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BD - Spider Poll and Forgotten Plot Sheet
🕑 Added 2025-06-03 00:09:21 +0000 UTCHi all,
Hope you're surviving Monday even with the egregious lack of bees. Maybe it'll help if you get to think about bees a bit? While editing, I've thought about two separate issues, figure this week is a good time to bring them up.
Firstly, a poll on spider(kin) anatomy. So, technically, the mouth piece/fang things our little spiderkin have are supposed to be called chelicera. I originally decided to call them mandibles anyways as a more recognizable term since chelicera is a pretty technical word I personally hadn't heard before. Felt a bit much for the story about a peasant who hasn't heard of gravity or the ocean. On the other hand, it is also weird to knowingly use an incorrect term. And why does Belissar know the word mandibles anyways, so maybe it'd be better just to go with scientific accuracy? Alternatively, we could go even simpler and just call them fangs...which might be technically more accurate since technically the chelicera do hold fangs. So yeah, second-guessing a bit on that so I figured I'd take all your opinion on your preference.
If checlicera chosen, probably will have the fair folk correct him on that. We have a loremaster to go "but actually" now! Or maybe the spiderkin themselves just remember the right term and Belissar will defer to their own word for it? If fangs chosen, well will let Belissar notice that the chelicera indeed hold fangs and so update his term. Or something like that to avoid a direct retcon. Eh, we'll figure it out.
Secondly, with all this editing going on, I have begun to realize that, well, I may have forgotten a detail here and there, including some plot hooks that probably should've paid off at some point. And, well, you all have reminded me of such things from time to time, so figured I'd formalize a place for you to let me know about things you want me to remember. Here is a doc for that: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19WTS18T9XpTB8ldWPWeEPTib7sElIhBZRzInf0Ao9M0/edit?usp=sharing
Note that I am also trying to keep the plot progressing since our pace is already on the slower side, so I may not get to every lost plot immediately, in particularly great detail, or even at all if I can't find a good place/timing for it, but at the very least you'll have a chance to ensure such things are for a reason other than "the author and Belissar forgot" lol. Maybe I'll even do a "reason we haven't got to it" column haha.
There is also a separate tab for suggestions if you have ideas that haven't come up at all yet, just for fun! Again, I won't guarantee that I will implement any of them...but I have indeed implemented some reader suggestions in the past so it is not impossible either.
So yeah, here's your chances to affect the series! Thanks again for all your help and patience! Hope we all can endure until the bees return!
Anyways!
What will Belissar call those fang thingies? How many plots has the author...*ahem, Belissar forgotten? Can anyone survive a week with an egregious lack of bees? Cast your votes, to decide!
Comments
John Pratt
I really urge you to consider that spiderkin probably have significant cultural associations with their chelicerae. It would be kind of like having two fingers coming out of your jaw. They would probably have a formal name for it and an informal name for it, maybe Chelicerae from the Tower Lords and something evocative of eating for the informal term. A fang is a part of the whole, like a nail is part of my finger. Maybe venopositer, digit or even something like chinger (cheek-finger.) They would probably have informal names for each one in particular, ala pointer and ring finger, maybe organized around silk production. "Guide" and "spool" may be good names for the individual digits. There could be a face-finger version of handedness, where one side has noticeably more dexterity and that affects how they accomplish certain tasks.
Swiftato
Sorry having trouble accessing the Google form on mobile but I would absolutely love a chapter of old mrs imkomos in the hall of judgement too stubborn to pass on or reincarnate while she watches over belissar and his new friends. Maybe the god of bees could pull some divine shenanigans and introduce the world first Beeincarnator lol
John Pratt
Chelicerae are way more articulated and mobile than mandibles, they look and act nothing like mandibles. They're more like little mouth arms, which would be really obvious when they're that big. Mandibles are more mouth pliers, they just hinge open and closed. Bellisar probably knows what mandibles are because he was educated about bees specifically. The spiderkin themselves probably know what all their parts are called, based on their ancestral recall skill.
