#moralis

[nikolaraftis]

127 days

Hello again! It's that time of the week. I honestly thought I did not make any progress since last week considering how busy things have been and the other tasks I've been focusing on, and I was prepared to report that with something slightly different to make up for it -- but the word count says otherwise. Last week I was a little over 4,000 and today we stand somewhere over 4,500. Progress is progress. As usual, here's a short snippet:

'“Geronimo.” She tried to hide the tremor in her voice. Zena could see red glistening on the man’s fingers. “I need your help.”

“You’re mad,” he said. “You stabbed me.”'

[sweatyenthusiastgardener]

BbKSJr

CLICK HEAR TO HAVE SOME FUN!

[buriedknight]

knight Luluci

[unfortunatelyevent]

no but essek refusing to cast AOE spells almost the whole trip with the m9 to not hurt his friends and then doing 72 damage to bh in his FIRST TURN OF COMBAT with them is SO telling of him 😭

[avengerscompound]

Steve Rogers & Miles Moralis

Spider-Man/Deadpool (2016) #12

[saaraofthesand]

I don’t have anything to add but it’s literally them

[nikolaraftis]

Another question that comes to mind - how did you come to title the book and series? Do you have thoughts on how it has evolved?

When I first sat down to seriously consider this series and my characters and world, the first idea I had at the core of it was "these are people who have gone through things people should not, and there are characters very different to each other that by the end of the series, probably have little in common, except for one thing: they are made from clay, as all living things are." I took inspiration from Greek myth and how humans were built from clay and given fire. Hence, I started off wanting to name my series Bones of Clay. Didn't really like it so much, neither did my friends when I posed it to them, and so I settled for a while on Hearts of Clay, which seemed more fitting to the themes and the romance sub-plot that's always running underneath it all. Because the whole mix of this series' aesthetic, I guess, is a bit of a strange one. It's the 1920s of another universe, where dragons are real and almost every magical thing you can think of, but there's also a fantasy mafia of werewolves, but also a royalty plot, but also there's a cult, but also also there's romance and saving the world from great evil and prophecies. This is kind of why it has to be a series with shifting focus. And because the books follow Zena Moralis' journey through all that, I named each book, in order: The Return, The Rise, The Tragedy, and The Fall. With each book's purpose quite clearly, explicitly set out for both her and some other characters, including Geronimo.

Nearly a month ago, I decided I had to rewrite the draft I had because nothing was going the direction I wanted and since the months I had left it abandoned my style had changed and so had a lot of my ideas and direction. By then, I had quit things with my writing partner, and it helped spur on this idea that I wanted to make my series anew. It needed a new name. I actually recruited my sisters to help me when I was outlining in my notebook. I sat down on a bean bag and said I needed them to give feedback on some book title ideas I'd jotted down. From there, we narrowed the list and the themes and direction -- they insisted on knowing what the series is about, basically, and all the key events of each book -- and we came up with a new titles: Bones Of A God, Skin Of A Jewel Snake, Blood Of A Moon, and Heart Of A Clay Hourglass. From there we went: these are all ingredients to something, but what? And in the end, it was unanimous that this was what made a Moralis. Specifically, Zena Moralis. It's the weirdest, kind of hair-brained, out-there things considering I have not written out this entire series yet, but it made me decide that this would have to be the Moralis series. Because, Moralis: bones of a god, skin of a jewel snake, blood of a moon, and heart of a clay hourglass. Geronimo is indeed the other main character, but this is still Zena's story.

A lot of the original ideas have carried over, as you can see. If we played word association with how I think of the series, it'd look something like: hourglass, immortality, time, love, betrayal, politics, blood, forests, myths, gods, siblings, patricide, loyalty, swords, sun, compass, stars, void, war, grief, death. The very earliest draft I ever wrote of this was when I was about 13, and even back then there was political drama and looming war, but also love and, well, dragons and strange fantasy plants and pink bees that drink fruit juice that I called "berry blies". I have to say, 13-year-old me was on another level. And until now, I was planning to write this series as Young Adult and then let marketing put it into YA Fantasy or Sci-Fi or Supernatural or wherever it wanted the books to go. But with all the stuff I want to do, the topics and themes I want to tackle, it just makes more sense for it to be an adult series. I feel we have a lot of (possibly questionable at times) YA fiction books, and some trashy adult ones that are either too stuffy or full of toxic contemporary romance or just fairy porn. I know some that aren't (Leigh Bardugo's Ninth House and Hell Bent comes to mind) but I wanted to add to the area in my own way. Folks always say to write what you'd want to read, and I'd want to read adult fantasy, because I've grown past the teenager stage and, honestly, have been finding it harder to relate to some of those YA books even now when I've barely hit 20. Roundabout way of doing it, but this genre sort of change also influenced the titles.

Admittedly, the titles of the books feel like they border on too fantastical at times, but they fit better than the old ones did. It seemed too boring to have such plain titles.

All in all, my thoughts on how this has evolved is... it's kind of incredible. And I'm a little scared that the longer I leave this world and these characters (it's already been about 7 years), the more it will change still, and then I will never be done with it. I'm kind of at a point where I want these books done and out to the world so that I can have new ideas for new worlds and stop expanding this one, otherwise it feels like too big a beast for me to write, period. The way the titles have evolved reflect too how much more this series is coming into itself though. I build this story, of course, but at the same time the naming process and the writing feels kind of like an excavation where the more I write and alter things just a bit, the closer we get to the true image I see in my mind.

Anyway, sorry for a bonkers long response, whoops. Hope it answered your question! <3 (As you can see, I love rambling about my work)

[377-liks]

dungeon meshi x witch hat atelier: knights moralis

i just wanted to see the elves in the witch uniforms... . .

[thunderstruck9]

Yiannis Moralis (Greek, 1916-2009), Eroticon, 1988-91. Oil on canvas, 166 x 115 cm.

[hamletphase]

twins of indeterminate gender

[brainworms-all-night-long]

On today's episode of Sonic getting violently mugged:

[buriedknight]

knight luluci

[wip]

[yanagiineko]

Knights Moralis in a nutshell

(yes, thats dog easthies)

[ilmarisart]

Wolfmn........

[shinnyshining]

Nothing to see here, just two mad scientists in the same room

I kept my promise

[jackiemoonshine]

Ok I have to rant about Easthies because he gets so much hate but I love the character so much! I posted about this a minute ago on Reddit but he's such a fascinating character to me, from the start. I just have a thing about dark haired men with an inflexible moral code, ok? And after the last chapter, I FEEL AN EASTHIES BACKSTORY and like,

I am DYING for it. I feel like I'm the only Easthies lover in the world -- not because I agree with him or his actions, or because I find him likable. But he's obviously has strong convictions, strong enough to make him scary and unshakeable in his stances and I find that intriguing in a character.

He's a true lawful neutral in my view. Some people clearly see him as just a power hungry jackass who likes to bully people, but I think the author has clearly set up some kind of backstory explanation and I'm SO HERE FOR IT. I'm hoping for major trauma, angst etc regarding forbidden magic and/or memory erasure. Maybe somebody close to him used forbidden magic and had their memory erased? Maybe he lost a loved one who had their memory erased as a result of forbidden magic? Ugh I'm dying!! I can't wait!

Also- It's really interesting to examine the difference in the fan culture between how fans talk about Easthies vs Qifrey. Yes, Easthies is often too quick to erase memories, but it IS his job and is done in service to what he considers the greater good of the world and society as a whole, often without consideration of his personal goals. Our king Qifrey on the other hand, has been shown to erase memories of those he LOVES in order to pursue his individual desires unhindered, and yet has not received even a fraction of the backlash Easthies has. For me personally, I had a much stronger reaction to Qifrey's action in ch. 40 vs anything Easthies has done, because even though Easthies is an overreactive zealot, he at least seems to truly believe he's acting for the greater good. Qifrey knew he was being selfish and manipulative -- and did it anyways. Maybe has done it multiple times.

TLDR; it just fascinates me to think about how different people interact with these characters and their actions and also I love Easthies