#and the father. who also sucks

[sailforvalinor]

Joker and Ace: Jester's Privilege

Chapter 3

Much to Theodore’s surprise, that moment of regret was prolonged much later than he had anticipated, arriving halfway through supper the next night. The ball having gone on into the early hours of the morning (Theodore wasn’t quite sure exactly how early, he had slipped away at the earliest possible moment, that being around midnight), his siblings hadn’t risen until the early afternoon. It gave him a few hours of peace, at least, but it meant now he was sitting at their large dining room table surrounded by his family all in varying degrees of exhaustion, which he knew from years of experience would not result in anything even resembling a pleasant supper.

“My head is splitting,” whined Emmeline for the third time. 

“Perhaps if you grouse about it louder, it will go away,” Angeline said sarcastically, pouring so much milk in her third cup of tea that it made Theodore wince. Wine had been forgone that evening, for obvious reasons. 

“Just go lie down, dear,” his stepmother said gently. Meredith Ace was a small, delicate sort of woman, who could’ve easily been taken for his older sister, as she was only about fifteen years his senior, and looked younger. Her two children, his half-siblings, were taking their supper in the nursery. 

“No, I can’t, I’m famished,” Emmeline said petulantly. 

“If you can’t make up your mind on something so trivial as this, Emmie, I don’t know how you can reasonably expect to be able to decide whether or not to marry a certain gentleman of my acquaintance,” Cecil teased, though there wasn’t an ounce of detectable humor in his tone--he sounded rather bored.

Any other girl her age would have blushed over being teased about a potential suitor, but this was Emmeline--her face turned a violent shade of purple. “Who told you that?! Ida? That information was meant to be kept in confidence!”

“Emmeline,” Angeline snapped. 

Ida laughed condescendingly. “My dear, Cecil is my husband. Can you honestly expect me not to include him in my confidences?”

“Perhaps if those confidences are also mine,” Emmeline said sulkily.

Theodore was only half-listening to this chatter, eyes idly fixed on the flickering flame of a candle on the table in front of him. He felt quite strange. Despite the fact that he knew that he shouldn’t concern himself any more about her, his thoughts all seemed to wander back to that girl--in particular, her “leaving it up to him to parse.” What did that mean? Who was she? How had she known so much about him? 

Who on earth is Eliot? he wondered.

“—I don’t know if you can exactly call it a confidence when you make your admiration of him so plain,” Angeline said. “You monopolized the man nearly the whole night.”

“That isn’t true!” Emmeline protested hotly, her face flaming up in the same way it used to when Angeline and she fought as little girls. “I danced with Mr. Thorpe, and Mr. Smith, and twice with Mr. Harrington, and—“

“Yes, and you stared at Sir Lambton the entire time,” Angeline cut in, scraping a copious amount of butter across a slice of bread. “Honestly, I was embarrassed to be in any way connected with you. The ladies at whist were whispering about it all night. You were somehow even worse than Mr. Evans and his fiancée—and he didn’t dance with another lady the entire night and was dreadfully mawkish, but at least he had substantiated reason.”

Emmeline turned redder, if possible. “Well,” she huffed, cutting her asparagus with an intensity that far exceeded the durability of the poor vegetable, “at least I didn’t dance with the uninvited guest.”

Theodore felt every eye turn on him. He let out an imperceptible sigh, but didn’t bother to glare at his sister. He’d known this was coming.

At the end of the table, his father, who so far had completely ignored the chatter and arguments over supper, lowered his newspaper and stared over it at Theodore with an unreadable expression. “Theodore, is this true?”

While his father hardly even seemed to take conscious note of his other childrens’ misdeeds, any mention of even the slightest misdemeanor of his third son made his ears prick like a dog on the hunt. But this had been the case for too long for Theodore to take the time to inwardly rail against the unfairness of it. He guessed that he’d already known about the girl--he’d probably also already known that he had danced with her, and had been waiting for the perfect moment (i.e., the moment he was in front of as many witnesses as possible) to confront him. Theodore met his gaze as casually as he could manage. “Yes, Father.”

“And you did this with no thought to propriety?” he asked, in a tone that was hard to determine whether or not it was accusing or curious. “To how you were representing your family in the sight of all our acquaintance?”

Theodore could have replied that yes, he had given it every thought that it deserved, and come to the conclusion that it wasn’t worth the dirt on the bottom of his boots—all the spite was still there, cold and black, but he found he was too exhausted to start that fight. His appetite, which hadn’t been great to begin with, completely left him, and he found that all he wanted to do was go to bed. “Yes,” he lied, wanting to get this conversation over as quickly as possible. “My apologies.”

His other brother, Nicholas, gave a low whistle. “I’d never thought I’d see the day. Mark it down in the history books—the day the Vicar lost his head over a pretty girl!” Nicholas, though objectively less handsome than Cecil, styled himself as a bit of a dandy, and had one of those ways of speaking that betrayed how highly he thought of his own intelligence, though he rarely said anything of true substance—it reminded Theodore of the sound of the prongs of a fork screeching across a porcelain plate. It was probably how he had kept his seat in Parliament thus far—that and money, of course. 

“I didn’t find her beauty that remarkable,” Emmeline muttered under her breath, her irritation apparently not quite appeased, even after throwing all the heat on Theodore.

Ida gave a high, shrill laugh. “Well, his response is hardly remarkable either, Emmie,” she said in a patronizing tone. “Every man is, when you get down to it, fundamentally the same—and your brother, though he may play the contrarian, is no different. Though he may have…peculiar taste.” She glanced at him significantly over the rim of her glass as she took a sip of water.

She was baiting him, fishing for information about the girl, but luckily he was spared from having to conjure up a response by a timid voice behind him. “Excuse me, sir?”

Theodore turned to find one of the serving girls, Flora, standing at his elbow, face white as a sheet. Flora wouldn’t normally be described as self-assured, but today she looked positively terrified. “Flora, what is it?” he asked. He felt a glare from Cecil at addressing a servant by name.

“Well, sir, what it is then, is that, a lady—“ Her voice cracked, she began again. “A lady came calling for you this morning, sir, while you were out.”

“And you���re just telling us this now?” Cecil demanded. Flora shrank away. “That was over ten hours ago!”

“Honestly, Father, I’ve been telling you for years to let me handle the hiring of the servants,” Angeline said. “They get more stupid every year—“

Theodore held up a hand, and to his amazement, Angeline stopped. “Did she leave a card?” he asked Flora, in a tone not dissimilar to one that someone might use to calm a frightened animal.

Flora only looked more frightened, if possible. “I—well, y-yes, but—that’s why I waited so long to tell you, sir, it’s—“

“—it’s what?!” Emmeline asked. “What on earth is wrong with you, girl? Give it to him!”

Out of the corner of his eye, Theodore saw his father lay down his newspaper, leaning forward with a glint of interest in his eye. 

Poor Flora looked like she might start crying on the spot. Theodore sighed. He held out a hand. “Do you have it?” he asked quietly.

“Y-yes, sir.” Shakily, she drew something from behind her back and held it out to him. 

There was a moment of stunned silence. Theodore stared for a moment, then took it between his fingers. As he took it from her, a cacophony of shouts exploded around him at the table.

He hardly heard. He stared down at the card in his hand--a playing card. But it was a design he had never seen before--instead of the typical numbers or clubs or diamonds, some sort of jester or fool dressed in red posed in a ridiculous fashion on the front, with the words “Joker” printed in two of the corners. In all other respects it seemed like a normal playing card, but it came from no game he had ever heard of. 

He was in little doubt as to who had left this for him, that much was obvious--but he had no idea what he was supposed to make of it. What on earth was she doing, calling on him at all? What was he supposed to glean from this?

“I’ll leave that up to you to parse,” her voice echoed in his head. 

His thoughts were interrupted by the voices of his siblings, still berating poor Flora for doing nothing at all. 

“What were you doing, interrupting us for something like that?” Angeline bit out.

“What sort of woman was this, you stupid girl?” Cecil demanded.

Flora was shaking like a leaf in the wind. “I--I’m sure I don’t know, sir,” she said. “Seemed very proper and ladylike an’ all that. She said she was leaving this for the master and then left.”

“You don’t remember anything about what she looks like?” Cecil asked incredulously. 

“N-no, sir,” Flora stammered. “I’m sorry.”

Theodore quickly slid the card into the inner pocket of his coat. Then, catching the eye of Timothy, an approaching-elderly manservant standing at the ready by the door, he signaled towards Flora with a flick of his gaze. 

Timothy caught his meaning immediately, coming forward and taking Flora firmly by the elbow. “I’ll take her to the kitchens, sir,” he told Cecil. “Make sure Matilda gives her a good talking to.” He bowed, then guided Flora quickly out the door and out from beneath his siblings' scrutiny.

“Theodore, what was that?” Emmeline asked. “I wish to examine it.”

“As you already saw, it’s a playing card,” Theodore said nonchalantly. “Nothing of interest.”

“Perhaps not the card itself,” said Nicholas, leaning forward on the table in a most ungentlemanly fashion, “but we all know who it must be from. If you plan on continuing to send each other secret messages, you must train the servants in a bit more…discretion.”

Theodore feigned a laugh. “You may speculate all you like, but I suspect this was the work of one of my old friends from Cambridge. I heard that George Everland was coming to Bath soon—he’s quite fond of a joke.”

Nicholas snickered. “I wasn’t even aware of your having friends at Cambridge, Theo--what, with you having all the charisma of a lobster. Last night you were so dour and taciturn that any lady with any reasonable amount of observational skill must have taken one glance at you and assumed that you were absolutely jug-bitten the night before. Your mysterious lady must have been dreadfully short-sighted.” He gave a chortle at his own wit.

Theodore’s mouth twitched. “Yes, I’m sure that Mr. Evans’ fiancee found that joke frightfully amusing.”

The table suddenly fell so quiet, you could have heard a pin drop. The sound of Emmeline dropping her fork was like a pistol shot. Angeline had frozen with her spoon halfway to her mouth, soup dripping onto the tablecloth. Ida and Cecil’s expressions looked like stone, and all the blood had drained from Nicholas’ face. His father’s expression, of course, was inscrutable.

His stepmother stared at Theodore with wide, frightened eyes. He took a sip of his water, set down his glass. “Well, if you’ll excuse me,” he said casually, as if he hadn’t just said anything of note, “I have some business to take care of.” He stood, gave a slight bow—first to his stepmother, and then his father—then exited the dining room, leaving the impending carnage of his words in his wake.

A slight smile pulled at his mouth once he was alone in the hallway, but it faded just as quickly as he made his way to the library. He’d likely shown his cards too early, but it wasn’t as if he could’ve done much with that information--any attempt to spread slander about his brother, regardless of how true it was, could be easily covered up by his father. Money made all sorts of things go away. He could write to Mr. Evans anonymously, he supposed, though he wasn’t certain he was likely to believe him--and he wasn’t sure whether basic human decency demanded that he tell him the truth, or let him live in blissful ignorance.

The door behind him creaked open, and his father walked into the hallway.

“You will meet me in my study,” he said quietly as he passed, starting up the stairs.

Theodore stopped in his tracks momentarily. Winced.

You have got to get a better hold over your tongue, a voice said in his head.

Theodore’s hand traveled to the playing card in his pocket--for strength, perhaps? He wasn’t quite sure. Gritting his teeth, he followed his father up the stairs.

--

Note: the reason that Theo doesn't recognize the Joker card is that Jokers wouldn't actually be introduced into playing cards for another few decades. Who would've thought? I didn't find this out until I'd already planned the scene out and had half of it written and went to research what playing cards looked like at the time.

<- Chapter 2 / Chapter 4 ->

[unfinishedslurs]

The boy stops in his tracks. “I know you,” he says, tilting his head curiously. He’s not tall, but he’s regal nonetheless, dressed all in white. Something about him makes Leia’s hair stand on end, and although she hides it she feels a stirring in her own chest. I know you like I know my own soul, she thinks wildly, and wonders where it came from. Has she gone insane?

“That’s nice,” she says, and shoots him anyway.

He deflects it in a flash of light, a glowing blue laser sword appearing in his hand like magic. She’s only seen one of those before, and it’s Vader’s. If this boy is anything like Vader, she realizes, she’s in deep shit.

She’s smart enough to know when she’s outmatched. Leia makes the tactical decision to run for her life.

Later, as she’s getting the hell out of there, she wonders why he didn’t try to stop her.

She remembers being young and tugging on her mothers skirts, demanding to know why their guest was so sad. “Does he not like it here?” She’d asked, and then, trembling, because Kenobi always seemed saddest around her. “Is it…because of me?”

“Oh, Leia,” her mother sighed, lifting her into her arms. “It’s not that, I promise.”

“Then what is it?”

“Master Kenobi lost a child under his care, years ago.” Breha’s eyes grew deeper, darker. “It was not his fault, but he blames himself. You remind him of that child, that’s all.”

Leia had quieted at that, contemplative.

The next time she’d seen Master Kenobi, she had given him a hug. He didn’t seem to know what to do with that, so she resolved to give him more of them. “He’s lonely,” she’d told her mother. “No one should be lonely.”

Looking at Obi-Wan Kenobi now, the memory seemed so far away. He’d aged thirty years in the ten it had been.

He looks, Leia thinks with a small twinge of regret, very lonely.

“Leia,” he greets. “It’s been a long time.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Leia sees a glint of white.

Kenobi freezes in his tracks. “Luke?” He whispers, and through the distance Leia can hear it as if he’d been speaking directly into her ear.

Master Kenobi lost a child under his care, her mother whispers in her head. He blames himself.

In an instant, Leia understands everything.

Kenobi is still staring at the boy he’d lost so long ago when Vader cuts him down.

Later, as she’s pacing around on the Falcon to Han muttering darkly about Princesses and supernatural abilities, she rememberers the way the boy collapsed, as if all his strings had been cut. Vader was too occupied with him to even look at her as she shot at him desperately.

Luke. She hates him more than she hates herself.

“They know where you are,” he hisses frantically. “They’re coming for you. You have to run.”

“Wait!” Leia quickly pulls up their sonar. Nothing yet, but it would explain the distant queasiness she’d felt since they’d landed. She tended to trust her gut. “How do you know? How much time do we have?”

“Not important, and not enough,” he says. “I have to go, and so do you. You need to leave yesterday.”

“How do I know I can trust you? I don’t even know who you are.”

He pauses. “Call me Skywalker.”

“That’s not an answer, Skywalker.”

“Yes it is.”

She opens her mouth to argue, but there are faint voices on the other end, drawing nearer.

“Shit,” Skywalker mutters. “I have to go. I’ll be in contact, okay? Don’t ever tell me where you are, or where you’re heading. Vader and Palpatine aren’t shy about reading minds. Just leave as soon as you can, and figure out the rest.”

“But—“

It’s too late. The comm has disconnected.

She stares down at it, disbelieving. How would the Empire know they’re here? Why should she trust a stranger who somehow got her personal comm code?

Gut feeling or not, on paper this was a perfect location. Supplied, armored, and most importantly, extremely well hidden. There was no real reason to think it would possibly be found out.

It’s probably a trap. Almost definitely a trap.

Han sticks his head in the door, a sour look on his face. “Hey Princess, can you tell these idiots—“

She makes a decision then and there.

“We’re leaving.”

“What?”

“We’re evacuating, effective immediately.” She pushes past him, and he follows so close he’s nearly stepping on her heel.

“Why? I think it’s pretty cozy here. Actual sunlight doesn’t hurt, either.”

“Apparently too cozy.” She grabs the first person she sees, a pilot who stares at her with wide eyes. “Emergency evacuation. Spread the word to pack everything you can and leave, I’ll let you know where we’re headed when we’re in orbit.”

He salutes and scurries off.

“Woah, hey now.” Han snatches at her elbow until she turns around to face him. “What’s going on?”

“There’s a new informant. He told me the Empire knows we’re here. They’re coming for us.”

“And you trust this person because…”

“I don’t have a choice,” she snaps. Someone runs past them, holding three packs filled to the brim with rations. “It’s either he’s lying and we’re not in danger, or he’s telling the truth and we’re going to die if we don’t listen. It’s not exactly hard math.”

It could be a trap of course, but he hadn’t suggested any sort of direction or destination to follow, and Leia wasn’t inclined to share. Especially not after his tidbit about Vader and Palpatine reading minds.

He squints at her. “That’s not it.”

“What?”

“I don’t believe you,” he insists. He’s so infuriating. Leia doesn’t know why she hasn’t kicked him out yet.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes you do, and you’re either gonna tell me why, or find a different transport when we head out of here.”

“Who said I was riding on your hunk of junk?” She demands. She actually was planning on going with them, since the Falcon has more than enough room for all the supplies that can’t fit in the other ships and none of the trustworthiness of the other pilots, but Han doesn’t need to know that.

“Well?”

Damn him. Damn him for knowing how to read her. She doesn’t know when she let that happen.

“I feel it,” she admits, defeated. “Something tells me he’s trustworthy. We’ll wait and see if it’s right.”

He studies her. She holds her head high, but inside she’s jittery at the scrutiny. They don’t have time for this.

“Yeah, all right,” Han finally says.

“Really?”

“Yes, really.” He rolls his eyes, like she’s not acting absolutely insane by putting all her trust in a random man she’s never even met. “Now come on, Princess, weren’t you the one who said we had to hurry?”

What is it about this man that makes it impossible to tell whether she wants to punch him or drag him into the nearest supply closet? They don’t have time to find out.

“So there’s good news and bad news.”

“Bad news first,” she demands.

“They know there’s a mole.”

“Shit.” Of course they know, how could they not? She should have been more careful, less obvious about the correlation of their movements with the Empire’s plans. “The good news?”

“They’ve tasked me with hunting down this ‘pathetic rebel spy,’” Skywalker says, humor in his voice. “That should buy me some time.”

Leia can’t quite stop the snort she lets out. “Seriously?”

“Yep. You’re speaking to a professional mole-hunter, here.”

“Well congratulations on the promotion, Skywalker.”

“Thank you,” he says grandly. Then, quieter, “It won’t last, Princess. They’ll find out eventually.”

“I know. Just hang in there, it will be over soon.”

“Will it?” He asks, suddenly sounding very young. She realizes that she has no idea how old he is. She doesn’t know anything about the man who has saved them more times than she cared to admit, and the idea rattles her until they sign off.

Later, she looks up the name Skywalker in their archives. There are a few results, but only one sticks out.

Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Knight and hero of the Clone Wars. Killed at the hands of Darth Vader. There are gossip articles too, speculations on his relationship with the pregnant Senator Padmé Amidala, who died around the same time Skywalker did. The baby, it seems, died with her.

Unless he didn’t.

It’s ridiculous. It’s impossible. The idea is so ludicrous that Leia almost rejects it entirely.

But it makes sense. By the Maker, it makes sense.

The child of Anakin Skywalker, it seems, would be a powerful Force user indeed. Powerful enough for Kenobi to take the baby and run. Powerful enough for the Emperor to want him for his own gain. Powerful enough to send Vader after Kenobi and take the boy himself.

Maybe even powerful enough to shield his mind from Vader and Palpatine’s intrusions.

Powerful enough to hide the fact that he’s a spy.

Leia sinks into her chair, covering her face as she laughs.

Maybe Luke isn’t so bad after all.

“No, no, no,” she mutters, digging through the smoking wreckage of the TIE fighter. “Don’t be dead, please don’t be dead.”

“Princess…” Han lays a hand on her shoulder that she immediately shrugs off.

“No, he’s not dead. He’s not. Luke!”

A faint cough answers her, and she’s so relieved to hear it she could cry. Behind her, Han starts bellowing for a medic and, “Some damn help here, do you expect us to move all this ourselves?”

“Luke, it’s me,” she sobs. “It’s Leia. You’re at the Rebel Base. You’re safe.”

More coughing, and there’s a worrying rasp to his voice when he says, “You know…my name?”

“I figured it out.”

“Smart.” This time, the coughing is so bad Leia and Han both wince.

“Shit, kid,” Han says, moving another piece of rubble. “Don’t talk. We’re gonna get you out of here, all right?”

“Stand back,” Luke chokes out.

“What?”

“Stand back. Please.”

Han protests, but something in Leia knows they should listen to him. She drags him back, and motions everyone else to fall back with them. They do, albeit reluctantly.

“Clear,” she calls, hoping Luke can hear her.

The TIE explodes.

“Fuck!” Han goes back in, Leia on his heels with the terrifying feeling that she’d just allowed Luke to die, before they both stop in their tracks. Around them, the broken pieces of the TIE are floating.

And curled up in the middle is a man dressed all in white.

“Luke!” She pushes past Han to start dragging him out, and after another moment of staring around them, he helps her.

As soon as they get clear, the pieces fall to the ground with a clatter. Luke falls limp with them.

Han is still looking at the TIE. “Can you do that?” He asks quietly.

Leia pauses her examination of the unconscious man in front of her to glare at him. “Is that what you’re most concerned with right now? Really?”

“Excuse me for asking, Princess!”

“It’s white,” Luke grumbles, pulling at his hospital gown bitterly. “I hate wearing white.”

“Should I be offended?”

He rolls his eyes. “Don’t even. You look great and you know it. I just feel like I never left.”

“Well,” she says gingerly. “I guess it’s a good thing you got sick of it. If we went around in matching outfits all the time, people might think we’re twins.”

He snorts. “Yeah, right.”

[heuldoch7b]

father and son

[mainalias]

thinking about compiling screenshots of golden/silver age batman exclusively calling dick his ward to combat the allegations that it was “initially a father-child relationship”

[team5ds]

the worst part is i can't even say he's wrong. they certainly did figure out how to contribute the city by joining the wrgp. but like. this is one of those things where it literally does not make sense. this is insane levels of logic. "we're not sure how to contribute to the city. we think entering a magic the gathering tournament will help." like. imagine saying that fr when your parents ask what you're going to do after you graduate college. "idk. thought i'd play card games and figure it out, man"

[dazzle02]

When he was a kid, Evan made a Mothers Day card for his Mum at School one year. Everyone was making them, and he was really excited. She was not interested in it at all, and he later found it thrown away.

He did the same thing on Fathers Day, same thing happened.

Both times broke his heart.

The next time Mothers Day came around, he wanted to cry. Everyone in his class were making these cards and so excited about giving them to their Mums, how happy they'd be and how much they'd love them. Evan knew that wasn't the case for him. He knew who would appreciate a card though, who loved him more than anyone. Maddie.

So he made Maddie a Mothers Day card. She cried when he gave it to her. She put it up in her room, and then kept it in a box with all the other drawings and stuff her little brother gave her.

It became a tradition. Every Mothers Day, he'd make Maddie a card. Even when he got to an age where it wasn't really cool, he'd get her a card.

He never actually stops. Even when she's with Doug, he sends her one every year, just as he sent the postcards. And just like with the postcards, she keeps every one of them.

The first Fathers Day after Maddie and Chimney get married, Buck gives Chimney a card referring to him as his Step-Dad as a joke. He does this at work in front of everyone, they all find it hilarious.

That also becomes something he does every year. Chimney keeps them all too. He'll never admit it to Buck though.

[en-chi-la-da]

What are your thoughts on Yuma x Vivia? I seem to be in the minority cause Vivia's mostly shipped with Yakou, but I personally see Yakou as more of a father figure to Vivia. Also amazing art as always.

short answer: they mean da world 2 me 💜

[jasontoddenthusiastt]

The New Titans #55 (1989)

Batman (2010-) #641

…

Red Hood and the Outlaws (2016-) #6

…

…

…

Batman and Red Hood (2011-) #20

…

Batman (2016-) #138

They sure do bAT&Tman. They sure as hell do.

Yet Jason never thought this way about you.

[illarian-rambling]

A short ramble about the two main Illari wedding cultures because I'll do anything but actually write :D

Ok so, when it comes to religion, the world of Illaros is pretty split between the Illarian half and the Mordunyan half. The Illarian church began with the humans of Janaz, but spread to encompass the elven nations of Skysheer and Nabafyr later on. The Dwarven Alliance, which was never conquered by humans, held onto its Mordun faith. Why does religion matter when it comes to weddings? Because any 'binding of family' (weddings, adoptions, even business ventures) are very important in the Illarian holy texts, so proper Illarian weddings are one of the few things that actually got really forced onto the Nabafyrians and Skysheerians by way of the Republic government (big player in banking and business of all kinds) not recognizing people as married if they hadn't done it the 'right way.' Family is also a huge component of dwarven culture in general, so you already know their religion is gonna standardize it. Anyways, that's how we got to two main wedding cultures, with two subcultures for the surviving Nabafyrian and Skysheerian traditions.

Your run-of-the-mill Illarian wedding with no elven influences is a surprisingly simple affair. There's no engagement, for one. Partners usually decide together that they want to get married and give their social circle a few months' notice for planning. Springing a sudden 'Will you marry me?' would be seen as a really strange move in Illarian culture. Blue is traditionally a Big Event color, so lots of brides wear blue dresses, but this isn't a requirement, and many opt for other hues. Really, the only thing that makes it an Illarian wedding is that it's performed by a priest of Samara, goddess of family and the cooking fire.

The most important event of a human wedding is actually a cultural practice, not a religious one. When humans get married, they exchange gifts. This is a call-back to nobles exchanging dowries, but the custom ended up catching on with the common folk and turned into something more intimate. The humans of Illaros don't use rings to signify their love, but instead exchange gifts with their partner. A wedding gift is often the nicest thing a person will ever own. It's often completely customized - a painter might get a set of brushes made by a master craftsman, a lover of birds might get a set of runic binoculars, a farmer might get a steam-powered plow, a frequent traveler might get a pair of magically sealed boots, so on and so forth. These gifts are meant to be a purest expression of understanding and insight. It's not unheard of for someone to leave at the altar because of a bad wedding gift, or to spend a fortune trying to get the best one. Usually, a wedding gift is made well enough to last throughout a person's life.

The other thing is surnames. This one's pretty easy, though. Traditionally, the partner of lower station takes on the partner of higher station's name - 'marrying up' is the common term. In the modern era, though, this gets flexible.

Another minor tradition, smaller than the gift, is bride-talk. The first person at a wedding who offers the bride a drink is supposedly wanting advice for how to find a good match. Single cousins will sometimes compete for the chance, as it's also a good way to signal that you're 'on the market,' so to speak.

On the elven subset of Illarian wedding culture, there is no gift exchange, since that's not a religious tradition. Really, the only requirement for an Illarian wedding is the presence of a priest, so Nabafyrians and Skysheerians still tend to do things largely their own way.

Nabafyrians, of course, have to involve weapons. Usually, Nabafyrian families each have their own branch of martial art and an accompanying crest. When you marry into a family, you're allowed to learn their martial art. You may also engrave their crest onto your weapon. A smith is usually present at weddings to do this. It's up to the married couple to decide who is joining whose family, but they usually follow the human example and marry up.

Skysheerians are different in that marriage is solely a right of the nobility. Serfs can live together, share names, and have civil ceremonies, but they aren't 'married' in the eyes of the law. When nobles get married, it's far more of a business deal. Land and titles are exchanged, promises are made, and dowries are paid. Marriage for love isn't a thing, however, it's not frowned upon in the slightest to have consorts. You can go to a banquet with your husband, only to leave in a different man's carriage and no one will mind. You're binding your families, not your hearts, so who cares if you love someone else? Just so long as you're willing to legitimize any bastards, everyone's happy.

Now we get to the really different one: dwarven marriage. First off, just like how in our current irl society, alloromantic heterosexuality is seen as a 'default,' in dwarven society, that default is actually aromantic heterosexuality. Your first loyalty is expected to be to your clan. 'Falling in love' is seen as a deviant urge. With that out of the way, how does marriage work then?

A dwarven marriage, like a Skysheerian one, is a contract between two families, or clans, in this case. Except, for dwarves, a child is the express goal of marriage. Two clans will negotiate a match between two people who can have kids together. During the duration of the marriage, the father will join the mother's clan until any kid they have makes it to adulthood, after which he will leave to rejoin his original clan. The father's clan, in exchange for losing a member for eighteen years and not getting a kid out of it, will receive a massive sum of money called a hand-price. The hand-price is thought to be equivalent to the work that child will do for the mother's clan over their lifetime. So mom's clan gets a kid, dad's clan gets cash. Hand-prices generally sit at a set value, but sometimes, if someone assumes the kid isn't gonna contribute much, the mother's clan will ask for a partial refund. This is common fare for insults among dwarven children.

In places like Unity, where dwarven culture mixes with others, things are a little looser. Sometimes, a father will stay with his wife and child even after the child hits legal adulthood. Marriage not for the sake of reproduction is also increasingly common. In that case, a hand-price will be negotiated for the clan one partner is leaving, putting a monetary number on what they might contribute to the clan they're joining. Even in Unity, though, marriage always entails someone leaving their clan. Being married to someone in another clan while remaining in your own would be seen as a gross splitting of loyalties and might well end up with both partners being disowned.

Why do all of these cultures place such a strong emphasis on marriage being between two families, not two individuals? I'm not sure. Probably because they all exist together in an area of land roughly the size of Europe - there's gonna be some general vibe sharing.

Anyways this has been (looks directly into the camera) an Illarian ramble

[przeorysza]

The Last Kingdom Season 1 + tumblr

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

Feeling a certain way about that latest bsd interview concerning Akutagawa and the treatment he suffered

(that way is bad.)

[navree]

"it's always hating on rhaegar for rhaenys and aegon's deaths never tywin" because rhaegar was their father and had a responsibility towards them that tywin did not, stay in school

[dayurno]

omg reverse riko au is making me feel so ill..... please let us know if you have any more thoughts abt riko kayleigh and kevin legend.....

I DO my idea is that its around the same age kevin and riko met in canon so tetsuji kicks the bucket when riko is 7/8 and riko is (very forcibly) removed from the nest and sidelined to kayleigh as a new moriyama asset from the main branch takes over the nest. riko struggles a lot with the change because he is very young and very scared and he’s used to horrible things at tetsuji’s hand, which means that he doesn’t trust kayleigh and finds kevin entirely too weird. it’s honestly really cute because i think at this point obviously 7 year old kevin wants to befriend him but riko is such an anxious ball of anger that most of their interactions are like

baby riko: what do you WANT from me. go AWAY!!!! NOW

baby kevin: (heavy irish accent) nothing i think. do you want a bite of my sandwich?

anyway i think riko and kayleigh do get along but he never really considers her his mother or even godmother, for a long time he thinks of her as his Benefactor until the child therapy starts hitting and she becomes Aunt Kayleigh and then after a few more years he can be loosely convinced to refer to her as auntie once or twice a year. his second son syndrome never really leaves him; in the upcoming years riko struggles with the idea that he’s anything But an add-on to the days and still overworks himself to death trying to be acknowledged by kengo, but it’s leaps better just from being outside the nest and having people to look out for him

riko and kevin have some rough patches, especially during riko’s first years with the days. because kevin is an easy target and riko is afraid of kayleigh he ends up letting a lot of that anger out on kevin, though obviously at this point they are children and riko’s anger manifests in some mild bullying and name calling. i think kevin doesn’t even understand it most of the time 😭 riko has been around grown ups his entire life so his adult level insults make no sense to kevin’s seven year old mind. nevertheless after kayleigh tells him to stop picking on kevin riko does respect it (first out of fear, then later because they actually get along) and they go on to become brothers with only a slight tendency towards antagonism. riko’s jealousy of kevin is still a big part of their relationship and i think even more so when college applications roll around, and he’s even more worried when wymack comes into the picture, but it never culminates into anything as horrible as hand breaking because riko has an actual outlet and a support system :) it’s mostly a yelling match that eventually turns to getting scolded by kayleigh for acting like barbarians

[phoenixcatch7]

Trying so hard to not start fic writing before I've even finished the game but I want so so bad to write a time travel fic where post totk wild gets sent back to pre calamity hyrule in the middle of a lynel or gleeok fight, like he's just covered in monster blood and guts with a mishmash of armour pieces (at least one barbarian piece) hair long and tangled, scars all over, wielding a ridiculously huge savage lynel spear tipped with dragon claw and dripping sizzling blood. Smoke coming off him. Arm looking half rotted.

In the middle of the throne room.

Several particularly delicate lords and ladies faint. All the guards are pointing spears. He nearly takes someone's eye out before realising where he is.

Once he realises when he is it becomes a race of time to make the right waves before zelda comes to pick him up.

[ad-astra-per-aspera-1389]

The differences between Merula and Draco are fascinating to me (all my knowledge of hp comes from hogwarts mystery and posts on pinterest) bc Draco is a spoiled brat, and he gets it from his father. Meanwhile Merula's parents are in Azkaban, and it's not difficult to put yourself into her shoes. Of course she's bitter. If anyone found out her parents were in magic prison, it's all she'd be known for, so it makes sense she'd become a bully with her heart set on "most powerful witch", in order to make a name for herself before people put the "troubled kid" label onto her. The player character is even defined by their brother at first. It's obvious that your reputation follows you to hogwarts whether you want it to or not. Draco uses that to his advantage, while Merula wants to bury her family reputation at all costs. Merula is misunderstood, her pursuit of power serving as a ticket out of her parents' shadow, while Draco revels in his parents' power and social standing.

[gen-is-gone]

hrgh every time I think I've come close to forgiving lance fucking parkin I skim the gallifrey chronicles. and then I remember the Horrors.