4KINGDOMS RE-READ ADVENTURE & LORE POST part 1
alrighty. i'm reading my own fic from the start for the first time. obviously i've reviewed each chapter as i've posted it but i got issues with reading my own shit so. anyway. i have baileys, i can do this
and since i'm posting about this story now anyways, and i'd wanted to make posts explaining the lore and the process of creating the universe, i thought okay, two birds with one stone, i'll do both! i can discuss relevant things one chapter at a time.
Chapter 1 (prologue):
not much to say about this. it's a tiny bit cringe but hey. a line that i like alert!
[…] with each new generation that the crowns were passed down to, the holy beasts' magic only grew stronger within the four kings. It was up to the individual nations and their flow of history, however, to define the line between humanity and divinity.
this, and the one thing i liked and even now like in this prologue is the way i ended it with "Perhaps this was all an act of ill omen befalling the four kingdoms – as the world created by the holy beasts was about to come to its end." because it's like, someone opens this 200k+ word fic, and the first chapter says that the world is ending. you just started. and it's saying that it's ending. in 200k words
Re: Chapter 1 - THE LORE! THE LEGEND! THE WORLD OF THE FOUR KINGDOMS!
the prologue really breaks down the basics. it's a world with four countries. each was created by one holy beast. the countries are also shaped like the beasts, i traced the shapes from some illustration on google. the characteristics of each country are straight out of the wuxing concept and how the four symbols are connected to it. azure dragon represents wood, so the east is the greenest country. the wood element is connected to the direction of east and the spring season and so on and so forth. the basic building blocks for the world were really just handed to me by beyblade canon and i used them like legos.
Chapter 2: takao complaining about ralf & sneaking into kyouju's house to eat dem noodles
takao is so sassy towards ralf. but i guess he always is. good i nailed that from the first paragraphs
i clearly completely forgot that there are annual fencing tournaments. i went to change the month (moon) in stealth shhhh you saw nothing
the chapter is just a lot of exposition. i think i wrapped it up pretty nicely, IIRC it took considerable planning and reshaping to get an opening chapter that's somehow simultaneously concise and informative and fun. this basically lays down all the relevant information about takao in one go. he's so good at fencing he wants to learn sword fighting already, he doesn't care about formality, he misses hitoshi who left ten years ago, he likes to eat, ralf is there. and wants to go on adventures. a lot of things that will carry through the entirety of the fic. not bad
Re: Chapter 2 - THE LORE! THE MONTHS A.K.A. MOONS!
these are literally just finnish translated directly into english. month in finnish is kuukausi, "moon season", but we talk about moons. "tässä kuussa" in this moon i did that, "ensi kuussa" in the next moon gonna go there. this is the reason i made sun and moon always capitalised, to make a difference. there's no such difference in reality in colloquial finnish btw
a complete guide for the good audience
January: Heartmoon (tammikuu -- actually "oak moon" but, it's an etymology thing)
February: Pearlmoon (helmikuu)
March: Earthenmoon (maaliskuu)
April: Glebemoon (huhtikuu)
May: Sowmoon (toukokuu) -- this means sowing, but i afterwards realised a sow is like, a pig. so now the moon name is kinda. not what i wanted
June: Summermoon (kesäkuu)
July: Haymoon (heinäkuu)
August: Harvestmoon (elokuu)
September: Autumnmoon (syyskuu)
October: Dirtmoon (lokakuu)
November: Deathmoon (marraskuu) -- truthfully i'm not sure if this was deadmoon or deathmoon. i'll find out when a mention of it comes up
December: Yulemoon (joulukuu)
Chapter 3: rei hangs out in a tower and finds out he's going north in two weeks. thanks for nothing olivier
i was surprised by how much good(?) exposition i put in this one too. the first sentence already establishes that rei wishes he was free but isn't. there's a pretty tight summary about him having a deity status that robs him of all agency. the first paragraph alone somehow manages to pack the information that the west is very industrialised and kind of bleak. i don't dislike this
mao hanging out there with galux at the start makes a bit of a false premise though. later on it becomes clear she's not there often at all and galux doesn't even appear ever since (note to self, it's her beloved little kittycat)
rei being snide about making olivier climb the stairs to the tower is pretty funny. also, rei saying how he would have preferred the south over the north. wow sweet summer child
Re: Chapter 3 - THE LORE! THE TIGER MAPLE PALACE!
this palace causes me so much trouble like you have no idea. it probably shows a bit in the progession of the story that i don't fuckign know what it looks like. the layout is essentially copied from the forbidden city which is the old imperial palace in beijing, and the concept of it being divided into inner and outer court is IIRC from the twelve kingdoms, the series that this fic is mainly inspired by. originally i wanted tiger maple to be more of a, like, actual fantasy palace that defies the laws of physics, like in 12kingdoms the royal palaces have shit like top floors where the kings hang out somehow floating above the clouds. but i didn't think it through early enough and now it's more normal, i guess. the palace is surrounded by the gargantuan wall (which, by the way, was not mentioned in the first chapter so i guess i hadn't thought of it yet?) on three sides and by the tiger maple mountain on the fourth. it's lodged between a mountain range and in the middle of buttfuck nowhere. the good thing about it is that i've made it clear enough how the place is so big that i can keep inventing new locations inside the walls when i want.
Chapter 4: rei has a bad time travelling to the north, then has a good time being in the north, then has a bad time again
this chapter is longer than my small intestine. equally bumpy too
it's also weird to me now that i put two rei chapters in a row. i know this happens sometime later too but that would be a no-no to current me
mao having a wife moment in the beginning and rei not really appreciating it. hmm well i don't know how i feel about that. there's a very casual drop about her being his fiancee. this makes me feel like i started off writing them being closer than they ended up being later on. but. i'll take note of it
a lot just happens in here. i have no evidence but i can imagine this chapter being like a fucking trial testing readers' patience. i'd bet my left kidney that it's eliminated many.
rei and max meet for the first time and it felt very funny to me at the time of writing. well, i guess it's still pretty funny but kinda illogical in the "i wanted this to happen, so the characters are now gonna act like this" way. of course max would just fuck with rei first thing. not literally. in the prankster way.
a line that i like alert! kind of a fake alert because i went to edit it a little before copying it here. but you'll never know. you don't know what it said
I had assumed the sky to be void of all light, but as I now stood there staring at its upward depths, I saw a brilliant whirl of hues of purple blending in with the beautiful, velvety black. Against that glossy darkness shone the silvery crescent of the shy Moon, shrouded in a thin veil of clouds as if making a half-hearted attempt at concealing itself. The distant shine of thousands of stars dotted the arch of the sky and continued till the ends of the horizon, like gems embedded in fine folds of dark velvet.
really like this description of a shy moon half-heartedly hiding in clouds. that was good writing!
not doing a lore for this one because the chapter made me tired. i failed my own trial. oh but as like half-assed lore i can say that the ruins of the church that rei mistakenly calls a castle in this chapter is designed after the cathedral of my city. which is not in ruins. there's also no pool by it like in the chapter. but the environment, i based on my city. the north is meant to be a fusion of northern europe, italy, and the US, so it's easy to model resting palace (the capital) after the city i live in, because this place is old as dicks. and european.
this is part 1 of idon'tknowhowmany. depends on if i survive
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Over the next few nights, there's a special treat: A supermoon is coming for the 2023 4th of July holiday weekend.
July’s full moon, also called the buck moon, will be biggest on the nights of Sunday July 2 and Monday July 3. According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, the moon will hit its peak illumination at 7:39 a.m. on Monday July 3.
Taking place right around the holiday, the full moon will light up the night sky along with the countless fireworks displays that will occur.
July’s full moon is called the buck moon because this is when deer antlers are at full growth after shedding during the spring. Bucks shed and regrow their antlers each year, producing a larger and more impressive set each time.
There are several other names for this month’s Moon -Feather Moulting Moon (Cree) Salmon Moon, a Tlingit term indicating when fish returned to the area and were ready to be harvested. Berry Moon (Anishinaabe), Moon When the Chokecherries are Ripe (Dakota), Month of the Ripe Corn Moon (Cherokee), Raspberry Moon (Algonquin, Ojibwe)
Thunder Moon (Western Abenaki) Hay Moon and Halfway SummerMoon (Anishinaabe)
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