fun fact: it takes about five months for babies to develop depth perception.
related fun fact: babies as young as five months old show consciousness–that is, they actively process their surroundings rather than simply reacting to stimuli.
conclusion: all the reincarnation si/oc fics where people are conscious in the womb or while being birthed and where they are able to see clearly within like a week of being born are fake and you actually just kinda come to yourself slowly as a baby. you realize one day that you’re a baby and by that point you’re already integrated into another family and going through developmental milestones
I think starting with birth is a genre convention that Silver Queen popularized with Dreaming of Sunshine, although DoS did actually address what you’re talking about in your post somewhat:
But like I said before, I was born to Shikaku and Yoshino Nara in the Konoha General Hospital on the 22nd of September as the younger of twins. It sounds so amazing when said like that. A spiritual miracle. The truth was, at the time I had no idea what was happening. I was twisted and squeezed and the comforting darkness in which I had rested was torn away. There was pain and cold and terror. There was immediacy. Things that hadn’t seemed important were suddenly at the forefront of my mind; what had happened; where was I; was I alive or dead, hurt or injured; what was going on?
I couldn’t tell.
When babies are born, their eyes are incredibly undeveloped. The entire world was a blur to me. It wasn’t quite colour blindness, but the easiest thing to see was the stark contrast between light and dark. I could see shapes and edges but the world looked incredibly confusing.
SQ also spends all of the prologue/first chapter summarizing, moving thing along at a nice clip, and talks about all of it in the past tense. From the writing in the first chapter, it’s apparent that Shikako is literally remembering this and telling the reader about it, rather than experiencing it as we read, so it’s always made sense to me as like… the way Shikako makes sense of what she remembers, leading up to her fulling realizing what’s happened at the end of the chapter when first her eyes fully develop so she can see details and then finally she goes outside and sees the Hokage faces on the mountain.
That being said, I would love to see the SI/OC genre move away from starting with birth because babies and young kids have no agency, both literally in real life and also as characters. I guess in Naruto a kid as young as four or five might be training to kill people, might actually be sent to kill people, but that’s not going to be the case for most characters. I really liked @sage-thrasher‘s cold open in Sanitize, which starts with the insert being about 10 years old.
good point about DoS popularizing certain SI/OC conventions. i don’t necessarily mind this particular convention in most cases–i’ve come to expect it from the naruto fandom, at least–but i wrote this post after reading a fic from another fandom (which… probably had DoS’ genre influence, yeah) wherein the main character was outed as not being a normal baby within a week of being born.
a week.
because of a myriad of things that boiled down to “clearly, having the memories of an adult means that the body of a baby is nearly entirely overwritten. the necessary developmental milestones are met with alarming alacrity through a combination of an adult mind and determination. language and cultural barriers expected from a native english speaker finding themselves in a country whose predominant language is not english are ignored with great prejudice, allowing a one-year-old to have a vocabulary that is more vast than her eight-year-old brother’s.”
i’m like Please. Please. Remember You’re Writing A Literal Baby?
like… if you’re going to start from birth, you can’t just… Speed Through Development? you are purposely starting with the most vulnerable point of a life, where your character is physically and cognitively unable to take care of themselves. being an adult in mind is not going to help you walk and talk at five months old. if you want your character to be able to do things, Don’t Start At Birth, Where They Cannot Do Things?
like–summing this part up as “they have no agency” is so true. it’s a convention, yes, but the characters have no agency. they literally cannot do anything. they’re a baby! they’re a small child! you don’t look at a baby and think, “yes, this baby is going to catalyze great change and avert this world from imminent disaster.” they’re a BABY. they’re learning how to crawl and roll over. they’re not the savior of any world right now.
like, fanfic writers, it’s okay to skip over narrating your character’s birth. it’s okay to skip over the first few years of their life. having to write someone’s entire life is never going to be a requirement.
(Sidenote — man sometimes it’s crazy how so much of this genre can be tracked back to DoS??? possibly even the term SI/OC itself like. damn. although peggy sue time travel stories do sometimes go all the way back to birth as well, I think.)
I have a looong post halfway written up about how I think fanfiction writers just like…. forget that they don’t have to tell stories 100% linearly and also forget that they can just… mention past events…. because they learn to stop doing the italicized flashback and then are like “clearly all kinds of flashback are bad” and then struggle with like. how to cover events before the start of their plot. Thus: start with being a baby, because otherwise how could the reader possibly learn about the baby years?
But yeah I totally agree most stories really, REALLY don’t need to start from birth, even SI/OC stories. Dreaming of Sunshine was about exploring the worldbuilding of Naruto from the very start and lots of the childhood things serve to set up later character development and things, and I think covering childhood very briefly can be good for SI/OC stories, but so often it just seems like they’re just checking it off the list. Or like they want to make sure that their MC is really really justified in the skills they have when it comes time to (in the case of Naruto fic) be a genin, possibly because of fear of the Dreaded Mary Sue Label… even though as long as they’re at an appropriate level most readers will just accept that they have those skills and move on if they open with them.
Anyway, I’m right there with you. It drives me crazy like 90% of the time to have the MC be a baby or a toddler, even with an adult mind. It’s fine if authors wanna write that! They should live their dreams! But they should also consider whether that’s… really… the best place to start….
So I got back into Girl Genius recently and as my mind does I got to thinking.
What if it was the Heterodynes that made the Muses and Van Rijn who made the Deadly Sins clanks.
Like say to celebrate the union between Euphrosynia and Andronicus, one of the Heterodynes makes a set of nine clanks as a betrothal gift to the new Storm King. They’re called The Muses.
This being the Heterodynes, these clanks are not the delicate, mysterious and subtle beings we know in cannon. The Heterodynes could not resist the urge to add in built in death-rays, concealed blades, and other nasty surprises. Add in the Heterodynes own direct nature, their taste in aesthetics, and what things inspire them, you get a very different set of legendary clanks running around. For example, Moxana has a map table in front of her instead of a card table, complete with everything you need to map out a battle. Not to mention a massive concealed death-ray within her chair.
Instead of these ethereal, graceful clanks standing behind Andronicus in the pictures, the Storm King is flanked an honor guard of armored horrors with fanged grins and a large assortment of weaponry.
However appearances are deceptive, and despite their appearance the Muses are advisors, and they advised the Storm King. Andronicus, finding himself more and more surrounded by sycophants and intrigue, comes to value The Muse’s direct manner, straightforward advice and blunt opinions. Much to the worry of the rest of the court, who fear the Storm King is falling more and more under the sway of the Heterodynes.
When Andronicus’s empire collapses, many try to destroy the muses as Heterodyne abominations, dismantle them to see how they work, or seize them for themselves. Not only is it quickly discovered that not only had the Heterodynes given the Muses free will, but it is also forgotten that nothing made by a Heterodyne will just stand passively by while someone tries to take it apart. Those that try are quickly reminded. From there on the Muses drift where fortune takes them, they split, reunite, and split again. They serve many different rulers, and even disintegrate a few when said rulers don’t react well to assessments they don’t want to hear.
Eventually we get to the present where Otilia is serving Klaus, looking after the education and well-being of the future rulers of Europa; a long-lost Heterodyne heir has been found; Tarvek proclaims his right to the Lightning crown before Tinka and is tested in a way many Heterodynes would find very familiar; and everyone discovers the Muses also share the Heterodyne’s opinions on Monogamy. (Especially when it comes to uniting three powerful political factions.)
Now on the other side of the board. During his life Van Rijn made seven clanks for Andronicus who danced for him, played music, ran messages, and acted as his personal servants. They faded into the background, rarely noticed or remarked upon as anything other than as another curiosity made by Van Rijn.
Van Rijn called them the Deadly Sins. They were supposed to keep Andronicus’s hands clean, by doing his sinning for him. They were assassins and killers, designed to protect the Storm King and eliminate his enemies. They were made to blend in, to avoid notice, and to kill with the greatest subtlety and secrecy. They could pose as servants, delivering poison to where it was least expected. They could turn allies against each other and play on people’s desires and emotions to get them to do the killing for them. They were silent knives in the midst of a crowd, and brutal murders in places people thought they were safe.
They did not fare so well. Their own mandate of secrecy prevented them from revealing their true purpose, even to protect their existence from those that went after them trying to learn the secrets of Van Rijn. Those that survived the collapse of the empire slipped into the shadows of anonymity. With no clear candidate as Storm King, and thus no master to serve, they scattered across Europa killing as whim and circumstance warranted, watching, searching, waiting.
Now the candidates have narrowed. Aaronev Tarvek Sturmvoraus and Martellus von Blitzengaard are the two best candidates to become the Sins’ new master. The games of the Fifty Families become even more deadly as the Sins work to protect their two potential kings. As to who they will ultimately serve, the Sins agree. Whichever boy survives, will be the one worthy enough to wear the Lightning Crown.
A Heterodyne-made Otilia would not get Von Pinned so easily.
At this point, how many Sins do you think are left? And how long does it take for Tarvek and Tweedle to notice their deadly guardians?
It’s already been stated that Eridan and Nepeta wear their moirails colors
Eridan’s rings (back when he and fef were moirails)
and Nepeta’s hat, tail, and shoes.
Now the question is why? Why do these two wear their partners colors, while Feferi and Equius do not? What Nepeta and Eridan have in common is both Eridan and Nepeta are lower on the Hemo-spectrum than Equius and Feferi.
Here is my theory. The moirail with lower blood will wear the highblood’s color, not out of devotion, but for protection.
We all know Alternia is a pretty violent place, and there is no consequence for a highblood killing a lowblood. We also know that moiraillegiance serves as a means for soothing and controlling highbloods who would otherwise be dangerous. AND we know that moirails can be extremely vengeful when their parnter is killed.
So in order to prevent accidentally killing a highblood’s moirail and setting them off on a murderous rampage, the lowblood wears the highblood’s color to show they are “taken”.
Eridan doesnt wear as much pink. He is a seadweller, and immune to most hemo-spectrum related killings. However, his moirail is the Heiress, and pretty damn important, so it thus marks his importance as her moirail. It also warns his potential killer that they have the wrath of the heiress on them if they were to actually kill him.
Nepeta on the other hand, wears a whole lot of blue. Since she is practically a lowblood, she needs to make it pretty clear that she’s under the protection of a blue-blood.
So basically, wearing your moirail’s color is a warning sign. Equius and Feferi allow Eridan and Nepeta to wear their blood colors as a “bitch step off this is mine” sign to people who might want to hurt them.
Cheloneuniverse 