Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

Anonymous asked: Brenneth and Crispin 16 if you don't mind. Love your work. :)

Listen I just want you all to know that I expected to get zero (0) asks for this, MAYBE one from a close friend or my mother or something who was trying to humor me.  And now I have Many.  Like eight all told.  I have no idea if this is just one really curious anon or if this story got popular but welcome to my kingdom, you may call me my liege.

16: Is there anyone who makes them feel inferior?

I mean, each other, tbh.  And they have understandable reasons for this, which doesn’t help their respective buckets of Problems.

So, Crispin’s reasons for thinking Brenneth is better than him are pretty plain and simple.  Crispin knows that he was the villain of their story, and as much as he might hate himself for it, he knows that Brenneth did the right thing.  He knows that–regardless of whether he was necessarily compos mentis at the time–he killed a lot of people and attempted a takeover, and Brenneth was the hero who came in to stop him, no matter the cost.  Beyond that, Crispin genuinely believes that Brenneth is a hero, talented and clever and stubborn and strong, and even though he has a very accurate grasp of his own skills and abilities, he’s always thought that Brenneth was severely underappreciated by the people around her.  This translated into more than one extremely ill-advised attempt to get her to side with him during his stint as the White Wolf.

And like moreover Brenneth won.  Brenneth isn’t just the hero, in Crispin’s mind, she’s the victor.  Obviously she’s better than him.

Brenneth, on the other hand, has very similarly logical (if…debatable) reasons for her feeling that Crispin is better than her.  First of all, she was passed over for the prophecy when they first arrived in Alleirat as kids, and that has an impact–Crispin was fated to be the great hero, according to the people who took them in, and Brenneth still feels some of that imposter syndrome, like she stole his title or cheated him out of it, even though he very much surrendered that right when he started murdering folk.  Second of all, flat-out Crispin was better in combat for much of their time fighting each other.  Like, it was an objective reality, he had trained as a warrior and a diplomat exclusively while Brenneth was both a blacksmith and a warrior.  No level of natural talent (and Brenneth is very talented) can make up for that kind of time devoted to practice.  Don’t get me wrong, she did a good job–she poisoned him once or twice, fought to the best of her ability when they clashed, tried to blind him one time–but Crispin was just having more success, better luck.  There was even a time where he believed he had successfully managed to kill her (and in his defense, stabbing someone in the chest and burying them alive in an avalanche does seem pretty foolproof).  By the end of their four years, the two of them were well-matched, almost perfectly equal in skill, but that time of knowing that Crispin was more competent left its mark.  Brenneth believes–erroneously, perhaps, but no one can prove her right or wrong–that if she was as good as Crispin, she would have been able to save him from himself.

Anonymous asked: Just wanted to wish you a good day! :)

This is the cutest motherfucking thing I’ve ever woken up to, anon babe you’re so pure what the fuck this is adorable.

I hope you have a good day too, anon.

Anonymous asked: Krei 5

I have like four asks for this ask meme I expected no one to do?  So I’m grouping them by character, here is Krei, everyone’s favorite Tree Lesbian.

5: List 3 fears; one “surface level” fear, one “repressed” fear, and one “deep dark” fear.

Um….

Surface level is that, ironically, Krei is afraid of fire.  She’s a plant worker and briatan, tree-folk, meaning that she has a bit of a hereditary stress about fire.  She herself isn’t flammable, no more so than your average human, but her instincts are kind of…jumpy about it.  So was her mother, but given that Torei died in a fire, Krei has some serious nerves about the stuff.  Both of them keep it pretty well on lock (sort of necessary working with a firesmith like Brenneth) and let other people light the campfire.

Repressed is a hard one to answer, because honestly Krei is pretty comfortable with herself.  Her people live a long time–Torei was almost 600 at the time of her death (some 50 years prior to the start of the novel), and would have lived longer if she hadn’t died defending a village against a grief-stricken firesmith–and are often very powerful, which comes with a societal expectation that they get their shit together.  That being said…I don’t know if this is going to make sense, but Krei is afraid that one day she’ll turn around and decide that her mother wasn’t enough family for her.  Torei died when Krei was about 100, which is young to lose a parent for a briata (also Torei had Krei older than most briatan have children), but moreover most families are medium-to-large in Alleirat.  Even if you assume a monogamous couple, as opposed to a poly constellation or an open relationship, you might have two parents, some children who might be biological or adopted (abandoning children is strictly verboten and a willing family is usually findable), and the amiasa or amdri (or both) of either or both parents, as well as grandparents and aunts and uncles and close family friends.  The word ‘family’ is pretty lax in Alleirat.  Krei’s family for most of her life was herself and her mother, with occasional but rare visits to Torei’s clan in the north forests.  Torei meant the world to Krei, and this fear that Torei might not have been enough family kind of haunts her.  There’s a word in Alleirai for ‘the amiasa of your parent’ and it means ‘more-than-uncle/aunt,’ and in theory Krei could use it as an affectionate term with Brenneth.  It takes her a long time to come around to the idea that it’s not a betrayal of her two-person family to extend that to another individual.

Krei’s deep dark fear, as cliche as this is going to sound, is failing to keep people safe.  Torei was a good mother, mostly kept her daughter from hearing the worst stories of the White Wolf, but Krei worshiped her mother, and the idea that even Torei and her mighty amiasa, the Fireheart herself, couldn’t save the Wolf’s victims instilled a conviction that failure is inevitable very early on.  Krei’s about 150 now and she’s mostly gotten over her angsty teenage phase where she harped on it more obsessively (like…her 60′s to 70′s were rough), but it still drives her.  She’s a very accomplished warrior, the captain of the latha, the elite guard of her city, but it chews her up every time someone dies on her watch.

28: Is there a certain type of person that disgusts them?

Well, traitors, if I’m being completely honest, which goes great with Crispin.  Krei plays nice with Brenneth on the subject of Crispin because it’s clear that Brenneth is upset, and treats him humanely when he’s her prisoner because Krei has a moral backbone like solid oak, but she’s kind of fundamentally appalled by him.  Not so much because he’s a killer–Krei has killed people, Alleirat still uses hangings, death isn’t a stranger to her–or even because he tried to take over, but she thinks of him as having betrayed his own kind.  She is not wrong about this–Crispin readily admits that he turned on his teachers, his comrades, his countrymen, and his best friend when he became the White Wolf–but it’s more complicated than that.  The fact that that loyalty and betrayal aren’t always clearly delineated, and that someone can be forced from one to the other against their will, is kind of a major plot point.  Shiko is loyal…to a terrible person.  Crispin turned traitor against good people, but because he felt like it was the only way to fulfill a task that had been set before him since childhood.  Brenneth is loyal to Crispin past the point of reason.  The complexities of loyalty are sort of A Thing here, and Krei’s ride-or-die loyalty hangup (which she shares with her mother) is something of a wrench in the gears.

Anonymous asked: Shiko 36

Another ask for the ask meme I did not expect anyone to do!

For those of you Not Up To Date, Shiko is my poor necromancer who starts out as the villain of my Alleirat story.

36: Are they in control of their emotions, or are their emotions in control of them?

Ha ha, um?  Depends on the emotion.  Now, Shiko grew up as a trans girl in a Japanese family.  I have More Research lined up and if anyone was comfortable talking to me about life as a trans person in Japan, I’d be thrilled, but I’m making the radical leap that life as a trans person anywhere comes with a certain degree of learning emotional control to not shiv ignorant morons every other day (extrapolated from being a butch queer in a small town as well as various conversations with my trans friends).  More to the point, Shiko’s life on Earth often left her feeling very isolated for a number of reasons, which has led her to a good degree of control over her emotions as she doesn’t like to be seen to be upset or distressed.  So anger, sadness, etc, not so much–she’s very good at tactical thinking and resisting the immediate impulse to do something to ‘resolve’ the emotion unless she decides it’s a good idea objectively.

That being said, Shiko doesn’t respond well to fear, specifically fear of the unknown, and will immediately grasp at any option  that she feels will give her some control over an unknown situation–like for example winding up in a strange world where no one speaks English or Japanese and she can see ghosts.  Pretty much Shiko’s response to that sort of event is whatever she feels will give her some understanding and control…with absolutely no thought for what it might result in.

This is the source of like 95% of her problems.  The other 5% is caused by buff tree women.

Anonymous asked: Moran, have you seen John Wick 1 or 2? And if you have, what are your thoughts/feelings on the ball of angry Keanu Reeves plays?

I have seen John Wick and very much want to see John Wick 2 because I will tell you a few things that are very important to me:

• Angry Keanu Reeves

• Beautifully choreographed fight scenes

• Dogs!  (Yes a dog dies and it’s very sad but he gETS ANOTHER DOG, headcanon that John Wick is the only assassin in the world who has 15 dogs at home, they’re all beautiful and incredibly well cared for and he loved them all very much.)

• Beautifully choreographed fight scenes iN SUITS

• Honestly Keanu Reeves in general?  I like him a lot.  I was introduced to Bill & Ted very young and have not been able to figure out what the fuck people’s issue with him is since then.  I recommend Constantine for more gratuitous Keanu Reeves violence with intricate underworlds and good one-liners.  Constantine is one of my top five favorite movies and I’m actually weirdly into the theology in it.

• Complex networks of underground criminal enterprises with Rules (and God save you if you break The Rules)

• Literally any form of media in which the main character is the best and most competent person in any given room, and which isn’t afraid to embrace that wholeheartedly (I really dislike the concept of a character being ‘too competent’ but that’s a separate rant)

• Neutral ground hotels/bars/whatever

• The moment on the phone with the Russian mob boss where he’s very angry that someone dared to hit his (useless) son, and he’s told that the guy killed John Wick’s dog and took his car, and the mob boss just goes very silent for a moment before he says “Oh”

So anyway I love that movie it’s very fun and I like movies with a lot of gratuitous detail in their criminal empires.  Also apparently Keanu Reeves trained for John Wick at the same time that Charlize Theron was training for Atomic Blonde (I haven’t even seen that movie yet but I can already tell you: we could make a religion out of that) and they sparred a lot during that time period.

Anonymous asked: I have a question about Alleirat. You've mentioned that the society isn't advanced enough for HRT and such (yes I read your tags please don't shame me) is it because they have a heavier reliance on magic? So that the advances we've made with technology would be substituted with a magical alternative? Sorry for the bother,

My dude, I write more tag than post sometimes, far be it from me to shame you for reading my tags.

And yes, you are correct!  Alleirat isn’t very developed technologically speaking–they have gravity-driven indoor plumbing, but only a basic system, and clockwork (like…clocks for example, I guess), but it would just never occur to them to do something like build an internal combustion engine because they have magic to perform the same job.  Horses (as well as most other fauna) is stronger, more resilient, and longer-lived (also often bigger) due to the high concentration of magic in the world, so short-distance travel is easily accomplished either on foot or on horseback.  For long-distance travel (Alleirat as a continent is maybe a little smaller than Russia?), they have what they call kathen, or ‘gates’ (like a magic door, basically), which are controlled and manipulated by teams of specifically trained magic workers who literally cannot do other types of magic.  Kathen can’t transport large amounts of cargo because the opening can rarely be made larger than maybe a set of double doors, so shipments are often accomplished by sailing ships or overland caravans.

Medically speaking, again, they’re heavily reliant on magic.  A specific kind of magic worker called a flesh worker serves as a universal healer, but that does mean that there are some logistical limitations in comparison to our own medically advanced society.  A flesh worker can repair the damage from a sword wound to the chest or even kill a cancer with a thought, yeah, but the idea of an organ transplant, a limb reattachment, or even a blood transfusion just wouldn’t occur to them.  So a flesh worker (re: the HRT thing) might be able to increase one hormone or decrease another, but it would be a wicked precarious arrangement far less manageable than our medically accomplished version.  Likewise, a flesh worker might be able to perform the equivalent of top surgery (or, if you went to one of the less legal flesh workers, actually alter the bone structure of your face) but…there are a lot of limitations there.  Moreover, they don’t have the equipment to even start to approach some of this stuff–like, a flesh worker does all their healing with their bare hands, they don’t exactly keep sterile needles around for blood transfusion.

…I’ve put a reasonable amount of thought into this.

Anonymous asked: Brennth 13

…I 274% did not expect anyone to actually do this ask meme.

But yes!  Let’s do the thing!

13.  Which of the 7 Deadly Sins best describes them?

It’s a strong tossup between Wrath and Greed tbh.  

Wrath because…Brenneth is angry and she has been for eighteen years, since Crispin showed up in her forge with blood on his hands and an offer to come with him.  Brenneth is angry A Lot, there are days where she wakes up and the taste of fury is already on her tongue, and when they turn her loose to go back to battle, she is so, so grateful.  Her chest burns hotter every moment, and the magic of the white fire thrives off her anger.

Greed because Brenneth wants her world and her home and her smithy and her people and her city and her Crispin and her sword.  Brenneth looks at the world as being ‘mine’ and ‘not mine’ and all of Alleirat is hers and she spends fourteen years on Earth where her first thought of every morning and her last thought of every night is a greedy craving to stand in the Alleirai sun and look over the Talein Mountains and see the twin moons rise.  She wants to go home to Alleirat and she wants Crispin to be there with her, free and clear, and she couldn’t give less of a damn about the word ‘impossible.’  Fire is a greedy master.

She would not have called herself particularly wrathful nor particularly avaricious, back before the White Wolf.  She thinks of that girl as very naive.

Anonymous asked: Happy Barricade Day!

Originally posted by hetaeria

That’s the spirit, guys.

Nothing could possibly go wrong here.

*pulls out bottle of wine* Wake me when it’s my turn to die.

Anonymous asked: Fucking Wonder Woman. I'm dying. Im dead. I'm so gay. I literally gasped outloud and went "I'm gay" during many times in the movie and when Diana looks at Ares and said "Goodbye Brother" AND THEN WRECKED HIS FUCKING SHIT I STARTED CRYING I AM IN LOVE HELP

Some real tags I have used in Wonder Woman posts:

• i would let her cut my head off with her axe 
  
• GOSH i’m queer 
  
• BENCH PRESS ME *coughs awkwardly* i mean gosh what lovely ladies i bet they’re all delightful to converse with
  
• ANTIOPE IS GAY I DON’T MAKE THE RULES I JUST ENFORCE THEM
  
• MY QUEEN MY GODDESS MY INSPIRATION 
• I LIVE FOR THIS EXACT SHIT
  
• I ALMOST SCREAMED IN THE FUCKING THEATER
  
• diana is so hot guys i don’t even know how to live with this 
• she lifted the tank above her head and i stopped breathing it was fucking good as fuck 
• and like the scene of her crossing no man’s land made me cry like the victory loving dumbfuck gryffindor asshole that i am 
• help i am dead @amazons carry me off to themyscira
  

So basically what I’m saying is: yes, you’re correct, and GOSH I’m queer.

Bonus tags regarding Steve Trevor/Diana:

what was that tag i made the other day honestly if steve isn’t desperately breathlessly guilt ridden for bringing war to diana THEN WHAT EVEN IS THE POINT​ THIS yes that was the tag i’m so gratified that we all agree on this otp: when there isn’t a war OH YOU BETTER BELIEVE THAT’S MY OTP TAG GET THE FUCK ON BOARD WITH THIS MISERY EXPRESS

Anonymous asked: Hi! I would just like to tell you that Alleirat is based on ideas/tropes that I find absolutely fascinating (your Evil Nemesis becomes your friend/ally? Trying to adjust after the end of a portal fantasy? Actual diverse fantasy? Loving someone but not saying anything because you are So Unworthy? my exact jam I tell you.) and the snippet was really great! I would be most happy to pay to read the whole thing at some stage if that's the plan?

HONESTLY THIS IS SO GOOD TO HEAR MY DUDE BECAUSE I JUST OVERHAULED MY WHOLE LIFE TO FINISH THIS NOVEL AND START PUBLISHING MY WORK (starting with this one and then probably Alleirat), THIS WAS EXACTLY WHAT I NEEDED TO HEAR TO LOWER MY FUCKING HEART RATE.

On a less panicky note, I’m so glad to hear that this is other people’s exact jam because ALLEIRAT IS MY EXACT JAM.  I’m just so Tired of reading shitty redemption arcs or black and white morality or the Narnia plotline where you Outgrow The Magic, this novel (like…all my novels tbqh) is pure spite distilled over years of aggravation.  All my novels are total self-gratification and it’s so SO amazing to be told that I’m not the only person enjoying the hell out of these tropes and concepts.

And yes!  The plan is to actually publish that motherfucker at some point!  I actually write…really fast, so I will keep all y’all posted on any and all developments re: publishing and agents and stuff, and it would be amazing if people actually bought my stuff!  

I love you guys so much, oh my god, I’m actually tearing up a little rn.