Tyra, Summarized v. 2.0
It's been a year since I last did this so it's time to revisit the world's most socially inept shapeshifter. Art by Vestrell.
The Book of Burdens
[ Photo by Taylor Flowe on Unsplash ]
In the months that followed the foxfire’s loss, Seraanna buried herself in the Scrollkeeper’s Sanctum. Ensconced within the Temple of the Jade Serpent, the library held works that pre-dated the Great Sundering itself - scrolls copied and recopied dutifully over the centuries, growing more ornate with each rendition as earlier parchment succumbed to the inevitability of age.
But it was writing of unexpected provenance, a children’s history, that sent the ren’dorei on a month-long journey across Pandaria. To Kun-Lai and the Townlong Steppes, Krasarang and the Vale of Eternal Summers, that wellspring still recovering from N’zoth’s ill-fated ascendancy.
From the mouths of babes.
Jun-Seo was seated at her desk within the Sanctum, glasses perched upon the aged monk’s nose as she transcribed one of several crumbling scrolls for preservation. She caught only a flicker of motion from the corner of her eye, looking up as a familiar form approached - trailing shadow and laden with intent.
“Scrollkeeper,” Seraanna murmured, “I would… give question to you.”
Book of Burdens: Author's Note
I love building on top of and expanding in-game lore, and my latest little story (with, hopefully, more to come) is no exception. For those of you that never played through the Mists of Pandaria expansion - a wonderful expansion sullied only by the massive content drought at the end - The Book of Burdens is referenced in-game as part of The Seven Burdens of Shaohao.
An exploration achievement, The Seven Burdens of Shaohao has you traveling across Pandaria to read scrolls that tell the tale of the Last Emperor of Pandaria as he sought to spare his people from the foretold Great Sundering. In so doing, he was forced to overcome each of the Sha. The Sha, of course, are malevolent spirits spawned from the remains of the Old God Y'Shaarj after it was slain by the titan Aman'Thul (long before the Sundering). In killing Y'Shaarj, Aman'thul tore a rift in Azeroth that created the Well of Eternity, and led to the titans entombing the remaining Old Gods of Azeroth (C'Thun, Yogg-Saron, and N'Zoth) rather that risk further damage by slaying them.
All of which makes Shaohao's journey, and the effects of the masks, quite interesting for our dear spooky shadowy Seraanna. Don't you think?
Postscript: There's also The Burdens of Shaohao, an animated telling of the tale by Lorewalker Cho, but that version doesn't mention the masks. And yes, there are even in-game items. All the fun...
✈ : My muse and traveling. (If they do it frequently and why, if they never left their home town, e.t.c.)
Tyra loves travelling, although it might be more accurate to say she hates being in one place for too long. All it takes it telling her there's someplace new to explore and off she goes.
Moving to Drustvar has tempered that somewhat. Her and Safere's cabin is there. Her closest friends live all over the zone. She even has a mountain hideaway! But there's always going to be that itch.
✿ : My muse and nature. (If they are an ‘outdoorsy type’, like the sound of bird’s singing, if they have never set foot in a forest, e.t.c.)
For a very long time, Tyra only cared about nature the same way any other soldier or sailor might: respect it or else. She paid attention to it if it affected her ability to fly, and sometimes she'd learn about the local area when she was working out of a forward base of some kind.
It's more complicated now. She'll actively look for things that are unnatural and contain them, drive them off, or blow them up. But she's still not one with the world in the way you'd normally expect a druid to be. She'll have to learn one day, but she isn't there yet.
✧ : My muse and art.
There's a lot of ways to define art. I'm going to use @rosewardensongbook's meaning because if I don't she'll bludgeon me with an elegantly kintsugi'd teapot. So: anything creative.
Tyra's a poet although she doesn't share them very often. Writing lets her pause and think about the best term to convey something. It's also a safe place to dump her emotions.
She's also an amatuer photographer. She gave Safere a camera right before the Dragonflight time skip and her quarters are covered in pictures of their adventures.
Send me a symbol and I will write a headcanon about… For multimuse blogs, please specify!
- 𝓕 : My muse’s handwriting. (Is it good, bad, difficult to decipher, do they prefer writing by hand or with the help of some form of machine, e.t.c.)
- ✈ : My muse and traveling. (If they do it frequently and why, if they never left their home town, e.t.c.)
- ✿ : My muse and nature. (If they are an ‘outdoorsy type’, like the sound of bird’s singing, if they have never set foot in a forest, e.t.c.)
- ☼ : My muse’s first memory. (Where it was, who was with them, how this memory makes them feel, e.t.c.)
- ☙ : My muse’s favourite food. (Bonus: A memory, be it good or bad, associated with said food.)
- ♬ : My muse and music. (What type of music they like listening to and in what context, what music they would never listen to, e.t.c.)
- ↺ : My muse and the past. (Do they live in the past and struggle to let go of past grievances, or move on more easily, is there anything in their past they want to forget, e.t.c.)
- ☾ : My muse and sleep. (How much they sleep, how much they wish to sleep, if there is something that never fails to put them to sleep, e.t.c.)
- ✧ : My muse and art. (If they have an artistic side or not and why, favourite artist if they have one, e.t.c.)
- ❃ : My muse and social media. (If the muse is/would be on social media and why/why not, their general opinion on it, e.t.c.)
- ✉ : My muse and others. (If they social and outgoing or more introverted, and why. If they prefer communicating with others face to face or in written form, e.t.c.).
- ▶ : My muse and level of education. (If the muse has some form of education, what education they perhaps wish they had, e.t.c.).
- ◐ : My muse and animals. (If they like animals and treat them well, do not care for them at all, e.t.c.).
- ❒ : My muse and gifts. (If they are good/bad at finding gifts, good/bad at receiving gifts, good/bad at wrapping gifts, e.t.c.)
- ☘ : My muse’s relation with their family. (If they speak with each other and how much, if they are close or estranged, e.t.c.).
Where Are The Writers?
The inactive have been ruthlessly pruned, and too few remain of the past. And of most that do, the content seems... thin. Perhaps it's the impact of the other social, the one that's slowly collapsing in on itself, with its emphasis on short hot takes and quips, images and videos for the ephemeral moment before you doomscroll to the next.
Aesthetic and inspo are well and good, but this was where the writers were found. Brief drabbles, prompts and asks, short stories, collabs, all of it.
Where are you now, hrm? And for those who have fallen silent, who has risen up? Where are your worlds, built of words?
Show yourself.
“You've got the look of a girl who's no stranger to the page. I can tell. You've got words in your soul.” - Aelius, Nevernight.
I hate that SEPTember OCTOber NOVember and DECember aren’t the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th months.
Whoever fucked this up should be stabbed
eggo-yolk
Today’s your lucky day
every time i have salmon it's like. bears are right. i would also stand in a stream for this.
They are also right about: honey, berries, napping all winter, and lack of pants. So really, bears are just living the best life possible.
Love the experience of writing a character who is absolutely, completely, and unapologetically an asshole. They never stop bitching, not even in their internal monologue, and they are the very embodiment of a cranky goat.
It’s incredible, more writers should write characters who are in no way meant to be unproblematic favs. Write problematic favs instead. Good for the writing soul.
Fun for writing fics, to be sure!
But the majority of times I've seen this in RP, the writer either:
- refuses to accept consequences for their character's assholery (either through outright refusal or having some "out" buried somewhere in their TRP/Profile)
- is looking to goad someone into throwing the first punch ("they started it" + some OP ability buried in their TRP/profile)
- or just plain enjoys trolling other players (sometimes combined with hints of a "nice side" just as others are about to walk).
So yes, write problematic characters. But be careful when RPing them, because RP is a collaboration and what's fun for you might not be so fun for the others around you.
If you're roleplaying an asshole, play to lose.
A CROW TRIED TO GO IN OUR CLASSROOM AND HE HAD A PEN
standbyfortitanfall
You’ve all just like, completely skipped over the possibility that this crow has seen people using pens in this room, found one, and is trying to return it. There’s been videos of crows picking up sweet wrappers and stuff and placing them in bins after seeing humans put their litter in bins. I really do believe that this crow is trying to return the pen and that is ADORABLE AS HELL.
offendedfunyarinpa
Another cool crow deal: Once, when trying to assess if crows could reason and use tools, scientists had two crows who didn’t know each other each take a wire from a table (one was hooked, one was straight) and try to grab meat from a bottle with it. The crows could see each other, though they had separate bottles. Only the straight wire worked for this, so they hypothesized that if crows could reason, the second trial would have the two crows fighting over the straight wire. The second trial started and, to the surprise of the scientists, the two crows both went for the bent wire, one held it down and the other unbent it. They both got meat out of their bottles. They came to a peaceful solution without verbal communication. Crows are probably smarter than we are.
I love crows. Bird behavior in general interests me and corvids especially have shown really high levels of intelligence.
cosmicocks
There’s a video on youtube somewhere where a thirsty little crow is at an amusement park, and he finds some humans with a water bottle. He starts pecking at the cap and at first the people didn’t catch on, but he kept persisting, trying to get at the cap. It took a little bit for the humans to get it but they unscrewed the cap for him, and filled it with water and he drank from it. The crow was so used to seeing people drinking out of these magical liquid containers and he knew exactly where it came out of and was able to communicate what exactly he wanted.
Planet of the Crows
Crows = the best birds.
"Will I get strong if I grow my hair long?" the young man asked. "No," said the witch, "but if you do, you are strong." "I don't understand." "Many will tell you to cut it, even if it's not their hair." "I see. And your short hair…" "Is how I like it," said the witch.
Separation
Tyra’s Cave, Drustvar The fifth year of the Interregnum
Tyra had dragged the cedar chest out of the rearmost chamber she used as a storage room. It was cold; she was in her human form and her cave was near the peak of a snow-covered mountain, after all. But somehow the chest felt frigid in comparison. Malign. That made no sense since Tyra had packed it herself, but it was true. Her hand lingered on the latch. Opening it meant making a choice she had avoided for years.
Zooming around after hours a duck caught on store’s CCTV🔊 audio on
…I don’t know about everybody else, but I’m getting a lot of ducks across my dash today…
I remember this part of Untitled Goose Game.
A friend of mine gave me Tyra art from elliezeekaye!
I don't know what mischief she's up to in that picture on the left, but someone's in trouble.