#worldbuilding woes

[nikkywrites]

Why is it always the supposed-to-be (<- key word) short, one-off prompts that my brain decides to rain worldbuilding upon?

[crowithy]

Making NPCS for the world:

Vs actually having to make the world:

[lucalicatteart]

 sculpted a strange shimmery two headed snail, speckled with wild flowers on it's shell~

[i-will-write]

[scattered-winter]

Keith sprinted down the corridor, heart pounding and pulse racing. He held his sword in one hand and his knife in the other. Both blades were wet with blood, and Keith was certain he had more on his clothes. None of it was his.

The smell of smoke hung heavy in the air, and it was all Keith could do to keep running. His vision kept overlaying with the burning farmhouse, the charred bodies—it took every bit of his focus to stay anchored in the present.

But for all the adrenaline coursing through his veins, there was fear there, too.

He’d encountered and brought down a few enemies already, but there were more; he could hear the screams, the shouts, the sounds of battle echoing through the castle halls.

Lance. He had to find Lance.

Keith rounded a corner and stopped short, blades snapping up as a figure materialized from the shadows. The figure dropped into a defensive stance when he caught sight of Keith, but held it for only a moment before relaxing and lowering his bloodied sword.

“Keith!” Shiro cried, relief clear in his tone. “Are you okay?”

Keith’s defensive posture melted away, but he didn’t sheathe his blades. “I’m fine. What’s going on?”

“Bandits,” Shiro answered, expression grim. “A lot of them. I’ve been trying to establish a perimeter, but there’s too much chaos and not enough knights. We’re spread too thin.”

Keith’s heart plunged into his stomach. They’d just sent most of their forces out to take care of skirmishes on the border; the castle was defended by a skeleton crew at best. Had the bandits planned this?

From the look on Shiro’s face, he’d reached the same conclusion, but it wasn’t like either of them had time to worry about it.

“Where’s Lance and Allura?” Shiro’s tone was clipped, all business. It was only because Keith knew him so well that he could see the underlying fear, the tightness around his eyes. “We need to get them both to safety.”

“I was with Allura when the attack started; I left her with Shay and Romelle, in the armory." Keith exhaled shakily. "I—I don’t know where Lance is. I’m trying to find him.”

Shiro gave a short nod. “Okay. We’ll establish a perimeter around the armory and medical wing; if you come across anyone else, send them there.”

Keith nodded and opened his mouth to ask another question, but movement at the corner of his vision caught his eye.

A group of heavily armed bandits on the other end of the hallway were bounding up the spiraling staircase, one after another. Blood-covered blades flashed red in the moonlight.

Keith’s blood turned to ice. They were heading for Lance’s rooms.

He sprinted after them without a backward glance, fear and adrenaline singing high and wild in his veins. Behind him, he could hear Shiro on his heels.

An explosion rocked the castle, and Keith stumbled, glanced back.

Outside the window, smoke plumed from the medical wing, trailed by bright tongues of flame. The infirmary was burning, and an entire section had collapsed in on itself.

Shiro had stopped in the middle of the corridor, eyes on the smoke and face white.

Matt.

Keith didn’t hesitate. “Shiro, go! I’ll get Lance!”

Shiro didn’t need to be told twice. He bolted in the opposite direction toward the medical wing, and Keith adjusted his grip on his blades and kept running. He reached the stairs and started bounding up them, two at a time.

The smoke only got thicker the higher he got, and Keith could barely breathe from the primal, instinctual terror.

But Lance was up there. And Keith would tear his way through fire and smoke to get to him, no matter how terrified he was.

He skidded to a stop as a bandit appeared around the corner, brandishing his weapons with a battle cry.

Keith ducked beneath the swing, arced his knife forward, felt the blade slice through leather and flesh. The bandit screamed and collapsed, blood spraying Keith’s tunic to join the rest.

Keith kept running. Another bandit leapt at him, swords flashing in the moonlight. Keith danced to evade, his own blades clanging against the bandit’s as they fought.

He sidestepped to avoid a strike, but his exhaustion was getting the better of him. Pain hissed through his side as one of the blades sliced through his tunic, and Keith ground his teeth. He stepped in close, knocking aside the blades, and kicked the bandit in the stomach to send him tumbling down the stairs.

Above, Keith could hear fighting—grunts, shouts, metal on metal. The bandits had reached Lance. Keith had to hurry.

He continued to sprint up the steps, battling bandit after bandit the entire way up. It was taking too long. They were trying to slow him down, stop him from reaching the top.

The fear was a living thing, crackling beneath Keith’s skin like a live wire. The last time he’d been this afraid, his world had been on fire.

Above, the sounds of battle tapered off, leaving nothing but terrible, deafening silence.

Keith bounded up the last few steps and burst through the door at the top, blades in hand, Lance’s name on his lips.

Bandits clustered in the room around a fallen, crumpled blue figure. Keith could see blood on Lance’s tunic.

He brandished his swords, a low growl that didn’t even sound human rising from the back of his throat. “Get away from him.”

One of the bandits just grinned toothily at Keith. “I don’t think so.”

He tossed something underhand toward Keith; it rolled across the ground and came to a stop at Keith’s feet.

A round orb, topped with a lit fuse.

Keith’s eyes widened, and he leapt backward, arms flying up to shield his face.

And the world went white.

Keith’s senses returned one by one. Pain, so acute it throbbed with every beat of his heart, lancing through every limb. He could taste dust and smoke on his tongue, and the coppery tang of blood. There was a high-pitched ringing in his ears.

Keith painfully peeled his eyes open.

He was lying on the floor in a crumpled heap. All around him, the tower room was in shambles; flames licked at the curtains, and the far wall was gone, leaving a gaping hole staring out into the night sky.

Bandits were clambering through the hole one by one, shouting to one another; Keith could only hear muffled noise over the ringing in his ears.

A bandit in the last group had Lance’s limp body slung over his shoulder. Lance’s face was streaked with blood and soot, and his tunic was torn and burnt.

Desperately, Keith clawed for his knife, just a few feet away in the midst of smoldering rubble. His fingers curled around the hilt; he was lying halfway across burning embers, so hot it was cold, but he didn’t care. All he could see was Lance, his limp body outlined by the moon as the bandits prepared to leave with him.

Keith flipped the knife in his grip so he held the blade and threw it, end over end.

But he was dazed and wounded and weak, and the knife barely made it three feet before skittering pitifully across the floor.

Black spots danced in Keith’s vision, but he tried to push himself up, tried to stand. Desperation and terror pounded through him like a drumbeat, overwhelming every other sense, every other thought.

The bandit holding Lance saluted over his shoulder at Keith and disappeared.

Keith’s chest heaved with the effort to stand. A high-pitched wail echoed in the small room, raw with pain and fear, and it took Keith a moment to realize it was coming from him.

Something slammed into the small of his back, pushing him down, and Keith screamed, ragged and raw.

Someone rolled him over. Moonlight flashed on a blade.

A bandit stood above him, grinning as she angled her sword down to rest the point against Keith’s sternum. He couldn’t move; he could feel himself losing consciousness.

The bandit’s grin sharpened, and her blade arced downward.

_______________________

Shiro sprinted down the hallway toward the med wing. Terror like he’d never known filled his lungs with ice. He ran past battles, knights, bandits; he didn’t slow down to even process any of it. The only thought in his head was Matt. Matt. Matt. Over and over again, like a mantra, like a prayer.

Smoke plumed in the corridor from the medical wing, thick and black and choking. Shiro didn’t even hesitate before plunging into it headfirst.

It was like another world. Flames licked at the walls, bright and blinding; the smoke hung so heavy in the air that Shiro could barely breathe. An entire section of wall had crumbled, leaving a pile of charred rubble.

“Matt!” The name was torn from his lips, ragged and desperate and barely piercing the blanket of smoke and crackling fire. “MATT!”

Shiro caught a glimpse of something moving in the smoke—someone, moving toward him.

A bandit materialized, blade held aloft. He ran at Shiro with a shout. Shiro was too dazed with overwhelming fear to even raise his sword.

The bandit’s cry turned to a strangled gasp, and he stopped short and crumpled.

Matt stood behind him, breathing hard, long knife clutched in one hand. He had blood on his face and was barely staying upright.

Relief swept through Shiro, heady and overwhelming. Matt was alive.

“Takashi, come on!” Matt grabbed Shiro’s arm and tugged him back the way he’d come.

Shiro shook himself and followed, forcing the overwhelming emotion down and away; now wasn’t the time to lose control. He had to stay focused if they were all going to make it out of this alive.

Outside the medical wing, the other medics and several knights stood in groups, dazed and soot-smeared. There were no bandits in sight, but Shiro could hear the sounds of battles still raging elsewhere in the castle.

“We’re setting up a perimeter around the armory,” Shiro said.

Matt nodded sharply, amber eyes steely. “We’ll head there.”

He waved to get the other medics’ attention, and made a few sharp, hurried hand signals. The other medics nodded and set off toward the armory.

“We’ll set up a field hospital,” Matt said, starting after them. “I have a feeling we’re gonna need one.”

Shiro made to follow him, but another explosion rippled through the castle, making him lose his footing.

When he regained it, he raised his eyes to meet Matt’s horrified expression.

“That came from the east tower,” Matt said quietly.

East tower. Lance’s rooms. Where Keith had just gone.

For the second time that night, ice-cold terror swept through Shiro like a wave. He whirled and sprinted back the way he’d come.

He could vaguely hear Matt following behind, but Shiro outpaced him easily. All his senses were overwhelmed with bone-chilling fear for his little brother.

Shiro reached the spiral staircase in record time and bounded up them, heart pounding in his chest like a drum.

He reached the top and had only a split second to take in the scene that met him.

The tower room, charred and crumbled. Keith on the ground, bloodied and half-dead. A bandit standing above him, sword drawn.

Shiro threw his sword, end over end. It wasn’t designed to be thrown, but his aim was true; the blade sunk to the hilt in the bandit’s back, and she gurgled and collapsed.

Keith was trying to push himself up, a high-pitched whine of pain rising strangled and ragged with every movement, and Shiro burst forward, dropping to his knees and wrapping an arm around Keith’s shoulders to support him.

Keith was shaking, head to toe, and his chest heaved with every breath.

“Woah, hey, slow down, okay? Just—just breathe. You’re okay.” Shiro’s voice cracked, but he swallowed back the wave of emotion. Keith was in bad shape. Really, really bad shape.

But Keith just struggled harder. “Shiro, they—they took him.” His voice was raw with desperation, with pain, with fear.

Dread pooled in Shiro’s stomach, and his mouth ran dry. “What? Took who?”

Keith shuddered in Shiro’s arms, slumping against his chest as his adrenaline was spent at last. “They took Lance. Shiro, they took Lance.”

Hurried footsteps announced Matt’s arrival; he was out of breath and panicked, and his eyes only widened further when he took in Keith’s state.

Keith swallowed thickly. “We have to—we have to go after them,” he said, pushing weakly against Shiro’s chest. “We have to—”

“Hold still,” Shiro ordered, pushing past the fear to grasp desperately for control, for calm. “You’re in no condition to—”

Keith’s eyes rolled up in his head and he slumped against Shiro’s chest, unmoving.

Shit.

Shiro met Matt’s eyes above Keith’s head. “What’s the situation down there?” If Matt noticed the tremble in his voice, he said nothing, for which Shiro was grateful.

“The bandits have pulled out,” Matt said grimly. “The fighting has stopped.”

They’d gotten what they had come for. They’d gotten Lance.

But there was no way they could go after him, not now. There was too much to do, too many people who needed help.

Shiro slipped an arm beneath Keith’s knees and pulled his little brother into his arms, letting Keith’s head loll against his shoulder. “Come on. I hope that field hospital is set up.”

[stardust948]

That moment when you want to write a scene but your brain refuses to because it's caught up on figuring out the worldbuilding.

[eggbagelz]

Various doodles of the killjoy thangs in my roadtrip au

[silverskye13]

I don't remember if you ever explained this or not, but what's up with Tanguish saying he is killing Tango? I am guessing it is something to do with the skulk?

I know I've talked about it before, but it's probably been scattered across a lot of different shortfics [and talked a little bit in chapter 2&4 of the whole Redstone and Skulk fic in a somewhat blink-and-you'll-miss-it way].

I'm going to go ahead and lay the concept out in full, but like, warning: spoilers for all of the helsmit fics and shorts [Wels/Hels, Tango/Tanguish, and Ren/TheRedKing]

So in my little set of universe, helsmits au... Stuff... Basically the universe doesn't like that the hermits make helsmits.

Helsmits are made when hermits start to face a dark side of themselves, an inconvenient truth, or a dichotomy they don't like. For Wels/Hels, it's their idea of knighthood. Wels is the idealized white knight, Hels is the gritty, holding to your tenents even if it means killing people knight. They are a clash of ideals, and by definition both think the other is Being A Knight Wrong. Together they encapsulate the idea of "Sometimes to do good, very evil things are justified in the process."

For Tango/Tanguish, it's toxic codependence. It's being alone because you're sure of yourself/a little introverted vs being alone because you're self-isolating/filled with social anxiety to the point it's hurting your friendships. Together they encapsulate the idea that you can genuinely care a lot about someone and still be toxic, and that care and toxicity can be mutual. Humans weren't made to live in tiny 2 person isolated groups. We can, but there's a lot of angry psychology that tends to happen when we do.

[Ren and Red are a bit fuzzier. I never really hammered them out. Mostly it's Red thinks Ren is a coward for handling 3rd life the way he did, and Ren thinks Red is just a scary jerk. Something something appreciating the life you're given, something something remember your mortality something something friends make our short lives worth it. It was very hazy and existential I was coping with things when I was outlining those]

What happens when the hermits face these issues is, eventually they get past them. And since the hermit was there first, that generally [9 times out of 10] means the hermit grows as a person and moves on, and helsmit stops existing. It's like a physical incarnation of the "growing and changing through the plot" thing that happens during most character arcs. I wrote a short [Voices of Hels? I think it was called? Something like that] where Cub talks about absorbing his hels version and that's why his skin changed from old man to young dude. I used to have a list? Of hermits that didn't have hels versions anymore? I think Zedaph and Doc were on that list. And Gem. I need to find that list again. [In my funny little world I also justify Xisuma having so many helsmits (Evil X and Evil Beezuma for example) because he basically runs from his issues for so long he fundamentally changes as a person, and this he makes a new helsmit wholecloth once the previous issue no longer applies. I also feel like there are probably circumstances where a helsmet can disappear and then reappear later in life when someone faces an old or similar problem again. (Well well well if it isn't the consequences of my actions back again-- [gets tackled by my evil clone]).

For Wels/Hels, Helsknight has pretty solidly accepted his fate is to disappear into Welsknight at some point. His biggest goal until that happens is to, basically, make Welsknight strong enough to actually do good in the world. It's not an altruistic thing. He things Welsknight is weak, is a bad knight, and represents the kind of slothfulness that happens when you live a relatively carefree life. He makes Wels miserable on purpose, because he thinks that's the only way it'll make him stronger. And if Welsknight is strong enough to do good in the world, then hey, Helsknight can disappear into the aether knowing he didn't die for nothing [I feel like you kinda have to have a martyr complex on some level to be a good knight, RIP all the knight characters I've ever written].

For Tango and Tanguish though, Tango isn't trying to be a better person. He's not trying to get over his codependency and social anxiety to reconnect with his friends. He's feeding into is isolation bad habits, and in so doing, is feeding into Tanguish. If he keeps going at the rate he's going, someday Tango will collapse and stop existing, and Tanguish will be the only one left standing. Tanguish doesn't want this [he is just as codependent on Tango as his hermit is on him] and he's also starting to figure out he doesn't like the self-feeding cycle of never having contact outside of each other. He's decided he's going to break their cycle by forcing Tango [and also himself] to branch out.

In Chapter 4 of the Redstone and Sculk series, where Tanguish corners Helsknight to ask him for help, and Helsknight says stuff about "how rare it is that one of us wins", that's what he's talking about. Tanguish could be the last man standing and he's actively choosing not to. Helsknight, who doesn't think it's physically possible for him to win against Wels, thinks it's really, really stupid that Tanguish would just give something like that up.

So! Yeah! Hope? That answers everything? Clears things up? Most of this was supposed to come out either:

A) In the next couple chapters of Redstone and Sculk

B) When I finally got around to writing that Wels/Hels body swap fic I started writing and then stopped writing because MSH is my baby right now and I can't focus on two things at once

[skleechtheleech]

found a mosaic brush

[witchhaunts]

THE INFINITE PATHS OF FAERIE : MAJOR &. MINOR COURTS

the societal landscape of the fae is governed by the existence of courts. there are the most well known , called the major courts , but there also exist the minor courts. both work as schools of thought , political parties , social factions , many , many things. most fae , save for those born before the creation of the seelie &. unseelie or willingly wild , consider themselves among one or the other along with one minor court. often times it is a circumstance of one's birth at this stage , but a faerie can also choose to move between courts , especially the minor , as they see fit.

below i will detail the major &. a handful of minor courts that exist in faerie. this list is not all encompassing , as the minor courts can change &. more certainly exist than what is listed. these are just the ones that have been the most persistent &. are around during ro's canon timeline.

SEELIE COURT ( MAJOR )

the court associated with summer &. spring , of life &. renewal , of tradition &. codes. it was founded sometime in the first century , following many independent fae constantly fighting one another. technically , they merged with the unseelie when their queen titania married king oberon around the beginning of the early medieval period. even so , the courts still exist &. even the monarchy acknowledges it. the seelie are concerned with beauty &. pleasures &. often lack an understanding of mortals. they will make you laugh until you cry or dance until your feet bleed without knowing why it hurts you because these are the things you supposedly enjoy. though they are seen as the good side of faerie , this is simply not the case. all fae are monstrous &. alien to the mundane world because they do not have our morals.

UNSEELIE COURT ( MAJOR )

the court associated with autumn &. winter , of death &. decay , of change &. entropy. it &. its structure also came into existence in along with the seelie court. when unseelie king oberon married queen titania , as stated above , the courts officially merged , but there is not a strict effort to enforce that notion. they are typically viewed as the evil fae , which , just like the seelie , is inaccurate. unlike their counterparts , the unseelie do often understand humans. when you've dropped dead from the dancing they've compelled you to perform , they know why it's hurt you. they also do not have mortal morals , but their knowledge of us means they can appear crueler.

COURT OF BEASTS ( MINOR )

this court is primarily made up of the more animalistic fae. you have satyrs , pooka , nature spirits , all manner of wild creatures. they don't tend to align with one of the major courts over the other.

GOBLIN COURT ( MINOR )

this court is filled with the more monstrous of the fae. goblins , boggarts , hobgoblins , the name is rather literal. they tend to be more on the uncouth side &. as such tend to align with the unseelie court over the posh seelie.

COPPER COURT ( MINOR )

a court of inventors &. progressives. you can find household helpers like brownies here as well as dwarves focused solely on their creations. because of their interest in change &. moving forward , they are often aligned with the unseelie.

COURT OF COIN ( MINOR )

a name given to themselves in favor of the much less kind titles other fae give this court. those of the coin are enamored with the noble houses of faerie &. seek to not only emulate them but impress them wherever possible. despite their love of nobility on both sides of the spectrum , their need to uphold that order brings them closer to the seelie.

EVENTIDE COURT ( MINOR )

the sluagh , the redcaps , the bockles , all manner of quite unsettling creatures inhabit eventide. they come across as malevolent &. cold , isolating them selves from other fae to do... whatever it is this mysterious court does with their machinations. their reputation puts them more in line with the unseelie.

MERCURIAL COURT ( MINOR )

pixies &. other such tricksters populate the mercurial court. they are often used as spies between other courts whenever it suits their fancy. they love merrymaking but are certainly not above it happening at someone else's expense. due to their , well , mercurial natures , this court remains unaligned but is still seen slightly more often among the unseelie.

COURT OF WHIMSY ( MINOR )

often considered the seelie counterpart to the mercurial court , despite their officially neutral stance , the court of whimsy is one of artists , musicians , storytellers , creators of all kinds. primarily populated by satyrs , they are here for passion &. a good time wherever it can be had. they also tend to be one of the courts most likely to have mortal guests , whisking human artists away to faerieland for inspiration. however long they may want to keep them.

COURT OF THE LOST ( MINOR )

not all creatures in faerie thrive on politicking. some are simply trying to survive. this is where the court of the lost comes in. rather than become what is known as a wild fae , one who has separated themselves from any alignment whatsoever , there is safety in numbers. as such , they , too , tend to be removed from any particular affiliation with the major courts &. contain all manner of fae.

COURT OF TIDES ( MINOR )

these are the water — based fae. while there is overlap with the court of beasts , there is something to be said about being a world removed from an already unusual place. the seas , the rivers , it might as well be a kingdom of its own. naiads &. selkies can be found with this court &. they tend to avoid affiliations , transitory as the water they come from. they also move the most between worlds for the same reason , helped by the fact streams &. flows often follow ley lines .

BURIED COURT ( MINOR )

fae like the sídh , aos sí , dwarves , gnomes inhabit this court. those that dwell underground &. , more importantly , bring forth its riches. they also have a connection to deep , old magic that comes from even further under the hill. despite a mortal's perception of them usually being dirty or as rough as the stones , they tend to align themselves with the seelie.

[mrmeltingpoint]

what if instead of writing stories i made tumblr dashboard simulators with the lore instead

#that would be crazy right #writing is hard okay :( #melting's points

2 notes

🦈 mucking-and-sucking-about Follow

i pet one of our sharks while harvesting and i can confirm they're smooth

🎣 fishybusiness Follow

I've literally had to buy special fishing wire to stop sharks from cutting it when they swim by, their skin is razor sharp do NOT touch them.

🦈 mucking-and-sucking-about Follow

that sounds like a you problem our sharks are very smooth and feel nice

503,665 notes

🌿 smoking-seaweed Follow

the ocean is so gorgeous :) if only it wasnt filled with The Horrors

9,101 notes

🏴‍☠️ sailthesaltyseas Follow

🦜 polly-is-a-cracker Follow

WHERE is drunken sailor. this is a crime.

🐋 wailingwhale Follow

we should put op in a longboat 'til they're sober

79,074 notes

🐙 atlantian-adventurer Follow

Some fucking landwalker dropped their fucking anchor through my roof. What the fuck.

27 notes

🔱 nesting-crow Follow

just helped some twink steal a boat

9,295 notes

🐉 seadragonsfuckyeah Follow

Sea Dragons are OUT THERE!! We just need to LOOK HARDER!

🪸 moralcoral Follow

Technically, you're right! The Dragon Eel, while not a dragon as you want to find, is descended from reptiles! Specifically old-world Horned Lizards, which is where they get their horns from!

They can grow to be up to 98 feet long, and while they've never been known to capsize a ship, they're still pretty awesome!

🐉 seadragonsfuckyeah Follow

That is WRONG! TRUE Sea Dragons are OUT THERE and they are simply VERY DEEP UNDERWATER!! WE WILL FIND THEM!!!

🐚 selfishshellfish Follow

if a "true" sea dragon is ever discovered i'll get it tattooed on my left asscheek

🐚 selfishshellfish Follow

OH FUCK OFF

1,002,593 notes

🐡 huffing-puffers Follow

is it just me or is the sea getting higher

⚓ weigh-anchor Follow

My grandma's house was taken by the sea. When she built it, the coastline was still miles away.

🦭 seals-not-sea-lions Follow

818,733 notes

⛵ gems-of-the-sea Follow

just watched my nephew steal a boat with a himbo and a harlot cuz i sang him that shanty about the sea jewel now my brothers pissed at me lmao

318 notes

💞 mrmeltingpoint

none of you will ever understand my lore it will stay firmly locked away in my tiny skull

[myname-isnia]

“Oh I don’t think I’m gonna write today, I have school in the morning, I should probably head to bed”

*2 1/2 hours and 1.5k words later*

“FUCK”

[druckkugelschreiber]

I come up with the best fantasy lore/ worldbuilding for the stories I never write and it’s beginning to feel like a crime.

And then the stories I do write don’t get any planning because I am a discovery writer after all and they get shit like „I wasn’t surprised by much anymore ever since I saw the frog circus“.

I need to find a balance

[i-will-write]

[scattered-winter]

Can you give us some details on your world building for the culture of the Galra Empire?

yea ofc!!

I'm still working out specifics, but ofc the galra empire is very focused on victory in battle (hence "victory or death" being one of their most common phrases) and general Conquering Of Enemies which is due both to how the galra culture has always been and also to ten thousand years of war and propaganda. the galra value strength above all else, though what defines strength varies depending on who you talk to. (zarkon, for example, values ruthlessness and sheer power as strength, whereas lotor recognizes the strength in collaborating with people of different skills, and drawing from many different places to find solutions for problems instead of using brute force. both methods of thinking make them strong + dangerous enemies and leaders in different ways that both conform to the ideal of Strength that the galra rule by.)

additionally, galra are fairly social creatures that rely on packs (family/found family units) for emotional needs and physical closeness. (another facet of Strength stems from Protecting The Pack, which is one of the most important expectations of a Leader). galra require physical closeness with loved ones in order to be happy and healthy, and so zarkon and his head commanders purposely use a lot of robotic sentries for the bulk of their crews and forces with only a few actual live soldiers here and there because separating the soldiers from their pack and keeping them essentially locked up with only robots to keep them company makes them crankier and generally more trigger-happy. (fun fact: this contributes to keith's initial prickliness at the beginning !! ofc a lot of it is also the Trauma and his personality but as he gets closer to A Pack for the first time some of the unhappiness lessens as his galra side starts getting what he needs <3)

the empire is, of course, largely dedicated to the war. resources, soldiers, and anything else of use is given to the empire. there are very few Civilian Galra because of the military draft, but those that are around are generally either too young or too old to be in the military. and, contrary to what the paladins see in their travels, quite a large demographic of galra aren't happy with the war, either. ofc propaganda and nationalism are a big part of the culture and so a lot of them are all about Conquering and Enslaving Inferior Races and all that shit but for a lot of them?? they're tired of war. they're tired of their children being sent to the front lines, and they're tired of being half-starved because of the demand for food for the soldiers. they just want to live their lives without having to worry about being drafted to enslave Another Planet when they literally have more than enough resources to sustain themselves. many of the galra who feel this way fled to join rebel groups scattered around the universe, or even the blade of marmora, but a lot of them are still in the empire itself (either because they have nowhere to go or because they're too scared to leave or advocate for change because disagreeing with the emperor out loud is a good way to die).

there's a lot of mixed races in the empire as well!! i mean as we've discussed in other posts, after 10 thousand years of conquering there's been a lot of interspecies mixing around going on. some mixed galra appear galra enough that they can escape some of the discrimination, but most of them are practically second-class citizens. lotor, being the only one of the royal family who's mixed race, gets the brunt of discrimination from the kingdom itself and his family because of how public a figure he is, and that's one of the reasons why his team is all mixed galra because they literally have nowhere else to belong but to each other.

and lastly, the language !! I think I said this in one of the chapter notes, but I'm ROUGHLY basing the galra language off of russian, ukrainian, et cetera. I don't think I'm smart enough to just pull a whole language out of my ass (side eyes jrr tolkien) so all the alien languages have roots in irl languages just to give me a place to start. but I'm pretty much just using basic spelling/words as a base and building on them with my own spelling/grammar stuff, so nothing should translate because I'm not trying to make it translate. I get the initial "translation" of what I'm needing off of google translate (which already makes it a pretty rough translation ahlskjgdh) and then from there I cut out pieces of words and add other letters and change pronunciations so on and so forth, and even compare different spellings across other languages with similar linguistic origins.

(just an example: znaniya ilo smeirk means "knowledge or death" in galran, and I got the base for the phrase from mixing and matching "znannya abo smert" [ukrainian*] and "znaniye ili smert'" [russian*] and kinda fucked with the spelling and pronunciation even further to make it sound harsher and more galra-like based on the galra words we actually hear from the show)

*both base translations came from google translate so they most likely don't translate to their language of origin even before I made the changes

[pin3-vin3]

A lot of Betas definitely have food as a love language. Oh you want me to elaborate well if I must:

• Betas getting their Omega partners all their favorite snacks to keep in their room during their heat, or cooking meals they can save for the week and refrigerate if they cook

• And Betas are often very attentive to notice things like favorite snacks and meals, paying close attention whenever their mates, friends, family or pack members like their meals

• If a Beta is away from/on their way home and their partner is there and messages them that they aren't feeling well for whatever reason, the moment they get back their arms are full of their partners comfort foods; convenient, as they'd been craving them

• Beta pups bringing in cupcakes they made themselves on their birthday (or really any school occasion) to share with all their friends

• Betas always keeping small simple snacks in their bags/purses to give to their friends when they get hungry

Food being a love language for Betas is one thing but imagine them just being generally good cooks. Lots of Betas ruling the culinary world and cooking a lot for their pack members.

• In a shared flat/apartment a Beta shares with the rest of their pack, they rule the kitchen, cook all the meals and basically don't let anyone else in (or only other Betas, if there are more in the pack). They do this for good reason because no one else cooks better or more thoughtfully than them, and they hate when other pack members rifle through or disorganize cabinets.

On the flip side, Betas being really surprised and grateful when other people cook meals or get snacks for them that they like because that's just their thing and they aren't used to it being done for them to return

In my au Betas are primarily providers, so they're often taught and conditioned by society to give goods and services without much thought to what they'd recieve in return and to prioritize the needs of others, so many Betas appreciate being provided for by others in many ways outside of food.