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rainbowfic2025-05-08 03:14 pm
paradoxcase) wrote in rainbowfic2025-05-08 03:14 pm
Liver Saturation [The Year Universe]
Name: An Anatomy of Tharse
Story: The Year Universe
Colors: Liver Saturation
Styles and Supplies: Saturation, Miniature Collection, Panorama, Cut-Away, Fingerpainting, Graffiti (Three weeks for Dreamwidth), Stain("I have too much respect for the idea of God to make it responsible for such an absurd world." - Georges Duhamel)
Word Count: 1750
Rating: PG
Warnings: Some slavery apologia; Mention of cultural genocide
Summary: Some notes about the structure of Tharsi society, from a Northern Kingdoms perspective.
Notes: Worldbuilding for the Year Universe. Because of how I wouldbuilt Tharse, I knew I had to do this with the Liver list. Originally I was going to do longer pieces as a tapestry, but then decided to do it this way. I've never really done drabbles, or other challenges involving restricting wordcount, so it was kind of an interesting challenge to keep everything to <= 100 words, which is why I put Fingerpainting on it. I thought about trying to do it as Pointillism, too, but I don't think I am there yet.
Many countries use the term ‘head’ to refer to their ruler, but not Tharse. Their Queen is instead their Will, sometimes translated as the Volition, a word they reportedly use in medicine to refer to the foremost part of the brain. Her Will is Our Will, they say of her, and obey her whims as if they were extensions of her own being, for this is how they see Tharse — as one singular godlike entity with many component citizen body parts, with the Will the foremost among them.
The primary duty of the human neck is to support the head, and in Tharse the Will is likewise supported by the minor nobility, who are composed primarily of her close and extended family. In truth, this is their only duty — unlike a true neck, nothing of importance would be lost if they were removed. They exist to fill out her court, attend her numerous parties, and to impress and intimidate foreign rulers with their wealth, but they are ultimately just as subservient to the Will as any common farmer, and far less useful.
The mouth of Tharse is properly its entrance gate, but more important to their self-concept are the Voices — the priests who teach the doctrine of Tharse the God, the divine entity that is the country itself, the being that all Tharsis are the component parts of. They lead services emphasizing that all Tharsis are ultimately One; but of course, some of God’s body parts are more important than others. Nevertheless, that each person is considered a piece of God means that each deserves food, and shelter, and medicine, and freedom, things that are denied to some in other places.
The Chest is what they call the central temple in their capital, a great, perfectly round building in the precise center of the city — urban growth is never allowed to be too lopsided, lest the temple no longer be in the center. Smaller places of ritual exist as well, but the Chest plays a special role on the days when the Voices come out to lead as many people as will join them in reciting the truths they have come to accept, about God — Tharse — and their own places within it.
The Eyes are the premier scholars of the Academy, an organization funded by the Will for the discovery of Truth. The physical sciences, yes, biology and physics and chemistry, and mathematics and philosophy, but what they prize the most there are actually the social sciences — history, language, psychology, culture, and religion. They collect the cultures, languages, and religions of Meandhshen as you would collect pretty-looking rocks, and display them as taxidermies in their museums, before the Will sends her army to demolish those cultures and absorb the people into the body of Tharse.
The Arms are the soldiers, who bear the smaller arms, and reach out to do a kind of diplomacy — to the south, to extend Tharse further and further until it eventually reaches the pole, or so is their stated goal — and north, to force the northern kings into a chokehold until they accept the Tharsi Will as their own, as well. It must be said that the northern campaigns have resulted in a better quality of life for many of the common people of the north, who do not have the luxury of being regarded as a part of God.
The Ears are those you would never normally see. How does word come to the Will that some northern king has re-instituted the debt slavery, or of the movements of forces in Meandhshen? For sure, there are people given this task, but they do not make themselves known. They only listen.
There are taxes, of course, to support the feeding and housing and care of all of the many pieces of God, and these are collected by the Hands, who reach out to take what God is owed. There is only one tax: the tax incurred by being part of God, for God must provide for themselves. Sometimes a back-tax is applied to those who are forcibly inducted from Meandhshen, unwilling new body parts who resisted becoming part of the whole for too long.
As lungs draw air into the body, the Lungs of Tharse draw people — new pieces of God from expanded regions in the south. These intake officers make sure all of the new Tharsis have what they need: food, clothing, medicine, spouses, and a house for every adult woman. No piece of God goes unprocessed, and many Tharsis are spared for this important job. In times of relative peace, their efforts are put towards foreign visitors. Entering Tharse is never a problem, but leaving again can at times be difficult.
The Skin is of course the border, which is bounded by the Sea of Tharse which lies to our south to its north, and the Endless Ocean to the east and west. The southern border is in constant flux, usually moving inexorably south towards the pole, but sometimes the League of Meandhshen has a victory and the border recedes, if only for a brief time.
The function of the Knee is flexibility, and movement, and in Tharse this translates to the professions of those few who do their work outside of the country — the ambassadors who attempt to spread Tharsi culture and ideals to other realms through politics, and the caravans of merchants who do so through trade. These positions carry less prestige than they do in other places; except where Meandhshen is concerned, Tharse is rarely concerned with outsiders, and the ambassadors and merchants of course do not dare to go there.
One’s Hair, or the braids in it, go a long way towards establishing social position in Tharse, with certain patterns reserved for particular roles and classes, foremost among those the circlet that is braided into all of the wigs belonging to the Will. While those who are skilled at creating the braided designs are indeed known as the Hair of Tharse, so too are the weavers and tailors who design and make clothing, either of the more utilitarian type, or that with the fancy cuts and dyes common to the nobility and the priests.
Fingers are for delicate work, or for small things with great value, and so the Fingers of Tharse are the jewelers and the minters and the silversmiths, and others who work with the tiny mechanisms of clocks. Silver is of great value and significance to Tharse, even moreso than gold, and although gold is used in many expensive decorations merely as a show of wealth, the most important of the Will’s treasures is of silver: the scepter that the she uses on official occasions, which is often regarded much like crowns are in other places.
The Heart is the location of the soul, in the Tharsi worldview, the origin of creativity and beauty and imagination. It is to their credit then, that those they designate the Heart of Tharse are the artists, especially painters, but also writers of fiction and theater, potters and glassblowers and others who make things which are intended for beauty rather than utility. From the Heart of Tharse these things spread across the world, and now decorate the sitting rooms of the rich in nearly all places, thanks to the work of the merchants.
The Bones form the structure of the country, and that structure is built upon houses. A house is guaranteed for every adult woman there, contracted and paid for by the Will using taxes, and so there is a thriving industry for those who build and design the houses. To a lesser extent, the term is also used for those who build and maintain the roads connecting them, knitting the country together into a consistent whole. There is a certain uniformity to Tharsi architecture, as it prioritizes function over form, but the quality is not to be underestimated.
As in many societies, the lower ranks are the more load-bearing ones. The Legs are the lumberjacks who provide the wood for the Bones to be constructed from, as thankless a task in Tharse as it is anywhere else, but they are acknowledged as one of the foundational support structures of the body of God, if only by virtue of the name they are given. There are a great many of them in the western forests, with some more remote towns being peopled entirely by the Legs.
The body’s other structural foundation, the Feet, are the miners who quarry stone and ore for other building projects, or for the production of silver and steel. They live poor lives, by all accounts, but unlike the situation in many of our northern neighbors, they are legally free people, and it is merely the force of tradition that keeps them in their place. Some would say that the force of tradition in Tharse is as strong or stronger than the force of the debt slavery in the north. It is a source of heated debate.
The craftsmen who make use of the produce of the Feet are the Toes; the stonecutters who create bricks and blocks for buildings more important than simple houses, and the sculptors who create art from stone. This is an odd category; some are often also considered an extension of the Bones, as builders of structures, and others are sometimes considered an extension of the Heart, as artists. But for whatever reason, stonework has a separate place from both in Tharsi society.
The Stomach is a broad category that includes all those who work with food — from the acquisition, done by farmers, fisherman, and to a lesser extent, hunters, to preparation, done by the bakers and cooks and brewers and butchers. All of these are lumped together in the lowest, broadest, most foundational level, as they keep the body of God fed, and alive, and support the growing population that is ever-increasing due to conquests in Meandhshen.
Some exist in the cracks between the categories, who are not classified or associated with a specific body part of God, or whose role is somewhat less clearly defined. Others may lack a profession at all, if they are unable to perform one, or are simply out of luck. That each person is God, or a piece of God, guarantees them the means to life from the Will, regardless of employment. All these people are simply called the Organs of Tharse, necessary to the God in some vague and unspecified way, nonetheless.
Story: The Year Universe
Colors: Liver Saturation
Styles and Supplies: Saturation, Miniature Collection, Panorama, Cut-Away, Fingerpainting, Graffiti (Three weeks for Dreamwidth), Stain("I have too much respect for the idea of God to make it responsible for such an absurd world." - Georges Duhamel)
Word Count: 1750
Rating: PG
Warnings: Some slavery apologia; Mention of cultural genocide
Summary: Some notes about the structure of Tharsi society, from a Northern Kingdoms perspective.
Notes: Worldbuilding for the Year Universe. Because of how I wouldbuilt Tharse, I knew I had to do this with the Liver list. Originally I was going to do longer pieces as a tapestry, but then decided to do it this way. I've never really done drabbles, or other challenges involving restricting wordcount, so it was kind of an interesting challenge to keep everything to <= 100 words, which is why I put Fingerpainting on it. I thought about trying to do it as Pointillism, too, but I don't think I am there yet.
Many countries use the term ‘head’ to refer to their ruler, but not Tharse. Their Queen is instead their Will, sometimes translated as the Volition, a word they reportedly use in medicine to refer to the foremost part of the brain. Her Will is Our Will, they say of her, and obey her whims as if they were extensions of her own being, for this is how they see Tharse — as one singular godlike entity with many component citizen body parts, with the Will the foremost among them.
The primary duty of the human neck is to support the head, and in Tharse the Will is likewise supported by the minor nobility, who are composed primarily of her close and extended family. In truth, this is their only duty — unlike a true neck, nothing of importance would be lost if they were removed. They exist to fill out her court, attend her numerous parties, and to impress and intimidate foreign rulers with their wealth, but they are ultimately just as subservient to the Will as any common farmer, and far less useful.
The mouth of Tharse is properly its entrance gate, but more important to their self-concept are the Voices — the priests who teach the doctrine of Tharse the God, the divine entity that is the country itself, the being that all Tharsis are the component parts of. They lead services emphasizing that all Tharsis are ultimately One; but of course, some of God’s body parts are more important than others. Nevertheless, that each person is considered a piece of God means that each deserves food, and shelter, and medicine, and freedom, things that are denied to some in other places.
The Chest is what they call the central temple in their capital, a great, perfectly round building in the precise center of the city — urban growth is never allowed to be too lopsided, lest the temple no longer be in the center. Smaller places of ritual exist as well, but the Chest plays a special role on the days when the Voices come out to lead as many people as will join them in reciting the truths they have come to accept, about God — Tharse — and their own places within it.
The Eyes are the premier scholars of the Academy, an organization funded by the Will for the discovery of Truth. The physical sciences, yes, biology and physics and chemistry, and mathematics and philosophy, but what they prize the most there are actually the social sciences — history, language, psychology, culture, and religion. They collect the cultures, languages, and religions of Meandhshen as you would collect pretty-looking rocks, and display them as taxidermies in their museums, before the Will sends her army to demolish those cultures and absorb the people into the body of Tharse.
The Arms are the soldiers, who bear the smaller arms, and reach out to do a kind of diplomacy — to the south, to extend Tharse further and further until it eventually reaches the pole, or so is their stated goal — and north, to force the northern kings into a chokehold until they accept the Tharsi Will as their own, as well. It must be said that the northern campaigns have resulted in a better quality of life for many of the common people of the north, who do not have the luxury of being regarded as a part of God.
The Ears are those you would never normally see. How does word come to the Will that some northern king has re-instituted the debt slavery, or of the movements of forces in Meandhshen? For sure, there are people given this task, but they do not make themselves known. They only listen.
There are taxes, of course, to support the feeding and housing and care of all of the many pieces of God, and these are collected by the Hands, who reach out to take what God is owed. There is only one tax: the tax incurred by being part of God, for God must provide for themselves. Sometimes a back-tax is applied to those who are forcibly inducted from Meandhshen, unwilling new body parts who resisted becoming part of the whole for too long.
As lungs draw air into the body, the Lungs of Tharse draw people — new pieces of God from expanded regions in the south. These intake officers make sure all of the new Tharsis have what they need: food, clothing, medicine, spouses, and a house for every adult woman. No piece of God goes unprocessed, and many Tharsis are spared for this important job. In times of relative peace, their efforts are put towards foreign visitors. Entering Tharse is never a problem, but leaving again can at times be difficult.
The Skin is of course the border, which is bounded by the Sea of Tharse which lies to our south to its north, and the Endless Ocean to the east and west. The southern border is in constant flux, usually moving inexorably south towards the pole, but sometimes the League of Meandhshen has a victory and the border recedes, if only for a brief time.
The function of the Knee is flexibility, and movement, and in Tharse this translates to the professions of those few who do their work outside of the country — the ambassadors who attempt to spread Tharsi culture and ideals to other realms through politics, and the caravans of merchants who do so through trade. These positions carry less prestige than they do in other places; except where Meandhshen is concerned, Tharse is rarely concerned with outsiders, and the ambassadors and merchants of course do not dare to go there.
One’s Hair, or the braids in it, go a long way towards establishing social position in Tharse, with certain patterns reserved for particular roles and classes, foremost among those the circlet that is braided into all of the wigs belonging to the Will. While those who are skilled at creating the braided designs are indeed known as the Hair of Tharse, so too are the weavers and tailors who design and make clothing, either of the more utilitarian type, or that with the fancy cuts and dyes common to the nobility and the priests.
Fingers are for delicate work, or for small things with great value, and so the Fingers of Tharse are the jewelers and the minters and the silversmiths, and others who work with the tiny mechanisms of clocks. Silver is of great value and significance to Tharse, even moreso than gold, and although gold is used in many expensive decorations merely as a show of wealth, the most important of the Will’s treasures is of silver: the scepter that the she uses on official occasions, which is often regarded much like crowns are in other places.
The Heart is the location of the soul, in the Tharsi worldview, the origin of creativity and beauty and imagination. It is to their credit then, that those they designate the Heart of Tharse are the artists, especially painters, but also writers of fiction and theater, potters and glassblowers and others who make things which are intended for beauty rather than utility. From the Heart of Tharse these things spread across the world, and now decorate the sitting rooms of the rich in nearly all places, thanks to the work of the merchants.
The Bones form the structure of the country, and that structure is built upon houses. A house is guaranteed for every adult woman there, contracted and paid for by the Will using taxes, and so there is a thriving industry for those who build and design the houses. To a lesser extent, the term is also used for those who build and maintain the roads connecting them, knitting the country together into a consistent whole. There is a certain uniformity to Tharsi architecture, as it prioritizes function over form, but the quality is not to be underestimated.
As in many societies, the lower ranks are the more load-bearing ones. The Legs are the lumberjacks who provide the wood for the Bones to be constructed from, as thankless a task in Tharse as it is anywhere else, but they are acknowledged as one of the foundational support structures of the body of God, if only by virtue of the name they are given. There are a great many of them in the western forests, with some more remote towns being peopled entirely by the Legs.
The body’s other structural foundation, the Feet, are the miners who quarry stone and ore for other building projects, or for the production of silver and steel. They live poor lives, by all accounts, but unlike the situation in many of our northern neighbors, they are legally free people, and it is merely the force of tradition that keeps them in their place. Some would say that the force of tradition in Tharse is as strong or stronger than the force of the debt slavery in the north. It is a source of heated debate.
The craftsmen who make use of the produce of the Feet are the Toes; the stonecutters who create bricks and blocks for buildings more important than simple houses, and the sculptors who create art from stone. This is an odd category; some are often also considered an extension of the Bones, as builders of structures, and others are sometimes considered an extension of the Heart, as artists. But for whatever reason, stonework has a separate place from both in Tharsi society.
The Stomach is a broad category that includes all those who work with food — from the acquisition, done by farmers, fisherman, and to a lesser extent, hunters, to preparation, done by the bakers and cooks and brewers and butchers. All of these are lumped together in the lowest, broadest, most foundational level, as they keep the body of God fed, and alive, and support the growing population that is ever-increasing due to conquests in Meandhshen.
Some exist in the cracks between the categories, who are not classified or associated with a specific body part of God, or whose role is somewhat less clearly defined. Others may lack a profession at all, if they are unable to perform one, or are simply out of luck. That each person is God, or a piece of God, guarantees them the means to life from the Will, regardless of employment. All these people are simply called the Organs of Tharse, necessary to the God in some vague and unspecified way, nonetheless.
no subject
This also just needs the story tag.
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no subject
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Thank you! This was sort of my goal with this universe, at this kind of macro layer, to not so much create entities that are good or evil so much as good/bad in unique and hopefully interesting ways.
no subject
This was such a clever and interesting piece of writing!
no subject
Thank you!