no smiling gods please i have enough smiling god hang ups because night vale *shudders* i guess it could work though. i know you were kidding but
I have a summer birthday and was 12 in my first year of middle school, to theoretically it should range from around 12-18, unless I am doing math wrong. I think we decided that their first two years (middle school equivalent) you are unsorted (maybe there is a general dorm for them, maybe they move around?), and at either the end of your second or beginning of your third you choose (with teacher consultation/approval?) your dorm.
since I know we have 13 year olds, are we still doing the seven year school starting in middle school? (13 is 8th grade probably, right?)
we're not precisely in nightvaleverse, but close enough to it that their shit sometimes leaks over... i like it. and hey we can import drama from other verses if we like. we're kind of the fort that guards the gap. why is the fort full of children? *headmaster voice* I Was Asked To Make It So. I Owed A Debt. Thus I Caused It To Be. We Are Buffeted By Metaphorical Storms But We Hold.
uh, bullshitting answer: children have more concentrated power and then they learn control. so it's actually safer for the world to have children guard the way. i mean, we all do wandless magic as young babes
And When The Danger Is Greatest, Humans Will Come To The Aid Of Children, Though They May Ignore The Plight Of Adults What Do You Mean Hostages You Are Not Hostages My Difficulty With Audible Communication Continues ... There Will Be Chocolate Cake At Dinner
Hmm, if we really want to go the more structured antagonist we could have, say, a dark wizard who wants to harness the powers beyond the rift/ study them, and is willing to let the entire world go to shit for that chance.
I mean, the villain would probably be either Coyote or Jackrabbit, let's be real. ...uhh. 6th through 12th? (I don't know, I'm graduating anyways, suck it *flies off on broomstick, a very classy 24XTE, which I named that because I'm bad at coming up with broomstick brands*)
the headmaster is incredibly powerful, but also extremely constrained by the terms of its tenure in this universe. it's not inconceivable that a dark wizard who's done his homework might find ways to keep the headmaster from just squishing them.
some kind of weird bullshit law of etiquette. etiquette will destroy the world. except kids are total dicks. yes.
...poor Santino is never gonna be free of the smiling god is he? (In his original incarnation he was raised to be the vessel of the smiling gos, but when it came down to it went "nope, fuck that." I suppose in this version that happened earlier, and that´s why he got farmed out to not-very-preppy boarding school.) Hm, non Nightvalians, tell me if this description makes sense to you: The Smiling god is an entity that manifests as light, seems to value work/cog-in-the-machine behaviour. (My own idea: Might dislike magic on principle, and/or think magical children are a yummy snack?)
I mean, I'm also planning on keeping my night vale references few and far between, but I am planning at least three snippets of radio show. At some point.
I like the idea that, because children are more adaptive, the fort is full of kids because it makes it easy to adjust them the weirdness that leaks through. Consider: a wix approaching his 200's who encounters a nexus point with an open rift that leaks creatures he's never heard of and a variety of things (including said creatures) that don't react to known magics. Contrast with a 20-year-old wix who went to school for seven years literally on top of said leaky nexus, who encountered a multitude of inconsistent entities and incidents and was trained how to deal with them. If there is no SOP, they're taught how to improvise, how to identify potentially useful traits (such as point of origin) and respond accordingly.
Is a smiling god antagonist a thing you don´t want? Sorry, I am having a brainfart and can´t figure it out.
Mostly it's because the reference is from night vale, and night vale's smiling god is almost unbearably creepy, because the acolytes are very cheerful and sunny and productive. I can probably find a little voice clip somewhere to try to explain more. (although I definitely startled more over The Woman from Italy)
