zk/writing/post-self/toledot/cover-ideas.md

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Cover ideas

A general example of what a Sasha-type Odist looks like.

Where It Watches The Slow Hours Progress

May Then My Name showing Ioan dandelions

After interviewing May Then My Name, Ioan asks her for a story, so she takes em out to eir back yard which had previously been pristine grass surrounded by a wall of lilac bushes. Now, however, there are a few dandelions dotting the lawn, and May reveals that it's part of her original purpose to influence individuals to subtly change their minds and actions. She tricks em into telling the story instead of her, so ey pushes her over and discovers a new dandelion. It's all disgustingly cute.

Ioan is much the same as before --- academic garb, wavy hair that usually winds up absentmindedly tousled, central European features. May is a skunk form of Sasha/Michelle built to be eminently likeable, so, somewhere between cute and pretty, in a very disarming sort of way.

True Name and Jonas at a coffee shop

Two of the big movers and shakers of the early System, an Odist named The Only Time I Know My True Name Is When I Dream (or True Name) and a politician named Jonas, have been meeting separate from the other guiding council members to steer the System towards secession and planning on how to manipulate it in the future. At one point, they meet at a cafe and talk over coffees at a table out on the sidewalk.

True Name is a professional-looking skunk version of Sasha/Michelle. Jonas is described as "perilously handsome", blonde, slender, somewhere between actor and politician. I'll be getting a ref of True Name pretty soon, actually, but she's pretty standard, in the end.

Codrin and Dear building cairns

Codrin, on learning that the prairie outside Dear's house is essentially procedurally generated, has been walking and exploring to see if there are any non-prairie features like creeks or rock outcroppings. As ey goes, ey's been building cairns every hundred paces to show where ey's already been. It's primarily a solo activity for em to think and process out loud without bothering Dear or it's partner.

After a particularly rough interview, Dear joins Codrin on one of eir walks to find a spot without a cairn so that they can make up and talk about potential interview candidates.

True Name greeting Yared after upload

After the System secedes, Yared Zerezghi, the politics nerd on the outside who helped write the secession amendment, uploads and finally meets with True Name, who he's only talked to over text. They meet in a dandelion-speckled field.

Yared is a black Ethiopian man, nerdy and anxious. The 'thawb' in the chapter is an ankle-length tunic worn of a fairly straight cut (example).

Ioan standing at the forest creek with End Waking

One of the interviews Ioan conducts is with an Odist named Do I Know God After The End Waking (or End Waking), a male skunk in stereotypical ranger garb. He lives in a forest, designed rather like Dear's prairie, hiding from all the manipulative bullshit he pulled in the past. Toward the end of the interview, they walk to the edge of a ravine and talk for a bit. Perhaps some variation in the landscape.

Sasha, Debarre, and dandelion crowns.

Sasha and Debarre meet at one point in the same dandelion speckled field to catch up, and Sasha makes him a flower crown.

Debarre is a pretty standard weasel, brown fur, cream colored down his front. Wears all black because he's a sad boi. Sasha's a skunk as described. Usually just tee and shorts.

Michelle/Sasha unable to control her form - shifting with voxels?

After getting lost in Qoheleth, Sasha/Michelle had a hard time controlling her form between skunk and human, with the two sort of washing over her in waves. This wound up following her to the System after she uploaded, making life difficult, occasionally. I don't know if a portrait of someone shifting between furry and not quite fits the theme, but is still an option, and possibly a use for the isometric voxels, so I tossed it in at the end.

Example 1 Example 2