#bluedalahorse

[redleavesinthewind]

For the YR secondary ask game: 1, 2, 18, 19

1 was answered here

2. Favorite secondary romantic and/or sexual pairing

fredrika and stella. my fondness for henry and walter didn’t manifest until i actually read a fic about them out of curiosity, but stella and fredrika have always been in my mind. i don’t interact with fandom much tbh, but i did find out that stedrika got a lot of hate and i never entirely got why. this might also just be because stella specifically makes a lot of sense to me. she’s not a nice person but frankly, not many teenagers are. she and fredrika both are also very entrenched in the lives and beliefs of the upper class, but i’m not going to judge them for it when that’s all they’ve known so far. if you think about it, it was part of their upbringing, they’re in boarding school, surrounded by people with the same values and experiences, they’ve never properly been in the real world. obviously there’s no guarantee that they’ll ever be willing to learn/ become better people, but there’s also no guarantee that they won’t. they’re teenagers and i’m willing to give them some grace. but i digress. what i actually wanted to say. i like stella and fredrika. the whole being in love with your best friend is a very queer experience, one i can relate to, and i found myself rooting for them quite easily. also there’s not enough sapphic pairings around so i will be protective over them

18. Favorite fic centered on a secondary character or pairing

haha the one and only other people’s secrets by @sflow-er. first i know there’s wilmon in there but the focus is very much on henry and henry/walter. it’s what got me into the ship and i love henry’s characterisation in it so much

i’ve also got to talk about AnxiousAnaconda’s A Royal Intervention and their portrayal of erik. it was the first fic i found where erik isn’t the perfect older brother so many people see him as (i don’t fault them for portraying him that way i get it, i just can’t get behind it). so at the time i read this fic it was very refreshing and a little validating to get a characterisation of erik that’s a bit more realistic

19. Shout out a fanfic author for their writing of a secondary character (or characters) in a subplot

this one was also tricky for me to answer, because it’s been a while since i read yr fic (any fic really) and i don’t necessarily remember subplots. however i do need to mention yourself and @heliza24 for Heart and Homeland, specifically for getting me into felice/rosh! their dynamic is excellent and a lot of fun.

other one that comes to mind is The Darkest Little Paradise by @yourdemiurge which is a bit of an outlier i’d say. every character is technically ooc, but in a way that still makes a lot of sense? it’s like they’re all the worst version of themselves. i do quite like the way felice is written in this, and erik is incredibly unhinged and honestly great fun

[gulliblelemon]

For your WIP ask game: desk

Hi!

There were three options to choose from for this. One, I felt, spoilt a scene too much, so I chose this one instead.

So he drops down into the chair at his desk, pulls a blank piece of paper towards him, and writes ‘Dear Erik…’ at the top, stopping to breathe for a moment, before starting to scribble furiously.

Thanks for the ask!

(Send me a word, and if it's in a WIP, I'll give you the sentence!)

[crownedwille]

For the secondary character ask game: 4, 5, 14, 19

04. Favorite triad or polyship

I saw your answer and I also really like the idea of Simon/Wille/Felice. In like a mix of platonic and romantic and sexual that are not evenly distributed but it doesn't have to be equal, they can just exist with each other and all the dynamics can be important in their own way. I'd definitely like to think more of them and how it would work.

05. Favorite familial relationship

Sara and Simon is my favourite dynamic, I love the way they interact and the complexities of their sibling bond.

14. Any ships (crackships included) involving Simon or Wilhelm that break up Wilmon? We won’t tell!

Well...I just said them as a triad but I also actually like the idea of Wille/Felice. I don't see them in a romantic sense at all but I do think there is a physical/sexual attraction between them.

I literally just had a fic idea about a s2 canon divergence, what if Henry didn't interrupt Felice and Wille and they continued to make out and it becomes a regular thing and they become friends with benefits?

I know no one wants to read that and I will never write it so I only annoyed @the-words-we-sung by telling her the entire plot lmao but I think it could be a fun way to explore both of their sexualities

19. Shout out a fanfic author for their writing of a secondary character (or characters) in a subplot

@zee-has-commitment-issues includes the side characters in such fun, interesting ways that make them fully fleshed main characters which can't even be considered as a subplot really but I had to shout them out, especially their fic Reckless Abandon!

[sadhappylady]

Hi! 💜🌻 I’m giving you numbers 1, 9, 17, and 20.

Dear Blue, thanks for the ask 🌼🍂🍁

1 Favorite secondary character

That must be Sara. She is so wonderful. I love that she is often conflicted and that she doesn't do what others expect. She isn't entirely good or bad, she is selfish and unthoughtful, but also so very kind and smart.

7 Character you didn’t initially like/love but have now warmed up to

Henry, maybe. He is so lost and does so many stupid things, but he is also really funny. He also tries real hard to be a good friend.

17 Secondary character or pairing that needs more fanart

Felice, definitely! And Sara!

20 Dream fanfic about a secondary character and pairing that you’d love to read but don’t want to write yourself

Oh, I'd love more Sara centered fics. For instance about where she goes and what she does after season 3. I wouldn't mind if Felice, Simon and Wille were all part of her life, but she was the main character. I'd love for her to find even more agency in her life, and love, maybe. But it would have to be on her own premises this time, no sneaking around. I'd love if it contained some bickering between her and Simon, where she tells Simon off for relying too heavily on Wille, or something. She is so good at being an older sibling 😇 I have no idea about the plot, though, otherwise I could be persuaded to write it myself.

[fan-of-young-royals]

Here’s your YR ask: sometime in the future, Felice is opening her first food truck, and the different items on the menu are inspired by her different friendships. What would be on the menu?

Hi!! You sent me this ask a while ago and I am so sorry it took me this long to answer

The foods I chose are more restaurant foods then food truck foods because I couldn’t think of a theme that fit with the characters and also worked in a food truck😅

Madison- Sweet tea. Something about it feels right for Madison

Wille- Some sort of pancakes I think but, like, fancy pancakes with fruit and whipped cream. Once again I don’t have much reasoning other than it feels right

Sara- French toast! The reasoning behind this is that I struggle to make French toast but when it does work it is SO GOOD (their friendship has ups and downs but they finally have worked things out :)

Stella and Fredrika- I had a hard time with because I was struggling with something that represented their friendship but I’m thinking the yogurt with the granola and fruit and honey because it’s yummy but the yogurt is still bitter (they got along but Stella and Fredrika were never really understanding)

I hope you are having a great week!!

[frogprincesnowglobe]

7, 15, 22 for the ask game!

Hi Ms. Dalahorse. Hope your day is going well!

7: What color dominates your closet?

My closet might be less colorful than one would expect. I have a lot of black tshirts. So probably black. But I also love colorful things, like I have a lilac colored hoodie I got a couple months ago that I never take off. I also have a light blue sweater that is *so* soft.

15: Do you have any houseplants? Do any of them have names?

I used to have house plants but right now I am woefully houseplant free. I used to have this plant that I planted in high school. We put our hopes and dreams symbolically with a seed in a pot (I think it was a caladium, but i'm not sure) and grew it. Mine lasted for more than ten years before he mysteriously died. His name was Johan and he was a good friend.

22: Iced or hot drinks?

I am an iced drink kind of gal. Give me green iced tea, give me strawberry drinks, I want everything with ice involved. :D I do like hot chocolate in winter though.

[anonymousdandelion]

For the WIP guessing game: journey

I’m afraid you get a glossary entry 😂 I’ll give you the actual fic sentence that it’s attached to as well, though!

From the “Angels + Omens” WIP;

And so, not long after Pesach, the angel and demon who had once lived in a shtetl called Shtetl, and who now lived in a city called New York, had found themselves reciting Tefillat HaDerech* in a plane taking off for a place called London.

*Tefillat HaDerech — The Traveler's Prayer: a Jewish prayer for a safe journey, said when setting out on a long or potentially perilous trip.

[heliza24]

So I always tell people that a lot of season 2 of Young Royals didn’t surprise me at all, because @bluedalahorse predicted so much of it before it happened (especially the August and Sara stuff) but tonight I was organizing our shared Google drive and I found proof of her psychic abilities. She made a detailed prediction spreadsheet in DECEMBER 2021 organized by likeliness and I would like to share some of her greatest hits with you now. (Also her ranking of likeliness and how much she would enjoy each prediction coming true is very funny).

We did indeed start at the palace! And although Kristina only tries to pull him after he returns to Hillerska and spends a little time there, the spirit of this is Very Correct

And Wilhelm did indeed sweat it out!

Ok so the reason Sara and Simon are fighting is wrong but the theme is correct, and also not the Felice/Wilhelm fake dating!!! I remember thinking that this was so far fetched but it was in fact! Not!

God fucking dammit August! 😂😂😂

Here she is nailing the entire Sara/August arc

More Sara and August accuracy sandwiching something we didn’t get but I still kind of hope that we do. (She didn’t get that August was going to be bumped up so specifically in the line of succession but this feels pretty close)

And this one made me scream!!!

Ok, that’s all. Blue thinks her predictive ability for season 3 is going to be less accurate than for season 2 but I still have faith.

[bluedalahorse]

Good stuff in this post! And this is just reminder that state races are as important, if not occasionally more important, than Federal races. Also, if you’re in a Deep Blue state or district, you can always go canvass in a nearby swing state or district or raise money for candidates throughout the country and so on.

Even if you don’t have much to give, small dollar donations to state-level and local level candidates make a big difference! Those donations can be used to reach voters, and voters who vote blue down-ballot will likely vote blue up the ballot as well. The DNC tends to think that having the right celebrity candidates running for very top offices will bring people to the local races and have a “trickle down” effect. This is a thing that happened once with like… Obama. It’s not really the norm. The reality is that more enthusiasm at the local level translates to bigger Democratic gains across the board. More left-leaning candidates at the local level can also push the Democratic party further left. So get excited about your local candidates and support them in whatever way you can!

As an American who doesn’t have voting representation in Congress because *checks notes* I live in the capital and it was historically Black-majority and for the longest time Congress denied us Home Rule for racist reasons and that’s still a large part of why they deny us a representative and two senators nowadays, *takes breath* I am imploring Americans in other states to use their right to vote and get active in elections.

right now it’s almost halfway through 2023, and 2024 is an election year in the US. I have started to see a growing proliferation of posts suggesting that there is no difference between the republican and democratic parties–the exact same kind of posts I saw an awful lot of before the last major election here. I am unfollowing folks who post or reblog these sort of posts, as I consider these posts to be fascist propaganda framed as leftist discourse, designed to suppress anti-fascist votes and voters. 

[gulliblelemon]

for the writing asks: 7 and 28!

Hi!

7 your preferred writing fonts

Arial (I had to look that up!). But there’s a few I think I could tolerate. I don’t really notice it unless it’s WRONG.

28 your least favorite part of the writing process

Picking a title. I’m terrible at it, and it feels so important for grabbing people's attention and/or having them remember the story.

Thank for the ask!

Ask me about writing.

[crownedwille]

I am about to head out but I love your tags about Kristina and Wille’s relationship on that post! They are complex and I’m hoping their communication opens up in s3. I’d love to hear some more specific stories about Kristina’s youth…

another late reply i'm sorry

thank you! yes, their relationship is so complex and i'm interested to see where they're going with kristina. i don't think she will ever be the "ideal" mum and perfectly understanding and soft (and that wouldn't be realistic) and their relationship will probably always have its ups and downs and that's ok but i just don't want her to be the pure antagonist in the show...idk she's also a victim in a sense, it's all so much more complex and complicated

[saynomorefic]

Reblogging with insightful additions from @bluedalahorse on effective apologies and recovering in storytelling! This is a great way to frame it and already has me thinking of how to implement it, thank you! 💙

On Simon, apologies and healing

One thing I'm having a hard time with in writing YR fic lately: writing fix-its involving justice for Simon, not just related to Wille, but basically to every character that's hurt him (and the list is long). I have no issues getting to the scene, or what I want the outcome to be, but the how it happens has been tripping me up every time. Struggling mostly to make it feel realistic, and getting the other party to verbalize what they've done wrong while staying in character.

I realized that it's largely because we didn't see this happen in canon. Honestly, full stop. While I'm so relieved Simon and Sara made up, a large part of it was him letting go of his hurt over her initially choosing August to comfort her in their shared trauma. (She did acknowledge she felt he was right about Micke and trying to forgive people, which is sadly ironic.) And then, of course, him and Wille's trauma was tied up only by Wille renouncing his title, as though this paves over all the harm done.

I feel like that's why we see so many fics continuing to put Simon in the cycle of pain? Because we're echoing what we saw in canon, therefore writing real resolution and healing for Simon kind of stops at the moment of apology, or glazes over it completely (often times for him and Wille to get back together). I'm absolutely not blaming authors for this! I think we want to give Simon that resolution and healing. That's sort of the point I'm making here, that it's genuinely so hard to write. I wrote a whole AU to get Simon and Wille to have these real conversations, to really reckon with the privilege gap, in part because it didn't even feel possible to try in canon.

Do any other writers struggle with this? How do we get our boy out of the cycle of pain? 🥺

Also feel free to leave recs of Simon-centric fics featuring apologies/ where he gets the opportunity to actually heal. ❣️

[youngroyals-events]

Kinktober wrap-up and some news

October is over and with it, a successful first Young Royals Kinktober!

We want to profusely thank all of you who participated in any capacity, as well as those who cheered on our writers and artists with likes, comments and such.

I know you're curious to see who made a bingo, so here's the list (which can be wrong, since we're only human, so let us know if you think your name is in the wrong category).

Starting with the PARTICIPATION MEDALS 🏅. You didn't make any bingos, but we still loved that you shared your fanworks with us!

@bluedalahorse

@crownedwille

@earlgrey-lateatnight

@enjoythesilentworld

@iwouldnevergetintofanfic

@margotdanslebois

@pwdd1

@saynomorefic

@stretchoutfics

@the-words-we-sung

@vvachillessongvv

@wildcalendula

And now, the ones who made a BINGO. You're all awesome. Here, have a cookie. 🍪

@andthatisnotfake

@phneltwrites

@the-impala-is-my-home

@sapph1cyearning

Next, the ones who made a SUPER BINGO! Incredible! You can have a whole cake 🎂!

@shouldntbearevolution

@skibasyndrome

And finally, the ultra rare, ultra incredible, ultra magnificent, ULTRA BINGO! Only one person managed this feat and we're all so thankful! You can have all the treats! 🍪🎂🍑🍌🍆

@willesredlights

As for the news, well... Although we mentioned we'd take a break at the end of the year, we decided on a different, quick event by the end of the year. Stay tuned...

[fan-of-young-royals]

For the WIP game: school

Hi Blue! Thanks for the ask!

Summer was coming to an end and what better way to celebrate before school started than a sleepover?

[frogprincesnowglobe]

[heliza24]

I don’t have much to add to this except that I too wish there was more fic in the fandom about the female character that features wlw. But all of Blue’s thoughts are so interesting.

wlw in the sad swedish teens show: some thoughts

I’m going to share some stedrika thoughts, not as a meta, just as a kind of… sharing of my unsolicited personal opinions. There was a thread going around with some idea-provoking discussion, but I also feel like I’d be hijacking said thread if I weighed in. So I figured it was better to make my own post and chat there.

So I’m aro ace, but I also kind of identify with the label sapphic. I’m more gray ace than full ace, and that grayness of ace identity is 90% of the time directed toward women. I was in a romantic-sexual partnership with a woman for 2.5 years before figuring more things out. (Also, my ex was pretty toxic, so there was that.) I attended a single-sex college, continue to hang in groups of women today, and just generally exist in a social culture that leans more sapphic/wlw, homosocial, and ace. Probably the most masculinity-dominated experiences I have are logging onto my dash and watching fandom interaction that is a lot more mlm-focused than the rest of my life.

In the gap between seasons 1 and 2, I wasn’t hoping for stedrika as my wlw representation. I was hoping we would get gay or bi or ace or otherwise queer Felice. It isn’t too hard to make up a queer narrative for Felice. She connects with Wilhelm, who’s also figuring himself out, and we know how it is with the queer kids all finding one another even before they fully understand themselves what’s going on. Felice’s pursuit of Wilhelm and then pivoting to August also feels like she’s hitting the two ends of the spectrum of compulsory heterosexuality. Wilhelm is that nice, approachable boy where it’s easy to convince yourself you have a crush on him, because who wouldn’t? Also he’s a prince! August is that guy where you’re like “well if the idea of dating men is generally unpleasant all around, then dating the most unpleasant one is doing heterosexuality right, isn’t it?” Felice’s mom also puts a lot of pressure on her about boys (and that line about whose babies are royal feels like it’s something Felice would have been told growing up) in a way where you can parallel it to Kristina putting pressure on Wilhelm. There’s a lot of good queer and wlw material to work with for Felice! And I’m glad fandom hasn’t entirely given up on that, even if it doesn’t seem like canon is going that direction. (Send me your gay Felice fics where she’s the center of the story, btw. Send themmmm.)

Stedrika as wlw representation brushes up against the archetype of two femme best friends who are also roommates, one of whom is secretly pining for the other, one of whom may or may not be pining back. That archetype in its requited form is… not my favorite wlw archetype. I don’t mean I hate it, but I do mean I’m pretty “meh” about it. I read a lot of YA fiction, for both personal enjoyment and career reasons. Best-friends-to-lovers wlw comes up a lot, especially in stories where a wlw couple isn’t the center of the story. It can be enjoyable for me, if the characterization is complex enough overcome the trope itself. But I can’t help noticing how many mlm YA stories let a boy crush on the hot new boy, or someone outside his usual social circle, whereas the message for girls is “the one for you has been near you all along! Girls achieve an adventure by clicking their heels and saying There’s No Place Like Home!”

I understand that the sapphic girl with a crush on her bestie is a trope that has some basis in reality, and for some folks it can be really empowering to see those kinds of pairs get a Happily Ever After together. I also think it can be empowering for the female character with the sapphic crush to come to the realization (either through rejection or other circumstances) that her bestie isn’t going to like her back that way, but she does understand herself better now. And she’s going to use that knowledge to build herself up and explore new values and seek out new wlw relationships and join the queer revolution. Hahaha you can tell what sort of storyline I prefer. Truth be told I would be more interested in a story where Fredrika doesn’t requite Stella’s feelings and Stella has to reinvent herself than I would a story where suddenly they love each other. I’m sure the YR writing team would make the latter interesting too, but if they gave me a choice between the latter and the former and promised they would be equally well written, I’d pick the latter.

Here’s the other thing about stedrika. I don’t entirely find them boring. I do like them! This is going to sound like me being a problematic queer, maybe, but… I like the fact that they’re mean. Not in a “you go girl!” sort of way where I’m cheering on their meanness and tendency to gossip. I don’t want them to stay mean. But I do find it interesting that Stella at least is hiding some part of her authentic self, and she and Fredrika haven’t gotten to discuss something honestly, and the price they pay is lashing out at others for their authenticity, especially their authenticity around romantic feelings. I think there’s some interesting narrative questions to explore then, in terms of how do you learn to embrace others and yourself? What toll does it take, being closeted? How do you empower yourself within structures that are harming you—is hurting other people going to do it? Like gosh, that’s a whole character arc! I also think it’s really interesting how Lisa and the writing team have addressed the role that misogyny and assumptions around sex and physicality play in oppressing wlw queer folks. Like that whole discussion around what counts as “real sex” and losing one’s virginity that we see at Sara’s birthday sleepover. That was interesting to see play out onscreen and I’m glad they went there! (Send me your fics about messy stedrika, send themmmm. Send these girls on some kind of journey.)

Anyway, I’m also glad that stedrika is not the only wlw representation we have in Young Royals. Because we also have Rosh, who I absolutely adore with every fiber of my being. Rosh isn’t white or upper class, and she’s more tomboyish and comparatively less femme. She talks about her rebound after dating Yasmin/Yasmina, and there’s this wonderful sapphic chaos quality to it. She’s an openly queer girl in a best friendship with an openly queer boy, and you can tell that she and Simon lean on one another and probably came out to one another in middle school. (I think I have read this fic a few times, but I will always read more of it!) I love Rosh’s sense of justice and how committed she is to athletics and making sure Simon succeeds on the rowing team even if, as we all know, rowing isn’t a sport. Overall Rosh feels very specific and that makes her very real. Also I can’t resist a confident soccer lesbian, obviously I imprinted on Keira Knightly and Parminder Nagra in Bend It Like Beckham like every other queer girl born in the late 1980s.

Anyway. I actually think YR has a ton to offer us in terms of potential wlw representation, and interesting stories and characters that can be explored. (It has a lot to offer us in terms of female characters, period. I wish I had the time and fandom knowhow to create a female character centered ficathon. Is there any interest out there?)

The weird thing is I don’t know if I would feel confident writing this post at all if I hadn’t put in over 100k words of effort in fanfic for this fandom, most of it from female characters’ POVs. Some of that is het, sure, but I’m really, really proud of the sapphic self-discovery arc we gave Felice in Heart and Homeland. We let her struggle with her feelings at a time when she didn’t have the vocabulary for her feelings. We let Felice have a 19th century romantic friendship with Sara while also having sex and romances with other women, because lesbians can do both dammit. We let her kiss other women on the page, and do additional things beyond kissing also on the page. She was the first character we upped our rating to M for! We let her have friends-with-benefits hookups (because wlw characters shouldn’t always have to meet their forevergirl in their first girl) and we’re developing a new relationship in the upcoming chapters. (Okay, we did accidentally erase stedrika, because we wrote the first 19 chapters of our fic before season 2, and made occasional blink-and-you-miss-it references to a Stella/Henry sideplot. But let’s just say additional things are happening in the coming chapters.) I’m really happy with Felice’s storyline. I’m also happy that for a long time, I was the kid in fandom sighing and wishing there was more femslash, while feeling bad bad because I hadn’t written any myself. But now I have, and it feels a bit like achieving a Life Goal. I’m proud of myself!

And if you want to write femslash of your own, but you’ve always been a little scared or unsure of how to start? Hi. I’ll be your sounding board and your biggest cheerleader, if you want that. Tell me and we’ll have a lot of fun planning and writing! I BELIEVE IN YOU AND YOU ARE AMAZING.