#mianite: the tales of aitheaca

[grailknightmonty]

the keeper of balance | the hidden giant | the exiled : meet the gods of the Realm of Aitheaca

the champions

[kiwibirdlafayette]

[WIP]

update on the gods im taking my sweet ass time on this but i dont wanna rush it either 😌 Have a sneak peek bc i feel like being nice

[marshmurmurs]

@kiwibirdlafayette merina my beloved

[kiwibirdlafayette]

The watcher, from her tower, observes with curiosity as a rift opens in the sky and six discombobulated individuals fall from it- some more familiar in appearance than others..

[grailknightmonty]

welcome your faces to aitheaca, the realm ruled by ultimate balance and justice, where there is no room for true order or chaos.

the gods

finally got the designs for the main champions/alts done, have the original concept sketches below as well :]

[grailknightmonty]

you're not looking for a mentor, i'm not looking for a friend-

consider this as my goodbye.

admiral flash has been the puppet of the Keeper of Balance for too long. in befriending the other champions he comes to see the awful truth in what keeping a strict grasp on the world can do. and enough is enough.

[kiwibirdlafayette]

Horror warning for the first image!

and for a full 180 from my last art post, a bit of sketch concept work for some other designs in Aitheaca LMAO ft. ideas for Merina’s eldritch form and an early draft of Mianite, the keeper of the refuge and Dianite, the banished god :D

+ Bonus initial sketches for Mer! I feel like I can be looser with pencil than in digital so a lot of my design work usually starts off on paper before i do a digital version. The main thing I wanted to get was the many eyes motif I see in a lot of the watcher!grian designs i was inspired by, and I landed on the notion that maybe the scales turn into eyes? Idk

[kiwibirdlafayette]

no one talks enough about how masterpiece theater III works as a post-canon mianite song, the idea of something starting so simple turning into a mess that can’t be undone. people leaving completely different from but the same as they started, feeling closer but also feeling farther apart.

…..

and on that note, aitheaca inspo playlist wip smiles

[kiwibirdlafayette]

🎃 Happy Halloween 👻

HAPPY HALLOWEENNNNN WOO YEAH!! 🎃🎃👻🎃👻🎃👻🎃👻 I hope you had an absolutely wicked fun 'ween!!! :D

(i know im like. a few hours late. uh i. i felt bad bc i got was afk doin cosplay stuffs and by the time i could get back online it was p much midnight so I drew Aitheaca for you as a little treat :]c )

[kiwibirdlafayette]

I think Tom (and all his alts) strive for freedom…

OH ABSOLUTELY

I totally agree!! I think just like- the nature of Tom and his alts (who ofc meta wise were all written after him) is that they’re all dependent people of some kind, usually as the result of their circumstance of existence

Whether that be like in Tom's case because Dianite (or Mianite in Godswap, albiet different dynamic) is the one to grant him reanimated life, making him sort of indebted to him- or Cassell who isn't necessarily bound to his god moreso that he's bound to his creators (Flash and Ianite). Mot also sort of has that tether element to him because Dianite technically also saved his life from the creeper spore infection iirc but I think it makes the principle of freedom a little different to him esp. because it turned into like a business partners to unrequited crush to sorta lovers kinda thing depending on your post canon

All of this translates to me into their kind of devotion as champions, and again how that's like different from Ianitee flavored devotion (based on the guidance of Ianite and trusting in her judgement to lead them the right way so she can keep them safe), or Mianitee flavored devotion (Like knights to a king, similar to Ianitees follow orders for order, kind of follow his principles rather than specific instructions from him). Dianite being Dianite and the elements of chaos being how it is, Dianitee devotion is like being an extension of him, not via principles or guidance but by intent like being mercenaries in service of him while still being tethered in fear of punishment if its not done right. And maybe yknow they don't mind the implications that come with that title (Mot's case, for example) I think that's where that desire for freedom comes for- a want to have an existence that isn't tethered to their god

side note this could not apply as much to Dianite and Cass in Aitheaca because Dianite takes the Ianite role in terms of swapped god positions (and Cass runs off Dianite's guidance in the same way as Jordan would to Ianite) as Flash and Ianite are more similar to Tom and S1 Dia but bear with me xD

So kind of like extrapolating from that- their more specific desires for freedom are all sort of tied to Tom's need for spiritual freedom- I want to like refer to the whole thing of the Thauminomicon-y traits Marsh had mentioned before, and how Tom has 'fabrico', which stands for craft/repair. It connects in the sense of yeah he's a zombie he's stiched back together but. ok hear me out. Who would have stitched him back together? It was implied in an episode of Isles that c!Tom doesn't remember the Minecraft Project- (because they're memories he can't return to, just big empty void in his head), or when he was alive/ill from zombification, but he hadn't died yet. The person that arrives on Mianite with Tucker is that Tom, he is all that chaotic goofy Tom is, but at the same time he's partially someone else's creation, sewn together in intricate ways to be the bringer of chaos for the god he serves- but beyond that? His humanity. At his core, he's human, not someone who'll just take orders blindly and him striving for his freedom from that tether is refusing to deny the things that makes him alive. And I think the other alts like ya said follow suit, in Mot maintaining his humanity regardless of his ailment through choosing to care for Alyssa rather than being just a ruthless chaotic killing machine when Rux!Dia dies or in Aitheaca the way I want to write Cassell as someone who was born as a weapon for Ianite but loves collecting vintage human things and views his innermost self through music. The visual I kind of go to is the idea of Tom literally crafting and repairing the parts of himself that make him feel trapped by breaking them apart, burning it, adding new things when he takes the hands of friends and yeah!! And I think this sort of aspect could also tie into him becoming Mecha Dianite as well in finding freedom by choosing the person he is, and owning it

[grailknightmonty]

what have you seen? What do you know?

Needed a little draw of Merina for a VOD thumbnail and ended up doin this little free paint :] the beginning of her transformation into her eldritch form (which im still working on designing, if anyones interested in seeing the concept sketches lemme know and i can show)

[kiwibirdlafayette]

havent made much progress on this story bc ive been preoccupied with Everything Else clearly but. hands over draft designs for the other champions in aitheaca mayhaps 👉👈

ft. Cassell the wither skelly, William Oricho Mianite’s mossy little guy and Merina Coraldragon, resident “watcher” of things oggagogjsor

[kiwibirdlafayette]

Aitheaca: About Flash’s clothes, are they reflective? Is it made to look like gold (with gold embellishments) or is his jacket like actually gold (assuming it’s something similar to gold leaf but for fabric and lightweight)?

If his clothes are reflective, I think combat with him could be really fun, because he just causes blindness on the battlefield on sunny days. It’d also be fun with someone on the crew didn’t realize who they were talking to upon first meeting him because looking directly at him is hard. So, they don’t know the danger they’re in until it’s too late.

Also! What’s crew dynamic looking like? I saw you mentioned Spark was on the crew a while back, but just to confirm, who’s officially on the crew?

Out of all the Aitheaca designs, who’s your favorite?

Thank you so much for the questions!! I appreciate it a ton, it means an absolute lot that you're interested in my sillies :D

With Flash's jacket, hell yeah! I wasn't specifically going for a reflective surface, but I did want his jacket to appear as if it was weaved out of fibered gold (that Im assumin would be like gold leaf in texture), that is yes lightweight man's gotta be able to move fast... like a flash of light haHA-

When light reflects off it in certain ways it could absolutely be used like a flashbang to blind enemies during battle, I'm imagining AND YESSS the crew would have zero idea, like in the plot I have in my head so far, Tom, Sonja and Spark are the first ones to encounter Flash, they just see a shape of a man in the sunbeam ahead, too bright to tell who exactly it was. Initially they think it could be Jordan, but its actually Flash, who was tipped off to their location based on Tom's Mecha-Dianite quintessence (that still puts off a pretty strong signature despite the cloaking sigils Wag had given him). Like you mentioned, he's really hard to look at, because while he's standing in the sun he's not creating a shadow, he's reflecting it. And its in this time they don't notice him pull out his weapons and BANG

Mer and co. end up having to come in to come in to help them out-because they don't exactly have experience fighting someone who is wearing basically a mirror for a jacket in direct sunlight- wearing wearing some kine specialized obsidian sunglasses because yknow this is isn't their first rodeo with this yellow dipshit (Merina's not as affected as Will and Cass but she's gonna wear em anyway for the bit)

I think of the designs, probably either Merina, Cass and Ianite are my favorite! Ia because I just had a lot of fun designing her armor and coming up with a darker color palette costume design that wasn't just dark purple, and working with different armor styles to get the specific celestial warlord look I wanted her to have :D Cass was just a fun design to do overall because his aesthetics have been something I dont get to work with much, a very patchwork vintage kind of thing, which is supposed to be a callback to Inter Amorem et Timorem , a short screenplay I wrote for school where- aside from it being a Tom reference- he was named Cassell because his emotions were spoken through cassette tapes C: But Merina's design might just be my favorite, I am a sucker for nautical designs and trying to figure out what a coraldragon hybrid might look like compared to a typical merling was a ton of fun :D Also trying to work in the color palettes of the Watchers was how I landed on the blueish purple scheme, because initially she was going to be teal and orange to call back a little to Sonja across the multiverse

(I promise I also love William equally but too much of his design was me making jokes about Joel/Pix/Bdubs)

And the crew! Currently as I have it, the peeps that end up in Aitheaca are Jordan, Tom, Capsize, Sonja, Martha, Spark (Tucker I was thinking about including, but I'm not sure how to work him back in, but basically they would find him in a different SMP prior to this; where the reconciliation between him and Sonja starts) Its very interesting to have 3 different Sparklez variants in the same timeline, surely nothing could go wrong /hj, but the dynamic can best be defined as "a group of people who desperately just need to figure their shit out because damn they have not really had a proper chance to rest and feel safe doing so"

While Tom and Jordan had their reconciliation arc during Isles (source: just trust me m8), Capsize, while having gotten a hang on being undead is carrying a lot of resentment and unresolved issues she's not sure about because she can't clearly remember the entirety of (specifically towards Jordan) and Sonja kind of holding a little resentment towards Tom, but more importantly her decision to choose to stay Mianite's champion despite her post-S2 not being sure and owning that choice. no longer even after Tucker he drifts away (and then how that comes into play when Tucker rejoins them, basically the stuff I allude to in the mini animatic) its essentially Embersduo and Zombiecaptains but they have trouble getting along, not because they're sick of each other, but more like damn We all Went Through a Ton of Shit and we're not good at talking about it or working through it together,but goddammit we're still gonna try to get along. That being said I do think they have moments where they can be their silly shenanigan selves :D

Martha's her own ballgame, in the sense that she's very endgoal oriented in trying to problem solve, and her reaction to Aitheaca!Ianite is very drastic as well, it just must be really weird to see a basically evil version of your mother. She and Sonj aren't great friends, but her and Capsize have caught on pretty well, and she doesn't mind Jordan (Tom's iffy, but at least they can connect over being new gods in a way) Spark's just along for the ride, he was supposed to get back home to help out Dia, Mot and the Wizards but the portal fucked up lowkey :] He's not exactly overjoyed to be parading about the multiverse but he's fine with Martha, Sonj and Capsize so he mostly hangs around them. It'll be interesting that's for sure, but this is the main chunk of the post-series stuff I want to do so yeeeee

[kiwibirdlafayette]

still got artblock but have some random merina (factually the best character in aitheaca) (jordans never seen a watcher before and he has no idea what to make of it when he first encounters a coral-merling surrounded by eyes)

[kiwibirdlafayette]

there a lot of scenes from aitheaca id love to write (and havent bc damn a bitch has no motivation) but im considering actually doing Mianite’s introduction scene bc i have a lot of cool visuals id love to depict of him arising from the sea 👀

[kiwibirdlafayette]

infodump about forbidden piss jordan’s universe cause theres lore now

From the multiverse map, this realm in the same timeline bubble as Empires S2, and is called Aithaca. From the beginning, the three gods were always kind of in conflict, like Ianite could do her thing to try and keep balance, but it was never enough

So she turns to a darker magic that allows her to rid the realm of things that make it unbalanced , a power somewhat too powerful that ends up rendering Mianite and Dianite's powers somewhat obsolete. Mianite has not enough order, Dianite not enough chaos to try and fight back cause if anything becomes unbalanced, Ianite sends her followers to get rid of it.

As a result, Ianite becomes somewhat of a sole goddess as Dianite is imprisoned in the far reaches of the Nether, and Mianite is forced into hiding and becomes a hermit in a deep forest

Ianite’s control is through the mind of Admiral Flash Sparksize, the leader of Ianite’s army- a group of sky pirates dedicated to ensuring a balance of the world, even through violent means

- Unlike most gods and their champions, Ianite speaks to Flash through his head. As a result she can take occasionally take control of him, and read his thoughts

- He’s an incredibly skilled swordsman and melee fighter. As a child of the Eden Dimension, (a pocket dimension btwn the Overworld and Aether) he derives power from the sun/light, and is weaker at night

- Dianite’s champion (who has to brin Dianite back into existence the same way Jordan does with Ianite in S1) is a wither skeleton hybrid named Cassell (Cass for short). He’s friends with Mianite’s two champions Merina and Garrick (names im still not sure of) who came to know of their gods existence when he lead them to him

Thats as far as I got, I have more lore when I finish the narrative art ive been workin on :]