#Athian don't

[phoenixiancrystallist]

Month 3, day 25

The birbnado (birb tornado) may not have worked with the rotational symmetry tool as well as the sunburst lines did, but I managed to finagle the tool into working well enough I only have to draw half the birbs instead of the full circle of them :D

"Horizontal rotational symmetry" sounds like absolute bullshit, though :P

[cruelfeline]

Entries like this make me think about the Athians' devotion to their Tantas, their complete faith in them.

It's disturbing to me, in a way. Like... I'm fairly certain that the Tantas are written to be truly benevolent, wonderful rulers. I think that's the intent... but I just can't trust it. I can't accept the idea of having so few people with such immense power ruling over everyone else. Like making a handful of humans the equivalent of gods and hoping for the best. I don't trust it, and what happens to Athia really summarizes why.

Even if the Tantas are truly good, uncorrupted people, they're still vulnerable to other forms of corruption. There are still ways for them to turn their powers on the populace, and once that happens, that's it. There's no protection. There's no safety. Having such wildly powerful rulers means that the population is utterly at their mercy. No one can fight them. No one can stop them.

So the result is a whole country of people that is essentially hobbled. They're fully dependent on their Tantas and kind of okay with it. When said Tantas lose themselves, it's all the people can do to survive; they certainly can't fight back. The best they can do is hole up in Cipal and hope they can appease the Tantas as needed. They dont even entertain the hope of saving themselves.

Hell, I'd venture to say that that's why they lean so hard on Frey, once they accept her. She's their Tanta replacement. She's the new sorceress that will fix things for them. And if she fails, they continue to hide in their city, too devoted to their Tantas and too overpowered by them to think of doing anything else.

It's kind of chilling, honestly.

[cuervolyx]

💧for Eunyeong please. :D

💧- Is your OC anti-war in some sort of way

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"And ends this night's segment of The House of the Hill. Come back next week for another episode of this show," the radio said as it cut to static.

"I thought you said this drama was stupid?" Eunyeong chuckled as she saw her brother constantly looking over at the radio. He rolled his eyes as he finally finished cooking dinner. Eunyeong laughed at his reaction. 

"For once, something you like caught my interest. What the fuck is even happening?" He asked. Eunyeong grimaced. She wasn't too fond of cuss words, and her parents didn't want her to learn those words in their native language.

"Umm. Oh, Nanoko is dating Otoko right? Supposedly, Nanoko is from a poor family, but she's actually really wealthy. Otoko then started seeing Yujin behind Nanoko's back! And Yujin knows that he is in a relationship with Nanoko, but she wants to steal him!" Eunyeong explained. Eunkyu smiled as he began to laugh. 

"Ah, so another "got cheated on, so I got revenge" type of love story. You're so obsessed with those types of stories," Eunkyu laughed. Eunyeong pouted. She was not obsessed! She just enjoyed that particular plot. It doesn't matter that it was the only plot she's been listening to! Before she could say anything else, they were interrupted by loud beepings. It came from the radio.

"Huh? Is it the World News with that Kisha woman? It's so late at night, what else is there to say?" Eunyeong asked as she turned the volume higher. Eunkyu shrugged.

"Good evening to our glorious Empire, recently there has been good developments of this war as the frontlines report advancement into Nisara. There was heavy casualty on both sides and of civilians. However, the advancement of the army is good news to us all," the woman on the radio spoke.

"Turn it off," Eunkyu said. Eunyeong nodded as she did what her brother told her "Why would she say that? Who cares if the army won? People who weren't fighting were killed for no reason!" Eunyeong shouted. She hated everything about this announcement. She could feel her heart beating heavily.

"It doesn't matter to these people. All Athians are the same. They're happy to kill if it means they get what they want," Eunkyu hissed. Eunyeong clutched onto her skirt. She sighed as she wondered how often they needed to talk about this!

"Not all are like that and you know it. Does it even matter? The war should have never happened in the first place!" Eunyeong shouted. She was tired of this! She had friends who were Athians and agreed that the war was only causing harm.

"It would have never happened if the people here did not look down on us! They are using that as an excuse to attack Nisara. Then again, you never noticed it at all," Eunkyu said as he turned to finish putting the food onto the plates. Their parents would be home soon, and he was expected to prepare the table.

"What do you mean I never noticed?! Of course, I know that! Don't think I never had to face anything like that before! If you stopped fighting with everyone, no one would hurt you!" Eunyeong was getting tired of this. She was tired of being treated like a child who knew nothing. She wasn't five! She was twelve now!

"You barely faced anything because you bow down to them. You happily speak their language, eat their food, and dress like them. Mom even told me you skipped out on the New Year's ceremony," Eunkyu said. Eunyeong did not like how calm his voice was. She knew it was good to hear calmness in his voice, but her heart knew something was eerily wrong with the tone of his voice.

"I-I skipped because I wanted to hang out with my friend. It was her birthday," she whispered. She began to wonder about everything else he said. What did he mean by that? "Anyways, was this war? Why did you guys leave Nisara?"

"Yes and no. The war caused the economy to fall drastically and mom and dad didn't want to raise their family in a country in such a state. They would have stayed otherwise," Eunkyu said. He put the plates on the table, avoiding eye contact with Eunyeong.

Eunyeong wanted to ask about his earlier comment, but she knew it was better to drop it. At least there was one thing they agreed on: the war needed to end. It was unnecessary and stupid. People are being killed for no reason. Eunyeong wondered if the war would ever truly end and what would need to happen for it to end. All she can hope is that the war will end peacefully.

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As you can tell, this is not the usual response I tend to give. I was already working on this short story before I got this ask. I thought the short story responded to this ask, so I just used it. Admittedly, it was supposed to be way longer, but I get side tracked easily so I didn't go more into details on certain things. Sorry, if this was bad. I don't have too much experience with creative writing since I am still stuck with using academic writing.

Oh, when i comes to the names of the other people. It really is the name that describes their role. They are not even names haha. Either way, I would need to go into deeper context in the future to answer the question Eunyeong asked herself.

Thank you for the ask! As usual, I enjoyed working on this response and the art I created for it! I wasn't expecting Eunyeong to get an ask, but it was so much fun to work on her as well as work on dynamic between her and her brother!

[neep-neep-neep]

the first time out of nowhere when they are eating terrible food or reading together that Auden says "you know that you are not just my friend, Frey? You are my family" and Frey doesn't hear it for several moments and then she does.

the book is open in front of her and yet the Athian script letters don't spell anything. the only word cascading through her heart and memories is family. not with 'foster' in front of it. not with any modifiers. family. repeated over and over until it becomes just sounds and almost doesn't feel like a word anymore family.

There are droplets on the page. there are tears in Frey's eyes. Auden has stood up and crossed to her side of the table to put a hand on her shoulder. When Frey pushes her head into Auden's stomach like a child Auden wraps her in the circle of her arms. Like comfort and kindness is where Frey belongs.

family. family. family.

[yunatheintrovert]

Rheddig Banner or Athian Banner?

I was looking through the archive entries. And specifically, in the archive entry titled "Remnants of the Rheddig", there was a picture of a tattered war banner.

We don't see the entirety of the banner. But we're able to make out a few details, like the color being red and the animal symbol being some sort of bird (likely an eagle?). At first, I thought this was maybe a war banner of Praenost considering the color being red and Praenost being mentioned in the archive entry. Either that or a banner of Avaolet (who was also mentioned) but Avaolet's colors usually are blue-ish. And the symbol on the banner doesn't match up exactly with the symbols of the Tanta's realms on the Forspoken game map.

Although, I can't exactly make out what Avoalet's symbol is supposed to be due to how my eyesight is. Plus, it could very well be possible that the Tantas' realms used a different symbol on their war banners in the second war with the Rheddig.

[phoenixiancrystallist]

Month 3, day 29

As much as I am 100000% positive I could make the font look more how I want it to, I don't really want to put that much effort in. The text I had still looked good, I still like it a lot, I just thought I could do better. And I can! But I want this on a shirt way more than I want to clean up the text design at this point, so I think tomorrow I'll upload the old text design to TeePublic so I can finally have my "This is a shirt" shirt lol

[phoenixiancrystallist]

Month 3, day 24

@silentspaces is a GENIUS and reminded me in our Discord group chat that radial symmetry tools exist which made doing the lines SO MUCH EASIER!!!

Unfortunately the birb ring doesn't really work with that tool since it's off-center and fills the whole canvas, but that's okay, because I'm less likely to go cross-eyed and/or get a headache tracing over all of them :)

[phoenixiancrystallist]

Month 7, day 20, happy moon landing day!

In other news, I added a sprinkling of new characters today! A, O, S, k, p, and : 😊

Tomorrow I plan to translate the Strength, Justice, and familiar monuments to get a bit more of my capital letter roster fleshed out (mostly from the familiar monuments; you'll see what I mean when I post the translations ;3 ). The lowercases are probably going to be hard to come by on these plinths, unfortunately, so I'll have to free-hand them with reference to the books and Cuff scans.

[phoenixiancrystallist]

Anybody else get random Olevia Lives AU brainworms that won't get out of their head until they get written down or is that just a me thing?

(Translation below the cut as usual)

Cuff: May I confess something to you?

Olevia: What is it?

Cuff: I need your complete confidence. You cannot breathe a word of this to anyone. Especially not Frey. Do you promise?

Olevia: I promise.

Cuff: Thank you. *deep breath* I love her.

Olevia: Well, yeah, I knew that.

Cuff: Hush, I'm not done yet.

Olevia: *giggles*

Cuff: If I could, I would take Frey and run. Run far, far away, away from Athia, away from Rheddah. Run so far and so fast that nothing can ever hurt her again, so I can be free to stand beside her.

Olevia: Why can't you do that now?

Cuff: Because I am not free. And I never will be. If Frey lets me go, then Rheddah will reclaim me. And I will be forced to kill her. To kill you. I can't bear that, little one. I love you both too much. But I won't have any choice. I won't be able to stop myself. But if I take her and run far, far away, so far that Rheddah can't find me, maybe...

Olevia: ...what about me?

Cuff: Hmm?

Olevia: Can I come, too?

Cuff: You love Frey that much? Enough to leave everything you've ever known behind?

Olevia: You do.

Cuff: Hmm, I suppose I do. Well, now, I suppose, since I've come to know you, and seeing as I love you, too, I'd like to take you with me as well. Since you asked, and all.

[phoenixiancrystallist]

Month 3, day 28

WHOO DUCKY the font is gonna take a hot minute to nail down. Just doing the first T took me half an hour lol. But I'll get faster as I get used to the technique and also I can just copy/paste the h,i, and s once I have those done

[phoenixiancrystallist]

Month 3, day 18

Working on cleanup for the shirt design! Blocked out the letters with their background shapes and color so all the lines are nice and crisp and go where I want them to 🥰

[cruelfeline]

Thinking about how much Athian culture has likely been lost due to the Break.

Clothing styles people had to leave behind and can no longer produce due to lack of resources. Written works that may have been deteriorated over time. Day-to-day things, like pottery designs and murals painted on cottage walls and decorative spoon handles.

And food! Gosh, think of all the dishes, all the family recipes, that are just gone because 99% of the population that made them died. And those who are left don't have access to the ingredients with which to make them. Think of Avoalet being known for its seafood cuisine... totally gone now because where do you get fish in Cipal?

All of the children born post-Break, even if born to refugee parents, have never seen the places their parents came from. They've never had access to the goods their parents used to practice their culture. They can't even be taught how. I mean... how do you pass on grandma's famous crab cake recipe when there haven't been any crabs for twenty years? How do you teach the family method for making beautiful Junoon necklaces when there's nothing to make them out of? How do you train your kid in the ways of training amazing Visorian sheepdogs when all of the dogs are dead because Cipal didn't need and couldn't house them?

So much is just gone. And the current generation doesn't even know what's been lost because they never had it in the first place. Only the older generation knows, but they're slowly dying out. And slowly forgetting, as more effort has to be expended on simple daily survival.

It's to the point that, even if Frey succeeds in ending the Break, I wonder if Athia will ever be the country it once was.

[cruelfeline]

By the by: I and 100% certain that Frey was pissed about the Athian G and X while learning the alphabet.

I know this because I am pissed about the Athian G and X.

Cuff: No, that letter makes the "g" sound. Try again. Frey: But why? It looks like an X. It should be X!" Cuff: Don't be ridiculous. X looks like this. Frey: ...are you fucking kidding me?!

[cruelfeline]

The mausoleum is like... such a point of intrigue for me.

Why is it so big? It doesn't house bodies, right? The graveyard does. And souls don't take up much space, right? So what gives? I honestly kept thinking it was the council building on my first playthrough, it's such a central fixture. But it's not. It's this huge structure that houses... nothing? I have no idea. Frey never gets to go inside it, after all.

The fact that it pre-dates Cipal is likewise interesting. Makes me think that Cipal was built here because of the mausoleum, rather than anything else. And if that's the case, then I wonder if the Tantas' meetings on this "neutral ground" are more aimed at visiting this particular structure, than anything else.

Given its involvement with Athian souls, is it linked to Svargana somehow? Is it linked to how the Tantas' magic works?

Is it possible, perhaps, that it's where the Tantas go to "recharge"? Is it part of why Cipal stands uncorrupted within the Break?

The crazy-headcanon part of me wants to consider Athia's "natural" cycle: people and creatures and born and die, their souls amassing in the mausoleum to be funneled into the store of energy that the Tantas feed off of. Not quite the human sacrifice that birthed Cuff Cuffington Holland III, but essentially a "kinder" version of it. Because wouldn't that be a messed up thing for Cinta to one day reveal to Frey?

"Our magic... our strength... we subsist on Athia's dead."

"...I'm sorry, the fuck!?"

":3" <- Cuff

[cruelfeline]

Because I am Totally Normal about this game and its characters, I spent the better part of my free time today considering Cuff's senses; namely, his sight.

It's occurred to me, after thinking about various dialogues and in-game situations, that I don't think he can actually see anything on his own. At least not, like, in terms of our concept of vision.

Cuff can sense things. His "compass" ability seems to work almost like a sort of echolocation, except with tiny birds instead of sound. And he appears to have some ability to sense magic, or power. He can, for example, sense the power of some of the necklaces Frey puts on and says as much. He can likewise sense the power in the Breakshards Frey collects after battle.

Actual sight, however, is different. And it's initially a little hard to pin down because, in certain circumstances, he appears very much able to see things that have no magical signature he could otherwise sense.

He can read, for one thing. At the beginning of the game, Frey cannot read Athian, but Cuff can, and so he reads things for her (while also teaching her, which I find perpetually precious!). Clearly, he is able to see with enough clarity that he's able to accurately make out Athian letters and words. He does this with generic signs and books: nothing that might have some sort of magic he could sense and decipher. It's all just plain old written script.

He can take note of various enemy characteristics, commenting positively or negatively on their appearances. He can see the paintings Frey finds on her journey and comments on them, too.

Then, of course, they're this fun example:

Essentially: Cuff appears able to visually see things when he needs to.

So! Why do I think he can't see on his own? And what, exactly, does that mean?

Well, take a dialogue like this:

Besides being deeply endearing to me, it's also quite interesting in that it appears to imply that Cuff is totally unaware of his currently very small surroundings. Frey and Cuff are in a Pilgrim's Refuge. It's a small space. There's not really anywhere for anything to hide. An enemy would be exceedingly easy to see. So why is Cuff momentarily panicked and asking Frey if there's something there?

Furthermore, why does Cuff, in various battle-related dialogues, ask Frey if they're surrounded, or how many enemies there are? A simple glance around would tell him, wouldn't it?

My personal headcanon is that Cuff sees through Frey's eyes. We know, after all, that he senses what she senses via the following:

What I believe, however, is that he only does so when he specifically focuses on the action. It's not automatic; he has to expend some effort and concentration in order to do it.

It would explain why he's able to do something like read to her: she's already looking closely at the text, and so he's able to reach through their connection and access her own sight. Same thing with something like the tower: she sees it, and he's able to briefly reach out and see it with her.

In other situations, it's simply not convenient or viable for him to look through her eyes. In sudden combat, it's quicker to ask if they're surrounded than to access her sight. It may also be a matter of... how to say... the stability of the image. If Frey is focused on reading and is looking at words on a page, her vision is more stable than if she is in battle, eyes flicking from place to place. In said battle scenario, it may be quite disorienting for Cuff to borrow her eyes, so it's easier for him to ask. Not to mention something like combat featuring much more stress and activity, hampering the concentration that may be needed for accurate sight-borrowing on very immediate notice. Especially if Cuff is more focused on, say, scanning or guarding.

In terms of the moment with the torana-teasing: I expect that, safe in a Refuge, he relaxed a bit and wasn't focused on gleaning information from Frey's vision. When he heard her supposedly opening a torana, he assumed there was an enemy immediately near and either felt he didn't have time to reach through their connection or - amusingly - was too panicked to focus enough to do so. Thus, he asks Frey if there's something there.

This is all just speculative, of course. But it makes sense to me! It offers what I feel is a reasonable explanation for why Cuff seems perfectly able to see at certain times, yet appears totally unaware of his surroundings at others.

It's also just... interesting to me. That this could be yet another way that he's so reliant on Frey. That without her, he's limited in what exactly he can sense and identify and interact with. To his perpetual frustration, I'm sure!

[cruelfeline]

The usage of 'abomination' has such a gross feel because it's not really about insulting Susurrus' actions or purpose or affiliations, it's stating that his existence is what's wrong, the fact that he was even made at all.

Whether it's because of who/what did it or the method, it's the part of Susurrus that's completely beyond his control— he didn't ask to exist, nothing does, and by painting that as a fault in itself you're basically ruling out any potential for growth or redemption in a person because they can't escape the sin of their birth.

Which is... not cool (even if the sentiment can be understandable due to Sus' actions. Tbh, I don't think it would have the same feeling if the dlc didn't flaunt how ignorant Cuff was of both himself and the Rheddig— it would have felt less uncomfy [and interesting] following his attack on Cipal, and from someone directly affected. Very different coming from a distant Rheddig Tanta after Cuff's last major action in the plot was being distressed over dying. Fun stuff)

I also think he likes being called a demon because it comes with prestige and connotations of power, but abomination doesn't. An abomination is an error by nature, and that clashes pretty hard with Susurrus' proclaimed sense of self.

(I wish we got more lore on what the term 'demon' even means to Athians— demons could be anything from 'malicious, evil spirit' to 'a catch-all term for various powerful supernatural entities', but we don't really know for sure. Other than Susurrus, early game Frey, and sheep, does anything else get called a demon?)

You're exactly right. It gives this implication that his very existence is somehow wrong. Like he shouldn't be allowed to live not because of anything he did, but because of something that is entirely outside his control. It paints him as lesser, somehow. As dirty, in a way. And yes, that's why it feels so gross.

If it came from a Cipalian after the attack, it would feel more like a reaction to his actions, which makes it less jarring. But as it's said? It absolutely feels like his personhood and right to live are being questioned.

I do expect he takes pride in being called a demon! Thr associated power and prestige appeal to him. After all... they're kind of all he has, y'know? His power is all he really has to take pride in. At least, until Frey c:

And I'm not sure exactly what "demon" means in this world. So far, I've been taking it as "powerful supernatural entity," but who knows?