guerres: les personnes ayant eu des bébés dans le début des guerres ont commencé à nommer leurs enfants avec des noms de dieux, surtout des dieux guériers et violents au début, pour protéger leurs enfant qui deviendront probalbment soldats, et ensuite, comme la mode étaient aux noms des dieux, les noms des dieux plus doux sont apparus eux aussi dans la société? Aussi, avec 500 ans de guerre, la société de ton AU a pu être presque totalement militarisée à une époque et ainsi, presque toutes les ressources humaines servaient d'une façon ou une autre à l'effort de guerre. Comme ton histoire se passe à la fin de la guerre, tes persos ont pu simplement rester dans l'esprit d'enrôlement presque à 100% sans trop se poser de questions vu que c'est tout ce que la société a connu ou presque. C'est maintenant toute la société qui se démilitarise et les choses ne sont pas sans problèmes.
J'avais pas l'intention d'écrire tout ça lol Les idées me venaient au fur et à mesure que j'écrivais.. J'espère que c'est pas prétentieux... Au pire, elles ne marcheront pas avec ce que tu avais prévu, mais si ça peut t'aider à débloquer un peu, bin tant mieux! k008 -xxxx-

....!!!!!!!!!! ♥

Je t'aiiiiiime T^T t'es géniale. *VOLE TOUT*

Okay, Dian it is. XD Dian Keller? XDDDD

^_^ Je suis vraiment contente d'avoir pu t'aider!!! Lol Dian pourrait genre être heureux de s'appeler Dian; il pourrait genre connaitre un gars qui s'appelle Arthémion pour le pendant grec de Diane, Arthémis XD

Je suis retournée voir tes vieux posts pour le nom de Duanne, je croyais que tu avais déjà pensé à un autre nom de famille, mais c'était sur le prénom que tu hésitais.. J'imagine que si tu trouves drôle Dian Keller c'est parce que tu trouves que ça fonctionne pas vraiment? Pour moi, ça sonne comme Helen Keller, la sourde muette et aveugle qui avait apris à parler lol Mais bon, Anderson me fait penser à la Matrice, so XD

Oh putain Arthémion, le pauvre gars. Je crois qu'il se ferait appeler Artie ou un autre diminutif, parce que whoa. XD (tu te rends compte que maintenant je me sens moralement obligée de créer un OC qui s'appelle Arthémion. mwahaha.)

Dian Keller ca fait un peu féminin, mais j'aime trop Keller comme nom. Moi aussi ca m'a fait penser à Helen Keller, mais c'est un nom de famille très répandu et si je raye tous les noms connus de ma liste j'aurai que des trucs superbizarre à la fin. XD Andersen aussi c'est très répandu dans son pays d'origine, donc bon.

Hahahaha XD Go Arthémion! Je sais pas si avec un nom comme ça il peut être super bad ass XD Les autres doivent pas le prendre trop au sérieux!

Pour les noms qui nous font penser à autre chose, souvent, c'est au début. Quand le perso prend vraiment vie, on oublie ce à quoi il nous fait penser et devient juste LUI! Je suis en train de lire un livre dont le perso principal s'appelle Mayet x_x Mais il est assez réaliste et intéressant pour qu'on finisse pas ne plus y penser! Parfois, même avec une personne qu'on rencontre, le nom nous parait étrange (j'avais un boss qui s'appelait Yuri.. quand on est dans l'univers des mangas, ça fait bizarre comme nom XD) mais avec le temps, la personne n'est plus son nom étrange, mais juste elle, et son nom et la chose étrange, même si elles sont les mêmes, deviennent deux choses distinctes! Tk.. C'est peut-être pas très clair, mais le principe est là XD

Un truc que j'avais bien aimé dans Starship troopers (j'adore ce film), c'était l'égalité entre les hommes et les femmes. Il n'y avait aucune différence, les femmes se battaient autant que les hommes (d'ailleurs, la rouquine - Didzie ? - elle kickait bien les ass), il n'y avait pas de baraque à part, les douches étaient même mixtes et tout le monde trouvait ça normal de se doucher tous ensemble dans une seule pièce (même pas de compartiments), ce qui me fait dire que ça doit aussi être pareil dans les écoles, bref être vraiment ainsi que leur société fonctionne... et ça se conçoit bien puisqu'une partie de celles et ceux qui s'engageaient le faisaient pour obtenir des droits, ou pour que ça aille plus vite. Faire son service X temps, c'était obtenir le statut de citoyen (tu ne nais donc pas avec, apparemment, et j'imagine que ça va de pair avec le droit de vote, etc. C'est qch que tu dois individuellement mériter. Est-ce que ça a été instauré avant ou à cause des attaques des insectes alien, je crois pas que ce soit précisé dans le film...). L'une des filles voulait être citoyenne pour obtenir le droit d'être enceinte (! et en même temps, maitrise de la population, des ressources, tout ça...), un autre voulait être de la politique il me semble...

Dans une société en guerre depuis si longtemps, à l'échelle mondiale, je pense qu'il paraît logique qu'il y ait eu cette abolition de la barrière homme/femme pour ne devenir que "soldat". (cf. aussi les Celtes, leurs femmes bastonnaient elles aussi parce qu'il le fallait bien). De même, je ne crois pas que tu aies à te prendre la tête pour des noms qui "sonneraient" trop ou pas assez féminins. C'est peut-être le cas à tes oreilles mais pas aux leurs, tout est une question de culture, hors c'est toi qui la fixe. Avec cette abolition de la différence entre sexe, les prénoms peuvent aussi tous devenir mixes avec le temps. (Et puis, hein ! Le prénom Laurence/Lawrence, il n'y a qu'en France qu'il est féminin ! Demande à un anglophone s'il trouve que ça fait fille ! Alors vraiment...)

Heu... j'ai perdu le fil de ma réflexion en court de route, sorry...

Au Québec aussi Laurence peut être féminin ou masculin, même chose pour Camille d'ailleurs ^.^ k008

So, what kind of war is it? Total war, war of annihilation, war of occupation, limited war, territorial war, holy war? What are the attitudes of the occupiers, the strategic planners? Do bombers fly around the clock from Halifax and Newfounland to bomb Elvish cities? Do tanks clash upon the Russian steppes? What is the technology, the weaponry? 500 years of war, nonstop, hard hitting, total devotion of resources would have utterly crippled the technology of the setting-Technology and populations might be at only WW1 levels at the most.

bwee! questions. ♥

Territorial war that's edged into annihilation war a couple times, but they managed to scale back somehow (or else there would never be lasting peace. XD;; ) As for the rest, I need to think about it more. But anyway the elves were way less numerous but still winning until the introduction of werebeasts on the human side managed to bring things in balance, so obviously they must have some kickass advantages on their side. Hmmm. *will ponder this most seriously*

Though a lot of our discoveries and inventions happened in times of war, and it wasn't nonstop warring either (they'd have warred themselves out of existence from sheer exhaustion before then), more like five years of open war here, ten or twenty years of cold war and tension there, so i don't think the tech level is going to be THAT crippled. Still, maybe some recent invention stuff would still be military-only... Hrrmm. That's a good thing to think about.

Ok, Territorial war. What happens to the humans in those territories? Displaced, occupied or something else? Maybe Gene therapy on the babies to make them all elves :P?

Elves typically don't do superior numbers, but they might conceivably be better at intelligence, training or maybe magical craftsmanship, letting them make superior metalcrafts and such. Given their long lifespans and how lifespan relates to other things in biology, you probably couldn't give an fantasy elf human diseases or poisons either-maybe they had chemical weapons.

People keep trotting out those 'discoveries and inventions in times of WAR' but really, when did aviation advance faster, the seven years before the Great War mk 2, the six years of the war itself, or the relative peace of the seven years after it? Because, if I recall correctly, most of the airplanes in use at the end of the war had only been drafted within a few months of the beginning. It's hard to change what factories are making in a large scale industrial war, because it takes time to change the tools to make things, and train people, and that means replacement parts and stuff stops making it to the people who need them. Then again, I know less about pre-industrial revolution stuff. Not sure how they work, but I think war pressures might be a bit of an impediment to the whole Industry thing itself.

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tyr story blatherings

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