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jtl-fics · 10 months

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For Want of a Nail

New Kings If Neil hadn't gone to Hernandez's house? (@stabbyfoxandrew)

New Kings AU | Unusual Fic Asks - Closed

Andrew felt like he was going to crawl out of his skin. It'd been a month and a half since anyone had heard anything from Neil Josten. Neil Josten may not even exist anymore but everyone was telling him to be calm, telling him to wait.

He snapped at the upperclassmen who did not matter and drew his knives more than once just to make them shut the fuck up. He wants to leave, wants to head out and start tracking down clues to find Neil and bring him back.

If he has to go to jail then he'll go to jail. It's never scared him before and it's not about to scare him now. He is more than happy to be Neil's trophy husband this time around when he gets out.

He makes plans to leave in the dead of night. He writes letters to Aaron, Kevin, Nicky, Wymack, and Betsy to explain himself but in the end that's the only kindness he can give them.

Neil had long been the highest thing on his totem poll. He has no idea what it would take to have someone come above Neil or to have Neil's importance to him wane.

He has plans to lock himself in a storage unit he's rented that is temperature controlled and remote so no one will hear him screaming for his medication. He can't be going through withdrawal on the meds.

He leaves the Tower in the dead of night and makes his way over to his GS having already started to come off of his medication slightly so that he'd be sober enough to drive out of town.

"Where are you going? It's not safe for you to drive." comes a voice and oh great he's hallucinating Neil. It was something he'd often done back at East Haven, his perfect pipedream always just out of reach.

"I'm going to go get you. I'm sober for the next hour before the effects start to hit." he returns with a roll of his eyes.

"Get me?" his hallucination asks. Andrew doesn't want to turn and look into Neil's young face. He's not sure he can handle seeing it.

"You ran off before Wymack, Kevin, and I could get you." Andrew scrubs a hand through his hair wondering why he's talking to this figment of his withdrawal. Except he knows why and that reason why is that he misses Neil desperately.

"Andrew...are you..." he hears the figment of his imagination trail off and then footsteps and then-

His hallucinations have never been able to actually touch him.

He whips around and there standing in the parking lot at 3 AM is a young and exhausted looking Neil Josten. Andrew's hands shoot up to cup Neil's face and he is alive and warm under his fingertips.

"Drew, it's you." Neil says with a watery smile and that was all he managed to get out before he pitched forward and utterly collapsed into Andrew's arms.

"Neil?" Andrew questions before realizing that Neil had truly lost consciousness, he can feel Neil's forehead burning against his shoulder where it lay"Neil!" he exclaims and gets a proper arm around Neil before he falls to the ground. He manages to get the passenger door to the GS open and puts Neil inside before rushing around to the other side.

Abby's old address in mind he twisted the key and started her up. Stomach churning as he broke speed limits and ran lights.

#New Kings AU #For Want of a Nail #In this Neil decided to just go straight to the Foxes #He was kind of desperate and couldn't wait it out in AZ #He's still pretty banged up tho #The cross country trip got him pretty sick from an infected wound #He'll be okay but he needs a lot of TLC #Which in this universe he would absolutely lovingly get from Andrew #It's probably about a week before Neil's coherent enough to explain it all #AFTG #AFTG AU #Andreil #Unusual Fic Asks

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lost-technology · 5 months

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Survivor's Guilt (Fic)

So it's up to 13 chapters and counting now. I forgot to keep loading it chapter by chapter, so it got away from me. Posted afresh for anyone who might be interested in it. Rated: Mature (Mostly for flashback chapters regarding expansion on canonical unethical experimentation). Ship Genre: Gen. Family-relationship. Meta-Genre: Alternate Universe / For Want of a Nail type Summary: Just after the Big Fall, a scouting crew picks up an unexpected survivor from Ship Five and this changes everything. Rem Saverem survived the apocalypse. Chapter 1: Restless Dreams - The survivors. Chapter 2: Useful Things - Young Vash earns his keep. Chapter 3: Diners, Drive-Ins and Spaceships - Motherly and friendly bonds in the galley. Chapter 4: Heroism - Navigation Officers are weird. Chapter 5: Anamoly - Protective instincts. Chapter 6: Of Cattle, Part 1 - A flashback to Tesla's birth and early days. Chapter 7: Of Cattle, Part 2 - A continuation of the flashback to Rem's struggles and Tesla's death. Chapter 8: We're All Mad Here - Rem and Vash go to therapy. Chapter 9: You'll Be an Old Man Before you Know it - Due to dire circumstances, she must miss his birthday. Chapter 10: The Cow and the Butcher Knife - "The good news is that your other son's alive. The bad news is that he's a homicidal maniac." Chapter 11: Severed - "My arm's gone, Rem." Chapter 12: Ghosts - Just Millions Knives, having a normal one. Chapter 13: Resonance and Dissonance - Let us sing through the agony together. Chapter 14: Pistol Packin' Mama - "Show them that you could, not that you would." Chapter 15: Beneath the Southern Sky - Explorers of the stars become explorers of the land. Chapter 16: Plants and Animals - Survival in the Wasteland ain't too pretty and it ain't too proud.

#trigun #trigun stampede #trigun maximum #vash the stampede #rem saverem #luida leitner #brad (trigun stampede)#trigun fanfiction #trigun au #for want of a nail #millions knives

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rosemaidenvixen · 1 year

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For Want of a Nail: You Are My Sunshine

What if Barbara wasn't out of the room when Jim used the bathbomb?

If Barbara was in the room when Jim used the bathbomb she would have dove in after him immediately after he was sucked down into the black water. Resulting in both of them being spat out into the woods as shapeshifting half trolls.

Some things would be easier with Barbara also being a troll by night, she needs even less sleep than Jim, so she doesn't struggle as much to get everything done. But she's still struggling with a massive amount of stress and uncertainty, not to mention dealing with a young tantruming Jim while barely keeping a handle on her own trollish instincts.

Instead of breaking her ribs, this culminates in young Jim biting her, hard enough to break her stony skin, and Barbara snapping and roaring at him with all her might, sending Jim running. Jim is horrified that he hurt his mother and drove her to such an extreme and Barbara is horrified that she snapped at her child and scared him so badly that he ran away from her. The two hug, apologize, and reconcile shortly after, but this marks a turning point towards repression for the both of them.

Their camping trips are a chance for both of them to run free and explore the wilderness in their troll forms. Jim also has much less of a hang up with needing to eat raw meat. Because his mom has the same dietary needs as him as a troll and he doesn't have an issue with her eating animals to survive, it's easier for him to accept doing the same thing himself.

When the CPS investigation gets started people are even more suspicious, from an outside perspective it appears that Barbara's keeping herself and Jim constantly isolated at home for unknown reasons. It's even speculated that the two of them are in a cult.

To confront Jim the other kids come up with some kind of distraction to get Barbara to leave the house. Then they break in with the confrontation with Jim, and subsequent conversation with Barbara when she returns, playing out mostly the same as in the main story.

The kids' reconciliation with Jim, while Barbara remains withdrawn, also plays out mostly the same. But when James breaks in and reveals that he was behind the bathbomb Barbara completely loses it. She attacks James and comes close to killing him, with one of the only things holding her back the fact that she doesn't want to execute someone in front of the kids. Instead she tells James that he has 24 hours to leave Arcadia, and if he's still here tomorrow night she really will kill him.

James books it out of town, but troll Barbara's confrontation with him was both loud and disturbing enough that it causes Nancy to rush over from across the street, where she sees both Barbara and Jim in troll form. Once things settle down and explanations are exchanged, Nancy becomes a supportive friends to Barbara in her struggles with her troll form, much the same way the other kids are to Jim.

Then after a long, fun summer. While biking to school one morning Jim and Toby discover an amulet in a pile of rubble, an amulet that whispers the name Barbara Lake.

TLDR: Both Barbara and Jim become trolls by night and humans by day, the amulet chooses Barbara as the Trollhunter with Jim and the kids being her support team.

#tales of arcadia #trollhunters #you are my sunshine #a secret's worth #sunshine au #barbara lake #jim lake jr #troll!barbara #troll!jim #trollhunter!barbara #fanfic asks #author asks #rmvspeaks #for want of a nail

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ailelie · 1 year

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Fic Rec: pride is not the word I'm looking for by Tossawary

If it matters, the canon for this fic is The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System. You do not need to know this canon to enjoy this story. I know NOTHING of this canon beyond that it is about a transmigrator and I LOVED this story.

This is a very long story by a very considerate author who includes content warnings and optional spoilers via links to their tumblr. The spoilers are barebones and do not ruin any enjoyment.

Do you enjoy the following?

Women removed from the fridge

People being strong in different ways (Luo Jiahui's strength is her deep capacity for love and her willingness to stand by those she loves, even if it means going up against people others fear. I love her).

Character growth! (I hated the main character in the first few chapters. He is utterly spineless and cares little about the world beyond his own survival. But then, by building one single relationship, he starts to grow because he starts to care.)

A story centered on a found family sibling relationship. (Shang Qinghua and Luo Jiahui are the best siblings. They choose each other over and over again. Both have their own (slowburn) romances.

A well-plotted AU in which every deviation can be traced by to the transmigrator or the implications of the canon. (Even Luo Jiahui's age is eventually explained).

Relationships of various types that evolve, change, and grow.

Resolutions that happen when people communicate and trust each other. Conflicts when they don't.

Multiple interesting side characters. Even the most minor of characters have at least a quirk that makes them distinct from other people.

Plot holes get resolved! Stuff comes back! Things that seem unimportant early on return later as new threats or have new weight!

Transmigration stories

A world based on a shitty novel and forced to work when it wasn't designed to; aka very interesting worldbuilding

Then you need to read @tossawary's pride is not the word I'm looking for!!

Okay, an actual summary, though.

So, from what I understand, SVSS is a transmigration story in which a young man takes over the role of a major villain in the protagonist's youth. In the original novel, the protagonist became a demon emperor and had, like, 600 wives. In the new canon caused by transmigration, the protagonist falls for the villain. But lots of bad stuff still happens.

In this story, the author of the original harem novel gets transmigrated into a side character who works alongside the original villain. The author starts from birth in this world and is forced by the System (an unexplained entity that issues quests via pop-up screens and manages the world state) to assume the role and position of his character (he can't check out of the plot). The author assumes he can't really change canon and is only interested in his own survival.

However, he just has to go see his protagonist, Luo Binghe, as a baby. So he arranges vacation and goes. When he finds him, he realizes Luo Binghe's adoptive mother (a character he never even named, but is Luo Jiahui) is 19, living in a hovel, and selling her body to make ends meet. His long-dead conscience rises up and he decides he can't leave her like that, not when he's the one responsible for her misery.

He originally plans to just drop her off somewhere, let her pretend to be his sister-in-law, give her lots of money, and never interfere again.

But that doesn't really go according to plan at all. And from this one change, the world shifts for the better.

The two grow into a family. Luo Binghe goes from being his "protagonist son" to being his nephew. Shang Qinghua goes from seeing the world as only his creation to being his home and the people in it as real and vital as himself. Friendships, family, good deeds (even absentminded ones), and love triumph over everything.

This is such a good story. I just finished it and I want to go and start reading it again from the beginning--especially since I nearly put it down. Shang Qinghua is so very annoying at first.

Seriously. Go read it. You do not need any canon knowledge. The story itself and the fantastic author notes keep everything clear.

#svss #fic rec #pride is not the word i'm looking for #tossawary #transmigration #for want of a nail #shang qinghua #luo jiahui #luo binghe

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aedelia · 1 year

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Not me being active on tumblr for the first time since Dannypocalypse...

Expect a lot more mha than before and people following me from Twitter should expect a fair amount of Danny Phantom stuff. I mostly had the fandoms separated by platform but that's less of an option now lol.

Also just finished rereading Viridian the Green Guide for at least the third time and it (and the memes) had me laughing and giggling so much.

#update #danny phantom #mha #fanfiction #viridian the green guide #for want of a nail

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fortyfoursunsets-a325 · 1 year

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New Fanfic!

It took me over a year, but I finally finished writing a fanfic based on the Tumblr post written by bitsandbobsofwriting. Link: https://www.tumblr.com/bitsandbobsofwriting/659314631541768192/merlin-goes-home-for-a-little-while-determined-to. In this story, Merlin gets Arthur to let him to take a vacation in Ealdor by saying Arthur can’t run his kingdom on his own. When Merlin leaves, Camelot begins to fall apart to Arthur’s horror and he realizes just how much he has come to rely on his manservant.

Here is the link to my fanfic. It is complete and chapters will be posted every first and third Saturday of the month. Next post will be May 27th. I hope you enjoy!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/47151223/chapters/118798963

#fanfic #writing #merlin #merthur #merlin x arthur #for want of a nail #ao3 #inspired by tumblr

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ihni · 1 year

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for want of a nail by @moodybitch96

Okay so. I have been reading this story, lately, and it's taken me a while because I've taken it a little at a time. Curled up in the couch, or in a quiet corner at work during my breaks, I have enjoyed each and every minute of reading it.

I've always had a weakness for the enemies phase of the enemies-to-friends-to-lovers thing, and especially if it's one-sided. Here, there's some good old fashioned pigtail-pulling from Billy's side, trying to get Steve's attention, and then a Steve who 100% thinks it's real and responds accordingly.

Add Neil's threatening shadow hanging over everything, and a very good description of Billy's and Max's sibling relationship, and I'm in.

This is a fantastic read, and I cannot recommend it enough. If you haven't read it, do yourself a favor and remedy that in the new year. You won't regret it.

#ihni reads and recs in the last days of the year!#for want of a nail #harringrove fic

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iamthespineofmybook · 2 years

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Animorphs fic idea:

Loren Remembers

The basis for this story is that, instead of what the Ellimist did in canon (whisk Elfangor away to a space battle and give Loren amnesia), he sits down and talks to the two of them.

He explains that the future is in jeopardy, and the only move he can think to make that would fix things is to put Elfangor where he would have been if they hadn't used his Time Matrix. If it makes them feel better, they can think of it as payment for using the device in the first place.

While this causes some arguments, Loren and Elfangor see no other option and agree to the Ellimist's request, with Elfangor being allowed to leave a message for Tobias once he grows old enough.

The primary wrinkle this change causes is that Tobias no longer lives with his deadbeat aunt or uncle, but with his mom. Who tells him the truth, but explains that no one else can know because they won't understand.

Tobias still becomes friends with Jake, and they take that fateful detour through the construction site.

But Tobias recognizes his dad's name. And it hurts so much more when Elfangor sacrifices himself. But in the aftermath, he tells his mom everything that happened.

She is heartbroken, of course. Her love is dead, and she didn't get to see him. But she also knows that the construction site is where the Time Matrix was buried, and she had been keeping an eye on it to make sure the device remained so.

After asking Tobias to make sure his friends meet up at her house for a meeting, she goes off to check the site to be sure the yeerks haven't found anything, and in the process finds the lost Escafil Device, preventing the David situation from happening.

And I just wrote all of that off the top of my head while I've been on break, and now I need to get back to things, so if I think of anything else, I'll do a reblog.

#animorphs #fanfiction #au #alternate universe #for want of a nail

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avatarvyakara · 1 year

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And now for something a little different:

(Yes, this is what I’ve been working on for the past while.)

For context:

The story of the Golden River—’Onochok in Kochachi, Kingawa in Nikkeijin Japanese—with its five rivers, its seven great cities, its many-buttressed buildings and sacred isles—is a complex one, as is the story of the Nikkei-jin, the Japanese settlers who became the greatest rivals of the people of the Bay. But they are not alone, in the story of this continent. Nor can what happened to them truly be divorced from events elsewhere in the known world.

The continent of HESPERIA lacks much in the way of domesticable animals, but there was one key exception—camelops celeris, which the Bay would call ’espeli (plural ’espelik) but most of the world would come to call nayoomee. Large and llama-like, the nayoomee would provide meat, wool, and perhaps most importantly a suitable mount. Camelops c. occidentalis, the variant found on the western coast of Hesperia, would come to be used by the ancient Hokan pastoral peoples, giving them an edge against the Yok-Utian agriculturalists…at least at first. It would also give the ancient Inawemaaganic [Algonquian] tribes on what another history would call the Columbia Plateau a key boost in their expansions across the continent to the west.

It is with these people—or with a descendant people, the Nnu [Mi’kmaq]—that the next stage of the story takes place. Because in the year 1000, a ship came from the northeast of the world, bearing warriors from a faraway land, a strange faith, strange new animals—and strange diseases. Smallpox in particular did a lot of damage—tore the Wóšnathípi Empire to pieces, ended the cult of the Bird-Men, nearly destroyed the power of the Turtle Cities of the Great Lakes, and left piles of burning corpses brightening the night in the Bay, among other effects. Key to all this, though, is that the people of the urban civilizations of Hesperia survived. And those who did now had a boost against the sicknesses of the Other World.

The story continues in 1251, when a group of Tau raiders—whom another history would call the Inuit—made their way across the Strait and traded with Japan and China. North China, anyway; the Mongol Conquest was still ongoing at the time. Unfortunately, the Tau brought a disease of their own with them, which English speakers would come to call alcom: a herpesvirus causing diarrhea, spots, and febrile seizures, and then, as little as four months or as much as five years later, inflammation of the body—including fatal encephalitis. It was this sickness, also called the Red Death, which among other things stopped the Yuan from getting all the way south, saved the city of Baghdad (by forcing a recall of the armies), ensured the presence of Christian kingdoms in Palestine and Muslim principates in Iberia for centuries to come, and meant that the population had already dropped by a full fifth across Eurasia when bubonic plague came along not too long later.

It would be a much more haggard, somewhat more fervent, world which was set to unite in 1485, when Kuroda Kiyoshi, frustrated at the Mongol omnipotence in trade, was granted permission by the Emperor Go-Tenji (Yamahito) to seek an alternative trade route with the faraway land of Europe. After being at sea for thirty-nine days, on the fortieth they came to a great bay, filled with sacred islands and surrounded by cities of stone and mud.

In keeping with a time-honoured tradition across the multiverse, he deemed it France.

***

Hesperia will have had three and a half thousand years of recognizable “civilization” (large-scale agriculture, cities, literacy, metallurgy, epidemic disease, war) by the time the worlds collide. The countless cultures to have risen and fallen in that time could fill a book—and in this world and ours they already have. But for simplicity’s sake, let us divide the world into six portions.

KAWIINI, the “centre-world”, marks the western coast of the continent, along the edge of the Assinotie Mountains (which another history would call the Rockies). This is where the nayoomee was first domesticated; this is where tule reed was first stamped into paper scrolls; this is where the first outbreak of alcom occurred; this is where one of the continent’s three major religions, HOYOHHA, would develop. The region of Lokloni, the “Great Valley”, contains four great powers constantly one-upping each other in trade and warfare. The KOCHACHI, whom another history would call the Miwoks, hold sway here, the Earth-King and Water-King in Hulpu-Mni (our Sacramento) controlling the massive river valley to the north and (more importantly) four of the Seven Cities around the Bay. The other powers worth mentioning are the SHUURVITAM [Tongva and nearby Takic peoples] to the south, whose great city of Iyáanga would later be described as a “Babylon in Paradise”, and the TAU, Hesperia’s first intercontinental empire.

TUUWAQATSI is slightly to the east, in the Assinoti Mountains themselves. Cliff-cities were being built here before almost anywhere else on the continent; the arrival of the nayoomee, and more importantly domesticated bighorn sheep, did wonders for the local economy, as did goosefoot and sunflowers and, later, maize, beans, and squash. Currently most of the land—and a good chunk of the plains to the east—is under the control of the TINTA IMPERIUM, whose dominant inhabitants call themselves the Nemi and are called the Shoshone in our timeline. Of mention are the DINÉ, the Navajo, who have maintained a reasonable presence despite the efforts of the Eight Mayors, and the ÂSHINI [Zuñi] and HOPI, both of whom are considered de facto independent peoples within the Tinta Imperium thanks to the prominence of their cities.

ÑÍTA is what our world would call the Mississippi River Basin, with much territory on the eastern coast and the western plains; perhaps it would be fairer to call it the home of the Mississippian Cultures instead. Here grow sunflowers and goosefoots, amaranth and squash; here a species of dwarf bison was domesticated for meat and wool, becoming immensely valuable; here rose the cult of the Bird-Men, in recent centuries overthrown. Currently the ancient city of Omašté, ruled as ever by the ancient WAPKÁTXUNGWANG (called the Lakota in our own timeline), has recovered most of its former territories after the Scabbing (smallpox epidemic). But further to the south the OKLA (Choctaw) have begun spreading their own faith, HVSHI ANOWA, along with their Horsemen, uniting the Riverlands by something other than mercantile cunning or brute strength. Ugedaliyv, homeland of the ANIYVWIYA’I [Cherokee], has broken away, seemingly for good—so long as the Ongweh’onweh (Iroquois) don’t make a move in their direction. And as always, there are the SEA COUNTRIES: Aphópkee, Hótvlee-Tv’lwv, Chitkohòki, and Kuht’hanut, caught between too many powers and just wanting a relatively quiet life.

AKIIWAN is actually a ridiculously large region, from the Atlantic to the Arctic, and almost all of it is Cree. NĒHIRAW, that is; they are perhaps the oldest continuous INAWEMAAGANIC culture, keeping to their ancestral patterns of semi-nomadic migration from buried city to buried city, all across the northern grasslands and into the taiga. But although the largest, they’re by no means considered the most influential. No, that would be the circuits of GAMEEN, the land around the five Great Lakes which would come to be known as Gameen in time. The BII’WEG, our Ojibwe or Anishinaabeg, were the first to domesticate lake rice, and the first to smelt arsenic bronze, and the second to adopt ironworking. Their main religion, NANDOWIN, has spread far across the continent; most of the Nēhiraw have synchronized to it, and even the arrival of the Vinlanders couldn’t stop the NNU from seeking the Answers they wanted. The VINLANDERS themselves have all but fully integrated into Nnu society; both their language and that of the Nnu are spoken equally at the great Althing in Kyrvik/Welta’qase’g (and most places have two names, too). Their trading (and raiding) empire stretches as far north as Nucho, Baffin Island in another time, and as far south as the Bawa Sea. And they’ve come at last to an uneasy truce with the Bii’weg, at least until the whole mess with the ONGWEH’ONWEH [Haudenosaunee] is sorted out.

The tropical BAWA SEA has long been dominated by the TAÍNO, whose ship-building has moved from dugout canoes to junk-like ships with cotton sails and mahogany hulls. The cacicazgos of the four main islands have a strict policy of peace on land. …and technically on water, too, but normally they just end up hiring Huasteca, Carib, Tupi, Okla, or Vinlandic pirates to capture each others’ ships. Captured Taíno are ransomed; captured pirates are sold, or brought back to work on plantations. For the Taíno, thanks to the Tupi, are now Hesperia’s main source of KYE, an extract of stevia rebaudiana up to 300 times sweeter than sugar. People in the north will pay a small fortune for the chance at even a taste; it is small wonder that when Malinese explorers come this way, they will name it the Digeji—the Sea of Honey.

ANAHUAC is a world of its own. The NAHUA peoples made their way south some time ago, riding nayoomee and herding peccaries through the desert and introducing steeds and sickness alike to the various civilizations to the south while pinching the secret of bronze from the Purépecha. These days, the Nahua—or more precisely the MEXICA—rule a decent chunk of the country that would in another world (and another time) be called Mexico, under three great kings on their island city of Nopalla. The only real contenders are the ZAPOTECS and MIXTECS, who remain among the few places the Mexica have not been able to bring under tributary sway, and the MAYA, disparate jungle city-states who survived the plagues and general collapse and have begun trading chocolate and jade with the Taíno to the north and the Tupi to the south. The Mexica are known historically for their logistics, nayoomee being excellent tools for message delivery, but in the past few decades the capture of human sacrifices has been getting a little too much for subject people who can’t understand why they don’t just eat their giant dogs instead. Still, it’s not all bad; perhaps it just needs some shaking up…

#alternate history #Kingawa #aboriginals #first nations #canada #california #maps #indigenous people #for want of a nail #you know how many languages I’ve been having to learn for this thing?#the answer is both so many and too few #anyone have a decent Lakota grammar they can suggest #aztecs #ojibwa #vinland saga #miwok #Tongva #lakota #more work to do

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