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ashyjingles · 1 month ago

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Jason Grace and Cicero Parallels

(And Octavian and Catiline Parallels)

Okay so this is the start of me. Blogging my research experience I guess? I’m looking into Roman history starting with SPQR – A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard. It’s for my fic of Jason’s life at Camp Jupiter pre-swap (from the Heroes of Olympus Series by Rick Riordan) but also for fun. And depending on how much I talk about Jason this may or may not be comprehensible even without any knowledge of that.

I figured going chapter by chapter would help me organize my thoughts the best so I dont forget everything I wrote down by the end of the book. I mean like I have an abysmal amount of sticky notes in the book itself already but doing it this way will also keep my motivated I think

I’ll try my best to make this comprehensible in case anyone wants to follow along, but I think most of this is going to be for myself lol so I don’t have to reread the entire book for a single piece of information (hopefully)

The prologue was just a mention on how the book will be centered on the history of the city of Rome and Roman Italy because getting into the history of Roman everywhere is a bit too big of a project for one book (page 18). and I agree because SPQR is already over 500 pages already lmao

The other thing the prologue mentioned that I noted down was that SPQR is the acronym for “Senatus PopulusQue Romanus,” which means “The Senate and People of Rome.” (page 16)

Chapter 1 is titled Cicero’s Finest Hour and takes place in 63 BCE (Before Common Era). Despite Rome being founded seven centuries earlier, the Romans didn’t start recording their own history until the events of this year. As Beard put it, “Roman history, as we know it, started here,” (page 23) and is the reason she chose to start her book with the events of this year.

To summarize, Catiline (Sometimes Catilina) was a bankrupt aristocrat who tried running for one of two consuls which were the highest political positions in the city (This was before any emperors came along). He came from a distinguished old family who had a successful earlier career but was close to bankruptcy in 43 BCE and was dealing with a failing reputation. He advocated for debt relief which was “one of the most despicable forms of radicalism in the eyes of the Roman landed classes” (page 28).

Cicero came from a wealthy family as well, but it was outside Rome and thus he was considered a ‘new man’ without any political experience in the city which was looked down on. His climb to power rested on the shoulders of only his own skills — specifically his skill at speaking to a crowd. It won him the election of 63 BCE.

Some time after the election, Cicero got wind of a plot of Catiline’s to burn down Rome. Catiline was also building an army outside of the city. Cicero called a meeting in front of the senate and gave a famous speech that he later wrote down and spread copies of. Catiline then left town after the defeat in front of the Senate. Cicero continued to try and expose everyone left in the operation and succeeded because the conspirators had tried working with a group of Ghauls “who had come to Rome to complain about their exploitation at the hands of Roman provincial governors” (page 34) and provided names of everyone involved.

Cicero rounded up everyone that had evidence against them and without giving them a trial, executed them all. “Triumphantly, he announced their deaths to the cheering crowd in a famous one-word euphemism: vixere, ‘they have lived’ — that is, ‘they’re dead’.” (page 35) Eventually Catiline’s forces were defeated with Catiline on the front line. Cicero had many supporters after this defeat of terrorism, but soon his previous act of executing citizens without trial got him run out of town. He spent some time in North Greece before he came back to Rome, and his career never fully recovered.

Okay. Now I’m here to talk about Jason and how I think he and Octavian (and Reyna) parallel Cicero and Catiline because it was literally ALL I could think about while reading this chapter.

Like Catiline, Octavian comes from a long lineage of reputable people, whether politicians or soldiers or prophets, with him being a distant ancestor to Apollo. While he isn’t at risk of going bankrupt, he does have a certain want for power that leads to him vying for the position of praetor so much that in Heroes of Olympus he repeatedly seems hostile toward Reyna. (And Percy, but given his sudden appearance, greek vibe, and Percy’s own distrust of Octavian, I wouldn't say it’s unwarranted. Plus, at this point, Octavian had already been preparing to aim for the position of praetor now that Jason was gone.) Because we never really saw him interact with Jason, I can’t say anything about his canon relationship with him. So far, Octavian parallels Catiline in his aim for power.

Catiline attempts to stage Cicero’s assassination, but it’s unsuccessful. While it’s not entirely confirmed, what Frank points out leads the audience to believe that it was Octavian that tried killing Gwen.

Then he noticed the marks engraved into the wooden shaft of the pilum: CHT I LEGIO XII F. The weapon belonged to the First Cohort, and the point was sticking through the front of her armour. Gwen had been speared from behind — possibly after the game had ended. Frank scanned the crowd for Octavian. The centurion was watching with more interest than concern, as if he were examining one of his stupid gutted teddy bears. He didn’t have a pilum. – Page 142, The Son of Neptune

Of course, with the doors of death being opened she lived, but both instances were an attack on a Roman from a Roman. Catiline also turns to an outside source like the Ghauls, while Octavian turns to outside sources like monsters. The monsters don’t act as a double agent toward a character playing Cicero, but they are double agents and end up being on Gaea’s side. Granted, Octavian’s enemy at that point were the Greeks, not his fellow Romans.

While this is a much looser parallel, Catiline was run out of town and killed on the front lines of the army he amassed. Octavian died in the catapults in the battle on Camp Half-Blood after being ridiculed by the protagonists. Is this a strong enough parallel for me to heavily consider it? No, but it crossed my mind and given his previous parallels to Catiline I thought it was at least mentionable.

Jason, to me, parallels Cicero. His dad is Jupiter, so while similarly to Cicero he has the background for the positions he fills, he doesn’t quite have as much experience as other candidates. Of course, he was brought to Camp Jupiter incredibly young and started building skills just as early as Octavian, but for the sake of the parallels, just go with me here.

While Cicero relies solely on his speech skills, Jason is clearly a formidable fighter. We don’t have many instances of him using his verbal prowess, but I think that to be as good of a praetor he seems to be described as, it wouldn’t be nonexistent. Plus, while facing off against large threats such as that one giant in The Lost Hero, he has an entire speech ready on the tip of his tongue without him even having to do much to remember it.

“I'm the son of Jupiter, I'm a child of Rome, consul to demigods, praetor of the First Legion. I slew the Trojan sea monster, I toppled the black throne of Kronos, and destroyed Titan Krios with my own hand. And now I'm going to destroy you Porphyrion, and feed you to your own wolves." – Page 510 of The Lost Hero

While this isn’t a political speech, the rest of his lines throughout the series give his words a bit of a sophisticated feel, especially in comparison to Leo’s comedic feel. Considering he grew up in Camp Jupiter from an early age and was probably taught Cicero’s works just like many people in later years (until even now) used his works in various classes from learning Latin to studying the rhetorics of speech. Jason would have most likely seen his works growing up in various settings, so I wouldn’t think it too far-fetched to say that he probably modelled his own speeches around Cicero’s. (This is something I would like to incorporate in my fic, so if anyone has any good recommendations for specific pieces/books/sources of his speeches to read I’m open!)

While this is a sillier and much looser parallel, they both turn to either Greece or Greek culture. Cicero flees to North Greece after he’s shunned for executing citizens without trial, and while it is nowhere near the same magnitude of villainy, Jason leans toward Greek culture after his amnesia-drenched months spent at Camp Half-Blood and is shunned for becoming ‘too Greek’ along with the Argo II bombing New Rome and him going to the old lands. He does return to Camp Jupiter though as Pontifex Maximus after giving up his title as praetor to Frank when the zombies spawned by Diocletian's Scepter deem him too ‘Un-Roman’ to command them. Cicero does the same and returns to Rome a year after his exile, but while Jason flourishes (for however short of a while) his career never quite recovers.

Now, I mentioned Reyna as another Cicero parallel, did I not? Her family was long established with and favoured by Bellona, though she and her sister were her first children to be born into her line. Unlike Cicero, she had the experience and background.

However, Octavian rivals with her much throughout the series. It’s her orders he defies, it's her he tries to overthrow, and they don’t have a very friendly relationship overall no matter how professional they manage to act with each other. Her quotes speak to her eloquence (pun intended) and her ‘step too far’ as Cicero was travelling to old land against rules and counsel. Granted, I think her parallels are not as strong as Jason’s, but I think combined, she and Jason make a good Cicero parallel to rival Octavian’s Catiline.

Between all of these, I wonder if these parallels are intentional on Riordan’s part. We know that he’s used parallels before, given all of the original quests in the PJO series that Percy goes on and Silena and Clarisse’s explicit parallels to Achilles and Patroclus. It is also entirely possible I’m just reading into it too much.

Of course, there could be plenty of other parallels to myths that could fit better. I just haven’t gotten there yet. But this is the one I’m noticing now, and it’s strong enough that regardless of whether it seems to be intentional in the books, it’s one I think I’m going to be including in my fic. Foreshadowing Octavian’s plans in HoO by paralleling him and Jason/Reyna to Catiline and Cicero is something I’m really interested in doing tbh.

If anyone’s still with me, thoughts? I’m choosing to post this to share my ideas and possibly receive some discussion on them, so feel free to support or debate any of them lol, whether it’s a small detail or the topic itself entirely. I still need to reread HoO for this project, and I’ve also never really shown this much of an interest in history so this is a little new to me lol.

Jason Grace & Cicero Parallels || Chapter 1 on Cicero (and Catiline) Lupa || Chapter 2 on Roman Founding Myths

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syoish-aot · 7 months ago

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HOLY SHIT IT'S DONE!!

I was having some intense posting paralysis all morning (I think I reread the last scene like 15x just to make sure it was worded exactly right).

*he terrifying fear when you write something you really love and you're scared no one else will like it as much as you do*

ANYWAY -

Thank you so much to everyone that's been regularly reading slash commenting on I Found You! It was my first time posting fic to tumblr and I had a lot of fun doing it!

I always have SO MANY ideas for fics, but I get overwhelmed by the idea of seriously perusing them. A lot of this comes from the fear that no one will read them and I'll have spent all of my time writing for absolutely nothing. BUT I've been trying to humble myself lately and recognize the joy in the writing process itself and the satisfaction of getting my ideas fully fleshed out on paper aka google docs regardless of the attention they get.

Despite that, anyone who writes fic understands how shitty it feels when you work for DAYS on something and get crickets in the comments. It sucks. And that's sort of how I've been feeling with my fics on Ao3 lately- which kicks my motivation right in the ass.

In writing I Found You, I think I got some of that motivation back. Not JUST because I was getting regular commenters (again, thank you so much) but also because I was able to slip fully into my self indulgence and finally write out one of the verses that's been existing in my mind palace for MONTHS!

So, all of this rambling is to say this -

I really liked sharing this story with you guys on tumblr, and I'm for sure going to be doing more of this style in the future.

I'll be posting I Found You to Ao3 as well, but I want to edit it a bit (and possibly add a few more scenes) before doing that.

Basically the version I posted here is more of a rough draft, and then the final version will be the one on Ao3.

If you like my writing, consider checking out my Reader/Eren long fic "Ten Seconds" (100k, complete on Ao3) or the post-canon Jean/OC fic I'm working on "The Letters She Wrote"

If you read all of this, then here's your reward - a sneak peak at the VERY LONG isekai/time travel fic that I'm going to be working on next...

Chapter 1 - "You, 2000 years in the future"

Shiganshina High - 2024

You’d taken Ancient History as an elective to fill your schedule because no other class fit in the period.

Also to piss off your dad about not taking AP calculus.

(But mostly it was the schedule thing.)

It wasn’t that you disliked Ancient History, you just found it painfully boring and mind numbing. It was the class right after lunch and every assignment was another boring paper that sounded the exact same over and over and over again.

(Although it did leave you wondering how many times you could start a paper with “the oxford dictionary defines discovery as…” before Mr. Arlert, the ancient old man who taught the class, caught on.)

Thankfully, you didn’t have to put too much effort into the class to get a good grade and because of that the class was an easy A that you could use to maintain your honor roll. Mr. Arlert was retiring at the end of the year, so he was pretty much entirely checked out. You had a feeling he didn’t actually read any of your papers and gave your grades out based on how well he assumed you did the assignment. Which, again, meant you got an A on every one. So Mr. Arlert had a habit of putting on documentaries instead of actually teaching anything.

And you weren’t about to complain about that.

Armin was sitting next to you furiously taking notes on the documentary that Mr. Arlert, his grandpa and teacher, had put on. You understood his struggle to impress his grandpa in the class he taught on a personal level. You used to be like that when it came to math, but now you normally felt yourself doing the opposite. “The opposite”, meaning:

Not taking AP calculus.

Writing the wrong answer on a quiz, even after doing the work to prove the correct one.

Asking pointless questions in class just to see him get that constipated I-can’t-treat-you-like-my-daughter-right-now-because-you’re-my-student-but-god-do-I-wish-I-could-ground-you look.

You smiled at the memory, feeling quite pleased with yourself, until the monotone voice of the documentary playing at the front of the class pulled you back into the present:

“The ancient people of Paradis elected large walls, presumably to protect themselves from invaders during this time.” You looked back at the projector. There was a poorly done animation of what historians suspect the three large walls may have looked like, back when they still stood almost 2000 years ago.

The documentary, just like every documentary Mr. Arlert put on, seemed pretty pointless to show to a class of eleventh graders who were already very aware of the mysterious history of Paradis.

You’d all grown up here and had been taught about this stuff since grade school. Paradis was a major hub for ancient history. There were dozens of museums throughout the island, all holding different ancient artifacts and pieces of your country’s history. Pieces that’s functions had been lost to time, leaving archeologists only able to guess the true history of your people and what these items were for.

“...purpose of them is still unknown, some archaeologists theorize they were used for early agriculture, although others argue they may have been used for religious reasons…”

On the screen was one of the most mysterious relics of ancient Paradis. Two metal cylinders, attached to some sort of strap. Normally, they were found with a large box of metal that was meant to hold something, along with canisters of unknown contents. The were rare, but a few dozen of them had been uncovered in the last hundred years and have only continued to add to the mystery of ancient Paradis.

Of course, you were curious what their origins may be too, but not curious enough to look into it further than this class and the occasional trip you make to the Paradis Museum.

“...these large man-eating monsters were an important part of Paradis folklore, some argue they were likely worshiped as go-”

The bell rang, finally saving you from your mind numbing documentary focused torture.

“Ah!” Mr. Arlert jerked awake at his desk. “Yes, well- I hope you all learned something important today!” He quickly said as he stood. “Don’t forget, your final papers are due on Monday morning. Despite it, I hope you’re able to enjoy your weekend!”

You hoped so too.

God, did you hope so...

#anyone who listens to me ramble gets a treat #that's how it is #gotta listen to my bullshit for 5 pages and then FIC #bonus info in the tags for the tag dwellers: it's pre established eren/reader but the endgame ship is going to be a secret for a WHILE #That time I got sucked into the past and my dad had no idea who I was

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derrick-riches · 1 year ago

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How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Test

Tenured Professor Ron Smelzer taught all his classes from worn binders filled with yellowing paper that crackled as he mindlessly turned page after page. Seldom did his eyes pass over these notes. Decades of teaching the same classes, semester after semester, had burned every bullet point into his brain. And yet, he turned the pages in rhythm with his lectures.

Professor Smelzer never assigned papers, never took roll, and never accepted excuses. Midterm and final. Always essay questions. Always compare and contrast. Answers requiring details, names, and dates. But also, something more. The elusive “A” required an epiphany. While everything you needed came from the lectures and readings, the exhaustive essay questions necessitated putting together disparate concepts in ways that often seemed counterintuitive. At least he gave the option of answering only two of the three questions on the test handout that arrived promptly the moment the test was scheduled to begin.

It was a snowy morning in December when I took a snort from the flask bequeathed to me by Tim the Eccentric when he moved on to graduate school at Berkeley. The mouthful of Irish whisky had been his and now my pretest ritual.

I entered the classroom ten minutes before test time and found a seat on the left end of a row of desks. Smelzer was nowhere to be seen. He would, as was his custom, walk in a minute before the test, make some announcement, and then pass out the questions.

Like every other student, I pulled out my notebook for one last refresher in the few minutes before the desks would be cleared of everything but a blue book and a pen. I stared at my notebook, filled with everything I had considered important from each lecture. A wave of futility washed over me. What was I going to learn in the last remaining minutes? Everyone around me flipped furiously through their own unique collection of scribblings. The collective anxiety was palpable. I folded up my notes, stuffed them back into my bag, and put the blue book and pen on the desk. I sat back and waited.

It wasn’t a calmness I felt. It was an angry frustration. If I was paying to be educated, then why did I have to prove to Smelzer, or the institution for that matter, that I had gotten my money's worth? Why did I have to waste two hours of my Tuesday morning performatively proving my proficiency in the subject?

Smelzer’s rotund figure in a worn grey suit entered the room. He reiterated the testing rules and the two-hour time limit. His instructions to clear our desks were drowned out by the shuffling of papers, backpacks, and bookbags. I watched nervous students sigh and prepare. Test papers were delivered to each student from the professor's hand. I set mine, face down on the desk.

All around me, papers fluttered. There was more than one gasp of disappointment as those around me read the questions. I looked around the room. Had there even been enough time to read the questions? People were already writing. Something in me found it humorous. The speed with which pens began scratching on paper. I smiled and turned over my copy of the test.

I read. I thought. I listened to the scribbling. I watched Smelzer settle into a chair, adjust his glasses, and begin to read from some ancient and probably outdated tome of Slavic history. I reread the questions and cared less and less about the test. Other students were flipping over pages, moving to their second or even third. I thought about two-for-one slices at The Pie. Sure, it was a little after ten in the morning, but pizza and beer sounded better than this. I stared at Smelzer and his oddly perfect salt-and-pepper beard.

There he was. Tenured and secure. Teaching from twenty-year-old notes while writing esoteric articles for obscure history journals to infuse his static career with the illusion of productivity. I had nothing against the guy, but sitting there, as the minutes wandered by, I grew to dislike him. And then, almost pity him. It took effort to turn my eyes to the paper sitting on my desk. I read the questions a third time, still not considering an answer.

Don’t get me wrong. It had been a pretty good class. Dated? Yes. A little too much emphasis on diplomatic failings and too little on the kinds of sociological madness that drove people to commit such horrible atrocities. And yet, the overall narrative had been engaging. Some of the books hadn’t been too dry, but the lectures carried their own rhythm that had kept me awake. To be honest, after all these weeks, I just didn’t care about the class or Smelzer anymore. It got me thinking about something Professor Leonardo Alishan had said a few semesters earlier in a course on Classical Literature.

Professor Alishan was a fascinating person. He had canceled class one day because his daughter was ill, and he couldn’t bring himself to leave her side. It was little more than a cold, but still, class was canceled that day. His death in a house fire would be a serious knock to my psyche two decades later, but what he had said stuck with me. Knowledge is not power. Power is a commodity, and to equate it to knowledge did nothing but cheapen the latter. It was simple, but it changed the way I thought about education in general and universities in particular.

If I was here to gain knowledge, then the whole point of the test was meaningless. I wasn't going to learn anything by taking the test. It could teach me nothing. So why was I here? It was sacrificial. I was sacrificing my time, energy, and mental power in a performative exercise to appease the gods of institutionalization. My obligation was to the ritual. The ritual of education. I took a deep breath, read the first question for the fourth time, and began writing. An hour later, with 40 minutes left of the test time, I dropped my blue book on the desk in front of Smelzer and walked out of the room.

The temptation to get full-priced pizza and a pint of beer was strong, but instead, I walked through the newly falling snow to the library to start what was left of a day's work. I knew that my test anxiety would no longer bother me. I had a new appreciation for my purpose and my education. All in all, it would have been a good day had Scott Hanson, having bombed his biology final, not thrown himself off the fifth-floor atrium of the library, breaking an oak table and leaving a blood stain on the carpet that wouldn’t be cleaned up for two weeks.

#college life #test anxiety #age of total warfare #tests #derrick riches #eighties #short story

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happytapirstudio · 1 year ago

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November Book Log

From Last Month:

Chaucer’s People by Liza Picard (unfinished*)

The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Book 5: Oath Breaker by Michelle Paver (reread)

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin (unfinished*)

New This Month:

The Enchantress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel Book 6) by Michael Scott

The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser (unfinished*)

Kenny & the Dragon by Tony DiTerlizzi

Martin the Warrior by Brian Jacques (reread)

Safe Area Goražde: The War in Eastern Bosnia 1992-95 by Joe Sacco

*Saddest thing in the world...you can't renew library books indefinitely! And I am evidently a really slow reader. Possibly in part because I'm always reading five or more books at the same time.

Sorry to admit this, but I probably won't be re-checking any of these out, except maybe Spenser's classic English epic, since that's on my bucket list. I am so sorry Ms. Jemisin I just couldn't get into your book it was very well-written there just weren't enough talking animals :(((( Ms. Picard I'm only minimally sorry. Your book was pretty neat I just got bored about halfway through. I don't know enough about British politics and I don't care to learn.

I have to talk about Sacco's book for a minute. In Fall 2019 I took a comics-making class, and our prof (himself a published cartoonist) would bring in a bunch of comics every week for us to peruse for the first thirty minutes or so. He brought like the special-edition oversize copy of Goražde and the pages I read that evening have haunted me ever since. So I looked for it in every comic store I went to and finally found it a few months back.

There's a lot I want to talk about, but I don't think I'll ever be equipped to, even after I finish it. All I can say is, it's very good, and I strongly recommend it.

I think it's surreal for me to read in part because the whole conflict (Bosnian War) took place only a few years before I was born in '97. The culture I grew up in--the Disney renaissance, the early internet, dozens of bands and musicians I still listen to today (who I listen to with nostalgia but somehow don't consider "old"), 90s styles and technology, and numerous fundamental components of my very young childhood--was concurrent with the Bosnian War, a conflict marked by horrific acts of violence and destruction. A war that, for me at least, was only briefly mentioned in my world history class, crammed in along with other post-Cold War events in speedrun form at the end of the year. In other words, a war I grew up nearly oblivious to.

And the way Sacco writes and draws makes for an extremely immersive reading experience. Moreso for me personally than a book or even a film could be. (This is just how my brain's wired - to this day Maus has been the Holocaust story that's left the biggest impression on me, that felt the "most real", weird as that sounds.) In the case of Goražde, I think part of this sense of authenticity might be in the way Sacco draws buildings? And this one type of fence, in particular--tile or brick, I'm not sure. Like, I see it and it makes me think "oh my god this is a real place. These are real people, real lives." But "real place" also in the sense of "place I've been to", though I most certainly haven't. I don't know it's just tangible in a very peculiar way.

Well I've gone on too long already and said almost nothing of substance. I'll just close with the note that Mr. Sacco has written numerous books on occupied Palestine, and I intend to get my hands on them sooner rather than later.

#tapir literacy #long post #dog i feel so weird looking at my queue of 99% homestuck with just #a 500-word post about safe area gorazde embedded in the middle #itself amidst a list of YA fantasy books #oh well!! them's the breaks baby #AHHH i forgot to title this post!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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clownpi · 2 years ago

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Fucken wild idea (you can use it if you want, I'll probs never make a fic in my life, I cant write for shit)

Jinx has a mental breakdown while living with Silco at like age 14 (before Vi gets out of prison) and thinks she's going to jinx Silco and getting independence for Zaun and pulls a journey to the west (yes I have been rereading the jttw don't @ me) and goes on a pilgrimage to find enlightenment/ how tf not to be a Jinx to everyone around me, everyone thinks she's fucken dead coz this was entirely impromptu, including Ekko and Zeri (she's there). And Jinx just kinda travels the world meeting new people making enemies and friends along the way including one "special" Demacian *wink* *wink*. She ultimately makes her way to shurima (note Janna has been guiding her journey) and finds like this sunken temple that was dedicated to Janna full of forgotten ancient relics and scripture detailing Zaun and Jannas history. And Jinx is all like tf do I do? And Janna visits her in her dreams and is like, daughter of mine, rewrite our old scripture and traditions into modern zauns language and once you've done become my priestess and bring back our culture to Zaun. And jinx is like seems legit and does that for like 2 and a half years (she's like 18 after this) and makes her way back to Zaun

Meanwhile back at the twin city's, Caitlyn broke Vi out of prison to help with her investigation, Vi finds out from sevika that jinx is probs dead, and Ekko basically confirms it, shit happens Zaun gets it's independence, a year goes by and Jinx 5 years older one pilgrimage and religious awakening later has finally made it back home to Zaun and Silco, Silco of course is ecstatic to have his daughter back and wants to show off to Zaun and Piltover that the princess and heir of Zaun has finally returned, Jinx is like umm dad, Ive had like a religious awakening and such and went on a pilgrimage across the world and I brought back a bunch of scripture of Janna and the church of the storm and I'm basically a priestess now can we umm get Jannas old church back up and running? Silco of course agrees, anything for his little girl. A gala at Piltover rolls around and what's the best way to announce the return of the princess of Zaun then to upstage a piltoven event? So Jinx and slico and the other chembarons go to the gala and guess who's there, Caitlyn, Vi, Ekko and Zeri also Lux and a bunch of Jinx's friends from around the world (jinx has so many political connections it's scary)

You can kinda imagine what happens next, Vi , Ekko and Zeri freak the fuck out, Jinx/powder is alive what? Ekko and Zeri are like do we need to fight she works for Silco, but this is a gala and Jinx is clearly been invited judging by her dress. While Vi is all like at first HOLY SHIT POWDER IS ALIVE, WHAT THE FUCK IS SILCO DOING WITH HER, WHY THE FUCK IS HE WITH HER, GET TF AWAY FROM MY SISTER! Jinx is like Vi wtf ,don't make a scene and drags her off. Caitlyn is all the while awkwardly standing there not really know what to do but be kinda excited to know that vis innocent baby sister is alive, and is like new sister pog as well as the fact she seems to be very close to a Crownguard who has been basically been a bodyguard and shadowed her the entire evening which can only mean good things(Ekko never had the heart to tell Vi jinx worked for Slico, and Vi just talked about her little sis to Cait all the time and Cait has gotten attached to her even tho she's never met her)

Eh can't be bothered to keep going, it's like past 12 am for me and I need to do work tomorrow

Night clown

We Prince of Egypt AU now, love it (I know the movie is based on the bible, but I've never read it so Prince of Egypt AU it is). Jinx having a spiritual journey just like Moses did while wandering through a desert.

You could almost cut everything and just focus on Shurima adventures too, especially if you wanted to have Jinx interaction with the colourful Shurima champs (or actively try to ignore them while doing her translations only to have them constantly bug her). Jinx could still have traveled all over the place, but you could keep it to backstory or references just to keep the story focused, anything you'd want more detail in could just be side stories.

Like Jinx has holed up in an old catacomb or something and just is constantly interrupted. Nasus could stop in to teach her how to read ancient Shuriman (useful, Jinx likes), which then makes Renekton come bursting in to fight (even when Nasus isn't there and after the first couple times of Jinx actually fearing for her life she just kinda gets used to it and tells him Nasus isn't there much to Renekton's disappointment).

Sivir could show up initially thinking it was a new tomb to explore only to find Jinx, somehow they hit it off and Sivir starts bugging her to raid tombs together since Jinx is an explosives expert + her lessons with Nasus means she can read ancient Shuriman and knows a lot about old architecture.

That could then lead Azir (leaning on his interactions with Sivir from LoR) to showing up trying to use Jinx as a means of getting close with Sivir or even just learning what she's doing, because she wants nothing to do with him. He'd just call her Scribe or something like "Scribe, how was my great granddaughters day? Did she....mention me at all?" Have Azir go off on "For your usefulness to me over the years I shall consider you an honorary Shuriman when Shurima finally rises to its true splendor under my rule! Feel pride in earning such a status Scribe! Maybe even Royal Scribe may be in your future should such usefulness continue!" to which Jinx just goes "Yeah sure, cool."

Taliyah could be the one normal friend she actually likes to see because when she see's Jinx is busy she'll just come back another time while leaving a note. They can go sand surfing together and Taliyah would deliver Jinx's mail correspondence with the other people she met on her journey to keep in touch.

Not really sure about the other Shuriman champions. Would be funny if Jinx went "You know, I think you're my favourite of all the Shuriman weirdos I've met, you keep things simple y'know?" towards Rammus who just responds with "OK" While with Amumu it's "Y'know I get you, but I'm still not hugging you. Maintain our agreed upon distance."

The reason so many years pass before Jinx finally leaves is because of the constant interruptions, but through it she ascends (hehe) to a level of patients not previously thought possible. She gets so used to dealing with the constant interruptions from these Gods and other powerful beings she doesn't even blink and just accepts it.

Upon actually returning to Zaun would be kinda funny if people were more weirded out at how incredibly mellow Jinx is than the fact she's actually back.

At that Gala would be where she could interact with the others she met on her journey. Everyone could be weirded out at the Shuriman delegates just approaching Jinx going "Scribe, Emperor Azir wishes to seek your wisdom on a most important topic. He wishes to know if you have any knowledge as to what Lady Sivir's favourite food might be? Emperor Azir wishes to gift her such for his upcoming visit."

Idk, does sound like a fun idea that I might possible look into doing something for (adding it to the pile ;-;) since Shurima is a pretty neat place which also bleeds into my childhood love of Egypt (I wanted to be an Egyptologist as a kid :3).

#answer #writing #arcane fanfic idea #shurima #jinx #random ramblings

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aboveallarescuer · 4 years ago

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Parallels between Aerys II Targaryen and Cersei Lannister (and why they are both foils to Dany)

In this post, I gathered all the parallels I could find between Cersei and Aerys II after recently rereading Cersei’s chapters and Aerys’s section in TWOIAF. While a lot of people have made good points criticizing how Cersei was written (namely, as incompetent, misogynistic and irredeemable, at least in the canon timeline where her fate is already sealed) considering her special place in the narrative (namely, as arguably the female character who most frequently and openly questions and challenges the validity of Westerosi patriarchy, as well as the only major female villain of the story and the only woman among the three Lannister siblings), it’s also true that GRRM intended her to be paralleled with Aerys II in many ways, which will be laid out here.

Recognizing how Aerys II and Cersei are alike is particularly important for emphasizing that both characters were written as foils to Daenerys, so I will also explain how Dany doesn’t share their similarities.

Both believe they are destined for greatness

Aerys II:

Aerys II did not lack for ambition. Upon his coronation, he declared that it was his wish to be the greatest king in the history of the Seven Kingdoms, a conceit certain of his friends encouraged by suggesting that one day he might be remembered as Aerys the Wise or even Aerys the Great. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

Cersei:

The Lord of Casterly Rock deserved rainbows. He had been a great man. I shall be greater, though. A thousand years from now, when the maesters write about this time, you shall be remembered only as Queen Cersei’s sire. (AFFC Cersei II)

That’s not the case with Dany. Her titles (the Unburnt, Mother of Dragons, Mhysa, Azor Ahai, etc) were given to her by other people, she doesn’t think she’s special despite birthing dragons and receiving multiple prophecies and she’s incredibly hard on herself for every mistake she makes. She simply doesn’t have an exaggerated sense of her importance or abilities like Cersei and Aerys II do.

Both are cut by the Iron Throne

Aerys II:

Yet still the blades tormented him, the ones he could never escape, the blades of the Iron Throne. His arms and legs were always covered with scabs and half-healed cuts. (AFFC Jaime II)

Cersei:

The barbs and blades of the Iron Throne bit into her flesh as she crouched to hide her shame. Blood ran red down her legs, as steel teeth gnawed at her buttocks. When she tried to stand, her foot slipped through a gap in the twisted metal. The more she struggled the more the throne engulfed her, tearing chunks of flesh from her breasts and belly, slicing at her arms and legs until they were slick and red, glistening. (AFFC Cersei I)

While Cersei was only cut in a dream, this moment is still significant because the Iron Throne is infamous for only harming and ‘rejecting’ the bad rulers. GRRM could have written a similar dream for Dany if he wanted to make her and Cersei follow the same direction, specially in AFFC/ADWD where he noted multiple times that they’re meant to be paralleled and contrasted. Instead, while Cersei’s first chapter in AFFC begins with her dreaming of being on the Iron Throne and being cut by it, Dany’s first chapter in ADWD begins with her dreaming of a house with a red door. Also, while Cersei wishes she could sit on the Iron Throne but is unable to because only the King and the Hand can sit on it, Dany willingly gives up on the privilege to sit on an elaborate throne and chooses an ebony bench that "did not befit a queen" in Meereen. So, not only the author emphasized that Dany doesn’t want power for its own sake (but rather to help people) and that she wants to be at the level of her people, he also didn’t take the chance to portray her as a bad ruler (because she is a good one) like he did with Cersei and Aerys II.

Both feel excitement and pleasure at the sight of wildfire

Aerys II:

Frustrated, Aerys turned to the Wisdoms of the ancient Guild of Alchemists, who knew the secret of producing the volatile jade green substance known as wildfire, said to be a close cousin to dragonflame. The pyromancers became a regular fixture at his court as the king's fascination with fire grew. By 280 AC, Aerys II had taken to burning traitors, murderers, and plotters, rather than hanging or beheading them. The king seemed to take great pleasure in these fiery executions, which were presided over by Wisdom Rossart, the grand master of the Guild of Alchemists...so much so that he granted Rossart the title of Lord and gave him a seat upon the small council. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

The sight had filled him with disquiet, reminding him of Aerys Targaryen and the way a burning would arouse him. A king has no secrets from his Kingsguard. Relations between Aerys and his queen had been strained during the last years of his reign. They slept apart and did their best to avoid each other during the waking hours. But whenever Aerys gave a man to the flames, Queen Rhaella would have a visitor in the night. (AFFC Jaime II)

Cersei:

Cersei thought of all the King’s Hands that she had known through the years: Owen Merryweather, Jon Connington, Qarlton Chelsted, Jon Arryn, Eddard Stark, her brother Tyrion. And her father, Lord Tywin Lannister, her father most of all. All of them are burning now, she told herself, savoring the thought. They are dead and burning, every one, with all their plots and schemes and betrayals. It is my day now. It is my castle and my kingdom. (AFFC Cersei III)

Cersei felt too alive for sleep. The wildfire was cleansing her, burning away all her rage and fear, filling her with resolve. “The flames are so pretty. I want to watch them for a while.” (AFFC Cersei III)

Jaime knew the look in his sister's eyes. He had seen it before, most recently on the night of Tommen's wedding, when she burned the Tower of the Hand. The green light of the wildfire had bathed the face of the watchers, so they looked like nothing so much as rotting corpses, a pack of gleeful ghouls, but some of the corpses were prettier than others. Even in the baleful glow, Cersei had been beautiful to look upon. She'd stood with one hand on her breast, her lips parted, her green eyes shining. She is crying, Jaime had realized, but whether it was from grief or ecstasy he could not have said.

The sight had filled him with disquiet, reminding him of Aerys Targaryen and the way a burning would arouse him. (AFFC Jaime II)

That never happens with Dany. She does describe the flames positively during the ritual to hatch the dragon eggs, but so does Jon Snow and GRRM himself. She does claim the fire as hers, but it has to do with her magical intuition as she puts two and two to birth her children and is ultimately validated. Most importantly, unlike Aerys II and Cersei, Dany a) never feels excitement while watching things burn for their own sake, b) never takes pleasure viewing or imagining her enemies burning and c) is never compared to Aerys II to highlight any disturbing behavior from her part. She is called the Mad King’s daughter by her enemies (the slavers and Mace Tyrell), but the characters around her and the ones who have nothing to gain by defaming her (Barristan, Tyrion, Illyrio, Quentyn) reiterate that she’s nothing like him. Meanwhile, two of the people who have known Cersei the longest (Jaime on the quotes above, Tyrion) compare her to Aerys II.

Both grow paranoid with time; they imagine implausible scenarios in which their perceived enemies are working (often together) against them, accept their baseless fears as truth and make hasty decisions based on them

Aerys II:

The march of the king's madness seemed to abate for a time in 274 AC, when Queen Rhaella gave birth to a son. So profound was His Grace's joy that it seemed to restore him to his old self once again...but Prince Jaehaerys died later that same year, plunging Aerys into despair. In his black rage, he decided the babe's wet nurse was to blame and had the woman beheaded. Not long after, in a change of heart, Aerys announced that Jaehaerys had been poisoned by his own mistress, the pretty young daughter of one of his household knights. The king had the girl and all her kin tortured to death. During the course of their torment, it is recorded, all confessed to the murder, though the details of their confessions were greatly at odds. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

The birth of Prince Viserys only seemed to make Aerys II more fearful and obsessive, however. Though the new young princeling seemed healthy enough, the king was terrified lest he suffer the same fate as his brothers. Kingsguard knights were commanded to stand over him night and day to see that no one touched the boy without the king's leave. Even the queen herself was forbidden to be alone with the infant. When her milk dried up, Aerys insisted on having his own food taster suckle at the teats of the prince's wet nurse, to ascertain that the woman had not smeared poison on her nipples. As gifts for the young prince arrived from all the lords of the Seven Kingdoms, the king had them piled in the yard and burned, for fear that some of them might have been ensorcelled or cursed. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

Captivity at Duskendale had shattered whatever sanity had remained to Aerys II Targaryen. From that day forth, the king's madness reigned unchecked, growing worse with every passing year. The Darklyns had dared lay hands upon his person, shoving him roughly, stripping him of his royal raiment, even daring to strike him. After his release, King Aerys would no longer allow himself to be touched, even by his own servants. Uncut and unwashed, his hair grew ever longer and more tangled, whilst his fingernails lengthened and thickened into grotesque yellow talons. He forbade any blade in his presence save for the swords carried by the knights of his Kingsguard, sworn to protect him. His judgments became ever harsher and crueler. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

Once safely returned to King's Landing, His Grace refused to leave the Red Keep for any cause and remained a virtual prisoner in his own castle for the next four years, during which time he grew ever more wary of those around him, Tywin Lannister in particular. His suspicions extended even to his own son and heir. Prince Rhaegar, he was convinced, had conspired with Tywin Lannister to have him slain at Duskendale. They had planned to storm the town walls so that Lord Darklyn would put him to death, opening the way for Rhaegar to mount the Iron Throne and marry Lord Tywin's daughter. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

And when the triumphant Prince of Dragonstone named Lyanna Stark, daughter of the Lord of Winterfell, the queen of love and beauty, placing a garland of blue roses in her lap with the tip of his lance, the lickspittle lords gathered around the king declared that further proof of his perfidy. Why would the prince have thus given insult to his own wife, the Princess Elia Martell of Dorne (who was present), unless it was to help him gain the Iron Throne? The crowning of the Stark girl, who was by all reports a wild and boyish young thing with none of the Princess Elia's delicate beauty, could only have been meant to win the allegiance of Winterfell to Prince Rhaegar's cause, Symond Staunton suggested to the king. (TWOIAF The Fall of the Dragons: The Year of the False Spring)

When the news reached the Red Keep, it was said that Aerys cursed the Dornish, certain that Lewyn had betrayed Rhaegar. He sent his pregnant queen, Rhaella, and his younger son and new heir, Viserys, away to Dragonstone, but Princess Elia was forced to remain in King's Landing with Rhaegar's children as a hostage against Dorne. (TWOIAF The Fall of the Dragons: The End)

Cersei:

“I am counseling you. If you will not yield the regency to me, name me your castellan for Casterly Rock and make either Mathis Rowan or Randyll Tarly the Hand of the King.”

Tyrell bannermen, both of them. The suggestion left her speechless. Is he bought? she wondered. Has he taken Tyrell gold to betray House Lannister? (AFFC Cersei II)

“Lord Manderly hacked the head and hands off the onion knight, we have that from the Freys, and half a dozen other northern lords have rallied to Lord Bolton. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Where else can Stannis turn, but to the ironmen and the wildlings, the enemies of the north? But if he thinks that I am going to walk into his trap, he is a bigger fool than you.” (AFFC Cersei VII)

“No doubt. Tell me, was it our little queen who commanded you to kill Lord Gyles?”

“K-kill?” Grand Maester Pycelle’s eyes grew as big as boiled eggs. “Your Grace cannot believe ... it was his cough, by all the gods, I ... Her Grace would not ... she bore Lord Gyles no ill will, why would Queen Margaery want him ...”

“... dead? Why, to plant another rose on Tommen’s council. Are you blind or bought? Rosby stood in her way, so she put him in his grave. With your connivance.” (AFFC Cersei IX)

She knew Joff was too strong for her, Cersei thought, remembering the gold coin Qyburn had found. For House Tyrell to hope to rule, he had to be removed. It came back to her that Margaery and her hideous grandmother had once plotted to marry Sansa Stark to the little queen’s crippled brother Willas. Lord Tywin had forestalled that by stealing a march on them and wedding Sansa to Tyrion, but the link had been there. They are all in it together, she realized with a start. The Tyrells bribed the gaolers to free Tyrion, and whisked him down the roseroad to join his vile bride. By now the both of them are safe in Highgarden, hidden away behind a wall of roses. (AFFC Cersei VI)

Cersei’s case is complicated in that she has valid reasons to be anxious: prophecies come true in her world, the Tyrells did kill Joffrey (she’s right in that regard, at least) and the coin found in the cell could be evidence that the Tyrells were involved in Tyrion’s escape. The problem is how she deals with her suspicions. To defeat Margaery, she projected her experiences on her (every widow definitely has sexual appetites, so Margaery definitely has lovers), held on to the few dubious signs that she was cheating on the king (Margaery asking Pycelle for moon tea or having a lively court), tortured an innocent man to confirm the story she needs to incriminate Margaery and arrested several innocent people. Besides that, Cersei also: alienates Kevan by avoiding his recommendations and giving important titles to other cousins based on her hunch that he was bought by the Tyrells (quote above); avoids giving the Tyrells help when the ironmen attack the Shield Islands based on her baseless suspicion that Stannis made an alliance with the ironmen and was, therefore, behind the attack on the Shield Islands with the intention to turn Cersei’s eyes away from the Storm’s End and Dragonstone (quote above); forces Pycelle to "confirm" what she wants to believe because of her guess that he helped the Tyrells kill Gyles Rosby (quote above). And these are just some of the major examples.

Dany has moments when she is unsure of whether the people around her are reliable or not. She questions if Reznak is trustworthy or if he, Hizdahr and the Green Grace joined forces against her or if Groleo could be one of the three prophesied treasons, but she remains willing to listen to their advice and never undermines or punishes them solely based on her suspicions because, unlike her father or Cersei, she has a healthy distrust of others.

Both choose to be excessively and needlessly brutal against their enemies and the people who offend them (even when their offenses are relatively minor and/or not supported by facts)

Aerys II:

When one such reported that the captain of the Hand's personal guard, a knight named Ser Ilyn Payne, had been heard boasting it was Lord Tywin who truly ruled the Seven Kingdoms, His Grace sent the Kingsguard to arrest the man and had his tongue ripped out with red-hot pincers. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

By 280 AC, Aerys II had taken to burning traitors, murderers, and plotters, rather than hanging or beheading them. The king seemed to take great pleasure in these fiery executions, which were presided over by Wisdom Rossart, the grand master of the Guild of Alchemists...so much so that he granted Rossart the title of Lord and gave him a seat upon the small council. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

When Darklyn and his family were presented to him in chains, Aerys demanded their deaths—and not only Darklyn's immediate kin but his uncles and aunts and even distant kinsmen in Duskendale. Even his goodkin, the Hollards, were attainted and destroyed. Only Ser Symon's young nephew, Dontos Hollard, was spared—and only then because Ser Barristan begged that mercy as a boon, and the king he had saved could not refuse him. As to Lady Serala, hers was a crueler death. Aerys had the Lace Serpent's tongue and her womanly parts torn out before she was burned alive (yet her enemies say that she should have suffered more and worse for the ruin she brought down upon the town). (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

Cersei:

"M'lord, begging your pardon, Her Grace said those as didn't meet their numbers would have their hands crushed," the anxious smith persisted. "Smashed on their own anvils, she said."

Sweet Cersei, always striving to make the smallfolk love us. (ACOK Tyrion III)

"Y'Grace," he said quietly, "the boys caught a groom and two maidservants trying to sneak out a postern with three of the king's horses."

"The night's first traitors," the queen said, "but not the last, I fear. Have Ser Ilyn see to them, and put their heads on pikes outside the stables as a warning." (ACOK Sansa VI)

“I hope you did not wake them, Ser Boros. Let them sleep.”

“Sleep?” He looked up, jowly and confused. “Aye, Your Grace. How long shall—”

“Forever. See that they sleep forever, ser. I will not suffer guards to sleep on watch.” (AFFC Cersei I)

“His Grace should send the Wall a hundred men. To take the black, ostensibly, but in truth …”

“... to remove Jon Snow from the command,” Cersei finished, delighted. I knew I was right to want him on my council. “That is just what we shall do.” She laughed. If this bastard boy is truly his father's son, he will not suspect a thing. Perhaps he will even thank me, before the blade slides between his ribs. “It will need to be done carefully, to be sure. Leave the rest to me, my lords.” This was how an enemy should be dealt with: with a dagger, not a declaration. (AFFC Cersei IV)

“Send some of your whisperers to these shows and make note of who attends. If any of them should be men of note, I would know their names.”

“What will be done with them, if I may be so bold?”

“Any men of substance shall be fined. Half their worth should be sufficient to teach them a sharp lesson and refill our coffers, without quite ruining them. Those too poor to pay can lose an eye, for watching treason. For the puppeteers, the axe.”

“There are four. Perhaps Your Grace might allow me two of them for mine own purposes. A woman would be especially ...”

“I gave you Senelle,” the queen said sharply.

“Alas. The poor girl is quite ... exhausted.”

[...] “Yes, you may take a woman. Two, if it please you. But first I will have names. (AFFC Cersei V)

“I cannot have Falyse spreading tales about the city. Her grief has made her witless. Do you still need women for your ... work?”

“I do, Your Grace. The puppeteers are quite used up.”

“Take her and do with her as you will, then. But once she goes down into the black cells ... need I say more?” (AFFC Cersei VII)

Dany doesn’t act like this. She burned the masters in Astapor to protect her retinue and punished the Meereenese leaders who ordered the crucifixion of the slave children, but she also spared all the Yunkish masters and most of the Meereenese masters. Her leniency is the root of her problems in ADWD, since it allowed them to retaliate against the abolition of slavery. Additionally, Dany doesn’t punish Ghael for spitting on her, she doesn’t punish a boy for trying to attack her, she doesn't punish Xaro for threatening her to her face, she chooses not to follow her councillors' advice to punish the former slavers indiscriminately and so on. You can read more about how Dany's tendency is to avoid using violence in this meta.

Both use torture to get people to confirm what they believe or what's convenient for them

Aerys II:

Cersei:

“Tell us how you pleasured the little queen. [...] How many of them did you have carnal knowledge of?”

“None of them. I’m just a singer. Please.”

[...] Lord Qyburn ran a hand up the Blue Bard’s chest. “Does she take your nipples in her mouth during your love play?” He took one between his thumb and forefinger, and twisted. “Some men enjoy that. Their nipples are as sensitive as a woman’s.” The razor flashed, the singer shrieked. On his chest a wet red eye wept blood. [...]

By dawn the singer’s high blue boots were full of blood, and he had told them how Margaery would fondle herself as she watched her cousins pleasuring him with their mouths. At other times he would sing for her whilst she sated her lusts with other lovers. “Who were they?” the queen demanded, and the wretched Wat named Ser Tallad the Tall, Lambert Turnberry, Jalabhar Xho, the Redwyne twins, Osney Kettleblack, Hugh Clifton, and the Knight of Flowers.

That displeased her. She dare not besmirch the name of the hero of Dragonstone. [...] The Redwynes could not be a part of it either. [...] “All you are doing is spitting up the names of men you saw about her chambers. We want the truth! [...] Horas and Hobber had no part of this, did they?”

“No,” he admitted. “Not them.”

“As for Ser Loras, I am certain Margaery took pains to hide what she was doing from her brother.”

“She did. I remember now. Once I had to hide under the bed when Ser Loras came to see her. He must never know, she said.”

“I prefer this song to the other.” (AFFC Cersei IX)

Dany doesn't act like her father or Cersei in that regard either. She allows the use of torture (which is normalized in her world) to question people regarding the murders of former slaves, but she stops it once she realizes that the results are unreliable because, unlike her foils, she cares about punishing the actual perpetrators, not about having her beliefs confirmed at any cost.

Both are often cruel, rude and disrespectful to others

Aerys II:

At the great Anniversary Tourney of 272 AC, held to commemorate Aerys's tenth year upon the Iron Throne, Joanna Lannister brought her six-year-old twins Jaime and Cersei from Casterly Rock to present before the court. The king (very much in his cups) asked her if giving suck to them had "ruined your breasts, which were so high and proud." (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

Over his Hand's strenuous objections, the king doubled the port fees at King's Landing and Oldtown, and tripled them for Lannisport and the realm's other ports and harbors. When a delegation of small lords and rich merchants came before the Iron Throne to complain, however, Aerys blamed the Hand for the exactions, saying, "Lord Tywin shits gold, but of late he has been constipated and had to find some other way to fill our coffers." (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

Tyrion, as the babe was named, was a malformed, dwarfish babe born with stunted legs, an oversized head, and mismatched, demonic eyes (some reports also suggested he had a tail, which was lopped off at his lord father's command). Lord Tywin's Doom, the smallfolk called this ill-made creature, and Lord Tywin's Bane. Upon hearing of his birth, King Aerys infamously said, "The gods cannot abide such arrogance. They have plucked a fair flower from his hand and given him a monster in her place, to teach him some humility at last." (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

Cersei:

Cersei stared at her, aghast. “Your lackwit sister gets herself raped by half of King’s Landing, and Tanda thinks to honor the bastard with my lord father’s name? I think not.” (AFFC Cersei II)

She wanted a storm to match her rage. To Jocelyn she said, “Tighter. Cinch it tighter, you simpering little fool.”

It was the wedding that enraged her, though the slow-witted Swyft girl made a safer target. (AFFC Cersei III)

“Would Your Grace honor her white knight with a dance?”

She gave him a withering look. “And have you fumbling at me with that stump? No. I will let you fill my wine cup for me, though. If you think you can manage it without spilling.” (AFFC Cersei III)

“Very well. Get off those saggy knees and try to remember what it was to be a man.” Pycelle struggled to rise, but took so long about it that she had to tell Osmund Kettleblack to give him another yank. (AFFC Cersei IX)

For the vast majority of the time, Dany is kind and courteous. Her detractors tend to question that fact with two main arguments: a) she laughed at Quentyn; b) she is intolerant about Meereenese culture. Their first argument is very weak. Dany didn't laugh at Quentyn, she laughed about the reason why Quentyn is called frog and then forgot to explain why she did so in the Common Tongue. Even then, though, Quentyn is so overwhelmed by her kindness that he only remembers that "the queen had always spoken to him gently". Their second argument is also unconvincing because Dany's dislike of several aspects of Meereenese culture has to do with their ties to slavery (case in point: the fighting pits) and, even then, she makes several concessions to culturally adapt. Additionally, unlike Aerys II or Cersei, she doesn't express her critical thoughts (which are way less common and way less derogatory than Cersei's) verbally.

Both give rewards and promotions to those who blindly obey and agree with them, regardless of whether they’re experienced, competent or trustworthy

Aerys II:

He was also vain, proud, and changeable, traits that made him easy prey for flatterers and lickspittles, but these flaws were not immediately apparent to most at the time of his ascension. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

His father's court had been made up largely of older, seasoned men, many of whom had also served during the reign of King Aegon V. Aerys II dismissed them one and all, replacing them with lords of his own generation. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

The king replaced him as Hand with Lord Owen Merryweather, an aged and amiable lickspittle famed for laughing loudest at every jape and witticism uttered by the king, no matter how feeble. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

The Mad King could be savagely cruel, as seen most plainly when he burned those he perceived to be his enemies, but he could also be extravagant, showering men who pleased him with honors, offices, and lands. The lickspittle lords who surrounded Aerys II had gained much and more from the king's madness and eagerly seized upon any opportunity to speak ill of Prince Rhaegar and inflame the father's suspicions of the son. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

Cersei:

"A weak ruler needs a strong Hand, as Aerys needed Father. A strong ruler requires only a diligent servant to carry out his orders." (AFFC Jaime II)

The Kettleblacks would charm her, take her coin, and promise her anything she asked, and why not, when Bronn was matching every copper penny, coin for coin? Amiable rogues all three, the brothers were in truth much more skilled at deceit than they'd ever been at bloodletting. Cersei had managed to buy herself three hollow drums; they would make all the fierce booming sounds she required, but there was nothing inside. (ACOK Tyrion IX)

My councillors. Cersei had uprooted every rose, and all those beholden to her uncle and her brothers. In their places were men whose loyalty would be to her. She had even given them new styles, borrowed from the Free Cities; the queen would have no “masters” at court beside herself. (AFFC Cersei IV)

Grand Maester Pycelle had wanted an older man “more seasoned in the ways of war” to command the gold cloaks, and several of her other councillors had agreed with him. “Ser Osfryd is seasoned quite sufficiently,” she had told them, but even that did not shut them up. They yap at me like a pack of small, annoying dogs. (AFFC Cersei V)

"She would have done better to leave the tower and burn her Hand. Harys Swyft? If ever a man deserved his arms, it is Ser Harys. And Gyles Rosby, Seven save us, I thought he died years ago. Merryweather ... your father used to call his grandsire 'the Chuckler,' I'll have you know. Tywin claimed the only thing Merryweather was good for was chuckling at the king's witticisms. His lordship chuckled himself right into exile, as I recall. Cersei has put some bastard on the council too, and a kettle in the Kingsguard. (AFFC Jaime V)

Besides the Kettleblacks (as shown above), Cersei rewards many other people that are rarely, if ever, willing to question her - Harys Swyft, Orton Merryweather, Aurane Waters, Gyles Rosby, Meryn Trant, Qyburn (the only one who doesn't turn his back on Cersei after she falls from power), etc. The only one that disagrees with her decisions regularly is Pycelle, which is why she rebukes him quite a few times throughout AFFC. Also, while Cersei considers Aerys a weak ruler, they both believe that their Hands should be servants that know their place and follow them blindly.

Dany doesn't restrict herself to only listening to the people she agrees with. She welcomes dissent multiple times throughout the books and so, consequently, her council gives voice to multiple groups (from the Unsullied to the freedmen to the former slavers to the Dothraki).

Both alienate and undermine important allies because of disagreements that could have been mended and fears that lead both rulers to perceive these potential allies as enemies

Aerys II:

The growing rift between the king and the King's Hand was also apparent in the matter of appointments. Whereas previously His Grace had always heeded his Hand's counsel, bestowing offices, honors, and inheritances as Lord Tywin recommended, after 270 AC he began to disregard the men put forward by his lordship in favor of his own choices. Many westermen found themselves dismissed from the king's service for no better cause than the suspicion that they might be "Hand's men." In their places, King Aerys appointed his own favorites...but the king's favor had become a chancy thing, his mistrust easy to awaken. Even the Hand's own kin were not exempt from royal displeasure. When Lord Tywin wished to name his brother Ser Tygett Lannister as the Red Keep's master-at-arms, King Aerys gave the post to Ser Willem Darry instead. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

Perhaps seeking to gain advantage of His Grace's high spirits, Lord Tywin chose that very night to suggest that it was past time the king's heir wed and produced an heir of his own; he proposed his own daughter, Cersei, as wife for the crown prince. Aerys II rejected this proposal brusquely, informing Lord Tywin that he was a good and valuable servant, yet a servant nonetheless. Nor did His Grace agree to appoint Lord Tywin's son Jaime as squire to Prince Rhaegar; that honor he granted instead to the sons of several of his own favorites, men known to be no friends of House Lannister or the Hand. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

Lord Denys, seeing that Aerys's erratic behavior had begun to strain his relations with Lord Tywin, refused to pay the taxes expected of him and instead invited the king to come to Duskendale and hear his petition. It seems most unlikely that King Aerys would ever have considered accepting this invitation...until Lord Tywin advised him to refuse in the strongest possible terms, whereupon the king decided to accept, informing Grand Maester Pycelle and the small council that he meant to settle this matter himself and bring the defiant Darklyn to heel. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

Cersei:

Garth the Gross on the small council and his two bastards in the gold cloaks ... do the Tyrells think I will just serve the realm up to them on a gilded platter? The arrogance of it took her breath away.

“Garth has served me well as Lord Seneschal, as he served my father before me,” Tyrell was going on. “Littlefinger had a nose for gold, I grant you, but Garth—”

“My lord,” Cersei broke in, “I fear there has been some misunderstanding. I have asked Lord Gyles Rosby to serve as our new master of coin, and he has done me the honor of accepting.”

Mace gaped at her. “Rosby? That ... cougher? But ... the matter was agreed, Your Grace. Garth is on his way to Oldtown.”

“Best send a raven to Lord Hightower and ask him to make certain your uncle does not take ship. We would hate for Garth to brave an autumn sea for nought.” She smiled pleasantly.

A flush crept up Tyrell’s thick neck. “This ... your lord father assured me ...” (AFFC Cersei II)

Cersei had named her cousin Damion Lannister her castellan for the Rock, and another cousin, Ser Daven Lannister, the Warden of the West. Insolence has its price, Uncle. (AFFC Cersei III)

“I have been remiss. With a realm to rule, a war to fight, and a father to mourn, somehow I overlooked the crucial matter of naming a new master-at-arms. I shall rectify that error at once.”

Ser Loras pushed back a brown curl that had fallen across his forehead. “Your Grace will not find any man half so skilled with sword and lance as I.”

Humble, aren’t we? “Tommen is your king, not your squire. You are to fight for him and die for him, if need be. No more.”

She left him on the drawbridge that spanned the dry moat with its bed of iron spikes and entered Maegor’s Holdfast alone. Where am I to find a master-at-arms? she wondered as she climbed to her apartments. [...]

Aron Santagar was Dornish, Cersei recalled. I could send to Dorne. Centuries of blood and war lay between Sunspear and Highgarden. Yes, a Dornishman might suit my needs admirably. There must be some good swords in Dorne. (AFFC Cersei V)

He had even had the temerity to object to her sending to Dorne for a master-at-arms, on the grounds that it might offend the Tyrells. “Why do you think I’m doing it?” she had asked him scornfully. (AFFC Cersei VI)

“Your Grace, let me take Dragonstone.”

[...] No one had given Cersei such a lovely gift since Sansa Stark had run to her to divulge Lord Eddard’s plans. She was pleased to see that Margaery had gone pale. “Your courage takes my breath away, Ser Loras. [...] Swear to me that you shall not return until Dragonstone is Tommen’s.”

“I shall, Your Grace.” He rose.

[...] Pycelle had to struggle to keep up. “If it please Your Grace,” he puffed, “young men are overbold, and think only of the glory of battle and never of its dangers. Ser Loras ... this plan of his is fraught with peril. To storm the very walls of Dragonstone ...”

“... is very brave. [...] I have no doubt that our Knight of Flowers will be the first man to gain the battlements.” And perhaps the first to fall. (AFFC Cersei VII)

Dany doesn't do this; instead, she makes plenty of concessions to appease her influential allies, from wearing the tokar to marrying Hizdahr by Ghiscari rites if he gives her ninety days of peace to allowing Hizdahr to reopen the fighting pits to accepting a deal between Meereen and Yunkai that allows the latter to reinstall slavery. All of these decisions are ultimately mistakes since they unwittingly prioritize the privileges of the former masters over the rights of the former slaves, but they still show that Dany is capable of making alliances in a way that Aerys II and Cersei aren't due to their black and white thinking.

Both are extravagant rulers who plan grand schemes that are never realized

Aerys II:

His Grace was full of grand schemes as well. Not long after his coronation, he announced his intent to conquer the Stepstones and make them a part of his realm for all time. In 264 AC, a visit to King's Landing by Lord Rickard Stark of Winterfell awakened his interest in the North, and he hatched a plan to build a new Wall a hundred leagues north of the existing one and claim all the lands between. In 265 AC, offended by "the stink of King's Landing," he spoke of building a "white city" entirely of marble on the south bank of the Blackwater Rush. In 267 AC, after a dispute with the Iron Bank of Braavos regarding certain monies borrowed by his father, he announced that he would build the largest war fleet in the history of the world "to bring the Titan to his knees." In 270 AC, during a visit to Sunspear, he told the Princess of Dorne that he would "make the Dornish deserts bloom" by digging a great underground canal beneath the mountains to bring water down from the rainwood.

None of these grandiose plans ever came to fruition; most, indeed, were forgotten within a moon's turn, for Aerys II seemed to grow bored with his royal enthusiasms as quickly as he did his royal paramours. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

Cersei:

“Would that we could do the same to the rest of this foul castle,” said Cersei. “After the war I mean to build a new palace beyond the river.” She had dreamed of it the night before last, a magnificent white castle surrounded by woods and gardens, long leagues from the stinks and noise of King’s Landing. “This city is a cesspit. For half a groat I would move the court to Lannisport and rule the realm from Casterly Rock.” (AFFC Cersei III)

A group of merchants appeared before her to beg the throne to intercede for them with the Iron Bank of Braavos. The Braavosi were demanding repayment of their outstanding debts, it seemed, and refusing all new loans. We need our own bank, Cersei decided, the Golden Bank of Lannisport. (AFFC Cersei VIII)

That's not the case with Dany either. Throughout her reign, she only makes reasonable and attainable decisions to improve Meereen's economy, such as planting grapes, beans and wheat, replanting olive trees, making an alliance with the Lhazareen and freeing the slaves of the hinterlands to bring crops to the city.

Both are unpopular with the common people

Aerys II: (note that Tywin himself is unpopular with the smallfolk)

They cheered Father twice as loudly as they cheered the king, the queen recalled, but only half as loudly as they cheered Prince Rhaegar. (AFFC Cersei V)

Cersei:

As she made her way through the ragged throng, past their cookfires, wagons, and crude shelters, the queen found herself remembering another crowd that had once gathered on this plaza. The day she wed Robert Baratheon, thousands had turned out to cheer for them. [...]

No one was smiling now. The looks the sparrows gave her were dull, sullen, hostile. They made way but reluctantly. (AFFC Cersei VI)

Thrice that day she heard the sound of distant shouting drifting up from the plaza, but it was Margaery’s name that the mob was calling, not hers. (AFFC Cersei X)

We have yet to see how the common people in Westeros will view Dany, but she is very popular among freedmen and slaves from all over Essos, so she doesn't fit this either.

Both feel threatened by the shadow of Tywin Lannister

Aerys II:

By this time, King Aerys had become aware of the widespread belief that he himself was but a hollow figurehead and Tywin Lannister the true master of the Seven Kingdoms. These sentiments greatly angered the king, and His Grace became determined to disprove them and to humble his "overmighty servant" and "put him back into his place." (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

Cersei:

“Lord Tywin was a great man, an extraordinary man,” he declared ponderously after he had kissed both her cheeks. “We shall never see his like again, I fear.”

You are looking at his like, fool, Cersei thought. It is his daughter standing here before you. (AFFC Cersei II)

She was tired of Jaime balking her. No one had ever balked her lord father. When Tywin Lannister spoke, men obeyed. When Cersei spoke, they felt free to counsel her, to contradict her, even refuse her. (AFFC Cersei V)

This is not a perfect parallel because Cersei alternates between hero-worshiping and drawing inspiration and strength from Tywin to resenting the control he had over her, so much so that she lists her father alongside her enemies and takes pleasure in the fact that he's now dead. Even so, both Aerys II and Cersei feel that they were owed the treatment that people gave Tywin.

This doesn't happen with Dany because she doesn't feel threatened by anyone nor does Tywin play an important role in her story.

Both feel threatened by a younger, more beautiful, more popular would-be king/queen

Aerys II:

The cheers of the crowd were said to be deafening, but King Aerys did not join them. Far from being proud and pleased by his heir's skill at arms, His Grace saw it as a threat. Lords Chelsted and Staunton inflamed his suspicions further, declaring that Prince Rhaegar had entered the lists to curry favor with the commons and remind the assembled lords that he was a puissant warrior, a true heir to Aegon the Conqueror. (TWOIAF The Fall of the Dragons: The Year of the False Spring)

The lickspittle lords who surrounded Aerys II had gained much and more from the king's madness and eagerly seized upon any opportunity to speak ill of Prince Rhaegar and inflame the father's suspicions of the son. (TWOIAF The Fall of the Dragons: The Year of the False Spring)

Meanwhile, King Aerys was becoming ever more estranged from his own son and heir. Early in the year 279 AC, Rhaegar Targaryen, Prince of Dragonstone, was formally betrothed to Princess Elia Martell, the delicate young sister of Doran Martell, Prince of Dorne. They were wed the following year, in a lavish ceremony at the Great Sept of Baelor in King's Landing, but Aerys II did not attend. He told the small council that he feared an attempt upon his life if he left the confines of the Red Keep, even with his Kingsguard to protect him. Nor would he allow his younger son, Viserys, to attend his brother's wedding. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

The memory was still bitter. Old Lord Whent had announced the tourney shortly after a visit from his brother, Ser Oswell Whent of the Kingsguard. With Varys whispering in his ear, King Aerys became convinced that his son was conspiring to depose him, that Whent's tourney was but a ploy to give Rhaegar a pretext for meeting with as many great lords as could be brought together. Aerys had not set foot outside the Red Keep since Duskendale, yet suddenly he announced that he would accompany Prince Rhaegar to Harrenhal, and everything had gone awry from there. (ADWD The Kingbreaker)

Cersei:

Her mood was not improved when Mace Tyrell arose to lead the toasts. He raised a golden goblet high, smiling at his pretty little daughter, and in a booming voice said, “To the king and queen!” The other sheep all baaaaaaed along with him. “The king and queen!” they cried, smashing their cups together. “The king and queen!” She had no choice but to drink along with them, all the time wishing that the guests had but a single face, so she could throw her wine into their eyes and remind them that she was the true queen. (AFFC Cersei III)

“Your Grace, she ... she is the queen ...”

“I am the queen. (AFFC Cersei IX)

It was a pity that Maggy the Frog was dead. Piss on your prophecy, old woman. The little queen may be younger than I, but she has never been more beautiful, and soon she will be dead. (AFFC Cersei IX)

Cersei's case is more justified in that she believes that, by defeating the YMBQ, she'll also prevent her children from dying and the valonqar from killing her.

This doesn't happen with Dany.

Both lost a child (children, in Aerys’s case) and fear for the safety of their remaining child (children, in Cersei’s case) to the point that these concerns become intertwined with their fears that someone is out to get them

Aerys II:

Cersei:

I am dreaming still, Cersei thought. I have not woken, nor has my nightmare ended. Tyrion will creep out from under the bed soon and begin to laugh at me.

[...] A dream, that’s all it was, a dream. I drank too much last night, these fears are only humors born of wine. I will be the one laughing, come dusk. My children will be safe, Tommen’s throne will be secure, and my twisted little valonqar will be short a head and rotting. (AFFC Cersei I)

Cersei had a sudden vision of the dwarf crawling out from behind a tapestry in Tommen’s bedchamber with blade in hand. Tommen is well guarded, she told herself. But Lord Tywin had been well guarded too. (AFFC Cersei I)

The younger queen whose coming she’d foretold was finished, and if that prophecy could fail, so could the rest. No golden shrouds, no valonqar, I am free of your croaking malice at last. (AFFC Cersei X)

Like in the previous parallel, Cersei's bad reactions are more justified due to the fact that prophecies come true in her world and due to her understandable sense of self-preservation.

This doesn't happen with Dany.

Both had unhappy marriages and believed that their spouses weren’t the right ones for them

Aerys II:

What Tywin Lannister made of this is not recorded, but in 266 AC, at Casterly Rock, Lady Joanna gave birth to a pair of twins, a girl and a boy, "healthy and beautiful, with hair like beaten gold." This birth only exacerbated the tension between Aerys II Targaryen and his Hand. "I appear to have married the wrong woman," His Grace was reported to have said, when informed of the happy event. (TWOIAF The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

Cersei:

“...Your father will find another man for you, a better man than Rhaegar.”

Her aunt had lied, though, and her father had failed her, just as Jaime was failing her now. Father found no better man. Instead he gave me Robert, and Maggy’s curse bloomed like some poisonous flower. If she had only married Rhaegar as the gods intended, he would never have looked twice at the wolf girl. Rhaegar would be our king today and I would be his queen, the mother of his sons.

She had never forgiven Robert for killing him. (AFFC Cersei V)

The major difference in this parallel, of course, is that Aerys raped his wife and Cersei was raped by her husband.

This doesn't happen with Dany.

Comparisons in the text between Aerys II and Cersei

"Let all of King's Landing see the flames. It will be a lesson to our enemies."

"Now you sound like Aerys."

Her nostrils flared. "Guard your tongue, ser." (AFFC Cersei III)

The sight had filled him with disquiet, reminding him of Aerys Targaryen and the way a burning would arouse him. (AFFC Jaime II)

"Westeros is torn and bleeding, and I do not doubt that even now my sweet sister is binding up the wounds … with salt. Cersei is as gentle as King Maegor, as selfless as Aegon the Unworthy, as wise as Mad Aerys. She never forgets a slight, real or imagined. She takes caution for cowardice and dissent for defiance. And she is greedy. Greedy for power, for honor, for love. Tommen's rule is bolstered by all of the alliances that my lord father built so carefully, but soon enough she will destroy them, every one.” (ADWD Tyrion VI)

Again, as I said above, the comparisons between Cersei and Aerys II come from two of the people who have known Cersei the longest (Jaime, Tyrion).

Meanwhile, Dany is only called the Mad King’s daughter by her enemies (the slavers and Mace Tyrell). The characters who actually know her and the characters who have nothing to gain by defaming her (Barristan, Tyrion, Illyrio, Quentyn) reiterate that she’s nothing like him.

#aerys ii targaryen #cersei lannister #daenerys targaryen #asoiaf meta

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maiji · 2 years ago

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Cultural influences/mashups and shenanigans, and an alternate reading for Hokushin

I have been lit with inspiration to work on North Bound again (thank you @tv-writes-ff) and today my subconsciousness worked out a several-years-long narrative issue I had that was preventing me from continuing one of the stories and popped it out to my conscious brain. Feeling excited and optimistic! ...depending on time and energy, hahah.

As I started scripting and going through my old North Bound notes, I found some past musings and observations that really struck me about fanworks and cultural influences in general and Hokushin in particular, so sharing them here!

On cultural influences/mashups and shenanigans in fanworks, and an alternate reading for Hokushin

Something that’s always fascinated me when reading fanfics is the cultural aspects that a writer brings to their interpretation or extension, even without realizing it. For example, when reading English Yu Yu Hakusho fics written by fans from North America, I often encounter Western/North American customs colouring interactions and environments that feel somewhat out of place for an East Asian cast or setting in general, or 90’s Japanese middle school teenagers in particular (or, perhaps, ancient demons from Japan, though who’s to define their cultural norms…).

I want to be clear: this is not necessarily indicative of how technically well-written the fic itself is. There are degrees of this, and many of the finer ones being things that a reader may or may not notice depending on their cultural familiarity and personal experiences - or even the language they’re thinking/working in.

I’ve definitely done it myself. Here’s one super simple example: In the Loyal Retainer series modern era stories, there are several instances where I’ve written characters shaking hands in a formal or business-type interaction. It sounds totally natural in English, and you skip over it in less than a second. But it’s a little odd when I reflect on the setting and the scenarios, which is modern day Tokyo. Why are they shaking hands instead of bowing? Not to say people would never shake hands in Japan, but I’ve made arbitrary decisions here and there, both consciously and unconsciously, as to whether characters bow or shake hands, based on whatever I was aware of and felt natural when writing at the time. Rereading now I often question my decisions.

And it’s not just with “North American” experiences. Quite a few decisions I made throughout North Bound and Loyal Retainer, for instance, are influenced by my personal experience with Chinese/Taiwanese culture/history/media. Not necessarily particularly extensive or well-thought out/researched experiences - primarily a lot of osmosis from childhood to shake off. Sometimes I’d manage to catch myself doing this, and then struggle to course correct through what little research I manage to work in during my spare time. I’ve mentioned it a few times throughout my “please don’t take any of this as historically accurate” disclaimers and commentary. One immediate example that comes to mind is the story Quick Thinking, where in the author’s notes of the original post I go on about my struggles with the “market thievery” idea that is the core of that comic. There’s some convoluted mashups and mixed up relationships too, like how in A House That Holds Long Limbs my inspiration for Raizen playing the gambling game Cho-han is thanks to my memories of Suikoden, a Japanese RPG series that is heavily based on Chinese culture - the famous wuxia novel Water Margin.

Anyways, just a really interesting thought! This is primarily a “I’m really fascinated by this” observation about how we colour interpretations and craft things based on our cultural experiences and influences, not to make people go “oh my god I will never get it right in my fanfic” (because believe you me, as I’ve pointed out a few in my own fics above... I’m sure for every one thing I point out, there are numerous others.)

And as promised/on a related note, similarly there’s something funny about Hokushin’s character that I’ve never really focused on. Nor does practically anyone else since he’s not really a character of major focus in the fandom… but interesting food for thought.

Here it is. Hokushin may not actually be a Buddhist monk.

I mean, he’s obviously not literally a Buddhist monk, but he also may not necessarily be a Buddhist monk in core inspiration. It’s clear that Raizen’s actual story is heavily imbued with very overt Buddhist symbolism and references, and this is the road I elected to go down for North Bound for many reasons, including thematic ones.

However, the first time we actually get a formal introduction and specific description of Hokushin is during Yomi’s board meeting. While they’re evaluating the opposing kingdoms’ forces, Hokushin’s picture comes up on screen, and Yoda says (in the Taiwanese translation I grew up with) “雷禪的第2號人物是仙術道士北神”. Which is, roughly: “Raizen’s second in command is the Taoist [Daoist] mage Hokushin.”

This is literally one line and it never comes up again, and I didn’t pay much attention to it as a kid, thinking “yeah yeah, whatever maybe some cultural translation convenience” etc.

But many years later as an adult I came across an English Yu Yu Hakusho TCG card that read “Hokushin, Paranormal Taoist”. In that moment my brain did a doubletake, and I was like “...Oh! I guess that was an accurate translation of the original Japanese??”

Continuing the cultural mashups theme: Taoism or Daoism is an indigenous belief system of China. Buddhism’s main inroad to East Asia was via China, and spreading further to places such as Korea, Japan, Tibet, Vietnam and so on. In China it encountered Daoism, and so many Buddhist concepts were actually parsed through a Daoist lens and language. The translators of the time resorted to using Daoist terminology to render some Buddhist ideas, and as a result Mahayana Buddhism in general and Zen Buddhism in particular have many close linkages and entwining concepts with Daoism. And it seems “道士” in Japanese could technically also be rendered... Buddhist monk. (Albeit not really as a first choice translation...)

So anyways... if somebody wants to write a Daoist immortal interpretation of Hokushin’s backstory and character, that would be super interesting!

One final thought on cultural interpretations. I was super tickled for multiple reasons earlier this year when Maji Battle released the Matsuri outfit for Hokushin (here it is for reference: https://maiji.tumblr.com/post/692874568188248064/i-completely-forgot-that-a-million-years-ago-i)

One of the reasons is his necklace. In the original manga and anime, the pendant on the necklace is actually quite horizontal in orientation, like this:

As far as I’m aware, it’s primarily a decorative element of his character design; likely a last-minute addition to add some details, and nothing further to extrapolate from it. For the purposes of North Bound, I called it a magatama in Mirror Most Dark, taking advantage of creative license and the fact that some ancient magatama were more roughly shaped and horizontal than very comma shaped, and carrying this interpretation through the rest of the North Bound stories.

It seems the team/artist on Maji Battle made the same natural stretch, because it’s very clearly been rotated and shape-changed in his official Maji Battle art to become a full-on modern magatama:

I think it’s a very natural assumption or adaptation/evolution to make, because of how prominent magatama are in Japanese culture. At the same time, I was super amused and pleased!

#yu yu hakusho #fandom #buddhism #daoism #hokushin #thinking about culture and cultural influences and cultural mashups #fandom essays #yu yu hakusho 100% maji battle

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luninosity · 3 years ago

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I could’ve spent the last hour writing but instead I spent it rereading the 30k I’ve got written of the m/m (eventual m/m/m) faerie abduction eventual polyamory fantasy thing and staring at my notes

Around three in the morning, Jamie woke shivering, gasping for breath as if surfacing from a shipwreck. Brendan, who’d been trying to wake him for two terrified minutes, flung both arms around him, felt the slamming of his heartbeat, and barely even noticed when the blown-glass candle-cup exploded.

“Jamie,” he said, and forced calm into his voice, “Jamie, love, it’s me, I’m here, I love you, you’re safe…”

Jamie opened both eyes, and shut them again, with a small headshake: not seeing him, not yet. A slow shuddering tear opened in one pillowcase, like the dragging of a claw down a spine. Feathers bled like ancient ghosts in the night.

Bren shoved red-hot fear down into the pit of his stomach and tried again. “I’m right here, I’ve got you, I love you, it’s only a dream, I swear. No one’s going to hurt you. Not with me here. I promise.”

No answer, but some of the trembling went away; Jamie let himself be held, finally, body not quite as tense with distress. Bren rubbed a hand over his back, tracing galaxies of freckles and old scars; he murmured soothing words, and tried to be soothed, himself.

He’d seen Jamie have nightmares before. They were occasional, but they happened: dreamscapes born out of history both personal and larger, the witch-burnings and executions after the Mage Wars alongside birch-rod memories, the crack of wood on boyhood skin and a brittle voice demanding that he never reveal himself, never show even a hint of what he was, or that fate might be his…

Bren knew about those nightmares. He hated them. He tried to fight them, when he could, with his arms and his voice and his entirely unmagical but devoted love.

He thought this time seemed worse. Jamie wasn’t talking. Only rapid breaths, petrified little breaths, and the silence of someone trying not to be seen by a hunter in the dark.

Around them, draperies and pillows huddled in ominous barrows. Glass glinted in shards of peril where Jamie’d lost control and broken the candle-holder. The bedding’d stopped tearing itself apart, at least.

“I’m here.” Brendan stroked a hand over Jamie’s hair, banked dim fire in the shadows. “You’re here. Here, now, with me.”

“I’m here,” Jamie said, after a second, into his collarbone. “You’re here.”

“Was it the same?” The hair-petting seemed to be helping. He tried that more. “Like the other ones?”

A headshake, an inhale; regaining equilibrium. “No…”

“Can you talk about it?”

“I…not yet. God…” Jamie shivered, and tucked himself further into being held. Bren felt his heart shiver too.

Jamie almost never called on the singular god he’d been raised with, the result of that rigid-backed upbringing that would’ve seen blasphemy as a punishable offense, and equally the result of being told from childhood that he was an abomination in the sight of that god. For him to say it now…scared and wounded and pale behind the freckles…

“I love you,” Bren said, and held on as tightly as he could. “It’ll be all right, we’ll be all right, we can handle it, whatever it is, you know we can.”

“I know. I love you. I’m sorry.”

“No. Not for this.”

“It was worse than usual. You’re right about that.” Jamie sat up a little more, though he stayed in Bren’s arms. “How’d you know to ask?”

“I can usually wake you. And you seem…”

“Worse?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“It really was worse, though.” Jamie put his head on one side: a magician drawn by a puzzle, even though it hurt. “I don’t know why it was this bad. It was different, too. I was somewhere dark—very dark, more than this, I couldn’t see anything—and I heard a voice, talking to me, calling me…”

“Calling you?”

“And smiling. I could hear it. He said…he said, you know you belong to me, and he smiled.”

“You…”

“Belonged to him. Yes. And I couldn’t—I tried to say no, but I couldn’t, I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t run, I didn’t even have magic, because when I tried it—I didn’t have anything. And I couldn’t fight back.”

“That can’t be right,” Bren said immediately. “You aren’t helpless. You never would be. And if you belong to anyone—you don’t, you know—I’d like to think it’s me.”

This got an uneven smile, as he’d hoped it would. “Yes. You. Always. I just…it felt so…real. Like I knew him, or should know him, somehow…”

“Has anyone here ever threatened you? Made you feel unsafe?” The words came out a hairsbreadth too sharp. Made jagged by fear.

“Of course not.” That crumpled-velvet voice sounded very young. Bren was forcibly reminded, in a way he rarely was, of the seven years between them. “I’d tell you. I can’t think of anything you don’t know about. Nothing more than an occasional warding-sign or stare. I’m sorry, I really can’t think of anything, I don’t know.”

“No, I’m sorry. I know you’d’ve said. I believe you.”

“No, it was a fair question.” An attempt at sorcerer-calm, stumbling towards balance. Two other candles—not the one in the broken cup—billowed into light; Jamie must’ve needed that. The light hurt, deep in Bren’s chest, for a moment: Jamie had wanted comfort, and hadn’t asked him to help. “But I would tell you. And there hasn’t been. Anything. I wish I knew more…I wish I were better at this.”

“Dream-reading?”

“That too. Prophecy was never one of my strongest…I’m better with the physical…” One hand made a helpless gesture: no training, only books and self-taught efforts, forlorn and alone. But at least Jamie was talking. Bren clung to that fact.

“You can’t read your own?”

“Tricky.” A sigh, frustrated but intrigued by the challenge: magician to the core, even shaken and sea-foam pale. “It’s hard to do, when you’re any sort of magic-user. Your own words have power, and your desires will get in the way, and you’ll end up convinced that what you saw was what you wanted to see but it might not actually be what you saw and you won’t know it…”

“I hope that sentence made sense to you.”

“Hmm,” Jamie said, and tipped his head up for a kiss. “All I meant was, when you’re a mage and you try to read your own dreams, you’re never unbiased. And that can skew the results in very literal ways. Anyway I don’t think this one needs much interpreting. It was fairly clear. Unless it wasn’t. But I’ve never tried divination for myself. I never thought it’d work.”

“You’re the only magician we’ve got.”

“I know.” And his wide blue eyes slid away from Bren’s, at the reminder of loneliness, limned in the indigo of night.

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know.” One more kiss, quick and bright as a shooting star: forgiveness and apology for prickliness, all in one. But the latter wasn’t necessary, Bren thought, and said so.

“I can try,” Jamie conceded. He sounded better, with the light and the discussion. More like himself, with a plan in mind. “In the morning. Tea-leaves and fortune-telling. Using props. Honestly.”

“I thought you said that was designed to play on gullible visitors.”

“Oh, most of it is. The stage-dressing, the fairy assistants that’re only bits of light and tinsel, all that. But the heart of it—something you’ve touched, something you’ve consumed, reading glimpses inside yourself—that’s sound enough. Some of your—our, sorry, sorry—market-folk have touches of second sight. Rosie—Madame Rosandra, in the East Quarter—deserves her reputation. She’s extremely nice, by the way. She gave me that silk scarf you like so much. She did say you’d appreciate it, though I’m not certain that’s the use she had in mind, unless she did.”

Bren opened his mouth, filed that last tidbit away for future discussion and possibly also future scarf-procuring, and said, “Can you ask her to read yours?”

“This is going to sound disgustingly arrogant, but no. I’d be…too strong for her.” With a hasty little self-mocking nose-scrunch, for emphasis. Adorable, Bren thought. Even more so now that Jamie was thinking, distracted, not shivering in fear.

“I could probably even do it with cocoa. The beverage doesn’t matter. The dregs, the last sip, the patterns in the cup, those do. At least, um, if you’re me. Tea-leaves’re easiest, that’s all. But I’m…not normal.”

“We know that,” Bren offered, testing, and got the laugh. “Is this the time to experiment, though?”

Jamie shrugged with only one shoulder, being securely cradled in Bren’s arms. “Why not? Not as if you don’t also have tea. I can try with every drinkable liquid in the castle, not that I think we’ll need to. In the morning, though, I don’t want to wake anyone.”

“They’d get out of bed for you. They’d give you their beds if you asked. Think you can sleep at all?”

“Maybe with you holding me,” Jamie said, and they settled back down into the billows of the mattress, thick feathery blankets and candlelight tucked in close against the cold.

#writing #wip #of course my brain wants to work on the oldest wip

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furubaa · 3 years ago

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Notes on Mushishi - Vol 1 & 2

This is the start of my personal notes on every Mushishi chapter (anime ep # in brackets). I’ve reread the manga over and over again looking for specific stories, so this is just for easier reference.

VOLUME 1

1 - The Green Gathering (S1E1, The Green Seat)

Ginko learns of a boy who can create life by drawing or writing and decides to pay him a visit

“The green here is so vivid it’s eerie”

A personal invitation to a banquet, presented with clear sake in a shallow green saucer - the exquisite scent of kouki, the water of life.

The dull pain of being frozen mid-transformation, one foot out the door; realisation of emptiness, and yearning for a full exit from the world

Color seeping out of an untouched brush; power passed down the generations

Everything covered in moss where the kouki soaked in the ground

2 - The Soft Horns (S1E3, Tender Horns)

Ginko is summoned to cure villagers from hearing problems caused by Mushi, and to cure the village head’s grandson Maho, who has sprouted four horns on his forehead.

A quiet village deep in the mountains where even the wind does not pass; absolute silence on snowy nights, when even the sound of your voice disappears.

Bombarded with a flood of sounds, the spirit tires, and body weakens til death. The murmuring of a single Mushi is a microscopic sound, until made aware of the trillions of Mushi clamouring all over the world, calling to each other like echoes.

An intimate gesture of protection - the sound of your mother. A volcanic eruption seen long ago. The lava inside of you, dissolving everything.

3 - The Pillow Path (S1E4 The Pillow Pathway)

Ginko pays a visit to a man named Jin who has premonitions in his dreams as a result of a Mushi affliction caused by Imeno no Awai.

4 - The Light in the Eyelids (S1E2 The Light of the Eyelid)

Ginko visits a girl named Sui, who is suffering from a Mushi affliction that has made her eyes sensitive to light.

“Behind your eyelid you have another eyelid.”

There's a river of light flowing underground that illuminates even the pitch black; there has to be total, true darkness to see it. “Light particles come from very far away/ and they flow past me.” “Stretching out for eternity at your feet”

Ginko sitting on the opposite side of the river bank; a warning from a stranger.

“You spent too much time in the dark with Sui” ... Mushi that breed in the darkness.

5 - The Traveling Bog (S1E5 The Traveling Swamp)

Ginko is traveling through the mountains to see his friend, Adashino. Along the way, he meets a girl named Io, who lives inside a swamp that is capable of moving by itself.

Ginko finding himself travelling in step with a swamp that sinks into the earth and then floats up over and over again, passing through the mountains

A girl sacrificed to save her village from a flood, wearing ceremonial robes; a bride presented to the water god, pushed off a cliff in a storm.

A large green thing that calmly rose up through the raging water; swimming at the bottom of a river that was overflowing its banks. It said, “You should continue to live.”

“When people drink them, their bodies become transparent... and then, they flow away.” Choosing to become Mushi is to exist between life and death; slowly wearing away at your human heart.

Following the journey of a ten thousand year old swamp to its death; moving towards the sea, the dying form of a liquid mushi. Accompanying it on its final journey.

“Swamps are born, eventually they stagnate, and when the universe they have contained within themselves ends... they get up on their own and start to move.”

VOLUME 2

6 - The Mountain Sleeps (S1E11 The Sleeping Mountain)

While traveling, Ginko passes through a town settled near a mountain. He learns that a Mushi Master is living on the mountain, but hasn't visited the village for quite some time, and every person who had been sent to find him has fallen ill and died.

“A smell both sweet and rancid that rises from the ground and touches each leaf. One by one. Coiling around them and choking their skin. A light vein, where the river of light flows.”

Ginko tapping into a mushi that acts as the mountain's nerves, sinking their wills into the plants and running around.

“The water of life (...) Women bear children like cats or dogs; twins, triplets, or even quadruplets, abandoned in the mountains.”

A travelling Mushishi who puts his roots down. The one he loves committing an unforgivable act so that they can be married. Assuming the role of a slain mountain boar god; his bones will lie here.

An aged man, summoning an immortal spirit to take his place of guardian forever - a necessary sacrifice to return the world to natural order.

7 - The Sea of Brushstrokes (S1E20 A Sea of Writings)

Ginko comes to a house which has a library full of mushi-related scrolls. There, he meets the girl who writes the scrolls, and hears the story of the curse that has been afflicting her family for generations.

A large dark crypt; an enormous library of scripts recording ancient history

Scribes cursed with immobility and marked for death, the only way to quell the Mushi is to seal them with words. A tradition of inviting travelling Mushishis to feed the writers myths in order for them to expel their words, physically manifesting them, an excruciating process for survival of self - and if not, the survival of your descendants. Plucking words and returning them to order, duty. Little by little, a receding scar.

8 - They That Breathe Ephemeral Life (S1E6 Those Who Inhale the Dew)

Ginko's services are requested by a boy named Nagi, who lives on a distant island, to investigate the case of Akoya, a girl revered by the people as a "Living God".

A brief moment during the spring tide is the only time you can get to the island; only safe one day per month to take a boat out. a barren island with little soil, villagers surviving with moral support from their god.

Tapping the center of the forehead with a needle, a curlicule of a mushi spiralling out

“When i was the Ikigami and aged when the sun set i could always shut my eyes and fall asleep feeling satisfied (...) But now my legs tremble at the immense amount of time ahead of me.” Living Mushi's life cycle of a single day - every second of every day experienced fresh, so much wonder you can't keep up. “My heart was always satisfied.”

When faced with tragedy, the girl finally chooses to return to the state of suspension - the luxury to forget and detach from mortal burden.

9 - Rain Comes and a Rainbow is Born (S1E7 Raindrops and Rainbows)

Ginko encounters a man named Koro, who has a strange habit of pursuing rainbows, and helps him find one particular rainbow that he is looking for - the Kouda.

A father delirious for rain - a strange man running around happily, and a mysterious rainbow dancing in odd shapes. A body that thirsts - “I miss that rainbow so much… I can’t stand it.”

A boy who runs away to escape the burden of a dying father; to prove his worth and his father’s.

Ginko who must travel constantly, taking a break by finding purpose in small goals - You can’t live only for the sake of living; rest is essential.

A natural phenomena created from light and imbued with kouki - “There's a reason they occur, but they have no purpose - existing only to keep flowing. Nothing can affect them, but they affect those around them, and then they leave.”

* 10 - The Veil Spore (S1E21 Cotton Changeling)

A couple summons Ginko to investigate their sick child, Watahiko, who has developed green spots all over his body. The father explains that the child didn’t look human when born - instead, it was a strange green mass that swiftly escaped. A year later, he found a baby under the house.

A wedding procession that passes through a forest - “A green stain on my cotton wedding gown.” A boy born green and formless, that slipped out and under the house. The main body; a mat of spores spreading under the house, dirt that wriggles under the sun.

One year later, it sends out a human-mushroom; every half year, the same child born again and again. Harmless children joined together at the root, that exist only to collect nutrients, that die and spit out seeds. “Mushi that wear the skin of your dead child.”

The human instinct to kill everything we don’t understand.

A baby with a body that grows faster than the mind. Children that evolve rapidly - “After learning words i forgot how.. I forgot how.” The primal instinct for survival lost. The cost of intelligence.

The Watahiki, when faced with danger, disconnects its children from the root, in an attempt to save at least the seeds - the children change form and enter a long dormant period.

An organism that strays from its recorded life cycle.

Not that I’m doing this for public consumption (who even is going to read all this) but anyways FYI I’ve got structured notes on the next volumes in my drafts & if I ever get round to finishing all of them they’ll be tagged as #mushishi notes

#mushishi #manga #mushishi notes #started doing this because i was trying to decide which volumes to buy lol #and also i love this manga dearly and wanna organise my thoughts on it

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bestworstcase · 4 years ago

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farran rereads lost lagoon: chapters 7-8

- re: romance novel: chapter seven opens with rapunzel defending cass to eugene, including saying that she’s “never been more sure” about anything (except him, added as an afterthought). it feels equal parts aggressive sunny optimism and rapunzel has a serious crush because, it bears repeating, at this point she has exchanged maybe fifty words with this girl. the sum total of their relationship is a chance glimpse of cass in the field and then two stilted conversations cass did her damnedest not to participate in. then she kicks eugene out and passes on their ‘nightly stroll’ so she can meet cass alone lol.

- lagoon eugene continues to have an actual work ethic and ambles off to ‘catch up on’ his readings in diplomacy. when could tts eugene ever,

- i have decided that i lay most of the blame for the ‘cass is emotionally walled off and refuses to communicate at all ever until rapunzel drags her out of her shell’ fanon at the feet of lost lagoon because this is just… ridiculous. tts cass firmly but politely and clearly spells out her boundaries with rapunzel as early as beginnings and emotionally opens up to her within a matter of days. lagoon cass acts like a sulky brat and again does this monosyllabic thing with her and literally sits in dead silence glaring while rapunzel chatters on. but especially in cassunzel circles lagoon is SO popular and has SO thoroughly infiltrated the popular fanon that cass’s normal state of being is so emotionally constipated that she can’t even admit she likes sweets is now the standard assumption. –__–

- unlike the writers of tts howland actually understands what a lady-in-waiting is. good job ms. howland.

- i say this with love. because i too have made historical poems a key plot point in bitter snow which means i have to actually write said poems and i am suffering, so i relate. but this poetry is really quite bad. ⭐ you tried ma’am

- as the self-appointed president of the saporian!cass au club i feel the need to reiterate that it is not canon that cassandra speaks saporian and ‘cass knows saporian in lost lagoon!’ cannot actually be used in support of cass having saporian heritage because she does not, in fact, know or speak saporian. she is able to recognize the second language in the book as saporian, but she can’t read it. she learns saporian over the course of lost lagoon, with materials provided by xavier. there are textual arguments to be made from lost lagoon to support interpreting cassandra as saporian but this is not one of them and i’m tired of seeing ‘cass speaks saporian!’ tossed around as the primary bit of ‘evidence’ that comes up when saporian!cass gets discussed. /pet peeve

like i approve and wholeheartedly support and personally agree with headcanons that cassandra is fluent in saporian for whatever reason, most especially that she is herself saporian, but i think it is important to emphasize that that’s not canon and that lost lagoon directly contradicts this idea.

- anyways,

“Hundreds of years ago, Corona was two different lands—Old Corona and Saporia. The fact that this is written half in Saporian means that this book is genuinely ancient. No one speaks Saporian anymore except a few scholars.”

i’ve ranted at length about how the sudden death of the saporian language in a matter of centuries suggests some very unpleasant things about the ‘unification’ of these two countries and the suppression of saporian culture that likely accompanied it so i won’t get too much into it again. but it is worth noting - while ‘hundreds of years’ is equally as vague as tts’s ‘centuries,’ the (sigh) english portions of this book are written in very modern english, which suggests that the language of Old Corona was quite similar to the language currently spoken, which in turn suggests an upper limit of maybe three hundred years between the unification and now. yes, the worldbuilding is thin enough that howland may well have intended this to be thousands of years in the past and the modern english poetry is just a suspend your disbelief thing, but… i’m not inclined to be that charitable. especially when, if i’m remembering right, this book rapunzel found is said to be an original first edition of the poems which, like, that straight up isn’t possible if it’s supposed to be from many hundreds of years ago.

plus… this is an american book written for an american corporation by an author i can only assume is american, and americans love to pretend that a couple hundred years qualifies something as ‘ancient’ so… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

we’re filing this one under ‘clear evidence that corona conquered saporia and then aggressively sanitized that history by calling it a love story’ and just… moving on now.

- cass grabs the book and bounces, fully convinced that the vague poetic ‘directions’ in the poem can guide her to the lost lagoon and the mystical hidden source of power it allegedly conceals. she stays up all night mapping out a path (because it’s inconceivable that the terrain has changed that much since the poem was written: another strong point in favor of the 200-300 year timeline on the corona-saporian war and unification) and then heads out.

- she heads west, which is impossible, because corona is situated on the western coast,

- this is the one bit of the book i’ve read multiple times and fuck me but i still don’t have any idea what this place looks like. cass scales a boulder, which… splits open at the top, with water running between the two halves. then there’s… a gulch? and at the end of that the two halves of the boulder(?) connect again. cass… crabwalks along the gulch or possibly the split halves of the boulder somehow. it’s unclear whether the direction of this gulch/boulder crack/river is perpendicular or parallel to the direction of travel cassandra was moving in when she climbed the boulder in the first place. it’s also described as a ravine but it’s so narrow that cass and rapunzel can both crabwalk along it and the whole thing is contained inside a boulder apparently and it’s so shallow that they can just hop down into the water and i do not understand what is going on with the geography here!!! help

#lost lagoon reread #rta #cassunzel

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heartbreak-of-a-marauder · 5 years ago

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Rogue (1)

Title: The Secret Child

Pairing: Loki x fem!reader

Summary: As a child, you were kept hidden, deep within Odin’s palace. A chance encounter with a certain green-eyed prince sets in motion things you could have only dreamed of.

Words: 1,160

Note: Welcome to part one of my latest project! Let me know your thoughts! Much like Through the Rabbit Hole, there will be a taglist for this one too, just drop me a line if you’re interested in being added! Enjoy!

y/n = your name ● y/e/c = your eye colour ● y/h/c = your hair colour

1 ->

~*~*~*~*~

Age 12

“But mother, why am I not allowed to join the others?” you whine casting another wistful glance over your shoulder.

“y/n, concentrate,” Your mothers’ tone is firm as she taps the book in front of you.

Turning back around you frown down at the yellowed pages, rereading the same lines of ancient text. The words had begun to blur together, nothing was sinking in let alone making any sense. The old leather-bound tome was just as boring as it was when the lesson had started. How could you be expected to be interested in history when the sun was shining outside. You could hear the soft shuffle of your mothers shoes against the stone floor as she adjusts the curtain across the window. The sounds of fruitful laughter continue to drift through the window again, causing your frown to deepen.

“Mother, please may I go!” you practically beg, you’d never been allowed to play with the other Asgardian children and today they sounded like they were having heaps of fun.

“y/n,” She warns again, her dress glittered in the sunlight as she stalks towards your desk.

You raise your head to meet her stern gaze. “I promise-“

“You are not like the other children y/n, it would be inappropriate.”

You feel your face fall at her answer, it was the same as always. For as long as you could remember, every time you had wanted to join in with the other Asgardian children, go to feasts in the Great Hall, wander around the street festival’s, literally do anything that involved being close to others, you were kept away. It was inappropriate, too cold, you were too young, too dangerous. The excuse would always sound different but it’s meaning never changed, you were to stay secret and hidden. Always.

With a huff, you slouch back into your chair and state at your skirts. You would kill to play with the other kids your age. But no, you were always inside having lesson after boring lesson. The other day you had overheard the ladies who helped you get dressed in the morning talking about the chaos the young prince’s had been causing in the castle grounds. It was unfair!

“But the Princes are allowed to go outside mother,”

“I will not repeat myself, child. You must drop this fascination at once, you have a duty to fulfil, and wasting the day gallivanting around is of no use to you,” exasperation seeps into her voice.

“But-“

“I will not tolerate this insolence any more y/n, pack up your things and return to your chamber. If I hear so much as another peep from you, there will be no supper,”

You open and close your mouth a few times but no retort seems worth provoking your mothers’ ire even more. You close the book with a little more force than intended, intensifying your mothers' cool stare. Slipping from your chair you make your way out of the study room, the skirts of your dress rustle as you walk. You could feel your mother’s eyes drilling holes into your back as you left her to pack up the rest of your things.

Your pace is slow as you meander your way back to your chambers, this commute was one of the few times you saw anything other than your room or that blasted study room. The floors beneath your feet had been polished to perfection making them reflect like mirrors. You stare down at your face, taking in how your y/h/c fell around your shoulders, the wonder in your y/e/c eyes.

You didn’t look different from the other children, you spoke the same language, probably even liked the same things… so why couldn’t you join in?

You’d been so caught up in staring at your reflection that you hadn’t heard the footsteps that approached.

“What are you looking at?” the new voice enquired, startling you. In your fright, you jerked your head towards the voice, accidentally smacking your head into theirs.

“Odin's’ beard!” they cry nursing their forehead as you clutch the back of your skull.

“You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that!” You wince.

“You should pay more attention!” They fire back, still rubbing their forehead.

The sharp-tongued retort you had brewing instantly dries up as you take in the individual in front of you. Pitch black hair, vibrant green eyes, pale skin, characteristic green tunic. You may live a sheltered life but there was no doubt about who stood in front of you.

Prince Loki.

“Y-your highness,” You stammer, bobbing awkwardly as you curtsy. “I-I apologise for my c-clumsiness,”

A lazy grin spreads across his features, as you feel the heat creep up your neck, undoubtedly adding an embarrassed pink hue to your skin.

“Perhaps I should call the castle guards,” He teases, tapping his chin.

“No!” You squeak. “Please, your highness, it was an accident, I meant no offence,” A fresh wave of warmth passes over your face, deepening the pink on your cheeks.

Suddenly, he burst into a fit of laughter. He doubled over, clutching his stomach glancing up at you every now and again his eyes glittering with mischief and glee. After a while he began to sober up, wiping the moisture away from his eyes with the back of his hand. His grin ever-present as you glare at him.

“That was simply too easy,” He chuckles ignoring your frosty demeanour. “My name is Loki,”

He offers his hand towards you as some kind of olive branch, you glance sceptically between his outstretched hand and his face for a few moments, before carefully reaching out your own. You feel the warmth of his skin as your hands brush together.

“Y/N!” You hear your mother shout from behind, startling you once more.

You turn to face her, inching away from Loki. Her face is pale and eyes wide, looking visibly panicked. She was clutching her skirts in her hands holding them away from her feet allowing her to move quickly towards us. When she had closed in her fingers wrapped around the back of your collar pulling you away from Loki. You stumble struggling to keep your footing.

“I apologise for my daughters’ insolence, your highness,” She rushes breathlessly.

“It was no bother, we were only talking?” He shrugs, his brows pinching together.

Mother chuckles nervously behind me. “She does not understand the intricacies of court, it will not happen again,” Her grip migrates to your bicep as she tugs you away from the prince.

Your y/h/c swishes around your shoulders as you turn to look back at Loki, who still stands in the middle of the corridor, a bewildered look on his face as he watches you leave with your mother. You offer him a reassuring smile with which he replies with a small wave. You didn’t know when you would see the young prince again but already, you couldn’t wait.

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finalgirldean · 4 years ago

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what are some of your favourite books?

oh what a tough question! i really don't read much because i've got a terrible attention span sometimes. another thing is that i don't feel like i was entirely conscious until rather recent so i couldn't take in what i was experiencing as well i can know, and will later. but anyway i'll stop going on and think of some..

the hundred year house by rebecca makkai was the first book i read that really blew my mind (in middle school). it follows characters in this one house over three time periods. right up until the end of the book more and more is revealed how each time is delicately intertwined. i reread it when i was about 17 and enjoyed it the same, and i think i would enjoy it even more if i read it again today, now that i'm older.

the absolutist by john boyne i'm mentioning this one because it totally obliterated me more than any book ive read. so much so that it almost made me sympathetic to the plight of those people obsessed with happy endings and warding off misery in art--almost. but i hope that doesnt put you off if it interests you, i really would recommend it. sometimes a bit of pain is good thing--to have ones emotions stirred up so high is a real treat.

enter the aardvark by jessica anthony wholly original and the most ive laughed at a book. was strange feeling empathy for the type of character who i would abhor in real life, but thats how it goes when youre in someones head.

the iliad by homer dont even know where to begin with this one. i'll just say that i think since the title is one of the most well known and well regarded (in the "west"?) of all time, and because of its age, it gets underestimated by people unfamiliar with it (which is more and more these days, i think). but it really is an astounding story with depths that you can mine for eternity (not in the least because its in an ancient language and therefore subject to translations and what not).

orlando by virginia woolf first of all: the greatest love letter of all time (here's another favourite). second of all: to say this book was a delightful read undersells it, but my vocabulary cant give up a more suitable word. i feel like im entirely somewhere else when i read it. as a lover of history, watching her refashion the concept of a biography the way she did sends tingles up my spine and across my brain.

on the road by jack keruac im not even sure if i especially liked this as a story but i dont think ive ever given more thought to a book while i was reading it recreationally. i can only freely admit here that it was in large part due to supernatural. i read it back in the winter when i was deep in those trenches and almost all i could think about was supernatural. so while i was reading it i was thinking about how it compared to the show and the characters (dean lol) and kripkes ideas about his show, masculinity, America etc. and it was extremly fascinating to see the narrative and message keruac made from his experiences and the people he met. even observing the misogyny i found interesting (sorry girls). so in short this is one of my favourite books because it gave me a lot to think about. also you can tell im not an english major who has to pick apart books all day long lol

brideshead revisited by evelyn waugh my old friend <3

black beauty by anna sewell one of my favourites for totally sentimental reasons. my mother read it to me as a child, it was one of her favourite books, and we shared (in the family) a love of horses.

this post is getting long so ill cut it off here but in the last couple of my months ive read or started reading some recent favourites: affairs of honor by joanne b. freeman (incredibly smart and wonderful reminder how hilarious history is), jane eyre by charlotte bronte (win for ugly people), tinker tailor soldier spy (my recent zero note posts subject), stalin’s englishman by andrew lownie (my photo library is now filled with screenshots from this) the charioteer by mary renault (an old favourite)

#HOPE i didnt sound like a snob in that post hah #long post #this week on gratuitous use of brackets #anonymous #ask

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paradoxcase · 5 years ago

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A sort of interesting thing was pointed out in the LOTR companion I’ve been reading - at some point after they set out from Bree, Aragorn is telling the hobbits the history of a path they are walking on and mentions Gil-Galad, whereupon Sam sings three verses of a song about Gil-Galad that he explains he learned from Bilbo when he was growing up in and around Bag End and being taught to read by Bilbo. And Aragorn is like, yeah, that’s a small part of this famous lay about Gil-Galad, but that song is written an ancient tongue (which probably means Quenya), so Bilbo must have translated it (into Westron, the language that the hobbits speak), I didn’t know he did that.

As the companion points out, this implies that Aragorn actually knows Bilbo, but nobody points this out or wonders when they met. And as far as I can remember, Aragorn and Bilbo never interact in LOTR, so we never really find out how they know each other. At the beginning of the story, there’s a lot of stuff about Bilbo having friends in far-off places, mostly dwarves, with some implication that he’s been in touch with people from outside the Shire pretty regularly in spite of more or less continuing to live in the Shire. Since Aragorn is at this point a wandering Ranger who protects the Shire and other nearby places from Dark Forces, it does seem likely that they would have met. But I missed it entirely on all my other reads, and I thought it was kind of interesting.

I think I remarked last reread that Aragorn and Gandalf have this moment in the Moria that hints that they have a pretty solid friendship, but this time through rereading, I note that Aragorn and Gandalf have actually been working together for years (and given that Aragorn is in his 80s when the books begin and was IIRC in his 20s when he started wandering Eriador, and Gandalf is immortal, they have potentially known each other for more years than any of the hobbits have been alive, as Frodo is the oldest at I think ~40ish). The first time Gandalf mentions Aragorn, it’s to say that he recruited his help in tracking Gollum after the events of The Hobbit, I think even before Bilbo properly returned to the Shire, at which point they already knew each other and Gandalf was seemingly used to relying on Aragorn’s tracking abilities. Then, much later, Aragorn is also the person to actually capture Gollum at Gandalf’s behest, after he’s been tortured in Mordor. So yeah, they are old buddies. Gandalf does actually give his name as Aragorn when describing these events to Frodo (but of course, Frodo doesn’t recognize him as “Strider” later on).

#lotr #lord of the rings #aragorn #gandalf #bilbo baggins

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manage-mischief · 5 years ago

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Picture Prefect

Read on AO3 here.

Author’s Note: So, I’m not really sure I ship Dramione. At least, not in an endgame type of way. But, this idea came to me while rereading Harry Potter for the umpteenth time. I think there definitely could have been more to Draco’s character than was in the books/movies. I felt like it would be interesting to understand Hermione’s relationship to him, and that there was likely a bit of romantic tension/pining that may have been behind some of Draco’s actions/motivations. You know what they say about little boys and pulling girls’ pigtails on the schoolyard. Anyways, this takes place during OoTP, before Dumbledore leaves. This is also my first FF, so I’m still learning. I’ve just always thought about writing something but have been too nervous before now. Any kindfeedback or reviews would be appreciated. Thanks in advance :)

Disclaimer: I’m not J.K. Rowling. I own nothing.

Summary: Hermione goes on evening patrol with Draco Malfoy and things progress quite differently than expected. Secrets, lies, and broom cupboards may be involved.

“Let’s get this over with, shall we,” she sighed as she descended the stairs and laid eyes upon her patrol partner for the evening.

He gave a noncommittal grunt in return. Uncharacteristically pleasant this evening, she noted. Without a word, the pair set off past the Great Hall and got to work.

When Hermione had first discovered she was going to be a prefect for Gryffindor House last summer, she had been thrilled, but not surprised. She had top marks in all of her classes, and a (mostly) clean disciplinary record. Sure, she, Harry, and Ron had had a few run-ins with the wrong side of the law. Still, there was, at least in her humble opinion, no one more qualified for the job. When she found out that Ron would have the job alongside her, she had been that much happier. During the celebration held at Grimmauld Place, she had never felt prouder. Yes, she was an intelligent girl. Yes, she had even scored a date to the Yule Ball with internationally-renowned quidditch seeker Viktor Krum (and had especially enjoyed the look of jealousy and disbelief on Pansy Parkinson’s face, she might add), but this accomplishment somehow carried more weight for her.

Being muggle-born, she knew that there were some who viewed her as unworthy of Hogwarts. Some would even go to unspeakable lengths to try and force her out of the wizarding world—as she had learned the hard way during her bout of paralysis-via-basilisk during her second year. But, here she was: the top of her class, muggle-born prefect. The prefect title meant something. Anyone in her world could understand the accomplishment, and no one could deny her the honor that the title bestowed.

Ok, maybe she was a bit over-enthusiastic about the role. It did seem that, most of the time, she was nothing more than a glorified hall-monitor. Yet, she wore her badge with honor. And, as she and Ron strode towards the Prefects Compartment on the Hogwarts Express on her first day she felt that nothing could have lowered her spirits. That is, however, until she saw him. Her new colleague, leaning against a table with his usual, haughty, I’m-better-than-you-because-I’m-pureblood air, his blond hair standing out in stark contrast with his dark robes with emerald green accents. Draco Malfoy.

And so, this is how she ended up on evening patrol on this otherwise wonderful night with a boy who was, in her opinion, one of the rottenest snakes to ever roam the halls of Hogwarts.

The first time she had met Draco had been on the Hogwarts Express during her first year. Bright-eyed and bushy-haired as ever, Hermione had hugged her parents goodbye and wandered onto the magical locomotive, anxious yet elated. She had been thrown into the magical world so fast. One minute, she had been running from bullies in the park by her house as they called her a freak. The next, she was meeting with a stern-but-kindly witch who explained to her that she was talented and special. Hermione was determined to learn as much as she could about her knew world as fast as she could, so she would be able to prove herself at school. Once she set her mind on something, nothing could stop her.

Armed with countless wizarding books and a new bank of knowledge, she confidently strutted into a train compartment and took a seat. She cheerfully introduced herself to the three other young wizards already occupying the space. The others followed suit. Two large, intimidating boys introduced themselves as Crabbe and Goyle. She was pretty sure those were last names, but had a feeling that prying for more information would be futile, seeing as they had both grunted out one-word answers to her questions and then looked away. They did not seem very bright. The third boy had brilliant blond hair and smiled in a way that made her blush slightly in spite of herself. “I’m Draco. Draco Malfoy. It’s a pleasure,” he replied with a cheeky grin.

Draco had been overly friendly to respond, and all too eager to converse with Hermione. They asked each other about their wands, their favorite shops in Diagon Alley, and the classes they were most excited to take. “I can’t wait for Transfiguration. I know it’s one of the more difficult branches of magic, but it seems quite fascinating,” Hermione blabbered on cheerfully. She had been very proud of herself for holding her own during this conversation. Her reading and preparation had paid off! Draco seemed to have no idea she hadn’t grown up in a wizarding household.

He smiled at her. “Well, I hope we’re sorted into the same house. It’ll be a shame if I can’t spend any more time with you in the future.” Hermione again blushed. She kind of liked Draco’s cockiness and confidence. “So,” he continued, “where d’you want to be sorted? I know where I’ll be…Slytherin. My family has been in Slytherin for generations,” he remarked, haughtily.

“Oh, I’m not sure I have a strong preference. Although, Gryffindor seems like it would be a good fit. Or Ravenclaw. I guess we’ll see,” Hermione said.

“Where were your parents when they were here?” Draco asked, eagerly.

“Oh…well…they didn’t go to Hogwarts,” Hermione replied. She didn’t know why she didn’t reveal that her parents were Muggles. She wasn’t the least bit ashamed. But, something about the boy’s mention of his Slytherin family heritage made her wary. Hadn’t she read somewhere that Slytherins were obsessed with blood purity? Surely that was ancient history. It couldn’t mean this boy believed that only pureblood witches and wizards were worthy of magical education, right? After all, with such a small portion of the population having magical blood, there must be hardly any purebloods left!

“Oh, so they went somewhere else? Ilvermorny? Durmstrang? My father wanted to send me there, says Hogwarts’ Headmaster is an old crackpot…”

“No, no. They didn’t go to any magical school. They’re muggles,” Hermione interrupted. Immediately, the tone of the conversation took a sharp turn. Crabbe and Goyle both stared at her as if she had grown an extra head. Draco sat up straighter in his seat, and where before there had been a playful look in his eyes, there was now only wide-eyed fear and accusing. “So, tell me, what makes you think you’re worthy to be here, talking about magic to me and my new friends, when your parents are so backward they probably can’t even tell a wand from a stick in the mud?” Draco sneered at her. His two cronies sniggered. Hermione knew she was not welcome anymore. She shot out of her seat, determined not to cry, and stormed out of the compartment. She could hear Draco’s voice in the distance as she quickly scampered away, fuming. “Well, boys, glad we got rid of her, eh?”

Of course, leaving that compartment was the for the best. She had met Neville and, not long after, her future best friends, Harry and Ron. Luckily, not all wizards were as closed-minded as Malfoy had been. She had not let him get to her, and since then, had outperformed him in every class. Still, she always found it strange to reflect back on the one pleasant conversation she had had with him and relate that cute, smiling boy to the absolute toe-rag she knew today.

Speaking of today, it was getting late, and Hermione was becoming fed up, fast. Her and Malfoy had only been patrolling for half-an-hour, yet it felt as if it had been an eternity. They walked in silence, keeping at least a foot’s distance in between them at all times. The corridor was silent. It was shaping up to be a long, dreadfully boring night.

They reached the first-floor bathrooms around 11 o’clock. “I’ll check the girls and you check the boys,” Hermione broke the silence. Malfoy rolled his eyes and sarcastically replied, “no really Granger? What an ingenious idea.” She simply shook her head and went to check for students out of bed. The bathroom was empty.

“Nothing in there.” She saw Malfoy emerge from the boys’ loo across the hall. “Same here.” On they went.

Half of their shift had now passed, and all they had seen was a sleepwalking Ravenclaw first-year, who Hermione had gently guided back to bed. They were passing by the statue of George the Smarmy when suddenly, she heard footsteps. She paused and cocked her head.

“C’mon Granger,” Malfoy sighed. “It’s probably Filtch and Mrs. Norris.”

“Hush!” Hermione hissed. It most certainly was not Filtch. The footsteps clicked, making it clear their owner was wearing high heels. They were approaching fast. She couldn’t ignore her gut feeling that something was amiss. But, what was it? Why did the footsteps sound so familiar to her? “Have you lost your marbles? Let’s go! It’s a professor or someone! Nothing we have to worry about!”

Aha. It was a professor. Of course. That’s why Hermione recognized the footsteps immediately. She could hear in them the haughty sense of purpose that made her loathe Defense Against the Darks Arts classes daily. Umbridge. Just as she could hear the toad-like professor approach their corridor, another pair of footsteps sounded in the distance. Umbridge must have been meeting someone. But who, at this hour?

She didn’t know why she did it. Perhaps it was because she was on edge from all of the secrecy surrounding the DA. Perhaps it was because of the wrenching feeling in her gut that Umbridge was up to more than she let on here at Hogwarts. But, no matter the reason, before she knew it, she was grabbing Malfoy by the front of his robes and pulling him into the nearest broom closet.

“What the bloody hell, Granger?!?” he hissed indignantly. At least he had the sense not to shout. Otherwise, their cover would have been blown. “What’re you playing at?”

“Be quiet,” she shushed him promptly. Quickly, she pulled out the pair of extendable ears she kept hidden in her pockets. As much as she hated to admit it, Fred and George had really hit the mark with their creation. She always kept a pair with her, and had found them to come in handy on many occasions. As she fiddled with the device, Malfoy continued to look at her, wide-eyed. “What the hell are those?!”

“Extendable ears, now, HUSH!” Hermione said matter-of-factly. “Extendable what?” “Ears. They let you listen in on other peoples’ conversations without getting caught. Now please kindly shut up so I can hear what’s going on!”

“…in this time of night. I wanted to do this privately. Most students use this corridor to snog without getting caught, so I thought it would do the trick.”

Umbridge’s girly voice echoed. Malfoy was still staring at her with a look of pure confusion.

A private meeting. But with who?

“Of course, Dolores. Do you have any updates?”

The second voice belonged to a man. She knew she had heard it before. But…it couldn’t be…

“Oh my god,” Malfoy whispered, now seemingly as invested in the conversation as Hermione had been. “What’s Fudge doing here?”

Hermione’s eyes widened. Fudge. The Minister of Magic. She was sure glad she had had the sense to hide in the cupboard, even if she was a little too close to Malfoy for comfort. She couldn’t have had him running away and blowing her cover.

The pair of them remained quiet, now both eager to hear what was going on.

“Well, Cornelius. I’m afraid matters at Hogwarts are far worse than we feared.”

“How so?”

“Well first of all, there’s the Potter boy. He and his little friends seem determined to undermine my authority at every turn! He has no respect for the Ministry. Always going on about You-Know-Who despite my countless warnings and punishments!”

There was heavy silence for a moment before Fudge spoke again.

“And do the other students believe him?”

“Some do. Others think he’s gone mad. Most don’t know what to think, and it has been hard for me to convince them to take our side, despite our efforts to disparage him in the Prophet.”

“Surely these students have more sense than to believe the word of a 15-year-old boy over the Ministry and the Prophet! Why are we having such difficulty keeping this under control? I thought I could trust you to handle this, Dolores.”

“I…I am doing all that can be done! But that’s the thing. It isn’t just Potter who has been proclaiming the story that You-Know-Who has returned. It’s Dumbledore, as well. It is not so easy to discredit the Headmaster in the Prophet. He is too well known and well respected. Students love him. Which is why I am proposing that we focus our efforts on a new plan.”

“Yes?”

“Removing Dumbledore from this school, and making me Headmistress.”

“That is quite easier said than done, Dolores. You said it yourself, Dumbledore has the respect of the student body, as well as most of the parents, I might add. Implicating him in illicit activity to remove him from Hogwarts will be extremely difficult.”

“We almost got Potter, this summer.”

“Yes, and the fact that those Dementors even showed up in Little Whinging was a happy accident! How can we expect something like that to happen again? And at Hogwarts, no less?”

“Yes…a happy accident…well. I shall keep my eyes open for any ‘accidents’ that will allow us to relieve Albus from his post. In the meantime, you’d best be heading back to London. It is getting late. But I promise you this, Cornelius. Come hell or high water, I shall make sure Albus Dumbledore never sets foot in this school again. You can count on me.”

“We’ll see, Dolores. Have a good evening.”

Their footsteps echoed down the halls and disappeared into the night.

“I can’t believe it,” Hermione exclaimed. “That conniving little…”

“Blimey Granger. I thought you were intelligent!” Malfoy rolled his eyes. She glared daggers at him, daring him to continue insulting her. He sighed, “Of course the Ministry’s trying to oust Dumbledore! Fudge is scared of him. He thinks Dumbledore’s going to take his job.”

Hermione was taken aback at his words. She had known this information, of course, thanks to her months of living with the Order. Still, she was surprised that Malfoy knew this information, and that he had been so willing to admit it. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. Draco couldn’t have come across this information by himself. What was his shifty father telling him?

“Like you even care,” Hermione tersely responded. “You and your father have been trying to get rid of Dumbledore since the day you arrived here! And probably before! You’d just love old Umbridge to become Headmistress and become her little pet.” Ok. Tirade over. Yelling at Malfoy, while satisfying, wasn’t going to do her any good. Hermione knew they should be continuing their patrol. Plus, she wanted to return to the Common Room and fill Harry and Ron in on the evening’s events. Hopefully they’d still be awake…

“You always think you know me, but you don’t.”

“Excuse me?” Hermione whipped her head towards him just before she was about to exit their cramped hiding spot. Had she heard correctly?

Malfoy gave a sad sort of grunt. He hesitated for a moment, as if considering whether or not he should continue. Hermione continued staring at him intently. She was mystified.

“You and your little Potter Protection Squad. You all always think you know me, know my story, know my life. ‘Oh, Malfoy hates everything good. He’s always out to ruin things for us. He’s a jerk. He’s the enemy. He’s evil,’” he mimicked her in a high-pitched voice. Hermione couldn’t speak, still baffled. He continued.

“For your information, I detest Umbridge just as much as you do. I just know how to be subtle about it. And I know my place. I know what happens to me if I don’t get on her good side. You wouldn’t understand. You’re from a muggle family.”

“You know what, Malfoy? I am absolutely sick and tired of you bringing up my parentage. I have as much of a right to be here as you! And I understand plenty, thank you very much! I am top of our class and work hard to prove myself to intolerant people like you and your family every single day! Don’t you forget you were impressed by me when we met on the Hogwarts Express first year! Impressed by more than just my knowledge of the wizarding world, I might add!” She spit back, her breath labored from the force of her outburst. She could feel her cheeks flushing. It had been an unspoken agreement between them to never mention their first encounter. She could see his face tint red as well.

He stared at her for a moment. Then, without warning, grabbed her by both of her arms and turned her so they were face to face, which was quite cramped due to their inopportune hiding place. His gesture was not threatening, however. He looked sad.

“You don’t understand. I…I sometimes envy that you’re from…well…your background.” He huffed. “I mean being a Malfoy is an honor. People envy me.” His voiced switched back to the shaky timbre it had been. “But…there’s certain…expectations. My family is one of the greatest pureblood lines in wizard history. Malfoy and Black. We have a reputation to uphold. My father reminds me of that every chance he gets.” His face darkened. “I have to hate Dumbledore. I have to be friends with people like Crabbe and Goyle. I have to suck up to Umbridge and support her for headmistress. You don’t understand what happens if I don’t.”

Hermione continued to stare at him. She blinked, trying to understand why and how Draco was capable of showing such vulnerability with her. He searched her face, almost desperately, for a reaction. Hermione softened her face. Perhaps there was more to him than she thought. Maybe he just needed someone to listen. When he realized her receptiveness, he spoke once again.

“Everyone in my family expects me to be like my father. Become a…” he stopped himself. But she knew what he would have said. “Well, become like him,” he carefully worded. “No one has ever asked me what I want to do. And I can’t tell them. I can’t tell my family to shove it…that I don’t want to be part of their circle! That I’m terrified of what’s coming and of what I’ll have to do!” Draco’s voice broke. Hermione remained silent, entranced. Without thinking, she took his hand gently. They both looked down at their hands, now touching. When he spoke again, he refused to meet her gaze.

“My parents were part of an arranged marriage. Even their lives weren’t their own. Everything…every bloody thing that’s ever happened in my life and before has been about blood purity. About money, and power, and respect. They expect me to uphold that tradition. I’ll marry a pureblood girl. I can’t object. I’ll be disowned. Banished. Burned off of the family tree for even thinking about, as they call it, ‘tainting the bloodline.’” He sighed once more. He finally brought his eyes back to meet hers. His stare was intense and a bit frantic. Hermione felt her heart pounding in her chest and her cheeks growing hot. Who was this boy, and what had he done with the tosser Draco Malfoy? At least she knew how to deal with him when he was being a jerk. But this? This vulnerable Draco standing before her? Her brain could not figure him out.

His voiced softened further. “I’m sorry I’ve called you names. I know you probably won’t believe me, but I truly am.” And then, it rose once more, “But don’t you understand? I have to act this way! You terrify me, Hermione. And…that just…can’t happen. I…I don’t have a choice.”

She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. The pressure in her chest was too much to bear.

“Draco. Everyone has a choice,” she whispered, softly, her eyes still locked on his.

He swallowed. Then, he leaned forward, slowly. She could feel her own body move towards his in response. Her heart pounded and her mind went blank as she felt his strong arms wrapping around her and pulling her into a kiss. She pressed into him, her body moving with his in a passionate dance. He ran his hands through her hair. She could feel her pulse rising, heat surging through her body. The pair continued hungrily for a few more moments. Then, as if on a timer, they both regained composure and pulled back from each other, panting. Hermione smoothed out her hair. Draco fussed with his now-disheveled robes. They regarded each other once again, neither sure what to say to the other.

Hermione blinked in a vain attempt to regain focus. She couldn’t deny that had been the most passionate kiss she’d ever received, including those from Viktor—who had more than once professed his love for her. But, she thought to herself, that will never excuse his behavior. He had humiliated and degraded her, time and time again. The names he had called her were almost unforgivable. Had he changed? She couldn’t be sure. But, one late-night encounter in a broom closet was far from enough proof for Hermione. After a few moments of silence, she realized he was waiting for her to speak. To say something about what just happened. Her mind was still racing too fast to latch onto a single thought.

“I’m sorry about your family Draco. That sounds very hard.”

Oh, if she could have kicked herself in the moment! Sorry about your family?!? That sounds hard?!? She felt like a proper wanker! What an idiotic response to what had just happened!

“I wish things were different,” he replied. This shocked her.

“Are you saying you want to be with me?” She inquired.

“I’m not sure,” he answered, almost inaudibly, sheepishly running his hands through his hair.

“Draco,” she sighed. This was all too much information for Hermione to handle. “I’m not sure, either. Thank you for apologizing for calling me those awful names…but…I’m not sure that’s enough. You just said it yourself. Your family life is complicated. I’m sorry. If you ever want to change, to escape, I will be here for you. And, I may even want…this…too. But, I won’t be the girl who you degrade in public and then snog in a broom closet when no one is watching. I don’t deserve that.”

Draco simply stared back at her for a long time. She could tell he was thinking. Would he really say he wanted her? Would he really change? Would she really want to be with him, even if he did? Ugh, Harry always said girls were confusing, but she was beginning to think that boys that were really the ones who were bonkers!

Finally, he cleared his throat and spoke once again, “I’m sorry. I just…” he shook his head. He glanced towards the door. “We had better finish patrol and then head to our dorms.” Under his breath, Hermione heard him mutter, “I have a lot to think about.”

Unable to form any intelligible words, she just nodded her head. The pair emerged from their cupboard and set off back down the corridor, as silent as before. When they finally parted for their respective common rooms, they met each other’s gaze once again. Draco smiled softly, “Goodnight, Hermione.”

She gave a tentative smile in return. “Goodnight, Draco.”

As she entered the Gryffindor Common Room, she was deep in thought.

“Oi, Hermione! You’re back late,” Ron shouted to her from the table in the corner, on which Harry and him had stacked piles of books and essays. In the back of her mind, she mentally rolled her eyes. Of course, they hadn’t finished their homework.

“Was patrol with Malfoy as awful as we thought?” She gave a noncommittal sigh which Harry took for annoyance. “That bad, huh? What a git,” he shook his head. He and Ron then launched into a conversation about how much they hated Draco Malfoy. Hermione did not listen. She was still deep in thought, her thoughts swimming as if she were looking at them from the surface of a pensive: slippery and liquid and not quite fully formed.

“You alright, Hermione?” Ron asked, snapping her back to reality.

“Fine,” she answered half-heartedly. “Just dead tired. I think I’m going to head to bed.”

She climbed the stairs to the 5th year girls’ dormitory, and told herself she would tell the boys about Umbridge’s conversation in the morning. Right now, she was too preoccupied with thoughts of a certain Slytherin prefect to think about anything else. As she crawled into bed and closed the curtains of her four-poster, she found herself clinging to a small bit of naive hope. It did seem like Draco was serious when he kissed her. Maybe, just maybe, people could change for the better, even people as entrenched in the pureblood movement as Draco Malfoy.

She should have known it was silly to hope for such things.

#harry potter #hp fanfic #hp #dramione #draco x hermione #draco malfoy #hermione #hermione granger #being prefects #order of the phoenix #hp ootp #ootp #can pretty much be inserted into canon without changing much of anything #please be niceeee #my writing

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nyc-uws · 4 years ago

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Friends

My new old friend. An odd formulation. And yet….

The Hedgehog Review Wilfred M. McClay

I hadn’t ever considered the matter until a few years ago, when I heard a dreamy little number by the jazz pianist Alan Pasqua called “My New Old Friend.” It’s a strictly instrumental affair, a subdued and contemplative piano trio, full of subtle unresolved suspensions and wafting dissonances, conveying a late-night mood of solitary and slightly bittersweet remembrance—one of those moments of quiet grace when the passage of time slows to a crawl, past and present seem to intermingle, and joy and sorrow become hard to tell apart.

But it was the song’s title that captured my attention, even more than the music itself. My new old friend. An odd formulation. But one I’d been looking for, without even knowing it.

It’s not obvious to me why I should have been looking. In a different moment, I would have been far more likely to react against the phrase, striking it down with a reflex of indignant linguistic puritanism. After all, the noble term friend has already been so diluted and cheapened in our times, like so many of our most important words of personal and social connection, that it has become like the Platte River, a mile wide and an inch deep. Such cheapening has occurred not only in our personal usage but in public discourse. When Abraham Lincoln concluded his First Inaugural Address with a heartfelt plea to the seceding Southern states to recall that “we are not enemies, but friends,” the word had great emotive power, describing the very bonds of public affection that were being sundered. Such earnest usage has all but disappeared. Friend as we now use it embraces a particularly large portfolio of evasions and line-blurring maneuvers, especially useful in the hands of diffident teenagers, as in this familiar exchange: Mother: “Who was that on the phone?” Daughter: “A friend.”

As this example illustrates, friend can designate anything from a mysterious or otherwise uncategorizable love interest to a study-group classmate to a business associate to a helpful neighbor to the “friends” who accumulate on people’s social media accounts, where they are as plentiful and enduring as the daily harvest of low-tide sea shells on a beach. The television series Friends (1994–2004) became one of the most successful sitcoms in TV history by depicting a collection of very attractive twenty- and thirtysomethings “hanging out” together as a kind of quasi-family, a light and frothy fantasy that transposed the social life of the college dorm to not-quite-adult life in implausibly toney Manhattan apartments. For its characters, friendship was that relatively flexible and easygoing state of social relations before the hardening categories of adulthood come along.

This resonated with American audiences, including aging boomers who were nostalgic for the friendships of their college days. But when we’re confronted with the far profounder ideas about friendship put forward by Aristotle, the greatest of all writers on the subject, or by C.S. Lewis in his splendid account in The Four Loves, we tend to be nonplussed. Such heights seem beyond us. For Lewis, Friends would have to be considered a show about companions, not friends, since friendship is something weightier and inherently exclusive. In this, Lewis was in tune with the earlier observations of Aristotle: “Great friendship too can only be felt towards a few people…. One cannot have with many people the friendship based on virtue and on the character of our friends themselves, and we must be content if we find even a few such.” Far from being something breezy and easy, like a glass of sparkling spring wine, friendship in the fullest sense is a rare and precious thing, much more like an old single-malt Scotch.

As I’ve said, the Platte River principle has come to apply to many of our words of human connection, perhaps partly reflecting the automatic generosity of the democratic spirit, and also the way we employ the language of false personalization in our speech, routinely appropriating the most charged words in doing so. Some of this is vaguely sinister, as when corporate bosses try to persuade us to think of ourselves as part of “the Sprocket Corporation family,” especially at times when the budget needs cutting. Community is a word that comes in for similar abuse, and has been almost emptied of meaning in this respect, standing for any aggregation that it is politically or financially useful to treat as an aggregate. Here, as in the use of the language of family and almost any other affective term, Silicon Valley has led the way to perdition.

So you can see why I would be initially averse to the idea of “new old friends,” which might sound at first like more linguistic inflation, the equivalent of preripped jeans or “distressed” furniture, something new that is made out to look old, and thus is doubly phony. To make matters worse, as my old friends can readily confirm, I have for years been prone to saying, in an earnest imitation of Shakespeare’s Polonius, that “you can always make new friends, but you can never make new old friends.” And it’s true. There is something irreplaceably special about the people who have been down the road with you—those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried—and whose friendship has endured through the sheer passage of years, through the steady artillery of time, even if such friendships lack the lively intensity of newer ones. People who “knew you when” can never be replaced, and a wise person will not seek to do so.

But such friendships have their limitations. For one thing, it’s not always helpful to be reminded constantly of who you were “then.” Life does move on. And there is also something very true in the Simon and Garfunkel song “Old Friends,” about the two men who “Sat on their park bench like bookends…. / Winter companions… / Lost in their overcoats / Waiting for the sunset…. / Memory brushes the same years / Silently sharing the same fear.” There is a bond being described, if an unutterably sad and resigned one. It is an existential bond of the deepest and most universal sort. But there are some respects in which this “old friendship” falls short of the fullness of friendship as Aristotle and Lewis describe it.

And here I come to the heart of the matter: There is no denying the phenomenon of a new old friend. I have acquired a couple of them in recent years, people with whom I have found a near-instant bond whose depth is hard to explain, whose friendship feels as old and rooted as an ancient sequoia, even though I know it is as new as a sapling. Moving about in such friendships, I’m wary at first, thinking they may be too good to be true, fearing to trust too much in the sensation of oldness, fearing, much as one fears when living in a foreign culture, that my habitual ways of being will suddenly be misperceived or strike the wrong note. There is something deeply mysterious about such friendships, and mystery induces caution, as well as awe.

But perhaps the mystery has to do with the mystery of friendship itself. Lewis remarks that what finally hold us together as friends are not the “unconcerning things,” facts of biography and shared experiences. Of course, one brings the residue of all such things to the activity of friendship. But the friendship itself stands apart from such things. It concerns itself, Lewis argues, with nothing less than a shared quest for the truth about things. In the very act of sharing in this one thing, friends gain access to an astonishing degree of freedom. “In a circle of true Friends,” Lewis insists, “each man is simply what he is: stands for nothing but himself”:

That is the kingliness of Friendship. We meet like sovereign princes of independent states, abroad, on neutral ground, freed from our contexts. This love (essentially) ignores not only our physical bodies but that whole embodiment which consists of our family, job, past and connections.

Friendship represents a rare kind of freedom, an “exquisite arbitrariness and irresponsibility,” as Lewis puts it, precisely because it liberates us into a way of being fully human that rises above all the desiderata and conditioning factors that otherwise impinge upon us, the very factors that form what we are now accustomed to call our “identity.” But why shouldn’t an entirely new friendship have that power, as much as an old one has? Or perhaps…even more, since it is no longer the facts, but rather the search, the quest, that the new old friends share?

Lewis was not alone in connecting the disinterested love of truth and goodness with the highest forms of friendship. “The real community of man,” wrote Allan Bloom in The Closing of the American Mind, “in the midst of all the self-contradictory simulacra of community, is the community of those who seek the truth, of the potential knowers, that is, in principle, of all men to the extent they desire to know.” Bloom, too, understood that the quest for truth is what unites us most deeply and most reliably. The greatness of the Great Books, in his view, was their ability to lift our minds and thoughts out of the realm of contingency and “fact,” into a realm higher and more essential, more conducive to the flourishing of friendship—not as a goal of the quest, but as a byproduct of it.

Maybe this way of phrasing it will sound too specific to the academic world. And not everyone has the time or inclination to reread Plato’s Republic every few months (preferably in Greek). But the larger truth, that the deepest friendship can take root in the sparsest biographical soil if some high and shared animating spirit is present, seems right. I’m guessing that’s how we make new old friends. Though in the end, it is a mystery.

Wilfred M. McClay is G.T. and Libby Blankenship Chair in the History of Liberty and director of the Center for the History of Liberty at the University of Oklahoma. His latest book is Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story (2019).

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