Lore Stuffs (Patreon)

with the sickness ongoing, the plan for a weekend upload just isn't happening. in the meantime, i've been working on organizing the questions from the lore QnA announced back in October. it's slow going. there were LOTS of questions asked, which is amazing, and i'm grateful people care enough about my stuff to have questions in the first place, that genuinely means a lot to me. but that said, it also makes it a huge undertaking to get it all sorted lol. but I’m working on it.I figured since my voice is out of commission but my typing fingers aren’t, I could give a few answers/fun facts inspired by some of those questions I’ve been sifting through. no big spoilers here, but there are some clarifications and expansions on what’s been said so far, and if you’ve avoided particular arcs (Imperium, Regulus, Vega) there might be some information that you might now be hearing for the first time. that said let’s goooooooooooooooooooLocations: All of the cities/towns mentioned are intended to be fictional, not representing an actual existing city. I generally do a quick check to make sure there’s not a US place named that in the general region of the country that I imply it’s in, to prevent confusion (or in other cases, I use a name that’s common enough that it could easily be one of the many examples of it without being clear which one it is). If I’m remembering correctly (and I’m probably not lmao) the only “non-Cornerstone city” that I’ve given a name is Ferris, a smaller town that is canonically north of Dahlia and is now the home of the Keaton pack. That particular one is a play on Perris, which is a city in California that I only know about because they have a railroad museum that I’ve been to lol (I’m a train bitch). Not meant to suggest that Ferris in my universe is exactly where Perris is (though they are both in CA), just was having some fun with that one. The rest of the named cities have all been Cornerstone Cities, which are roughly the magical equivalent of capitols. There are nine Cornerstone Cities spread across the country, which are meant to vaguely correlate with the nine official census ‘divisions’ of the US (Pacific, Mountain, West North Central, East North Central, West South Central, East South Central, South Atlantic, Middle Atlantic, New England) They also all have morbid references in their names. Blame my obsession with Final Destination when I was younger. While my character’s names are rarely based on anything specific, the place names actually often do have backgrounds. I haven’t decided on all of the cities yet, but the named, referenced Cornerstone Cities so far are:Dahlia, located in California, represents the “Pacific” division, third smallest. [refers to the Black Dahlia case]McKinley, represents the “Mountain” division. [refers to President William McKinley, assassinated, and by extension the Final Destination franchise]Borden [refers to the Lizzie Borden case]Duke [refers to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand]Kennedy [refers to President John F Kennedy, assassinated]Mont Blanc, the smallest Cornerstone City. [refers to the Halifax disaster]---Sovereigns: The Sovereigns refer to themselves as “Sovereigns”, not “Weavers”. CloseKnit gave them that name based on their suspicion that those beings “wove” the Meridian together. They are also sometimes colloquially referred to as “Skygods” by D[a]emons, particularly when discussing them as a part of legend or folklore, as most modern demons do. There are many Sovereigns, with varying levels of meaning behind their names. Named Sovereigns so far include:E’Laetum, of EmpathyMin’Ara, of Serenity [reference to Minshara (M-Class) planets from Star Trek]Rak’Xit, InchoateA’Xerahn, of Desire---D[a]emons: The Imperium storyline outlined the general conflict that took place between humanity, daemonkind, and the Sovereigns in the distant past. More details of that history were revealed in the Prime canon Universe through Regulus’ bedtime story on the subject (explaining roughly how humans were granted their powers), and then still more was revealed by Vega in his videos (specifics of some inciting incidents, including the creation of Vampires). Although these tellings still leave a lot purposely unexplained so far, they also paint a general picture of that ancient history.When they were originally created by the Sovereigns, they were all referred to as “Daemons”, with an “A”.  They were also called “Starchildren” by some Sovereigns, which was generally the more ‘affectionate’ title. [though using the term ‘affectionate’ very loosely there] In the wake of the catastrophic conflict that saw the majority of the Sovereigns banished and bound, and in which Rak’Xit, E’Laetum, and Min’Ara sacrificed themselves (in various differing ways), Daemonkind was forced to find a new source of sustenance. They found that human emotions were generally suitable, but that they were each only able to get energy from particular kinds of emotion. Previously, they had been grouped up based on the particular Sovereign that they served (which depended on which Sovereign had claimed them when they emerged from the Elision Well rather than any intrinsic differences or similarities). But this revelation caused them to ultimately restructure themselves instead into categories based on their feeding capabilities, given that they no longer answered to any Sovereigns. Daemons that found that they could feed on Empathy or Serenity chose to keep the name “Daemon” with an “a” as an honorific to the Empathy and Serenity sovereigns that had sacrificed themselves to create the Meridian. All other branches dropped the “a”, going by “Demon” instead, as a way of distancing themselves from their prior lives of subjugation. “Starchild” became generally considered to be pejorative and fell out of favor, largely felt to be an infantilizing term that was dismissive of their autonomy. “Landborn”, a term the Sovereigns used for humanity, is likewise not used very often by the people of Aria anymore, outside of a folklore context.---Now some rapid fire fun facts (these have some new information, so in that sense could be considered “spoilers” I guess? But they’re not major to any of the existing plots right now, so they’re really not in the conventional sense. But there’s the warning just in case)Yes, there are other kinds of Shifters. No, I don’t really plan on exploring that right now lolYes, there are other kinds of Demons. I don’t really plan on exploring that right this second, but I’ve got a particular one waiting in the wings that I actually made a thumbnail concept for over a year ago now. I’m sure he’ll show up at some point.Vampires being a failed attempt at creating new Concubi has been the plan for a very very long time. That’s why they have always had the exclusive ability to Trance, which is a very weak form of the Demon-exclusive ability to modify memories. Drinking blood from humans is a warped mirror to Demon’s feeding on human emotional energy, but as a physically-intrinsic equivalent to it, in keeping with human’s inherent corporeality compared to Demon’s non-corporeality. They’re bound to the physical world, so their food source is as well. They’re also obviously immortal, like Demons. Invocation and the inability to lie between Progeny and Maker is the result of the Sovereigns trying to make the planned “new beings” mandatorily obey them and be unable to deceive them as their Makers, unlike their previous creation, Demons, who were proving more and more difficult to subordinate. But the ability to Invoke and the lack of lying was found to have inadvertently been made an inherent trait that existed only between Vamps themselves rather than to the Sovereigns, when the unexpected side effect of Vampires being able to turn new Vampires was discovered.Asher’s sister is ten years older than him, and is named Madelyn. His parents are both alive and well and were founding members of the Pack, with Asher’s dad acting as Gabe’s Beta for roughly thirty years before choosing to step down so that he and Ash’s mom could focus on their dream of traveling in their later years. David became Beta at that time, then Alpha when Gabe died, and he then appointed Asher to Pack Beta. While there’s no expectation in Shifter culture that the oldest (or even older) member of the Pack should be the Alpha, having both leaders of the Pack be so young is very unconventional and was one of the many reasons David got shit for picking Ash, but it’s ultimately worked well and the dissenting voices from back in the day have long since shut up about it.[Okay maybe some of these aren’t so rapid fire lmao]Seers don’t exist in the Imperium, and there’s a specific in-universe reason for that.Imperium!Vega’s listener being accidently sent to him instead of to Imperium!Camelopardalis resulted in Imperium!Camelopardalis being later sent Imperium!Anton to feed on to make up for him having gone hungry, inadvertently making the entire rebellion at the haven possible.Imperium: Cataclysm was originally going to be structured a bit differently, with the same general scripts but the scenes spread over a different number of episodes. The two video titles that didn’t make the cut were “Piece by Piece” and “Dead Heroes”There is a specific branch of D.U.M.P. that manages Vampire stuff, like cataloging and managing the fallout of new turnings, handling monarchal land disputes, etc. The Vampiric Lineage Affairs Division.I’ve fairly recently renamed a couple playlists for those plotlines that are particularly serialized (a la “The Balance”, “Sadism’s Hold”, etc), which some of you have probably already noticed. Vega and Warden’s little adventure is now called Carpe Deus. Avior and Starlight’s is now called Sovereign State.I at one point wanted to have a representative from each of the Elemental/Energetic disciplines appear during the E&E Games saga. There was going to be a new Water Elemental named Finn (ha. ha.), Eric of D.U.M.P. fame was going to make an appearance to rep the Magneto Energetics, and a Graviton Energetic named Nico was finally going to be introduced. I quickly decided that Eric didn’t make sense because he’s long since graduated, and I didn’t have anything meaningful for Finn or Nico to do in the plot and I didn’t want to have them there just for the sake of it, so they got abandoned pretty quickly too. But maybe someday they’ll show up, who knows. The groups trapped inside of the Ward went through a lot of revisions as well, deciding who would be inside, who would be outside, and in what combinations. The biggest factor in that was initially thinking every group needed a listener character there. I’m really glad I let that go and went with the groups that I ultimately chose, I wouldn’t have it any other way now.I wrote a huge portion of the Inversion outline while listening to “Future Starts Now” by Kim Petras on loop for a couple hours. I have no idea why. It’s not like they’re tonally similar lol, and I’m not even a huge fan of the song. Just what worked. Another example of that tonal disconnect between what I write while I’m listening to something—the very first Echo video, the one with the Nightmare versions of a lot of the bois, I wrote while listening to “Family Man” by Hall and Oates on loop the whole time. really don't know why.Some songs I associate with various characters include bUt ArE NoT LiMitEd tO “Right Here” by Betty Who and “Playing With The Boys” by Kenny Loggins for Damien and Huxley, “Don’t Break Me” by Montaigne and “Don’t Leave” by MØ for Geordi, “Malibu Nights” by LANY and “Control” by Loveless for Sam, “American Nightmare” by DYLYN for early Gavin, “Assassin” by Au/Ra for Blake, “Human” by Daniella Mason for Project Meridian, “Anchor” by Allie X for Ivan, “Bells in Santa Fe” by Halsey for the Imperium.