u/Crusoelander_128

So, I’m sure there are a lot of holes here, but this is what I’ve got so far.

They’re a race of avian aliens. They don’t have wings, however. They actually don’t have many feathers either, except on their arms and a few other places. They’re bipedal, with talon-like hands and feet. On average, they’re about 7-8 feet tall.

Socially, they are a very religious and militant species. They are led by a High Priestess, who is naturally in charge of all religious affairs, but also most others things as well. She is considered to be the voice of the gods, and as such, obeying her is obeying the gods, and defying her is heresy. The leader is always a Priestess, as the females are believed to be more spiritually attuned and aware than the males. Due to this, most positions of religious significance are held by females, while most military roles are held by the males, though it’s not unheard of for males to be priests or females to be warriors.

Males are trained in combat from a young age, usually by their fathers and/or other male members of their family. They are all expected to serve in the military, which they do with enthusiasm. They have a strict code of honor, however it’s not the kind of thing that needlessly restricts them in battle. It’s mainly “victory is honorable, defeat is shameful, and cowardice is inexcusable”. Their military is led primarily by a Warlord, who serves as the Priestess’s right hand. Warlords are chosen by appointing the strongest warrior in the army. Challenges can be and often are issued, which the Warlord must accept with very few exceptions. If the Warlord subdues or kills the challenger, he keeps his position. If the challenger wins, he becomes the new Warlord.

It’s worth noting that females are also trained in combat, though not usually to the degree as the males.

They have a pantheon of gods, which they worship faithfully. Warriors are fueled by religious fervor, while members of the clergy commune with the gods and relay their will to the people.

They are a proud race, and consider themselves superior to all others, due to a combination of believing they are their gods’ chosen people, and being very confident in their physical and martial prowess.

This is what I’ve got so far. I appreciate any critique or feedback.

I’m also aware that critiquing these guys may be a little difficult without wider story context, but I’ll try to explain what I can when necessary.

Like, why is it ok to say “butt”, but considered rude to say “ass”? Same thing for “crap” or “poop”, and “shit”. There are probably a lot of other examples, but these are the ones I’ve got off the top of my head. I understand it’s probably purely because at one point enough people decided this was the case and it stuck, but is there something I’m missing?

So, my main story has kind of a lot of setup. I’ll try to keep it brief.

So, there’s a dark sorcerer, who, after acquiring an artifact of immense dark power, became the Demon King. The power of the artifact was so great, that it destroyed his physical form, but his consciousness remained, making him a formless force of evil, albeit still intelligent. He used his newfound power to conjure an army unlike anything seen in millennia, and wreaked havoc on the world. In response to this, the five most powerful mages of the time banded together to stop him. After a long, grueling battle, the mages, due to a combination of the element of surprise and the fact that the Demon King had not yet gained full mastery of his power, managed to seal the enemy in his fortress. His forces broke and went into hiding at the loss of their master, and the mages were hailed as heroes.

Three hundred years of peace and prosperity pass. The mages (mages live much longer than non-mages for various reasons I won’t get into right now) remain close companions. However. The Demon King’s servants, the demon lords, still live. His most powerful servant, the grand demon lord, who is his appointed regent, began paving the way for the Demon King’s eventual return. He started by hunting down and killing the five mages one by one. He killed three, one ran away in fear and disappeared, and the fifth survived and also went into hiding, however, she remains active, preparing for the day the Demon King breaks his seal. This brings us to the events of the main story.

I’m aware that this concept is kind of generic and maybe not very good, so I’d appreciate any feedback anyone might have

So, I kind of like coming up with stuff like this. The “story” these show up in is extremely ill defined, but right now, I’m kind of just working on the worldbuilding itself before the actual plot.

Anyway, enough preamble. These are some human ship names I’ve come up with.

Against the Howling Dark

Maelstrom

Neither Wind Nor Fire

Flaming Horizon

Ever Forward

On Wings of Iron

Honor and Resilience

Athena’s Chariot

Spear of Odin

Leviathan

Behemoth (twin ships with leviathan)

Star Treader

Through The Valley of Death

Daybreak

Elysium

Gladius Terrae

Adjudicator

Celestial Dawn

Morior Invictus

Ad Victoriam

USS Ulysses (veteran ship)

Depth of Winter

I know these vary kind of a lot in terms of quality and aesthetic. Not sure whether that’s a problem or not. Anyway, I appreciate any feedback (or suggestions)

In the version of the creation story in hazbin hotel, Lucifer and Lilith give Eve the fruit of free will, which causes sin to enter the universe. This doesn’t work.

So, first, if humans didn’t have free will, then that means that Adam was made to try and control Lilith, meaning that he is not at fault for his actions, and is a victim rather than a villain. Then there’s Lilith. If she didn’t have free will, then that meant she was made to resist Adam, meaning that the angels programmed their humans with completely contradictory directives, making the split an inevitability, meaning that the angels are supremely, bafflingly stupid. If, on the other hand, Lilith did have free will… how? How did she just magically get free will and Adam didn’t?

Now, let’s say that Adam and Lilith did have free will, and they were responsible for their individual actions. Then the angles created Eve without free will to avoid the same thing happening again. When Lucifer gives Eve the fruit, if Eve truly doesn’t have free will, then she shouldn’t have been able to accept the fruit. Unless the angels specifically programmed her to take the fruit they didn’t want her to have. If that’s the case, then the angels deliberately set her up to fail. Either that, or they made it so she just eats whatever fruit she wants, not considering the possibility that she would eventually eat the fruit they didn’t want her to. So either the angels are malicious or incompetent, because a being that doesn’t have free will cannot do something that its creators explicitly didn’t want it to do.

If we ignore all that and say that Eve didn’t have free will but was somehow able to eat the fruit, why did that break the universe if Adam and Lilith already had free will (we’ve already gone over why them NOT having free will wouldn’t work)? It’s not that the universe was incompatible with humans having free will, as the angels created the humans with free will in the first place. So nothing should have happened, except maybe the angels getting mildly annoyed, scrapping Eve, and trying again with better programming.

Then of course there’s the possibility that Adam, Lilith, and Eve were all born with free will, in which case, Lucifer giving them the gift of free will would be entirely pointless.

There are probably some other things I’m forgetting, but I think I’ve made my point. Any way you look at this, the story is completely broken.

Now look, I’ve joked about being a wage slave before, but I’ve seen people who seem to genuinely think their job is comparable to slavery at all.

Tell you what, when your employer stops paying you, forces you to work around the clock, makes you live at your job, punishes you for making mistakes, and forces your children to also work that same job, then we can talk.

Are minimum wage jobs hard? Yes. Do they suck? Absolutely. Can you complain about them? Of course, I complain about mine all the time. But you are not “a slave to capitalism” or “a corporate slave”. You’re an employee that works a crappy job for a crappy employer. To compare it to slavery is out of touch and kinda disrespectful.

Idk maybe this is an instance of me just being unfortunate enough to be regularly exposed to the opinions of a very loud minority, or me being socially inept and being unable to detect sarcasm, but I’m gonna say that’s not it.

I’ve had this idea for some time, but I’ve recently started trying to flesh it out more. The is the rough idea.

Humanity has made great strides in colonizing the galaxy. Several planets have substantial human populations. Only a small handful have reached nearly Earth levels of development, though plenty of others are very advanced. Anyway, in their exploration, they have their first encounter with alien life. The planet is inhabited by four (maybe five) different species, two of which are native, the rest are essentially immigrants (that’s not entirely important for the story though). The humans are welcomed and allowed to set up a colony on the largest moon. For a while, things are peaceful.

Of course, this doesn’t last long. For the sake of (relative) brevity, I won’t go into all the details, but the humans, due to their hubris and enthusiasm for expansion, end up pissing off the aliens and are driven out through force. The humans had unintentionally caused extensive damage to the planet, and the aliens are angry. One of race (one of the two native races) are deeply religious, and holy sites were damaged as well, so they believe their gods want revenge. The other races don’t share this specific motivation, but it does contribute.

Through a combination of anger, fear at humanity’s rapid expansion, and other factors, the aliens declare war on humanity, and humanity answers.

My main concern is this is too contrived/cliche, as well as too similar to things like Halo in a few ways. Any feedback is appreciated. Be honest, brutally so if necessary.

Now that I’ve baited you, allow me to explain. I don’t hate him being trans because of transphobia or anything. I hate it because of what it’s done to the “discourse”.

The instant Jax was confirmed trans, he immediately had a shield from criticism and a way for people to brush aside what he did wrong. Now all you hear is that he’s a “cautionary tale”, and that he “was traumatized” and “this is what happens when you’re closeted and don’t accept yourself”. And they’ll all say “oh no no you’re not supposed to excuse what he did”, and then turn around and either downplay his actions or outright excuse them. The show expects us to feel sorry for him and empathize with him just because he suffered a bit. And it worked. Now that he’s trans, that has cranked Jax apologia to eleven, and it’s incredibly irritating.

In hindsight, the writing was on the wall. My mom had been pretty cold towards my dad for a while. I always thought it was just a rough patch. We’d gone through some stuff the past couple years, so I thought it was just that. Ironically, me and my sister vented to each other about it, and came to the same conclusion. Not even a week later, our mom sits us down and tells us she doesn’t want to be married to our dad anymore. I was 19 and my sister was 14 (or so). It’s kind of insane how your entire life going forward can be shattered so suddenly.

Naturally we were both devastated. We’ve gotten better though. Mainly by just not talking about it. It’s been about two years since then. We’re all still living together, so it’s easier to stick our heads in the sand. But now everything feels tainted. Every time one of them does something nice, in the back of my head I’m worried it’s a competition, or I worry how the other parent will feel. Any time we do something nice with one, I worry that the other feels left out or like we’re choosing one of them over the other. Like, I feel like I can’t really bring up my dad to my mom. We won’t go on vacations together anymore. When one of them moves out, we’re gonna have to work out visiting and whatnot. In the future, everything is going to be more complicated. When I move out, I’ll be worried about them being alone. I won’t be able to “go home to/visit mom and dad”. I’ll have to juggle both relationships separately. When I (hopefully) meet someone, I’ll have to introduce her to them separately. If I ever have kids, it’ll never be “let’s go to grandma and grandpa’s”, it’ll be either grandma or grandpa’s, and I’ll have to make sure they’re getting equal time with the grandkids. It just feels like my (and my sister’s) entire future has been uprooted and overturned before it even started.

My mom won’t say why she decided for divorce. When we ask she says she doesn’t want to talk about it and she doesn’t hate our dad (idk about that). As far as I know there hasn’t been any abuse, so I just have to go off how I know my dad is, and I guess I can kind of understand. He’s a good guy, just kinda dense and stubborn sometimes. Of course since I don’t know specifics my mind is constantly running wild lol. It’s rough man…

How does anyone cope with this? Or is it just a “suck it up, buttercup” kind of thing? I feel like I’m too old to be fretting about this so much lol