Humanoid Marsupials

I don't recall who it was that sent the ask on this, but a while ago I was asked how one might work out the anatomy of a humanoid with a marsupial pouch. So here are my thoughts.

(tumblr please don't shadowban my blog, it's just really hard to put clothing on the lower half of a marsupial body)

(image description: four colored digital drawings showing marsupial humanoids and detailing their anatomy, which I will explain more below. The first image compares humans and kangaroos. The second image shows the changed anatomy of a humanoid marsupial. The third image shows the extra belly hair on a marsupial humanoid, and the fourth image shows another comparison between a humanoid marsupial and a humanized kangaroo, with different clothing styles. end description.)

So there are a number of things to consider when turning humans into marsupials. Firstly, that the pouch doesn't actually take up much internal space. It's small and extremely stretchy, and only takes up space when there's a growing baby inside. To accommodate for the weight of a growing child, which will grow beyond a normal human pregnancy of nine months, I have made the hips a little wider and the legs thicker. The hips have also been pushed back a little to let the pouch lean forward when occupied. The whole person is shorter, and the breasts are flat with no nipple, because the mammary glands are now in the pouch.

furthermore, I added a whole thick layer of hair on the belly because marsupial birth is a little weird. The pouch is not a modified uterus. Marsupial animals still have a uterus and birth canal. Early stage fetuses/embryos crawl from the birth canal to the pouch and attach themselves to a nipple. So, if the human marsupial is going to work like any other marsupial, there's gotta be a path made of thick hair for climbing.

Lastly, of course, the considerations on how this anatomy impacts things like clothing and culture, and also how this adaptation might have come to be. covering the lower half of the body might not be as expected in this culture, at least for those with a pouch. Do they have birthdays? Do they celebrate the day the tiny fetus enters the pouch? Or do they have a celebration more focused on the day the baby can leave the pouch for the first time? Maybe they only get a name when they can poke their head out for the first time. And perhaps the pouch developed because of environmental dangers that make child-rearing difficult, so the pouch allows children to be carried and made safe longer than a pregnancy while these people travel.

And that wraps up my thoughts on that! This was a very interesting topic to explore!

Alternative Terminology

In a world where more than half of the animals used for sayings are people, many phrases like “sly as a fox” or “pig-headed” are really not appropriate to use. So, the people of Ithiir have their own terms and words! These are by no means all of the terms used, just a small part of an ever growing list.

Expletives and Insults - Finchshit - Bullshit Jackasp - Jackass Asphole - Asshole Asphat - Asshat Dumbasp - Dumbass Asp* - Ass Bitch - referring to female Gad or Thylacine

*An asp is a type of viper.

General words and phrases - Newtish - Sheepish Holy toro*! - Holy cow Hold your dahlin* - Hold your horses Tuils* outta the bag now - Cats outta the bag now Sleeping in the gad* house tonight - Sleeping in the dog house tonight One trick dalli* - One trick pony Sly as an weasel - Sly as a fox Rott*-headed - Pig headed

All of the starred words are elemental based animals! Toro and rott refer to “Rottoro” which are cow like fire based creatures, usually used as beasts of burden. Dahlin and dalli are horse like water based creatures, tuils are cat like, gads are dogs… these will be covered and illustrated in another post :)

What other phrases would you like to see? Send in an ask and we’ll respond with the alternative version!

V.E. Schwab’s advice on creating memorable characters.

i’ve noticed a lot of just emptiness here on writeblr lately. reblog this post and put the name of your oc in the tags.

At 18, everyone receive a superpower. Your childhood friend got a power-absorption, your best friends got time control, and they quickly rise into top 100 most powerful superheroes. You got a mediocre superpower, but somehow got into the top 10. Today they visit you asking how you did it.

“Power absorption?” you ask him over your pasta, which you are currently absorbing powerfully. in the background, a tv is reading out what the Phoenix extremeist group has done recently. bodies, stacking.

tim nods, pushing his salad around. “it’s kind of annoying.” he’s gone vegan ever since he could talk to animals. his cheeks are sallow. “yesterday i absorbed static and i can’t stop shocking myself.”

“you don’t know what from,” shay is detangling her hair at the table, even though it’s not polite. about a second ago, her hair was perfect, which implies she’s been somewhere in the inbetween. “try millions of multiverses that your powers conflict with.” 

“did we die in the last one?” you grin and she grins and tim grins but nobody answers the question.

now she has a cut over her left eye and her hair is shorter. she looks tired and tim looks tired and you look down at your 18-year-old hands, which are nothing. 

they ship out tomorrow. they go out to the frontlines or wherever it is that superheroes go to fight supervillains; the cream of the crop. the starlight banner kids. 

“you both are trying too hard,” you tell them, “couldn’t you have been, like, really good at surfing?”

“god,” shay groans, “what i’d give to only be in the olympics.”

xxx in the night, tim is asleep. on the way home, he absorbed telekinesis, and hates it too. 

shay looks at you. “i’m scared,” she says.

you must not have died recently, because she looks the same she did at dinner, cut healing slowly over her eye the way it’s supposed to, not the hyper-quickness of a timejump. just shay, living in the moment when the moment is something everyone lives in. her eyes are wide and dark the way brown eyes can be, that swelling fullness that feels so familiar and warm, that piercing darkness that feels like a stone at the back of your tongue.

“you should be,” you say.

her nose wrinkles, she opens her mouth, but you plow on.

“they’re going to take one look at you and be like, ‘gross, shay? no thanks. you’re too pretty. it’s bringing down like, morale, and things’. then they’ll kick you out and i’ll live with you in a box and we’ll sell stolen cans of ravioli.”

she’s grinning. “like chef boyardee or like store brand?”

“store brand but we print out chef boyardee labels and tape them over the can so we can mark up the price.”

“where do we get the tape?” 

“we, uh,” you look into those endless dark eyes, so much like the night, so much like a good hot chocolate, so much like every sleepover you’ve had with the two of your best friends, and you say, “it’s actually just your hair. i tie your hair around the cans to keep the label on.”

she throws a pillow at you. 

you both spend a night planning what you’ll do in the morning when shay is kicked out of Squadron 8, Division 1; top rankers that are all young. you’ll both run away to the beach and tim will be your intel and you’ll burn down the whole thing. you’re both going to open a bakery where you will do the baking and she’ll use her time abilities to just, like, speed things up so you don’t have to wake up at dawn. you’re both going to become wedding planners that only do really extreme weddings.

she falls asleep on your shoulder. you do not sleep at all.

in the morning, they are gone.

xxx

squadron 434678, Division 23467 is basically “civilian status.” you still have to know what to expect and all that stuff. you’re glad that you’re taking extra classes at college; you’re kind of bored re-learning the stuff you were already taught in high school. there are a lot of people who need help, and you’re good at that, so you help them. 

tim and shay check in from time to time, but they’re busy saving the world, so you don’t fault them for it. in the meantime, you put your head down and work, and when your work is done, you help the people who can’t finish their work. and it kind of feels good. kind of.

xxx

at twenty, squadron 340067, division 2346 feels like a good fit. tim and you go out for ice cream in a new place that rebuilt after the Phoenix group burned it down. you’ve chosen nurse-practitioner as your civilian job, because it seems to fit, but you’re not released for full status as civilian until you’re thirty, so it’s been a lot of office work.

tim’s been on the fritz a lot lately, overloading. you’re worried they’ll try to force him out on the field. he’s so young to be like this.

“i feel,” he says, “like it all comes down to this puzzle. like i’m never my own. i steal from other people’s boxes.”

you wrap your hand around his. “sometimes,” you say, “we love a river because it is a reflection.”

he’s quiet a long time after that. a spurt of flame licks from under his eyes.

“i wish,” he says, “i could believe that.”

xxx

twenty three has you in squad 4637, division 18. really you’ve just gotten here because you’re good at making connections. you know someone who knows someone who knows you as a good kid. you helped a woman onto a bus and she told her neighbor who told his friend. you’re mostly in the filing department, but you like watching the real superheroes come in, get to know some of them. at this level, people have good powers but not dangerous ones. you learn how to help an 18 year old who is a loaded weapon by shifting him into a non-violent front. you get those with pstd home where they belong. you put your head down and work, which is what you’re good at. 

long nights and long days and no vacations is fine until everyone is out of the office for candlenights eve. you’re the only one who didn’t mind staying, just in case someone showed up needing something. 

the door blows open. when you look up, he’s bleeding. you jump to your feet. 

“oh,” you say, because you recognize the burning bird insignia on his chest, “I think you have the wrong office.”

“i just need,” he spits onto the ground, sways, collapses. 

well, okay. so, that’s, not, like. great. “uh,” you say, and you miss shay desperately, “okay.”

you find the source of the bleeding, stabilize him for when the shock sets in, get him set up on a desk, sew him shut. two hours later, you’ve gotten him a candlenights present and stabilized his vitals. you’ve also filed him into a separate folder (it’s good to be organized) and found him a home, far from the warfront.

when he wakes up, you give him hot chocolate (god, how you miss shay), and he doesn’t smile. he doesn’t smile at the gift you’ve gotten him (a better bulletproof vest, one without the Phoenix on it), or the stitches. that’s okay. you tell him to take the right medications, hand them over to him, suggest a doctor’s input. and then you hand over his folder with a new identity in it and a new house and civilian status. you take a deep breath. 

he opens it and bursts into tears. he doesn’t say anything. he just leaves and you have to clean up the blood, which isn’t very nice of him. but it’s candlenights. so whatever. hopefully he’ll learn to like his gift.

xxx

squadron 3046, division 2356 is incredibly high for a person like you to fit. but still, you fit, because you’re good at organization and at hard work, and at knowing how to hold on when other people don’t see a handhold.

shay is home. you’re still close, the two of you, even though she feels like she exists on another planet. the more security you’re privy to, the more she can tell you. 

you brush her hair as she speaks about the endless man who never dies, and how they had to split him up and hide him throughout the planet. she cries when she talks about how much pain he must be in.

“can you imagine?” she whispers, “i mean, i know he’s phoenix, but can you imagine?” 

“one time i had to work retail on black friday,” you say.

she sniffles.

“one time my boss put his butt directly on my hand by accident and i couldn’t say anything so i spent a whole meeting with my hand directly up his ass,” you say.

her eyes are so brown, and filling, and there are scars on her you’ve never noticed that might be new or very, very, very old; and neither of you know exactly how much time she’s actually been alive for. 

“i mean,” you say, “yeah that might hurt but one time i said goodbye to someone but they were walking in the same direction. i mean can you imagine.”

she laughs, finally, even though it’s weakly, and says, “one time even though i can manipulate time i slept in and forgot to go to work even though i was leading a presentation and i had to look them in the face later to tell them that.”

“you’re a compete animal,” you tell her, and look into those eyes, so sad and full of timelines you’ll never witness, “you should be kicked out completely.”

she wipes her face. “find me in a box,” she croaks, “selling discount ravioli.”

xxx

you don’t know how it happens. but you guess the word gets around. you don’t think you like being known to them as someone they can go to, but it’s not like they’ve got a lot of options. many of them just want to be out of it, so you get them out, you guess.

you explain to them multiple times you haven’t done a residency yet and you really only know what an emt would, but they still swing by. every time they show up at your office, you feel your heart in your chest: this is it, this is how you die, this is how it ends. 

“so, like, this group” you say, trying to work the system’s loopholes to find her a way out of it, “from ashes come all things, or whatever?”

she shrugs. you can tell by looking at her that she’s dangerous. “it’s corny,” she says. another shrug. “i didn’t mean to wind up a criminal.”

you don’t tell her that you sort of don’t know how one accidentally becomes a criminal, since you kind-of-sort-of help criminals out, accidentally. 

“i don’t believe any of that stuff,” she tells you, “none of that whole… burn it down to start it over.” she swallows. “stuff just happens. and happens. and you wake up and it’s still happening, even though you wish it wasn’t.”

you think about shay, and how she’s covered in scars, and her crying late at night because of things nobody else ever saw.

“yeah,” you say, and print out a form, “i get that.”

and you find a dangerous woman a normal home.

xxx

“you’re squadron 905?” 

“division 34754,” you tell him. watch him look down at your ID and certification and read your superpower on the card and then look back up to you and then back down to the card and then back up at you, and so on. he licks his chapped lips and stands in the cold.

this happens a lot. but you smile. the gatekeeper is frowning, but then hanson walks by. “oh shit,” he says, “it’s you! come right on in!” he gives you a hug through your rolled-down window.

the gatekeeper is in a stiff salute now. gulping in terror. hanson is one of the strongest people in this sector, and he just hugged you.

the gate opens. hanson swaggers through. you shrug to the gatekeeper. “i helped him out one time.” 

inside they’re debriefing. someone has shifted sides, someone powerful, someone wild. it’s not something you’re allowed to know about, but you know it’s bad. so you put your head down, and you work, because that’s what you’re good at, after all. you find out the gatekeeper’s name and send him a thank-you card and also handmade chapstick and some good earmuffs.

shay messages you that night. i have to go somewhere, she says, i can’t explain it, but there’s a mission and i might be gone a long time.

you stare at the screen for a long time. your fingers type out three words. youq erase them. you instead write where could possibly better than stealing chef boyardee with me?

she doesn’t read it. you close the tab. 

and you put your head down. and work.

xxx

it’s in a chili’s. like, you don’t even like chili’s? chili’s sucks, but the boss ordered it so you’re here to pick it up, wondering if he gave you enough money to cover. things have been bad recently. thousands dying. whoever switched sides is too powerful to stop. they destroy anyone and anything, no matter the cost.

the phoenix fire smells like pistachios, you realize. you feel at once part of yourself and very far. it happens so quickly, but you feel it slowly. you wonder if shay is involved, but know she is not.

the doors burst in. there’s screaming. those in the area try their powers to defend themselves, but everyone is civilian division. the smell of pistachios is cloying. 

then they see you. and you see them. and you put your hands on your hips.

“excuse me, tris,” you say, “what are you doing?”

there’s tears in her eyes. “i need the money,” she croaks.

“From a chili’s?” you want to know, “who in their right mind robs a chili’s? what are you going to do, steal their mozzarella sticks?”

“it’s connected to a bank on the east wall,” she explains, “but i thought it was stupid too.”

you shake your head. you pull out your personal checkbook. you ask her how much she needs, and you see her crying. you promise her the rest when you get your paycheck.

someone bursts into the room. shouts things. demands they start killing. 

but you’re standing in the way, and none of them will kill you or hurt you, because they all know you, and you helped them at some point or another, or helped their friend, or helped their children.

tris takes the money, everyone leaves. by the time the heroes show up, you’ve gotten everyone out of the building.

the next time you see tris, she’s marrying a beautiful woman, and living happily, having sent her cancer running. you’re a bridesmaid at the wedding.

xxx

“you just,” the director wants to know now, “sent them running?” 

hanson stands between her and you, although you don’t need the protection.

“no,” you say again, for the millionth time, “i just gave her the money she needed and told her to stop it.”

“the phoenix group,” the director of squadron 300 has a vein showing, “does not just stop it.”

you don’t mention the social issues which confound to make criminal activity a necessity for some people, or how certain stereotypes forced people into negative roles to begin with, or how an uneven balance of power punished those with any neurodivergence. instead you say, “yeah, they do.”

“i’m telling you,” hanson says, “we brought her out a few times. it happens every time. they won’t hurt her. we need her on our team.”

your spine is stiff. “i don’t do well as a weapon,” you say, voice low, knowing these two people could obliterate you if they wished. but you won’t use people’s trust against them, not for anything. besides, it’s not like trust is your superpower. you’re just a normal person.

hanson snorts. “no,” he says, “but i like that when you show up, the fighting just… stops. that’s pretty nice, kid.”

“do you know… what we are dealing with…. since agent 25… shifted….?” the director’s voice is thin.

“yeah,” hanson says, “that’s why i think she’d be useful, you know? add some peace to things.”

the director sits down. sighs. waves her hand. “whatever,” she croaks, “do what you want. reassign her.”

hanson leads you out. over your shoulder, you see her put her head in her hands. later, you get her a homemade spa kit, and make sure to help her out by making her a real dinner from time to time, something she’s too busy for, mostly.

at night, you write shay messages you don’t send. telling her things you cannot manage.

one morning you wake up to a terrible message: shay is gone. never to be seen again.

xxx

you’re eating ice cream when you find him.

behind you, the city is burning. hundreds dead, if not thousands.

he’s staring at the river. maybe half-crying. it’s hard to tell, his body is shifting, seemingly caught between all things and being nothing.

“ooh buddy,” you say, passing him a cone-in-a-cup, the way he likes it, “talk about a night on the town.”

the bench is burning beside him, so you put your jacket down and snuff it out. it’s hard sitting next to him. he emits so much.

“hey tim?” you say. 

“yeah?” his voice is a million voices, a million powers, a terrible curse. 

“can i help?” you ask.

he eats a spoonful of ice cream. 

“yeah,” he says eventually. “i think i give up.”

xxx

later, when they praise you for defeating him, you won’t smile. they try to put you in the media; an all-time hero. you decline every interview and press conference. you attend his funeral with a veil over your head.

the box goes into the ground. you can’t stop crying.

you’re the only one left at the site. it’s dark now, the subtle night.

you feel her at your side and something in your heart stops hurting. a healing you didn’t know you needed. her hands find yours.

“they wanted me to kill him,” she says, “they thought i’d be the only one who could.” her hands are warm. you aren’t breathing.

“beat you to it,” you say. 

“i see that,” she tells you. 

you both stand there. crickets nestle the silence.

“you know,” she says eventually, “i have no idea which side is the good one.”

“i think that’s the point of a good metaphor about power and control,” you say, “it reflects the human spirit. no tool or talent is good or bad.”

“just useful,” she whispers. after a long time, she wonders, “so what does that make us?”

xxx

it’s a long trek up into the mountains. shay seems better every day. more solid. less like she’s on another plane.

“heard you’re a top ten,” she tells me, her breath coming out in a fog. you’ve reclassed her to civilian. it took calling in a few favors, but you’ve got a lot. 

“yeah,” you say, “invulnerable.”

“oh, is that your superpower?” she laughs. she knows it’s not.

“that’s what they’re calling it,” you tell her, out of breath the way she is not, “it’s how they explain a person like me at the top.”

“if that means ‘nobody wants to kill me’, i think i’m the opposite.” but she’s laughing, in a light way, a way that’s been missing from her.

the cabin is around the corner. the lights are already on. 

“somebody’s home,” i grin.

tim, just tim, tim who isn’t forced into war and a million reflections, opens the door. “come on in.” xxx squadron one, division three. a picture of shay in a wedding dress is on my desk. she looks radiant, even though she’s marrying little old me.

what do i do? just what i’m best at. what’s not a superpower. what anyone is capable of: just plain old helping.

this is so beautiful

There’s a reason a sewing kit includes scissors, a wood shop has a saw, and a kitchen is full of knives. In order to build something, to create something on purpose, you have to be prepared to cut away what’s extra. A bolt of cloth does not a blanket make, a piece of wood a shelf, nor a loaf of bread a sandwich. When you snip off frayed bits of string, cut the wood into shape, or slice the end off a loaf of bread you are creating, with the act of removal, something closer to what you desire. 

Now let’s say you’re not sewing a blanket, you’re not building a shelf, not making a sandwich. Let’s say you’re crafting a life in which you are happy. You will end up removing things. You’ll leave partners, stop talking to family members, let go of friends. You’ll move apartments, lose jobs, change wardrobes. And you will feel their absence. You’ll look at the scraps of cloth, the odd angles of wood, the stale end of the loaf. But that cloth couldn’t keep you warm and that tiny corner of wood can’t store books. You wouldn’t be full from that little bit of bread or happy with that person. In the art of creating there is the act of removal and it is essential. 

Stretching the metaphor further: my sewing kit includes a seam ripper, and my hammer has a claw to pry out nails. I have made decisions that looked done, looked final, and realized they were wrong (for me), so I ripped them back, pried them out, and tried again.

June’s World Building Cheat Sheet Part Eight: I Didn’t Vote For You

*At least I think it’s part eight and it’s actually been five months since my last relevant post!

I’m kind of ashamed this didn’t occur to me when I was writing my first group of world building posts. It’s something I think about constantly in the genre I write and something I’ve definitely noticed other people struggle with because to some it’s not something that seems immediately apparent or like it needs to be fleshed out. 

What am I talking about?

When I first started sharing my fantasy stories online one of the most popular plots for other people in, near, and around my social circle was the story of the rebellion. Whether it’s the rebel princess or the dashing fugitive someone in these stories was always rebelling. I can understand why. Revolution is a pretty compelling story. However it was never clear what they were rebelling for, what they were rebelling against (besides a vague “monarchy” or something similar), and most importantly what they were going to do/reform if they won. 

That’s right people, buckle in we’re taking a deep dive into politics.

What is a Political Ideology?

In part five of this series I did go over creating political divides a little but that was mostly focused on a much larger scope (like nation vs nation). And while nation vs nation can still apply here we’re gonna be looking more at creating parties and ideology. So first, let’s borrow from wikipedia and answer this header question. 

Okay I know that may sound like a tall order so let’s break that down.

So what are politics? Politics are the activities associated with the governance of a country. So think of some of the things mentioned in my previous political post like ensuring clean water or sanitation needs (if that becomes a government responsibility in your setting). Now I know in that post I mentioned disagreements and what people would argue over and when forming a political party that is exactly how you should think about it. Take one of those governing activities and think of ways people would either debate or completely disagree over how or why it should be done. 

I tend to work backwards when it comes to this. To put it simply, and in terms of my own writing, Valera came before the Rusnaks. 

In my setting the “Rusnaks” are a defined ideology and party that exists throughout the continents, named after the man credited for either creating it or popularizing it for the masses. But the character Valera who first shows up in the stories is what I used to create the ideology before I gave it a backstory and more defined characteristics. It was easy to do it this way for me because Valera, at his core, was meant to be the complete opposite of the “norm” presented in the rest of the setting. As most of the characters are nobility, he was not. Most of the characters came from a very privileged background, he did not. Most of the characters were either allied with or had appreciation to faith and the church, he did not. 

When creating a rebel (or a rebellion to back them) it’s not enough to say they simply don’t like the monarchy. Why? What are their specific grievances with the current system in place? Much ideology sometimes comes in the space of a need that isn’t being fulfilled. What does this group plan to accomplish and if they are successful, how do they hope to change the system they dislike?  

On the other side, the opposing system should also be fleshed out, especially in settings when the government is said to be supremely powerful and oppressive and yet readers are never really told what the people in power want. Political parties have an agenda. They have a goal in mind. It’s good to say there’s an disagreement present but it’s not really a fleshed out argument if neither side seems to know what they’ll do if they win. 

Take it in pieces. Nothing that isn’t relevant should very grace the page but if your story has anything to do with politics like mine, there are probably certain issues the characters are aware of and may want to address. Use those issues that are already affecting the plot to expand on the ideologies that may be present/influencing the world they live in. 

A member of the royal family in my book is always aware and wary of growing support of Rusnak parties since one of their goals is to get rid of monarchy. A local lord might pay more attention to his charitable works and support of the public if he knows a local group is growing loud over class injustice. 

Agree to Disagree 

So I’ve started to touch on these points a little but I’m just gonna hammer them in some more. This, for the most part, is what I look at when grouping together political stances in my settings to create an ideology or party. Now, in the case that this party exists as a reaction to a system that’s in place my first question is usually:

In fairness, this is not always the most basic question to answer but yeah, what is it? They live in a dystopian world or they’re fantasy peasants who don’t like their liege. Okay, but what specifically? What are their grievances? Is it a lack of representation for a certain group in the governing party (i.e voting rights or elected positions)? Is it the distribution of wealth (or lack thereof)? Are they mad because their local government hasn’t fixed the main road in a while? Is it not the government as a whole but just who is currently in charge of it?

You have a problem, now how do they want to fix it? Usually my problem with so many rebellion stories is the solution is “they want to get rid of the monarchy” and okay, then what? What do they want to replace it with? because multiple groups can stem from that vague statement and have completely different ideas of what they should do in the aftermath. 

It had to stem from somewhere. As a collective did they wake up one day and suddenly realize they had different ideas than other people? Did they read a book they agreed with? Did another movement suddenly spark the growth and spread of people to sprout different ideologies (let us go back to the Enlightenment)? Did the advancement of society allow for the birth of a new class or different types of people joining an old one (and thus their needs changed)?

Hopefully by now you have a basic outline. At every point, it’s fun (and probably helpful for the setting) to think about why someone would oppose this when creating a group. Personally I think it’s very easy to make one group abundantly right and the other very wrong (usually in the case of dystopian governments) but it’s important to remember as readers we’re supposed to believe these groups gained popularity. That something about it as charming enough to get people on board and they supported it. What about it drew people in that no one has rebelled before or that other fractions have been largely unpopular or unsuccessful. 

To tie a bow on it, if you think about politics in your setting as problem solving it should become easier to come up with different ideas as to how to solve that problem. Those solutions can serve as the basis for the different ideologies or political parties present either among your characters or just in the background to give that world that lovely, June-approved, lived in feel. 

I had a dream that the king and the queen of a small country had a daughter. They needed a son, a first-born son, so in secret, without telling anyone of their child’s gender, they travelled to the nearby woods that were rumoured to house a witch.

They made a deal with that witch. They wanted a son, and they got one. A son, one made out of clay and wood, flexible enough to grow but sturdy enough to withstand its destined path, enchanted to look like a human child. The witch asked for only one thing, and that was for their daughter.

They left the girl readily.

The witch raised her as her own, and called her Thyme. The princess grew up unknowing of her heritage, grew up calling the witch Mama, and the witch did her very best to earn that title.

She was taught magic, and how to forage in the woods, how to build sturdy wooden structures and how to make the most delicious stews. The girl had a good life, and the witch was pleased.

The girl grew into a woman, and learned more and more powerful magics, grew stronger from hauling wood and stones and animals to cook, grew smarter as the witch taught her more.

She learned to deal with the people in the villages nearby, learned how to brew remedies and medicines and how to treat illness and injury, and learned how to tell when someone was lying. 

Every time the pair went into town, the people would remark at just how similar Thyme was to her mother. 

(Thyme does not know who and what she is. She does not know that she was born a princess, that she was sold. She only knows that one night after her mother read her a story about princesses and dragons, her mother had asked her if she ever wanted to be a princess.)

((Thyme only knows that she very quickly answered no. She likes being a witch, thank you very much, she likes the power that comes with it and the way that she can look at things and know their true nature.))

The witch starts preparing the ritual early, starts collecting the necessities in the winter so they can be ready by the fall equinox. Her daughter helps, and does not ask what this is for, just knows that it is important.

The witch looks at Thyme, both their hands raised into the air over a complicated array of plants, tended carefully to grow into a circle, and says, sorry.

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I had a dream that the king and the queen of a small country had a daughter. They needed a son, a first-born son, so in secret, without telling anyone of their child’s gender, they travelled to the nearby woods that were rumoured to house a witch.

They made a deal with that witch. They wanted a son, and they got one. A son, one made out of clay and wood, flexible enough to grow but sturdy enough to withstand its destined path, enchanted to look like a human child. The witch asked for only one thing, and that was for their daughter.

They left the girl readily.

The witch raised her as her own, and called her Thyme. The princess grew up unknowing of her heritage, grew up calling the witch Mama, and the witch did her very best to earn that title.

She was taught magic, and how to forage in the woods, how to build sturdy wooden structures and how to make the most delicious stews. The girl had a good life, and the witch was pleased.

The girl grew into a woman, and learned more and more powerful magics, grew stronger from hauling wood and stones and animals to cook, grew smarter as the witch taught her more.

She learned to deal with the people in the villages nearby, learned how to brew remedies and medicines and how to treat illness and injury, and learned how to tell when someone was lying. 

Every time the pair went into town, the people would remark at just how similar Thyme was to her mother. 

(Thyme does not know who and what she is. She does not know that she was born a princess, that she was sold. She only knows that one night after her mother read her a story about princesses and dragons, her mother had asked her if she ever wanted to be a princess.)

((Thyme only knows that she very quickly answered no. She likes being a witch, thank you very much, she likes the power that comes with it and the way that she can look at things and know their true nature.))

The witch starts preparing the ritual early, starts collecting the necessities in the winter so they can be ready by the fall equinox. Her daughter helps, and does not ask what this is for, just knows that it is important.

The witch looks at Thyme, both their hands raised into the air over a complicated array of plants, tended carefully to grow into a circle, and says, sorry.

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I don’t know how I didn’t figure this out but now that I have I don’t know what to do with this information

How to Keep an Edit Notebook

In my How to Edit a First Draft post, I mentioned something I call an edit notebook. Edit notebooks help you figure out what level of revisions your WIP requires, and exactly what is wrong with your manuscript. I use a 3-subject notebook per project, and a section per draft. An edit notebook is composed of a few parts:

1. Chapter-By-Chapter Notes

2. Overall Plot Notes

3. Analysis (Note: This is the most important part! The whole point of an edit notebook is to figure out how much editing you actually have to do. I sort these into different “levels.”)

4. Redrafting (Especially important when making novel-level edits, which is probably what you’re dealing with when you have a first draft)

5. Reoutlining

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