Update on Rebirth / Possible retcons to Rebirth? / Shadowlands hype / general update · 5:46pm Sep 23rd, 2020
The next chapter to Rebirth of the Damned iiiisss... finished! It's done and being looked over by my proofreading-editing team, so it should come up before the end of September.
The sad part is that there is NO REASON why it has been so long since the last chapter. This new one isn't this long, it's 4k words long, and I wrote entire half of it on Saturday night 
The other half I wrote over a course of previous 2-3 weeks. I kept distracting myself with while writing which is why it took so long and it's pissing me off!
Anyway, next up will be Infinite Potential. I kiiiinda wanna do another Rebirth chapter, because there will be a tiny bit in it that I would like to publish before Shadowlands hits (something that I had been preparing for about 20 chapters, actually), but I need to have at least 3 Infinite Potential chapters out each year, got 1 so far only, so if I won't start working on IP chapter now, I would have to do 2 in a row to make it before New Year's, and given the length those chapters take I would rather not do them back to back. So unfortunately this thing will have to come after Shadowlands come out... will be kinda like that chapter with fake Illidan, originally meant it to come out shortly before Legion came out as sort of "celebration", but ended up coming like months later. But oh well.
So, I mentioned possible retcons to Rebirth in the title. A word of explanation: there had been 3 times in the past when I had retconned something in Rebirth. Those were:
- Princess Cadance origin; originally I had written that she was like second cousin of Bloodblood, that she was part of the same lineage (that I later on explained to be descendants of Celestia and Luna's maternal aunt), later on changed it her into former pegasus that became alicorn and was adopted by Celestia as her niece, as explained in that one MLP book.
- Sea ponies' appearance, originally I made them resemble Gen 1 sea ponies, I later decided to change their appearance to match how they appeared in Gen 4 comics.
- One more thing that I'm sure I had changed but I cannot remember right now; when I remember I'll probably retcon this bit 
But of course, those are relatively minor rectons, one could say purely "cosmetic" even.
One of the biggest cons of writing a story over such a long period of time (it will be exactly 8 years in exactly 2 weeks, actually) is that you have to keep stupid stuff you wrote a long time ago as part of your continuity, stupid stuff that you thought smart at the time but with the passage of time realize it wasn't a great idea. So yeah, obviously, there is a TON of stuff I would like to change from what I had written within the very first year of Rebirth of the Damned existance. Problem is, though, that some of those things became basically an integral part of the plotline (namely, Arthas', well, whoring), and it got referenced so much through the story that completely erasing this plot point would take so much effort that it would be easier to just remake the whole story, basically (Rebirth of the Damned: Reforged! 
). But there are some things that I feel like I could still remove with relative ease, the chief among them being:
- Saddle Arabia. For whatever reason, after Saddle Arabia was first referenced, I thought those two delegates beside Celestia were horses and not ponies, and I came up with this kingdom of horses idea that was heavily inspired by Arabic and Islam cultures... and by Arabic and Islam cultures I mean some of the, shall we say, less pleasant aspects associated with Arabic and Islam cultures. Suffice to say, this is something that has been bothering me for years, and the thought that at some point I would HAVE TO dwell deeper into this country and this culture I made up for it... I just find it a rather unpleasant prospect. Yeah, I could just change it, make it less offensive, portray better aspects of those real life cultures (because to be honest I don't really know all that much about them), but it feels like too much research into fanfiction that I am writing just for fun and try to update regularly while writing two other stories too. So yeah, better remove it completely. The only real problem would be with chapter like the council meeting when Saddle Arabia was actually a plot point while discussing international politics, but I think I can find my way around it.
- something else... I could swear there was another bigger thing that I wanted to retcon but I cannot seem to remember...
So yeah, thinking about retconning those. Let me know what you guys think... oh, and I would make a blog post listing all the changed chapters and maybe even the changes too if you'd like just so you wouldn't have to reread all of the story just to know those minor differences. Oh, and tell me what else you think I should retcon. Come on, this is a Warcraft story, retcons are obligatory!
Shadowlands almost a month away, and I am hyped!
Been doing some stuff lately to prepare for the next expansion, or more precisely, for the pre-patch. Got my Ahead of the Curve: N'zoth achievement, been trying to get as many level 4 Essences before they become unobtainable (no way I'm getting Focusing Iris level 4, max mythic dungeon keystone I completed was 10 and it was after the time had passed), been trying to complete Visions of Stormwing and Orgrimmar with 5 masks on, but no luck so far, max I managed to do was a complete run with 4 masks, or almost complete run with 4 masks. Oh, and no way I am getting the auction house mount, I have nowhere near the amount of gold needed for that. As much as I like brontosauruses, I don't care that much to farm gold for months (not that I would make it at this point).
Really enjoyed the Afterlife series, love how at this point it is mandatory that Blizzard does them.
Like, holy hell this one. This was actually something I had been wondering about for months now: why did Arthas end up in the Maw, if somebody like Kael'thas was granted a chance for redemption? Most of Arthas' crimes came after he lost his soul, the part that goes into Shadowlands. So was really eager to see if this is somehow explained, but I was expecting something more on the lines of "the Abriter is a dick to necromancers" or that it would be because of the Lich King's connection to the Maw, not a kyrian and Uther going freely-willy throwing somebody to literal Hell without them being judged first!
Honestly, my theory is now that it is all because of that f***ing kyrian taking matters into her own hands. I am avoiding spoilers so I am not sure if this is how it works, but I think evil souls are supposed to go to Revendreth first, to get their chance to repent, but if they don't, they are drained of their anima before being send to the Maw, so the Jailor won't gain power. But of course, they threw the former Lich King, one of the most powerful beings on Azeroth (granted, by now we had seen quite a number of beings who are more powerful, but he would still be in top 20). I think this had given the Jailor enough juice to grab Sylvanas' soul and make this deal with her to start ruining the "machine of death".
This is EXACTLY why they purge their memories in Bastion. Seems rough and unfair, yes, but if THAT'S what it leads to...
Pretty boring one, actually. Not quite sure why they went with Draka being the main focus in Maldraxxus, especially since I heard about some other, better known characters that are also there, but I suppose they are trying to show that they aren't just trying to cash in on people's nostalgia.
Wow, this one... it hit hard. Even if Ursoc didn't have that big of a part in the game, aside from being a boss in Legion's opening raid and having this questline in Wrath of the Lich King like 12 years ago, but still. I'm still using druid as my main because of how much I love animals and nature, so I enjoy every piece of lore about the Wild Gods very much, and it sucks that one is now gone for good.
Also I really like how the Winter Queen looks^^
So, my first thoughts? Garrosh in pain, yes! Garrosh for a long time had been my most hated fictional character ever, and his death was WAY too quick, so it's nice to see that he is being punished in the afterlife. Of course, the fact that they are bringing him up like this suggest that very possible he will play a role in the storyline somewhere. I won't be surprised if we will have to rescue and ally with him. Well, this is the "all hands on deck" situation, though I don't see him changing. He never showed any regret in his actions. The reason why they can dry him off his anima so long is because of just how much pride and arrogance he has. MAYBE they can work something with this, maybe if Anduin comes into play... There might be a small, very small chance that this can work, if but I reserve my final judgement until the expansion actually comes out and I get to play through it and learn how all of it works.
Speaking off... here's a funny little tidbit. As you all know, we will all be allying with one of those Covenants. And since there are 4 of them and each has their own storyline, I'm planning to have at least 4 characters at max level. Here they are:
- my main, night elf druid, will be joining Night Fea of Ardenweald, obviously.
- main alt, blood elf hunter, will be joining Venthyr of Revendreth, mostly because he doesn't really fit anywhere as good as others, and because a certain blood elf character plays a big part in the storyline. My head canon for this choice is that this character has deep regret over Teldrassil and Theramore, so he joined this Covenant because he feels this is where he would go after death anyway.
- dark iron paladin, will be joining Kyrian of Bastion, pretty obvious too
- Forsaken death knight (named Arthas) will be joining Necrolords of Maldraxus, also obvious.
Got some other characters that I would like to play, like my orc warlock, but I'm not quite sure which Covenant I'll have him join.
So, what are your plans for Shadowlands? (please avoid spoilers in the comments)
What else has been new? Well, before I resumed played WoW, I started playing Fallout 76 again, as I think I mentioned in my last blog post. Played for only about 2 weeks before WoW pulled me back again, but HOLY CRAP, this game was more fun than I remembered. Not quite sure if it is because of all the updates they had made since then (since, as I had mentioned once, the lack of NPC didn't bother me much, sure the dialogues choices and such are a big part of Fallout, but as an archaeologist I sorta profesionally have to deal with situations where, you know, EVERYBODY IS DEAD and try to figure out what had happened, so I liked this aspect of 76), or is it just because this time I looked up online HOW TO PLAY actually, looked up advices for beginners, best builds, and so on. Anyway, got to level 55, so much higher than on my previous attempt, but still have to finish the main story, got to the point where I am part of the Enclave but need to raise in their ranks, so that's gonna take a while...
And speaking of military, here's another pure gold of an episode from that Fallout series that I had recently watched, good lord this is hilarious... stay away from Fort Polk!
Anyway, more importantly, I recently found out a new series to watch and I would like to recommend it here for you all, called "Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart". It's HILARIOUS. Seriously, I think it's currently the best show on Cartoon Network (dunno for sure since I don't really follow those things) now that both Adventure Time and Steven Universe are done. I recently learned about it, and decided to check some video with clips to see if it's worth a watch:
Yeah, you can probably see why I decided to give this show a watch xD The funny part is she's not even the only awesome part of the show. Mao Mao is hilarious on his own, maybe even more at times (he once traumatized a villain to the point he questioned reality and tried to remove his own head), so is Badgerclops. The animation is surprisingly nice, and the show has many references to anime and other shows. I highly recommend it^^
And I think that's all for now, it's probably been a long enough blog post already.
im confused they are horse nation they even had a horse unicorn appear in a ep with trixie which definitely gave of a Muslim feel to his character culture so i dont see the point in retconing saddle Arabia from your story
but hey it your story if they not be a major party of your story feel free to remove them, either way i still enjoy it as it is
Wall of text
Anyway take your time with the story even if it's not being updated as quickly as you like you can't force it as it comes write it down
It's also nice to see how much thought you put into your writings it means your growing as a writer
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All I remember was that he had a horn, hence why I thought he was a pony. So yeah, apparently they are horses indeed, sorry. But still don't like the way I wrote them, writing stuff like they make mares cover their faces (which - if memory serves - they don't), do certain surgeries to mares' private parts to limit their pleasure from certain acts, and few other things, I think I pretty much only highlighted bad parts of that culture. Thank good
My bad memory screwed with me again, I forgot that how bigger he was from Trixie
ness I didn't actually introduced any character from there yes, because knowing my writing from my first year I would probably make his suicide bomb somebody
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Yep, that's my specialty, walls of text everywhere ;p
I know, but I would like to finish the damn story at some point, and at this rate it will take forever. I certainly don't expect to finish it before George Martin finished Songs of Fire and Ice completely
Thanks, though personally I think it's more of slapping my forehead when looking at my writing from first year and realizing how many stupid things I wrote into this
I think the orc warlock should join Revendreth. Warlocks generally don't have compunctions about slavish or torturous means of power collection. It would also be fun to have your orc get to meet up with Garrosh. Curious what your head canon would be for your character's opinions on the the prideful bastard.
Personally I'm rushing to get all my chars up to speed before the expansion drops. I got a Draenei Death Knight for Maldraxxus, her twin sister Paladin for Bastion (I'll probably race-change her to Lightforged Draenei at some point), my Void Elf Warlock for Revendreth, and my Night Elf Druid for Ardenweald.
Ah i see you are a fan of Mikeburnfire good choice of entertainment and STAY FAR AWAY from Fort Polk
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If memory serves face coverings was only strictly enforced by the Islamic faith (which like all faiths its more modernized branches are far lighter, than its more traditional,) though face covering such a vail, was not unheard of, typically used for dancers or harem members in public, for privacy, disguise, and honestly enticement. (Mystery can be enticing.) Depending on the time period mostly, and indeed place even in modern times, females are or were looked down upon, particularly by traditionalists.
Typically though most people would just base Arabic culture on Aladin. though unequal rights should be kept, as an edge point between the two nations (Equestria and Saddle Arabia) to keep some tension between the two, particularly since its leadership are immortal females.
Either way middle east was not my specialization in history, nor did I go to deep into on my own, but I did enjoy the theme of middle eastern dancers, which I found interesting, I liked their clothing. (I was pretty young at the time and simply found their clothing very interesting!
) So don't take my word to much into it.
Also Mao Mao's disguises... those are too good! haha
For myself, I'd rather you put time in cranking out more chapters of the story we're already reading, as opposed to rewriting everything you've put out so far.
With regards to one specific point you've raised, that of Saddle Arabia's portrayal in your fic, not every place has to be nice. It's perfectly fine to show that some places are firmly unpleasant or even awful. In fact, that actually makes it interesting to read about how someplace that is nice (or nicer) by comparison deals with that neighbor and its bullshit, when just going in with fire and sword to set things right (for a given value of the word) isn't an option. TL;DR: Keep it the way you wrote it, it works.
Nice to see you again. I am very interested in seeing your reaction to what happens during the storyline of Shadowlands. I can't wait to see what happens in the patches that come out after the game does.
i started rereading the story... yay for a new chapter! :D
Good luck with the writing, and the retconning (both deciding what to do and then doing it)!
(I'm afraid I don't have any input for you there, though; I read some of that story years ago, I dimly recall, but that's only dimly and far behind where it is now.)
I hope you enjoy the expansion when it comes out. :)
In that first video, the voice of... Thenios (sp?) seems really familiar, but I can't quite place it...
Still not playing WoW, so no plans myself. :)
Though if the afterlives you posted videos for, and the covenants you mentioned, are the only ones, I'm... rather puzzled at how this works. For a start, we've seen at least two orcs, one human, and one nonhuman being from Azeroth (IIRC) there, so clearly it's not just an afterlife system for beings native to Azeroth. And didn't Garrosh... [checks wiki] yeah, it looks like he died in an alternate timeline on Draenor (still not completely sure how that works, either...). So what exactly is the collection area of this system? The entire multiverse? Yet, even just looking at Azeroth, it looks... kind of limited? Like, what happens to just... an average dwarf? Where do they go? Or the tol'vir? Murlocs? Well, I suppose murlocs might get Ardenweald... but there are a lot of different cultures and sapient species just on Azeroth alone.
...Hm. Well, those souls actually in Ardenweald appear to be sleeping. So if I had to guess, I'd guess that the vast majority of souls actually go there, until reincarnation, it looks like. Hypothesis is that the filtering mechanism, whatever it is, directs to Bastion, Maldraxus, Revendreth, and the Maw those exceptional souls fitting their criteria (whatever those might be... I do wonder what the relationship between virtuous dwarven paladins, for instance, and the not-very-dwarven-looking people of Bastion is), while the rest cycle through for reincarnation.
Which kind of makes the Night Fea seem like the most important of the four to help, at least from a perspective looking to help the greatest number of souls. The Kyrian and Necrolords seem fairly able to take care of themselves and train and empower the souls reaching them do the same, from those videos, and the Venthyr, ah, seem like maybe they're not as much on the "solution" side of things as they'd like to think; meanwhile, the Night Fea watch over and nurture the sleeping, helpless souls of almost everyone who dies.
...Though I'm speculating on very little information, of course. Maybe the answer to "What happens to everyone else?" is "They fall in that plot hole over there." :D
...Yeah, a number of reasons I don't play the game anymore, but I do hope you enjoy it. :)
Interesting point about playing Fallout 76 while being an IRL archaeologist. :)
And I did, indeed, laugh a fair bit at that Campfire Stories video; thanks for sharing. :D
And though I highly doubt I'll follow up on it (still not really much of a TV-watcher), thanks for the recommendation for the other show and trying to share your enjoyment of it. :)
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Hm, interesting point. Originally I've been thinking between Ardenweald and Bastion, so that I could see if there are any differences depending on the factions, but there really doesn't seem any reason why a warlock would join either of those covenants. Indeed, it makes most sense for him to go to Revendreth... oh well, in the end I will probably decide based on which covenant's cloth armor would be most fitting. As for what would his reaction be to Garrosh... well, this character originally was an undead. I had paid to change his race to orc after seeing in Siege of Orgrimmar what Garrosh had done to warlocks from Cleft of Shadows, all who were loyal to the Horde, then proceeded to raid Karazhan every week until Gorehowl, axe of Garrosh's father, would drop for me, so that my felguard/wrathguard could carry it, all because I was that pissed with this fictional character and wanted to have this headcanon about this character having his pet demon beat him to death with his father's axe. Soo... what do you think my headcanon of this character's opinion regarding Garrosh would be?
Ah, nice. Actually race-changing draenei into lightforged draenei is very much something that could happen in canon, if I am not mistaken when you actually start as lightforged draenei the cinematic actually shows you getting infused with the Light (a process that I hope - for no specific reason - is explained better in "A Thousand Year War"; which I hadn't read yet due to confusing cirumstances). Less so in case of a death knight, though, I would think
All seem good^^ Been also thinking about leveling up a few more characters, mostly my Zandalari shaman (named Alilaaniwa, after that zebra shaman kid from a few chapters ago), and I wanna create a void elf priest once the pre-patch comes out... ah, and I got a worgen rogue on max level already, too, but not sure where THAT one should go, too... probably Maldraxxus.
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Oh yeah, those two are SUPER fun^^ Still have some 70 episodes before I catch up to current ones, can't wait, I noticed they are doing Dead Money, my favorite New Vegas DLC^^
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). You have a point about how such culture would effect relationships between those two nations.
See, I honestly have no idea why I came up with that "face covering" thing and could have easily done without it. At the very least I might retcon just this bit.
Would you believe that I hadn't actually seen Alladin? Or at the very least, had seen it when I was so young that I no longer remember it (I do recall watching some episodes of the tv show though). And I will certainly not watch the live-action remake, as I personally dislike the idea of live-action remakes in general and hadn't heard anything that would make me wanna watch them (I will give Alladin that though, the concept of live-action remake is not nearly as idiotic as idea of making a live-action remake of the LION King
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Oh, I prefer to continue writing the story rather than fix some past plot points, too, that's the main reason why I hadn't done anything about this despite it bothering me for years now
True, but the problem is that I based this not nice place on an actual culture and so far pretty much only highlighted some of it worst elements
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^^ Will try and remember to comment on what I think about the expansion in a few months^^
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Honestly, I am very happy that you and several others read my story several times, but how can you stand the beginning of the story?
Good lord man, I just spend a good portion of this blog post complaining about my early writing, which in case of Rebirth consists of about 1/3 of the story
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)
Thanks^^
(Oh wow, you read some of Rebirth? Can't blame you for not continuing, as I just wrote the chapters from my first year of writing - so up to 100th chapters - aren't all that great
Thanks^^
Well, from what I glanced over (trying to avoid too many spoilers) the way it works is that there is only ONE Shadowlands, not just for all the planets, but all timelines and realities (that was already hinted in the previous expansion during death knight order hall campaing, actually). However, there apparently is some exception to that, as demons have their own afterlife (for those that actually die, as if they are killed outside of Twisting Nether they eventually reform in it; Twisting Nether is this chaotic realm between worlds, something like cosmos but not quite), and possibly Old Gods have their own and so on... Anyway, when you die, Kyrians (the winged ones from first video) bring your soul before a being called Arbiter in a city in the middle of Shadowlands, who judges your whole life, and the Kyrian carries your soul to the part of the Shadowlands you deserve to be. As you said, I assume most souls go to Ardenweald, even though we mostly have beings connected to nature highlighted so far. Kyrians of Bastion are composed of most noble of beings; some dwarf paladins probably go there two, and from what I glimpes on the internet their "forms" that they take on in Shadowlands can change depending on their new function in Shadowlands and their own wishes (there is one naga character who is asked about why she chose her serpent-like form rather than her original, night elf form, implying souls are given a choice on the matter). As for Necrolords, they are apparently the "military" of Shadowlands; I am not quite sure why they need an army, but it was suggested that this "Realm of the Dead", like any other realm, could be invaded. And yeah, Venthyr aren't as helpful as they claim they should be in this video, but supposedly they do help souls repent (after which they are given a choice between joining Venthyr to help other souls repent or be judged again and be sent to one of the other part of the Shadowlands) and what we see in the video is one of the many results of the troubles happening in all of the Shadowlands.
Thank you^^ Always found it fun in Fallout series whenever you discover what happened to dead people and didn't realize until Fallout 76 that it's actually just like archaeology, actually
No problem^^
My pleasure^^
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anyways I did have a question are you going to be following the expansions for wow in your story or will the cataclysm events be your only mention for Azeroth? if its the former cant wait for you to give an intro explanation from Arthas about the Burning Legion when you hit the legion expansion (unless I've forgotten that you already did)
Nosoni: Yes I can't wait for you to explain what my immortal enemies are to these colorful creatures that the former lich king has found himself with
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Your welcome!
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:)
(Aye, ages ago, I forget just when. But I have dim memories of it, and the first forty-nine chapters have blue check marks next to them when I look now.
And, heh, thanks. :)
I have so much else to read...)
:)
Hm, interesting; thank you for the additional information!
"I am not quite sure why they need an army, but it was suggested that this "Realm of the Dead", like any other realm, could be invaded."
I mean, more than suggested, I'd assume; aren't the PCs passing bodily into it while alive to fight? That they're doing so to try and save it doesn't negate that it's a proof that that sort of thing is at least possible in some way, and that means that others might use it for other ends. Also, if there are indeed other afterlives out there, and the examples we have are "demons" and "possibly Old Gods", well, that implies to me that different afterlives might sometimes not get along all that well with each other, either.
"Thank you^^ Always found it fun in Fallout series whenever you discover what happened to dead people and didn't realize until Fallout 76 that it's actually just like archaeology, actually
"
Hah, well, glad you did there! :D
:)
And :)
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same reason I read your story the first time? I enjoyed reading it the first time
I saw a Theory that because Uther's Soul was spilt into two, The Uther in the blade learned of his beloved students fate that The Arthas who killed him wasn't the Boy he raised. Because The first soul that sword toke was Arthas'. So that's why Uther forgave him. But the Uther in Bastion didn't know that He believe it was his student the entire time.