#and jettie lore

[kassy1011doodles]

"Let's make a deal."

They didn't really get along well when they first met.

 Also fun fact Jetty's zekko hoodie isn't his. He stole it from an inkling for a quick disguise when he went to Inkopolis.

[jettiebettie]

So, in an attempt to inflict tokusatsu onto more of my friend group, I promised an old buddy of mine that I'd watch JJK if she watched Geats.

It's been a hell of a week, let me tell ya.

[bluepoodle7]

#Househuntedgame #LuxAbode #JettyShanty #MyOcs #InfectedRealtorAU #MyLore

I need to ink these later if I have time.

I drew Lux Abode hand walking with ffuP while looking at these clip arts as a pose refs.

The hollow star anise protects her pin with her necklace.

Clipart of a Cartoon Uncertain Brunette Caucasian Business Woman Walking on Her Hands - Royalty Free Vector Illustration by Johnny Sajem #1315515

Premium Vector | The dog walks on its front legs training and education of pets flat vector illustration eps10 (freepik.com)

Chinese Star Anise | Whole Star Anise Price | Star Anise Spice | Beanilla

If you want to make a infected realtor oc with a fungmammal you can just credit me for the mutualism fugus shaped animal idea.

I would love to see what people come up with.

Some fungmammals can be mutualism, commensalism and parasitism.

But it's randomized.

Lux Abode has a mutualism fungmammal named ffuP and is a poodle shaped fungus. (ffuP acts female but is mushroom gendered.)

Sprouted on October 31 1980

Lux Abode's voice canon is QueenBlaze. Her voice fits her very well. Video not mine but link is there.

Daily Dose Of Internet | With a side of Mammoth Meatballs - YouTube

Jetty Shanty has a commensalism fungmammal named Squeep and is a seagull shaped fungus. (Squeep acts male but is mushroom gendered.)

Sprouted on September 19 1985

Jetty's Voice Canon

Video not mine but link is there.

Kennyboyboyd compilation #funny - YouTube

This is Squeep's amphibious boat car prop item that can be driven on both land and sea.

This prop item is for Jetty Shanty wanted to use for his boat tour business in the uncanny valley. Jetty also like to find broken items in landfills or in the ocean to fix and clean up to resale as either gifts or things people need. 

Jetty drew the car first then Squeep did the rest.

Jetty calls this amphibious car the SeaKat and it's like a off model 770 amphibious car.

The cat head shaped back license plate is supposed to be a number version on the word fish.

Jetty Shanty has a commensalism fungmammal named Squeep and is a seagull shaped fungus.

What I based Squeep's prop item on a aquatic car for Jetty's boat tour on.

Video not mine but link is there.

First mass-produced amphibious car | Vintage - YouTube

Lux Abode's first full name is Luxate but shorts it to lux.

She also gets vertigo if she stands right side up for a long period of time so she flips herself upside down.

And also hand walks like this when no one is looking.

It's normal since her house is upside down.

Clipart of a Cartoon Uncertain Brunette Caucasian Business Woman Walking on Her Hands - Royalty Free Vector Illustration by Johnny Sajem #1315515

Only the drivers seat in Lux's prop item bootleg upside down Toyota Previa is upside down but for the uber like people she drives around it's right side up for them.

She gets paid in offerings like food or money. Maybe shiny things.

The prop bootleg previa is a different color to the people looking at it but to Lux it's ffuP's colors.

If you don't give her a offering or try you leave without paying she will lock the van, then drive to a obscure location, and chill up the prop item van then eat you there.

All fungmammals phoresis their infected realtor hosts.

The props can be anything even make monster's if you want but if destroyed it will return to the fungmammal or spread as spores to make more of them.

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A infected realtor with a Parasitism fungmammals will beg the fungmammal to make their abandoned and beat up houses to be more presentable to get a buyer or another realtor's attention by adding more spores to their housebody to change it to be more extravagant.

The parasitism realtor's appearance and outfit looks disheveled or homeless looking.

They tend to be the easiest ones to know if they are infected and are first to be destroyed.

These are pretty rare to see out and about since most just hibernate in their house bodies.

Parasitism realtor's tend to eat more inorganic life and mostly eat trash when times are tough which is bad for their house bodies.

The other infected realtor's tend to warn the parasitism realtor's more often then mutualism and commensalism realtors.

Parasitism realtor's tend to feel like they always have low blood sugar and stumble on words a lot. And also have brain fog and forget their dialogue speech or quirk they have.

If a Parasitism realtor dies the fungmammal moves on to their next host by the card they randomly give to other non infected realtor's.

Basically what Parasitism realtor's be like.

Image not mine but link is there.

SpongeBob "Where Do the Years Go" | Know Your Meme

Yeah the Parasitism one's don't care for their host like the other two and will just move on to the next host.

I would call this realtor population control but I'm not sure.

All Fungmammals love water and love to swim. They also use this to socialize with telepathy but mostly talk about their host, things to eat, weird things they see/smell, and cool places to hide from enemies.

The first ability a fungmammal gives a host is swimming.

========================

I kind of want to make a Parasitism realtor that is a nonmobile mobile home but has a quokka fungmammal is the parasite. (Movil Koti) he has a parasite fungmammal shaped like a Quokka named Quirk but is nicknamed Peaches by the other infected realtors.

Móvil (Spanish for Mobile when on google translate.) Koti (Finnish Home on google translate)

=========================

Images not mine but link are there.

1,300+ Mobile Home Park Illustrations, Royalty-Free Vector Graphics & Clip Art - iStock | Trailer home, Mobile home, Rv park (istockphoto.com)

Can You Have a Quokka as a Pet? - Conservation of Quokkas (animalwised.com)

Hungry parasitism realtor's tend to be where food and non food items are thrown away or in alley ways at anytime of the day but mostly at night.

But if you are there they act zombie like. If you are a non infected realtor then they like to sneak up on you and bite the lure cord.

Sometimes a parasitism realtor's house could just be a big trash can but house shaped.

You can hurt them with weapons and it does damage their lure bodies a little bit. These realtor's are slow to healing.

The props items that get made are kind of cheaply made.

A parasitism realtor would have a business card but it would be hard to read, crumbled up, kind of ripped up, and nasty.

These cards don't last very long.

These realtor's avoid being captured so they won't be experimented on or killed by being frozen then put in acid.

The parasitism fungmmamal will flee if the host gets captured and they feel like a normal realtor again but are often killed when a realtor feels better.

The parasitism fungmammal will refuse to bring their previous host back and just jump to the next realtor for their next meal.

It's usually a few of these around.

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Mutualism and commensalism realtor fungmammals will separate but carry a small bit of the host realtor's plant DNA to grow a new version of their host's body but it will have the past memories of the old host. Mostly the new body screams in pain then feels better.

If a mutualism and commensalism fungmammal is eaten or is badly hurt they will explode to spread it's spores then slowly reform itself back together.

The parasitism fungmammal wouldn't allow that to happen since it would stay hidden. It would need to swim or walk around since it would be bigger than the mutualism and commensalism fungmammals.

There can be a infected realtor with all three fungmammal types but it would drive the realtor insane since its like having three beings in your house. One that is helpful, one that chills out but doesn't help, and the freeloader that eats everything while wrecking house.

And all telepathy talking to you all at once to do different things. These infected realtors would gladly give themselves up and would rather die then have this feeling.

Basically this.

Music and video not mine but link is there.

8-bit Too Many Cooks -Too Many Hours - Music By Rush Coil - YouTube

A group of infected realtor's is called a sitcom.

The parasitism fungmammal will feed off any meal a infected realtor eats and gets full from it and the host just gets the scraps.

The infected lure can eat just like a normal person would be the "food" would travel through the lure cord to their trash like houses to eat.

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More info below

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A blog about obscurity stuff, plushies and food. on Tumblr - #Infected Realtor's Lore

A blog about obscurity stuff, plushies and food. on Tumblr - #Game Show Oc

(Songs and videos not mine but links are there.)

What it feels like to be a Parasitism realtor.

Gina - NEED FOR MADNESS ? - YouTube

Trying to fight a hoarde or a sitcom of infected realtors be like.

Boss (Beta Mix) - Plok - YouTube

Kind of the inspiration of the fungmammals. Like the homeless guy with his dog. This song has been stuck in my head since highschool. This used to make me tear up.

Video is not mine but link is there.

I'm surprised that only two people on Youtube reviewed this story. One is on the movie and the other is the book.

Looks like something Saberspark would review.

The Raggedy Ann and Andy movie was something else too.

The Mouse And His Child - Opening & Closing song with lyrics in description - YouTube

Lux Abode's Reality Show and Sitcom

------------------------------------------

Lux Abode wants to make a trashy reality show and it's called The Real Houses of The Uncanny Valley.

She would gather up one of each species and pay them to be in this reality show.

She will randomly put challenges in it to spice it up.

This show slowly gained a cult following but she only does these on weekdays but the dream gameshows on the weekends unless she is buyer hunting successfully.

Lux Abode puts it on a pirate station on the uncanny valley tv channels on a weird time so she won't get caught only the infected realtors know which channel it's on.

But you can randomly catch it if you are channel surfing.

Lux Abode will also have a segment where you can just adopt a fungmammal and Regular Guys in fuzzball form as pets in a show segment similar to Cats 101.

She well also tell the history of them but only a few people check it out.

This is like a pirate lost public access show.

The personality of each fungmammal and regular guy fuzzball is known before hand unless the fungmammal is defective or blank.

Lux Abode will randomly choose people or beings off the street for her podcast which is radio only.

Both parties talk about random things happening and most of the time get off topic.

Some podcasts range from listenable to unlistenable in quality.

If bored she will make up a game.

Lux Abode has another show that is a sitcom called Honey I'm Home.

It's about a Realtor that fell in love with a human but still wants to eat the buyer and adopted a regular guy as a teen but due to budget cuts that same regular guy plays as the dog and the cat in the sitcom.

There is a plot line where the Regular Guy messes up their role and they are half teen with the animal ears but the show just left it in.

This character later became a mascot that lasted 6 seasons and a movie with merch that is super rare.

The sitcom theme is a earworm.

There is a plot line where the buyer wants to know what a Realtor tastes like and plots how to capture one but that's in the non canon Halloween special.

If you seen any sitcom plot line then it's basically like that but with a weird twist and also have clever product placement in the show like in the background or character's randomly causally putting the product name in their sentences.

The Regular Guy that is playing as a teen is a adult but is acting as a teen but needed to be taught by the human actress or actor on what a teenager is since Regular Guys were never babies that grow up but start out as adults once they remove themself from the motherball.

The sitcom is set inside of the house body of the Realtor and this Realtor is well feed with actors or actress maybe part of the staff that arrives late or gets the wrong food orders.

But most of the time normal foods work to satisfy this house.

But one accident ruined this Realtor's whole career.

While the staff was done recording the movie and after seeing the premiere decided to want to snatch a buyer because they haven't had human in awhile so this Realtor waited then later found the one.

Chateau Bungalow was this Realtors name and was clean cut and a cult classic celebrity.

But this buyer was smart and before being eaten was a smoker then dropped the cigarette on the floor which caused a fire and badly burned the house body while also damaging the lure.

The buyer did flee the badly damaged house but Chateau both the lure and the house nearly died there but some how survived but seem to have lost his memories with his lines.

Lux Abode easily replaced him with Jetty Shanty since Chateau Bungalow never showed up while his lure wasn't good enough for tv let alone a obscure channel tv show.

Chateau Bungalow tried to do the buyer hunting to survive but his lurebody moved differently along with his voice and the brain fog from the failed snatcher buyer attempt that he was losing his memories of his past life.

He was hurting and starving near death until a creature appeared checking the burned place out to see if the burned debris was edible.

Chateau was scared of the this creature but the fungmammal was nice to this realtor and tried to heal him but it didn't last long.

Sprocket was the name this fungmammal had and looked like a firecracker mixed with a cat.

She protects Chateau and sometimes finds old bootleg vhs tapes of the sitcom so Chateau can get some of his memories back but sometimes wonder where the other actors and actress are doing now.

Chateau did go to see if Hazzy which was the Regular guy in the sitcom was still at the old set but was abandoned since the reboot wasn't as good as the original.

Hazzy was homeless and was stealing food to survive then later rented her Doe ball form as a pet then later took odd jobs that didn't pay well so decided to live close to the motherball thinking of giving up to be reabsorbed.

Sprocket sensed Hazzy and telepathy told Chateau to talk to her then both got captured by the very company they made ads for in the sitcom all those years ago.

But both are now puppets for the company but are both paid decently and can now tell what their job is without lying about their job since it's on a secret channel that only a select few of people stumble on & infected realtors can watch but are not allowed to share the channel.

[prokopetz]

The real Hades II lore mystery is whether Roxy and Jetty are also immortal, or whether Scylla is just grabbing a couple of fresh sirens and making them put on the outfits each time you fight her.

[jamscandraw]

New TOH OC 3/3 (for now!) More Delphy lore under the cut :)

An old classmate and close friend of Murph and Steve. Best friends with Ragnus. She graduated a year before Murph did.

Delphy was Murph's first friend at Glandus after they transferred from St Epiderm at age 11. She took them under her wing and showed them the ropes, and eventually they set up a Grudgby team together with their other friend Ragnus (Steve joins a few years later). She's got a dry, cynical sense of humour and a very no-nonsense way of giving out advice, but she does care about her friends a lot and will always stick up for them. It's very hard to make her properly mad but when she loses her temper she's a force to be reckoned with. She's the oldest of five siblings and she takes on the big sister role for Murph too; she's the only one who knows the true extent of Murph's teenage feelings for Steve and has to stay up for hours at sleepovers listening to them agonising over it. She is 100% convinced Steve also feels the same way, but has a rule of never meddling directly in other people's relationships, so she just has to sit (im)patiently and watch these two idiots fawn over each other in mutual ignorance. She has no real interest in romance herself but always gives sensible, honest advice (coaches don't play).

As an adult she sails the Boiling Seas, hunting down whaling ships and protecting sea monsters from poachers. Because several of those ships belonged to the Emperor's Coven, in their hunt for the Selkiedomus, she's been branded a pirate by the Coven. She has a huge disdain for the EC after seeing how they're stripping the natural world of its resources (something she can't imagine the Titan ever abiding) and rarely sets foot on land these days. Her palisman Wingston is based off a jetty hawk (basically what if a seagull was the size of a goose??) and Wingifred is a real jetty hawk that she tamed while out at sea. Wingifred is in love with Wingston and thinks he's a real bird. 

[chameleonspell]

HTDC commentary - 1: numb

[Looking back at HTDC after nearly ten years: comments on lore, character notes, influences, art, whatever. May contain spoilers for later chapters.]

chapter text: 1: numb

This chapter has had the most edits over time, as my writing skills increased, and I got ever more annoyed at the state of the opening, which ought not to be the worst writing in the fic, if I wanted anyone to stick around. It still needs work, but I was not made of infinite energy. I largely just tried to improve what was already there, rather than do what I really ought to have done, which is do some proper scene-setting. None of the early chapters have much in the way of description, especially of places. I was very much working on the principle that it was fanfic, and the whole point of fanfic was that I didn't need to do that. My assumed reader was intimately familiar with Seyda Neen, because my assumed reader was myself. I was absolutely writing only the bits I enjoyed writing, which was dialogue.

I'm still torn on the first paragraph, because in trying to make it more interesting, I mostly only succeeded in making it florid and purple. The reason I let it stand is because of a favourite excuse of mine for slightly ridiculous writing - it accurately reflects the mental state of the protagonist, i.e. tangled and confused. I will use this excuse again.

(See, maybe there's no description because Iriel's really out of it, and can't register anything! Bad writing is diegetic if the characters are having a bad time!)

Iriel was dragged

Not the exact wording of the original first-draft opening line, but I edited it in for symmetry, after I wrote the last words of the last chapter ("Iriel moved forwards").  Which was, according to an email I sent at the time, in June 2015, so less than three months after I wrote the first words? That seems crazy. I do remember writing a first draft of the ending chapter quite early on, but... that early? Gosh.

When I say I wrote the ending three months after the beginning, I mean that I ONLY wrote the ending. I then spent two more years, filling in the 198 chapters in between.

The contrasting significance of the beginning and ending lines was expanded from something Philip Pullman said about making sure the first and last words of His Dark Materials were both "Lyra", because it's her story, and she encompasses it.

the guard had seized the elf by his bony wrist

A running theme of Iriel's physical trauma triggers: grab him by the wrist and he's liable to shut down completely. A jail thing, of course - make sure the magic user can't cast spells.

His bare toes snagged between the planks of the jetty

Every time I read this, I flinch, and feel the exact sensation, because it is such a terrible, terrible sensation. I know I do worse things to Iriel later, but I might hate this one the most.

Oh gods. Come on, Ire.

Many people have told me they found they were pronouncing Iriel wrong, when they read him sound it phonetically in chapter 90: "Iriel. Eye-ree-el." I can see their point, but in that case, I want to know how they were pronouncing "Ire", the shortening he gives, right at the start! Which is an English word, pronounced like the Ire in Ireland, so I hoped that implied the pronunciation of Iriel

Regarding Iriel's name: I chose it because it was visually short, having a lot of long, thin letters in it, and I liked the symmetry of the capital I and the lower-case L at the end. The shortened version, Ire, is even more featherweight, barely more than a pronoun. This is a real boon for a protagonist name that's gonna turn up in almost every sentence - you can throw it in a lot, for clarity, and it doesn't look awkward. 

I think I found it in a name list on uesp.net, and I don't think it was specifically feminine-coded at the time? ESO was only just out, so I refuse to be blamed for things it added to canon, such as two female NPCs called Iriel. My personal headcanon is that it's a unisex Altmeri name and the first i is pronounced short when it's feminine, and long when it's masculine. In his not-strictly-canon tumblr bookclub with @quickchangeartist's OC Moraelyn, Iriel says of his name:

P.S. i rolled my eyes gently at your “dear little bird” bit, but did you actually know my name is avian-derived, or was that an adorable accident? an iriel is a very pretty but sadly extinct type of finch (I am less pretty, but also less dead, a condition with which i am (on good days) content.) My mother selected the name in order to make me more matrimoniably palatable to her bird-mad noble friend. So mercenary

Iriel’s eyes jittered from surface to surface. “I was in the hold! I didn’t see anything! I don’t know anything about boats! I mean, the sail’s clearly square-rigged, but a brig should have at least two masts, I really have no idea what you’d call it, I didn’t get a chance to examine, I… I was in the hold. I don’t know anything.

In draft one, all Ire said was that he didn't know anything about boats. Then I reread it later, when it had been established that Iriel's dad was a fisherman, Iriel knows how to sail a simple boat, has absorbed a fair amount of nautical terminology, and, in general, KNOWS ABOUT BOATS! Which, I have to warn you, from a writer's perspective, is a fucking terrible thing to have your character know about. The research is a nightmare. Never have a character know anything about boats!

Anyway, I decided it was much funnier if he reeled off a bunch of technical stuff about boats, while still claiming he didn't know anything about them, because... he's just that confused? His reflexive paranoid guilt makes him deny knowledge under questioning on general principle? He doesn't think of himself as someone who knows about boats, in comparison to his dad? Yes.

someone a head taller than he was

I forget at what point I established Iriel's precise height. He's 6'4", which is below average, for an Altmer, but tall for Morrowind, a shift of identity and perspective he never quite adjusts to.

“Oh. Well… my name is Iriel of Lillandril. Which is far too many Is and Ls in one name, and really, you’d think my parents would’ve known better. We Altmer use loconymics, as I’m sure you know, so–”

Again, I chose Lillandril more or less at random from the Summerset map, based on it having a lot of Is and Ls, which felt right, all tall and Altmery, and a little bit ridiculous. Say it three times fast and you're basically yodelling. Later, I established Lillandril as Fantasy Wales, accent-wise, which made it even better.

ESO might have since established something different with Altmer surnames, lore-wise, but I don't know or care. Loconymics (being named for the place you come from) seem the norm for Altmer in Morrowind, and I like that.

I made up "loconymic", though googling now, there are other uses. I probably should have used toponym, as loconym is a greek-latin mix, which is bad practice. But I wanted a word for "named after a place" where the meaning was easily inferrable, without knowing either Greek or Latin, and "locus" is more familiar from words like "location" than "topos" is. I was trying to keep my linguistic technobabble vaguely intelligible!

In the very first draft, Iriel claimed he was a foundling in this line mentioning his parents, which was my attempt to stick to the exact terms of the whole Morrowind "uncertain parentage" thing. But I very quickly retconned it, realising there was far more mileage in having Iriel know he was connected by blood to his parents, and all the Altmeri angst he has over that. Only the first of many, many in-game "facts" I decided to bend or outright contradict! But it took me a while to realise I was allowed to do that, now, that I didn't have to keep to canon, as long as everything hangs together. In this case, I justified it later, by saying that the Empire had recorded Iriel as having unknown parents, because that's what he told them when he was arrested, in a futile attempt to prevent his family finding out.

pale-gold Altmer face, amber eyes and soft brown hair.

I had read something that advised writers to give hot, fiery angry characters warm colouration, and cold, reserved characters cool colouration, and I thought that was stupid. Iriel's not exactly cold (just numb), but Altmer in general are seen as cold, especially in contrast to fire-themed Dunmer, and... anyway, I wanted a warm-toned Altmer, because why not? Amber eyes is pretty, but not extravagantly so. I didn't want him to be exceptional, in any way - he's someone who can easily vanish from sight and memory, after all. So, he gets the most "boring" hair colour, mouse brown, which I have a soft spot for.

@Sinilakki sent me a picture very soon after I posted this chapter, and I was delighted, because clearly my limited physical description had worked - it was perfect. My first ever picture of Iriel, and it's still one of my absolute favourites.

“You are male, aren’t you? Hard to tell with you elves.” Ire racked his addled brain for the sort of lacerating response he would have given to that, in better days, but failed miserably.

The first thing to produce an actual spark of defiance in Iriel, even if he doesn't manage to act on it. Ire's experiences of Imperials having offensive ideas about elven gender will reoccur, once he's in a fit state to lecture about it.

Ire squeaked, and shifted as best he could, stumbling towards the door and struggling with the handle until it finally obeyed him.

All this is so early Pratchett, isn't it? Rincewind, but younger and gayer. Make a wet, nervous wizard and give him problems.

previous: 0: intro next: 2: labels

[mk-writes-stuff]

Caramel, for the ask game? :3

Thank you for the ask (from the ask game here)!

Caramel: Does every character have the same accent?

On the Seven Stations, yeah, everyone has pretty similar accents. You might notice small differences between different stations based on what accents were common there, and the nobles speak with a more posh accent than the common folk, but everyone for generations back has spoken the common language as their primary tongue so the accents are pretty similar.

In the Pirates’ Roost, there are a lot of accents, especially since there’s no real common tongue. Jetti has a very thick merfolk accent, for example, and Onora also does to a limited degree. A lot of people have Itzocan (Sun Empire) or Torrezonean accents. Malcolm has a slight siren accent but has a noticeable Coalition accent when he speaks siren (and there’s a different one when non-sirens try to speak siren). Julian has a Coalition accent to their Itzocan, and their mother Zeltzin has an Itzocan accent to her Coalition Pidgin. There’s an orcish accent that’s slowly blending into the coalition one that’s evolving, and a goblin one. There are also a few that are developed at the center of the world that we encounter later.

Thank you for the ask! It was fun, especially to drop Pirates’ Roost accent lore :)

[rubberlemon]

oc asks!

1, 13, and 18, please!

Hello Jettie 1. What kind of person is your OC in a crisis? Are they calm and collected? Do they panic? Or are they chronically the cause?

J: Crisis what crisis? Yeah…some bug break containment but don’t worry I got everything under control! They are not poisonous … except the centipedes… please do not step on the centipedes… 

A: I think he is more of a calm person with his own issues but more concerned about other people's issues than his. Something like if he knew his friends are also riders he would be so worried ”No that’s so dangerous what are you doing?!!”

13. How important are romantic relationships to your OC? Do they prefer casual sex, short flings, or long term relationships? Do they want to get married or are they content with what they have? Or do they have no interest in romance whatsoever?

J: ROMANTIC?! I..I don’t think I’m romantic myself… I don’t have much experience either… but I think it is a good thing! Being in love and having a relationship sounds good!

A: Jouto cherishes his relationships with others, romantic or not. He would like to have a romantic one someday too, something long term more than a casual one. He doesn't act on lust impulses, he is just probably okay just to be by the side of the one he loves.

18. Has your OC ever had a prophecy made about them? Was it a big deal or did they ignore it? Was it straightforward or cryptic? Did it ever come to pass or did they circumvent it? 

J: … I don’t really want to talk about that. (He looks a bit sulky)

A: Well he went once to a fortune teller and didn’t like the experience.AT ALL. If we are talking about prophecy on game lore ☝️🤓 (KR BLADE SPOILERS?) If he ends up knowing that an evil organization experimented on him to use joker powers for world destruction … well… that would be a different story.

[nitrosodiumfmp]

Plans for the Dock Map

These are two pieces of artwork vaguely representing the Dock map. They're not 100% accurate, but they display the basics. You start out on the jetty, before heading into the first yard with a lighthouse on the side, two warehouses standing ominously on either side of you, and beyond a Gothic wrought-iron fence, a taller building, with a single open window glowing eerie blue. Your mission will be to enter the Shipwright's office and take a Soul Anchor from it - an important artifact that you'll need to get before continuing through the afterlife. To get there, you first need to enter Warehouse A, where you can find a note that says the only way into the Shipwright's office is through the outside. This, coupled with the face that the window is clearly visible, signals to the player that they now need to use parkour to reach the office. From spawn, a plank is visible connecting the main building to the roof of Warehouse B. The key in Warehouse A unlocks the gate to the Outskirts, a cluster of streets beyond the fence. After some exploration, the player will see that the main building is blocked off, and Warehouse B is locked. Via another note, they will learn that the key is in a side building, the Earthly Possessions storehouse. Once inside Warehouse B, they will use the elevator to reach the roof, and shimmy across a plank to reach the Shipwright's office. Inside, writing is scrawled across the walls, plus a maddening note left by the Shipwright detailing the event that warped the underworld; just more lore. Once you interact with the Soul Anchor on his desk, you complete the level.

So it's a basic puzzle encouraging exploration and introspection in the environment. Three notes, two keys; it's nothing too complex. I'm thinking of adding a unique red-clothed Grave Digger corpse on the ground before the Shipwright's window, implying that it's the Shipwright having fallen to his death. Obviously right now it's all big ugly blockouts, but here are some of my inspirations.

Shipping... and Receiving is a Thief 2 mission, where you must plunder a dockside system of warehouses. Obviously, it's very much like my map, having Garrett explore the containers of the warehouse's various tenants, including spice smugglers, Mechanist religious zealots, artists, recording companies, and traders. My Dock doesn't have the same variety; Warehouse A is filled with big rusted containers and wooden crates, and I plan for Warehouse B to have a boat chained up on it. Then the main building is mostly inaccessible, except for the Shipwright's office. This aesthetic of grimy brick and opaque old-style windows is essentially the bread and butter of the map so far, but the second section, the Outskirts, is going to be a little different.

Yes, it's Limbo of the Lost again, specifically the town area of Darkmere. Nearly every building has a large sign indicating its trade, and some screens have signposts showing multiple areas to go. I want to create the imagery of a crooked city block without making an entire city block, so I'll include lots of side areas with nothing in them, and street signs pointing to them. It's almost like a diorama of what a larger location would look like; a vertical slice for you to play through without sacrificing fun for realism. This idea of naming everything to give an impression of a larger space existing beyond the game's limits was done before in games like Bioshock.

(Note the Lower Wharf text at the bottom of the screen). Bioshock takes place in Rapture, a massive underwater city which you only see bits and pieces of throughout the game, and each sub-area is titled, to help sell the idea that you're in a real place and not just a level in a video game. This idea of immersion is key to Bioshock, and its strong aesthetic-oriented metropolis is a large inspiration for Sinister. The Neptune's Bounty area of Rapture shown in the image above is also quite usable for Sinister; it's the main port of the city, full of wooden struts and stacked shipping containers. That, combined with the gloomy cityscape visible from every porthole, bathed in turquoise light from the ocean depths, makes it very akin to Sinister.

[kassy1011doodles]

I’m not sure if you’ve talked about this, but how did Jetty end up getting involved in Agent related stuff/ended up as Agent 4?

Okay lore time! (this is going to be a lot sorry)

Jetty used to be an octarian soldier and he was assigned to spy on Squidbeak's new agent in Octo Valley to find out any useful information and weaknesses to use for their advantage.

As weeks went by, Jetty grew fond of Agent 3 without realizing it. He was amazed by Agent 3's fighting skills and thought he was really cool.

Jetty was going to eliminate Agent 3, but when he saw Agent 3 comforting the zapfish that was crying. It was the first time he saw Agent 3 smile and Jetty hesitated to attack Agent 3.

Jetty started thinking stuff like "Are we doing the right thing?" "Are inklings really the bad guys?"Jetty made up his mind that he was going to stop his leader starting another war, so he started sabotaging the octarian army without anyone knowing.

One day, Jetty's Commander called him in to give him a new assignment, but Jetty refused and it really made his Commander mad. Jetty was getting irritated when his Commander kept yelling at him and he accidentally punched his Commander in the face. Jetty was in shock when he realized what he had just done. 

Jetty panicked and ran away and his Commander was super pissed off. She ordered everyone to capture Jetty and Jetty managed to escape to the surface of the Octo Valley.

Jetty made up his mind to go to Inkopolis to search for Agent 3 and ask him to help him to stop Octavio’s plans before it’s too late. Agent 3 didn’t trust him at first but agreed to let Jetty help him. Jetty didn’t officially become agent 4 until the events in Splatoon 2.

[jettiebettie]

Can't wait to go to Power Morphicon just so I can stand in the same room as Masahiro Inoue and fantasize about punching him. 🥰

[highchalowwis]

turns out learning things about party members is good! a shocking twist!

[fingons-rad-harp]

thank you @elenyafinwe for the tag!

rules: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Send me an ask with the title that most intrigues you and I’ll post a little snippet of it or tell you something about it. And then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

oh boy here we go. a whole lot of these are abandoned, and some of them are rewrites of others

All That Is Gold

Lone Wanderer

love languages

Nightingale

The Silmarillion

Waiting for My Sun to Shine

bullshit time travel au

transatlanticism but make it sadder

ária & haldir???

the fall of the tower

nerdy finwëans and silmaril science

Cursed Fëanorian Energy

501st sleepover

mando bal jetti

post-zygerria arc

ca’tra being a badass

KOTE

a new hope - ID&IL edition

quinlan vos and fives spy thriller

Of Commanders and Wolves

cali stop hurting plo as a plot device challenge

baby adventurers

Daughter of Fëanor

Ária in Dol Guldur

tyelkormo apologizes world tour

rescues

transatlanticism

hobbit lore: bilbo vs erestor

Black Ocean, Black Sky

arwen helps ária bathe for the first time since her return

back in imladris

GLORTHELION!!!!!!

fëanárian family reunion

finwëan family reunion

ária and tyelko

recovery

bûrzgûl

bûrzgûl makes some Decisions and everyone has a bad time

ária and tyelko (not a typo, i do have two of these)

The Oath Fulfilled

bûrzgûl idk

Re-embodiment

ok wow that’s actually it

SO MANY of these have just been abandoned, but that’s everything

there’s no fucking way i’m tagging that many people so just hop on if you want to, and ask me about anything that sounds interesting!

[chameleonspell]

HTDC commentary - 4: falling

[Looking back at HTDC after nearly ten years: comments on lore, character notes, influences, art, whatever. May contain spoilers for later chapters.]

chapter text: 4: falling

These early chapters tend to be short and jump forward in time lot, because I was just skipping to the next turning point, and Iriel isn't spending enough time with other people for there to be much interesting going on between. Especially now, because he's gonna be unconscious for a lot of it.

Much later, certain people would gravely refer to this period of Iriel’s life as one during which he “lost himself”

I had no idea who was supposed to have told Iriel this, later, and I still can't think who would be a plausible candidate. I said this purely for rhetorical effect. I feel like this makes me an unreliable narrator of my own story, though I'm not sure that's technically possible.

His conscious mind, cast adrift on an overwhelming ocean of sensation, became reduced to scattered thoughts and isolated impressions.

Seems like Ire was tripping on nature, before he was even tripping on sugar. I probably should have been less dreamily effusive, here, and saved it for the on-drugs bit, but I just really love the Bitter Cost! You don't need drugs to appreciate the Swamp! Despite the apparent similarities of the Pit being Iriel's shame and depression, Iriel being in the swamp was never at all the same metaphor, though it took until chapter 153 for me to really explicate this properly. Being in the swamp is mostly positive, if soggy. The swamp is comforting and accepting. The swamp doesn't judge.

The spongey texture of the luminous mushrooms he collected obsessively, and the ssschlucking sound they made when he yanked them out of the damp soil to lay them out in order of size and colour on the moss.

I got really into mushrooms (as organism, not drug!) after I wrote Iriel an obsession with them. Be very careful what interests you give fictional characters, because if you identify with them too hard, it's very easy to catch it off them.

All Ire knew was that he had found two small cloth bags of crystalline white powder underneath a crate on a small jetty, and that when he put a finger in and licked it, everything got better.

The story started with a concept and a shape, but no detail - that mostly came out of gameplay, at the start. The moon sugar was a happy accident, finding the bags in a random smuggler loot sack, and realising...  why wouldn't he?

Moon sugar is described as a numbing and euphoria-inducing drug, similar to an opiate. It's also the soft option, compared to its more refined form, skooma, so Iriel's still in the narcotics kiddie-pool, really. That said, we also know these drugs affect TES races differently, with men and mer being affected far more strongly than Khajiit. And we know that Altmer specifically are more sensitive to magic (for better and worse) than other races. Thus, Iriel is having quite an extreme reaction.

he found himself falling: into the glowing colours, into the soft, yielding swamp, and not caring, because when he spat mud and rolled over onto his back, he found himself falling into the sky.

The whole "sad elves falling in swamps" thing is, I admit, a private joke. Because someone once (somehow, unaccountably) found my website by googling for the string "sexy women falling in swamps", and when I saw it in the search referrals, I laughed about it for days.

The night skies of Morrowind are stunningly beautiful, viewed sober. Moon sugar rendered them a religious experience.

Morrowind skies being best skies is just facts. @valtheimm illustrated this scene beautifully:

If I say that he spent long hours lying in the mud, staring at the fractal patterns at the end of fern fronds, I’m sure you can fill in the rest for yourselves. Let’s skip to the end.

I guess I wasn't too consistent with the first person narration, but the narrator was there from the start! It just fell into the background, when other things were happening, or the scene didn't want that sort of external comment, only to re-emerge later, and make people question me about where it came from.

Who is the narrator? Me, just me, the author. Nothing complicated. I was used to books where that kind of thing is common, as a random interjection. I was reading a George Eliot book at the time, and she's always interrupting the action to discuss her characters in first person. It creates a sense of ironic distance, so you don't want to have it all the time, usually you want to be right there in the characters emotions. Other times, you want to add that distance, and deliberately get out of the character's head.

Here, we are watching Iriel flopping about the swamp from a distance, because he's out of his mind, so we are, too. We can go back closer when he returns to himself, try and feel the shock of that with him as much as we can.

Where he came from, the gods were not thought to actively involve themselves in the lives of their worshippers. This was part of what made them so admirable.

TES sets up a whole lot of metaphysical binaries, but the key one is Anu and Padomay, which for our purposes means stasis and change. This comes in a lot more later, but that bog body metaphor is already looking a bit prescient, innit? Here, we can just note that Iriel's home gods are the Aedra, which are Anuic, and therefore both unchanging and incapable of intervening or causing change themselves. Iriel thinks that in Morrowind, where other gods apply, things might be different.

Lying back down and dying was tempting, but Ire hadn’t survived this long by letting that part of his brain have its way.

Iriel is physically unimposing, cries easily and doesn't exactly tick many boxes on the socially-mandated "ideal masculinity" chart. He's scared of everything, because many things have hurt him, and life hasn't equipped him with many tools to defend himself. Does that make him "a weak person", as he himself believes? Or is he strong, for surviving, despite the odds stacked against him, for persisting regardless? What does it mean to be weak or strong, and is weakness even a bad thing? Questions I kept on coming back to, throughout the story.

Iriel is far from morally perfect, and sometimes does selfish things, especially while he's addicted to drugs. There wouldn't be much of a story, if he didn't make a total mess of his life, and have to try and clean it up. But he is strong, in lots of ways, and he will manage to be a hero, in lots of ways. Making him "an effeminate gay stereotype" was very deliberate. Because sure, that's a stereotype, but not for the hero. It's for villains and cheap-laugh side characters, where it gets laced with a lot of other homophobic tropes. Queer heroes, where they exist, tend to be indistinguishable from straight characters, beyond their sexuality - and that's nothing like the real people I know, it's nothing like me or my friends! Femme gay men exist, and are wonderful and diverse and incredibly powerful, actually.

Real-life queer people can't be stereotypes by definition, instead they have to constantly live with how their personal expression is interpreted and policed and refracted into cheap stereotypes by the dominant culture, stereotypes which are then used against them. I wanted to write a character going through that experience, that negotation of an imposed stereotype that has some truth to it, albeit in ways that the people using it against you don't understand. To be up-front about this: I'm queer, but I'm not a gay man, so I was always aware of the danger that I might misjudge something, and screw up. I tried to keep Iriel's specifically gay aspects as grounded as I could in non-fictional people I knew, or had read things by. In the case of real-life friends, I pray I changed enough details on any embarrassing anecdotes I stole that they can't recognise themselves here, and get mad at me.

Iriel set out in search of structure.

The moon sugar was extremely useful, narratively speaking. See, the wonderful thing about an addiction to hard drugs -- this sounds like I'm being facetious, but I've heard heroin addicts say exactly this -- is that it gives you something to do, when your life has no meaning. It forces action. You can't just lie face-down in the swamp forever. You have to go out, and get money, and get drugs. Which forces you, especially if the money part is challenging, into situations.

Playlist pick: Sparklehorse - Spirit Ditch. This is a song to lie in a swamp and get high to. By Mark Linkous, another junkie. Died by suicide in 2010. You always hope when someone writes songs that sad, that it means they have some kind of… answer. A different one, I mean.

next: 5: slide & 6: trap previous: 3: breathe

[windup-dragoon]

Pain

|| FFXIV write - 2020

|| Prompt #15 - Ache

|| Post ShB - Some years later

|| Kirishimi lore !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Eyriwolk and Lynawyb are Kiri’s adoptive parents who have been missing since the fall of Dalamud

|| Word Count: 2,154

|| In which the Stray becomes broken 

>>> Warning!!!! This piece involves mention of slavery, torture, blood, bodily injury and death!!!!!!!! 

Ache. 

Many types of ache exist in the world. 

From the physical ache of old injuries - 

His hands, so gnarled and broken over the years, no longer able to thread the line of a fishing pole. Scar tissue marred his face and pulls at the corner of his lip; his back is more broken skin then muscle any more. The once welcomed breeze off the ocean now stings at his injuries and gives him reason to shiver that evening. 

He was forced to his knees beneath the glow of a single lantern, a motion that had him murmuring with pain. The years had not been kind to the old captain, the scars that disfigured him could attest. But a hissed growl from the Roegadyn woman at his side had silenced him. 

She had promised him freedom. Spoken of his hearts true desire, the only dreams he still clung to so hopelessly in the middle of the night when sleep was outside his grasp. She was not a kind woman, but what else did he have to lose? He was a broken, lonely man, patiently waiting for death to claim him. Oh the sweet embrace it would be; at least he would be reunited with those who had parted before him. 

But this offer? This once in a lifetime chance? He saw no other option than to reach for it with both mangled hands. Just maybe it would be enough to breathe life into him once more; to rekindle a spark that had been snuffed out years ago. Time and time again the little flame in his thundering heart had left him. He has suffered so much loss. 

“Twelve, please...” He whimpered brokenly to any deity that would hear him. “Give me this at least...” 

Just as his captor rose to her feet, a massive ax clutched in her hands, footsteps echoed. 

They were along the coastal region of La Noscea to be sure, some long abandoned port that was previously overrun with carnivorous beasts. What were once pristine white buildings were now dilapidated skeletons. The only light casting long shadows was the swaying lantern, rocking listlessly in the breeze. The ebb and flow of the tide beneath the dock seemed to fade with the approach of the stranger; everyone in his company, including himself, held their breath. 

From the darkness she emerged, stepping cautiously into the pool of color and light. The dock creaked beneath her footfalls. And all at once, Eyriwolk choked on a strangled gasp. 

Snowy white hair glittered beneath the faint lanterns glow; familiar mismatched eyes widening as she looked him over. He would know this girl from a crowd of thousands and it made his broken heart swim for the first time in many moons. 

Caution was thrown to the wind as the ran the short distance between them, the jetty beneath them all swaying in the tide. Although shackled still as he was, he raised his bound arms to catch her as she hurled herself to her knees before him, her own arms immediately thrown around his neck. 

Scars along the length of his neck and scattered across his now thin shoulders kept him from feeling the sting of tears falling, staining his already tattered and dingy shirt. But he felt her sobs in the way her shoulders hitched; he could hear it in her broken hiccuped voice. His own tears welled and crested over his swollen cheeks. 

His daughter. His sweet, beloved daughter. 

She had grown since the last he laid eyes on her. From a little pup with a permanent scowl, to a beautiful young woman. He had never known such pride until now. 

The woman pulled herself from him, taking his too thin shoulders in her hands and looked him over with bleary eyes. 

“Da’...” There was hurt in her voice as she took in what the years without her had done to him. Once a powerful Roegadyn himself, who could eat supper for two without batting an eye and sang sea shanties well into the night with his crew; now little more than skin, bone, and pain. 

“She said I could see ya’ again, lass.” Eyri choked on his own voice, the smile on his lips hurting his cheeks. How long had it been since last he smiled? 

With this, mismatched eyes lifted from his to stare up at the company he shared. 

There had been three others in total. The ax wielding mountain of a woman, Eyri had to double take at the resemblance she shared with his own daughter. A hyuran woman, young and frail who hadn’t spoken a word since they had taken him from his handlers. The way her eyes seemed vacant had unnerved him dearly. And the third, a Garlean man. However, he was more machine and technology than man any longer. Magitek parts kept him together like some old broken toy, a patchwork of metal and weeping flesh. 

The roe woman moved between them, her ax breaking their reunion. 

Kiri reeled back on her heels, not quite knocked back but still unsettled. “Yer letter,” his daughter ground out as she rose to her feet. So tall she had become, no longer the little pup he had found stranded on some island out at sea. “Ya’ wanted ta’ bargain?” 

Her eyes shift between the company. Eyri feels his stomach churn as the conversation begins to fill in the missing pieces he lacked. Why would anyone free a slave to reunite him with lost family? Kindness? Not in this cruel world. 

But he had been desperate to see her. At least one last time. 

It was the Garlean that advanced next, his movements mechanical and jittery. “My my! You’ve grown!” He announced with a voice filled to the brim with joy and happiness. Did he know Kirishimi? Had Eyri’s assumptions of her past been accurate all these years? 

Was Kirishimi Garlean? 

But Kiri crossed her arms, shifting her weight from one foot to the other impatiently. “Sorry, mate, but have we met?” Before she receives an answer, she moves on to her next question. “What do you want?” 

“Ah, you waste no time I see. Fair enough.” The Garlean man reaches a hand for Eyriwolk’s head, patting ever so softly at his now silver touched hair. If he had been stronger, younger, Eyri would have taken that hand and cast the man into the ocean in one swift motion. Instead he deigned to grimace. “A trade, my dear Warrior of Light.” 

Eyri’s stomach falls. His blood runs cold as ice. His round eyes stare blankly up at his daughter, her stony features and furrowed brow only causing his heart to thunder like drums in his ears. “No-” 

“You, for your fathers freedom.” 

“No!” Eyri finds his voice at last and calls out with a boom that shakes his core and echoes along the forgotten stonework of the ruined port. His eyes search hers although she does not remove her fixated stare from the Garlean before her. “Kirishimi, you bull headed- Don’t’cha DARE think-” 

It is the sound of metal grinding metal that stops him cold. The blade of an ax drags across his shackles, just shy of taking fingers. A practiced swing or a lucky miss; no matter which, the action had startled both he and Kirishimi. 

There’s a feral look to her mismatched eyes as she glares and snarls at the roe woman. “Bitch-” 

“Not my name,” The woman sighs casually and hefts the ax over her shoulder. “But nice guess.” 

“Ladies! Please!” The mechanical man steps to the other side of them. “Lani, take a seat and cool off for a moment, hm?” 

There’s a groan of protest, but the woman abides and marches out of Eyri’s sight, no doubt alongside the other girl lurking in the shadows at the edge of the dock. 

“Look at your father, dear. The man who raised you. Took you in and cared for you.” The man kneels beside Eyri now, grabbing him forcefully by the chin and tilting his head back. He squints against the light of the lantern but sees the concern glittering in Kiri’s eyes. The tears beginning to shimmer beneath her thick lashes. “He hasn’t much life left to him. Refuse and he will be returned at once to the slaver that neglects him.” 

Eyri tries to plead with Kirishimi but his voice is lost to the Garlean man. 

“Where’s Lynawyb?” She asks at last, tearing herself to look away from him. “The letter said-” 

“Ah. There was a... lack of communication, to put it simply. At the time the missive had been sent, we had the full intention to return both your parents to you.” He says this sorrowfully, as if truly apologizing for the misunderstanding. 

Eyri’s heart echoes with a hollow thump in his chest. His wife... His wife... 

Kiri lurches forward and grabs the collar of the mans shirt, dragging him to his feet despite the weight of his metal parts. Her lips curl back as a snarl fills the night air. “Where is she?!” 

But the man is once more unaffected and merely chuckles. “...Why not ask your father? Eyriwolk, be a sport and tell her?” 

Her grip loosens and the man slips away as her eyes slide back down to Eyriwolk. Her lips tremble even as her jaw slackens. “...What?” 

“Gods, please!” Eyri fights through a sob that makes his throat hoarse. He casts his eyes away, shaking, his whole body shaking. “She shouldn’t have’ta hear it.” The memory will always be fresh in his mind. From the scent of ash and smoke, to the wails and cries echoed on the wind. 

But without telling her, Eyriwolk has already shown her. 

Kiri crouches suddenly with a hand to her temple. 

Lynawyb, his beloved wife... The woman she called mother... 

Eyriwolk’s last memory of her is of a frail woman cradled in his arms. Crimson blossoms across her apron. Blood splutters in her mouth and spills over her lip as she stares up at her husband with hopeful, broken eyes. She had been cut down in an attempt to free themselves, and others, from their hell. Countless others lay motionless around them while the house of their captor burned. 

“Don’t’cha cry....” Lyna had whispered. “I’ll go see... Fraethota first... I’m sure she’s waitin’...” Trembling as she was, the dying woman clutches her husbands hand. “...A-And if you see her.... Tell our little pup.... Her ma’ loves her....” 

To the ache of the heart- 

Hours had come and gone. She tried to drown out the pain as her lip was split from a punch; desperate to busy her mind with thoughts of Hien and the others as she heard her arm snap and Lani curse her to the Hells and back. 

Hien... 

His coronation was only days away. He had been a child at a carnival with excitement for it as he and his company delighted in the details of the festivities they would have. He would be King or Emperor or something along those lines, Kiri couldn’t focus long enough to remember which it was... But she knew he would be perfect for the job. He would do his father and mother proud while ruling Doma. But... he would have to do it alone. 

Eyriwolk...

Kiri tried to forget the events that transpired only hours ago before she had been thrown like cargo onto an airship. The trade agreement had been complete, she should have been elated. Her father was a free man once more. It would be a shell of a life, broken as he was... But what better gift was there than freedom? 

The chains at her wrist rattle and slither across the floorboards as she lays herself down. Lani had exhausted herself for the evening, talk of resuming her punishment in the morning was the last Kiri had heard before she slammed the door to her cell and locked it. 

Lynawyb... 

A sob, painful as it was to even breathe, ripped through Kiri as she lay curled in on herself, knees to her stomach and shackled hands buried against her drumming heart. The echo had granted her one last chance to see Lynawyb alive. All she had ever wanted for all these lonesome years was to know her family was still breathing and living... but what sort of life had that been? How long had Lynawyb been waiting for rescue? How many nights had she stared up helplessly at an expanse of star dusted sky and wished on every falling star for her freedom? Just how many nights... did Lynawyb dream of the day the Warrior of Light... her own daughter... save her from her misery? 

Coward... 

She had been a coward for not searching for them all these years. Fear of what she might find had kept her from investing herself to the task... And now? 

She paid the price... 

[mk-writes-stuff]

Ok long list of things I'd like to know more about, feel free to ramble to your hearts content

I'd like to hear a little about Tatum

Orazca sounds like an interesting place?

the Wraith that's a kickass name for a ship will we see it alot ?

How do angels fit into the story?

“Feel free to ramble to your heart’s content” is my favourite sentence :)

Tatum is one of the three main characters of the Pirates’ Roost. They are a tidemage (think avatar the last airbender waterbenders) who, at the beginning of the story, works for Captain Jetti, the captain of the Drowned Gull. Tatum is widely believed to be her best friend but in actuality hates her because she’s violently abusive and essentially holding them hostage (they’re dying of cancer and the only known treatment is synthesized from her magical blood). Jetti forces them to do a lot of really horrible things with their powers and they feel very guilty about that

Here’s a picrew of them:

Jetti does get killed eventually, so Tatum gets free of her, but that brings the whole “dying of cancer” thing back, so the crew has to find a way to save them. Which, perfectly enough, segues pretty smoothly into Orazca!

Orazca is a lost city of the Sun Empire, one of the major powers on Ixalan. It was created around an immensely powerful magical artifact called the Immortal Sun that served as a magical amplifier. It was lost for a while (Sun Empire myth says a winged lion with the face of a man stole it away) but was recently re-found. It no longer has the Immortal Sun (that vanished mysteriously and the people who know what happened haven’t bothered to tell) but it still holds a remnant of its power, allowing the city to amplify the powers of mages who are in it. For a healer mage, for example, this could let them cure otherwise-incurable diseases :)

As for the Wraith (credits to my gf for this one), we don’t see too much of it - it’s the main ship of one of the first antagonists. It’s a smuggling ship owned by a sigil-mage captain named Blythe and it can (among other things) turn invisible and turn the winds in its favour. Or, at least, it can until Merry, its sigil-host runs away. Blythe wants him back by any means necessary - but, in Merry’s defense, Blythe is also the sort of woman who carves magical sigils into her crew

The angels… well now I have to go into Ixalan angel lore. There are two kinds of angels on Ixalan. There are the Core angels, who come from the center of the world (Ixalan is a hollow earth) and are magically-empowered immortal humans. They, honestly, aren’t super relevant

The other kind of angels no one really knows exactly where they come from (except Cephlo, who isn’t telling - again credits to my gf for him). A mysterious man named Cephlo appeared to Tatum one day and essentially kidnapped them to torture and drug them into transforming into an angel. Tatum was able to escape, albeit with vestigial wings that needed to be removed and chronic back pain, but the rumour spread and a siren named Morrigan who lost her wings in a fire hunter Cephlo down and demanded that he turn her into an angel. He agreed, although he’s to this day really confused as to why she wanted it. She got a reputation for hunting slavers across the seas and becomes good friends with Captain Amelia

Thank you for the ask! Lmk if there’s anything else you’re curious about, I’m always happy to share :)