#chaucer meme

[cryinginmelodrama]

this is how i imagine the wife of bath advising younger girls she meets

[dxmxuse]

Being an English major has taught me that I am truly illiterate

[midsummernightsmemes]

Troilus and Criseyde ...

[roseofnohr]

have i mentioned today that i hate chaucer

[senkuishigaymi]

GEOOFFFFREEYYYYY CHAUCCCERRRRRR

Currently studying about Geoffrey Chaucer and he is so fascinating that I might have, for the first time, actual brainrots for literary figure. I love how he is not only Great Figure because of, for example, style or choice of words, but mostly because he is genius. BUT BEHOLD. It's not the inherent kind of genius, he is genius because he has been in everywhere and befriend everyone. Like the socially intelligent main character he is.

Even in Canterbury Tales, what's fascinating is not merely his perceptible English or all sort, but the way that he CONSTRUCT a concept of pilgrimage, the way we perhaps construct a group of friends and their shenanigans, and thus make the stories appear to link with each other instead of blatanly make it compilation of tales or such. He made it appear as if we are seeing a group of different people sticking together with their own BACKSTORIES?????? also Wyf of Bathe... ???????????

Um apparently.... there is a SlidePlayer presentation that sums up all the Canterbury Tales characters... you know what that means? Someone ought to make Brutally Kin Assign you to Canterbury Tales Characters uquiz OR!!! OR someone ought to make which mutuals vibes I gave off template but with these sketches of pilgrims............

[seriously-mike]

Paging @petermorwood.

After all the comments about how “i lik the bred” sounds vaguely Chaucerian, the closest thing to the man himself weighs in… https://twitter.com/levostregc/status/853361141749170176

[gabessquishytum]

Amnesia trope.

Hob gets wonked on the head hard. Probably playing sport or doing something stupid whilst quite plastered. And it knocks out his memory. Not of who he is or anything. But everything after he became immortal. Just suddenly 1389 Hob's lived experience is all he's got. So everything is super damn confusing and he's going to start drawing the wrong kind of attention once everyone figures out that he isn't just having some kind of history nerd delusion and refusing to speak in anything but Chaucer era English and be freaked out by the sheer unending assault of a modern city.

Dream decides to look after him a bit until he recovers. Maybe ask Delirium if she can do anything to help with the brain injury. But mostly just give him a chance to look after his human and keep him from getting into trouble.

Bonus points if Johanna finds out and does all of the giving a medieval peasant Doritos memes.

This is amazing ajsjshdhdh

Obsessed with the idea of Hob walking around, talking Middle English, asking what the fuck he's wearing??? Denim??? Jeans??? He sees a car and passes out after muttering frantic prayers - luckily Dream keeps an eye on him at all times...

So Hob ends up under temporary house arrest while Jo gives him Mountain Dew and plays EDM music at him. Hob seems quite keen on the sugary snacks and nearly puts himself in a coma (it's just a bad tummy ache but he's very sad about it and won't leave Dream’s side).

Dream is admittedly enjoying this version of Hob who seems so young and naive. Its a pleasure to see him shyly glancing and batting his large brown eyes in an clumsy attempt at flirting - obviously his ardour for Dream hasn't changed, despite the memory loss.

He's forgotten how to read, so Dream has a go at teaching him. It's slow progress but Dream loves that furrow of concentration on Hob’s dear, handsome face. Of course he'll be back to normal soon enough, so there doesn't seem to be any harm in enjoying him like this for a while.

Hob finally falls asleep on Dream’s shoulder, and Dream carries him off to bed. He feels rather blessed to have had another opportunity to enjoy Hob as he was the first day they met. And it definitely gives Dream a lot to think about. Maybe it's finally time to confess his love? When Hob is back to normal, of course...

[polysprachig]

✨Langblr & Studyblr Re-Introduction✨

Hello everyone! I looked at my blog the other day and realised that all my basic info is well out-of-date, seeing as I was last active in the langblr in 2014-2018. Anyways...

about me

Maria, 32, all pronouns welcome

I've lived/studied or worked in: 🇺🇸🇩🇪🇬🇷🇧🇾🇮🇪

my background is in Germanistik & Creative Writing; CELTA-certified; & I work as an independent foreign language consultant/teacher in English and German

right now I'm working towards getting into literary translation & audio recording (literary reading/performance)

languages

Mains/Everyday English (native), German, French, Irish, Greek (passive bilingual->active since 2018/19)

Others/Select Usage Italian, Old English, Middle English, Dutch, Norwegian, Russian, some Latin (esp. Medieval)

Conlang Ätchgö

There are other others but let's just leave it at that for now.

blog goals

share my polyglot journal notes and studies from the last 5 years, both to review/follow-up on them and because I think it could be interesting to other learners

interact with people on the language learning process itself & share study tips

meet people to discuss shared interests in our shared languages (art, music, philosophy, literature, theatre, culture—kind of dark/light academia-coded, I know, and I live for it)

treat posting as a hobby, not an obligation (i.e. I tend to take hobbies and mentally turn them into chores)

things I may post about here

language and linguistics stuff, esp. mutual intelligibility/historical linguistics/poetics, literature, my translation studies et. al., IWTV meta/memes/aesthetic and my blorbos (because I can't not), writing tips/memes, Chaucer, Byron and the rest

apart from language/cultures/literature I like

good coffee/espresso, cooking, stargazing, travelling, journal writing & fanfiction

[tyrantisterror]

Wizard School Mysteries: Character Inspiration Boards

A while back one of my friends suggested I do a Character Inspiration Chart for my Wizard School Mysteries characters, which sounded like fun but also like a lot of work, so I put it off. But since the new book is on track to come out pretty soon, I really should start advertising it, and unfortunately one of the best tactics to sell your original content on the internet is to point out how much it's like other things (despite this also being one of the most popular tactics to "critique" an original work as well). And it gives me a chance to gush about media I love AND a story I've made, and you know I like to do both of those things! So, using this template by deviantart user-with-a-deactivated account SlackerArtist, let's dive into what inspired some of the characters from Wizard School Mysteries!

There will be spoilers for both WSM and the media that inspired it, by the way, so read on at your own risk.

Now, when I say "character inspiration" here, I'm talking about two things: inspiration for a character design, and inspiration for characterization/personality. Some of the examples listed will be here purely because they designed the look/aesthetic vibe of the character in question, others because they inspired the character's personality, and some who did both.

I'm also not going to cover EVERY character in WSM because hoo boy there's a LOT of them even with only two books so far, and a good number of them would not have enough separate sources of inspiration to fill out this meme. So we're just going to have the 8 Meddlesome Youths here, and maybe later I'll tackle some of the other members of the supporting cast.

Which means we should obviously begin with:

James Chaucer

I'm going to talk about the three anime boys on the left hand side first, both because they're probably the most important influences on good ol' James here, and because they share a unique status as being Video Game Player Characters. From top to bottom, they're Yuu Narukami (i.e. the player character of Persona 4, who was named Yuu Narukami in the first anime adaptation of that game, and who I'll be calling Yuu from here on out), Joker (i.e. the player character from Persona 5), and Byleth (i.e. the player character from Fire Emblem 3 Houses).

Now, I'm sure some might be raising an eyebrow at me citing the player characters from some RPGs as influences, given that RPG players characters are, well, "cipher characters" - i.e. designed to not have one single characterization, but rather a variety of options the player can choose so they can feel like they're in the story. A cipher character is supposedly meant to be lacking in substance on their own, or so a lot of RPG writers seem to assume, as any display of personality could clash with what the player might be thinking in their own head. I think the ultimate example of what people think of when they think of cipher characters is the player character from Fallout 4, who, no matter what situation you are in, refuses to show even a shred of personality in any of their interactions, always talking with a tone of dull surprise and never having any unique turn of phrases or inflections when speaking. That kind of character is PRETTY BLAND, and definitely not going to inspire characterization in others because, well, they have no character.

(the Silver Shroud quest in Fallout 4 is a must because it's literally the only way to get any dialogue options that show even a smidge of personality, even if that personality is just "a really bad Christian Bale Batman impression")

Not to get on a soapbox, but while I'd definitely agree that a lot of RPG player characters are written like this, I don't think they should be, and in fact I think the best RPGs do not do it this way. The best RPGs, in my opinion, write their player characters in a way where you naturally have a reason to inhabit their head and share their feelings. I'll take an example that's not listed here, Hawke from Dragon Age 2. To get into Hawke's head, they show you the opening scene where Hawke and their family are running from a disaster overtaking their home, and arrive in the new to them (and to you, the player) city of Kirkwall. They don't have money (just as you don't have in-game currency), they don't have great lodgings, they're desperate. A character approaches them with an offer of jobs to improve their circumstances, and you, being int he same boat as your player character, get to take it and live their life from there. The dialogue you can have is filled with choices that allow you to color who exactly Hawke is, but despite the choices being different in many ways, they're all written with a voice that is authentically Hawke's, rather than Generic Player Character, but you don't mind because, well, you sympathize with Hawke, because the game makes sure you feel what they're feeling.

(Pulling this off takes more writing skill than just writing a bland character, though, which is why a lot of companies don't go this route.)

So, like, there's an art to writing a good RPG protagonist, right, and understanding of that art can be applied to writing protagonists in less interactive forms of fiction, which is where the influence comes in here. Yuu, Joker, and Byleth are all similar in a few key respects, and one of them is that they're all designed to let you into their heads with ease. They're contemplative characters, deep thinkers and feelers, people who observe others closely and have a deep desire to understand and help the world around them, and all of that was something I wanted James Chaucer to be as well.

The writers of Persona 4 talked about how they modeled Yuu Narukami off of the Blue Rangers in Super Sentai (i.e. the Japanese show that was recut to become Power Rangers) rather than the Red Rangers, giving him a personality that was quiet, thoughtful, and reserved for the other, more bombastic characters in Persona 4 to easily bounce off of. Fans have joked about how Yuu's catchphrase is "calm down," and to be fair, he not only gets it as a dialogue option a lot in the game (including in a couple of VERY important scenes), but it sort of succinctly shows why he's the right person to be leading things in his story - when people's unbalanced emotions literally turn into monsters, having a person who specializes in getting people to properly manage their feelings is crucial. The secret sauce of Yuu, though, is that he isn't really less eccentric than the characters around him, his eccentricity is just a lot quieter than theirs. He might not have big wild takes and freak outs like the rest of the cast, but sometimes the lack of a big reaction to weird shit is a lot more strange, and in many ways Yuu's unflappable nature comes off as more weird than anything else around him. He is, simply put, quietly deranged.

Joker from Persona 5 was meant to contrast Yuu in key respects - namely, his weirdness is a lot more up front, with a more extensive list of out-there responses in dialogue at his disposal. He's quiet, but less in a "cool and collected" way and more in the "I'm pretty sure that guy staring off into space is hearing circus music in his head right now" sort of way. True to his codename, Joker is a bit of a clown, albeit one that knows when to get serious and how to be dangerously effective not in spite of, but because of his slightly off kilter view of the world. He's a "that's crazy enough to work" kind of schemer, which, given the horrible situations his game throws at him (and, by extension, you the player), is a big relief. To deal with impossible odds, you need someone who thinks outside the box.

Byleth from Fire Emblem is a character who's had a huge part of his identity stolen from him since birth - namely, his ability to express emotions. He's viewed by many as stoic and unfeeling, and even his own father fears that he might be lacking in humanity. But then the game thrusts him into a nurturing role, making him a teacher at an academy whose students are all more or less his age, and forcing him to not only lead others, but to open up to them in the process of doing so. It culminates in one of the most emotionally powerful moments I've ever experienced in a video game, where - SPOILERS! - Byleth's father dies. Byleth, for the first time in the game, begins to cry, and his dying father says, "To think, the first time I saw you cry, your tears would be for me. It's sad, and yet I'm happy for it." You, the player, who begin the game with no attachment to any character in this world, have developed that attachment by this point, and have it recognized by one of the characters as they make their exit - you have, through playing the game, come to know what Byleth is feeling, share his grief, and are likely sharing his tears at that moment, and the game acknowledges this as an achievement on your part and his. You are the identity that was stolen from Byleth, and by joining him you've completed him, even up to and including his grief. It's just a beautiful moment, and a way this character is written to naturally draw you, the player/reader, into the story.

I wanted James to have that same element to him, that way to draw you in and make you share his investment in the tale by making you share his feelings as you go through this story. I gave him the quiet unflappability of Yuu, the off-kilter worldview and tendency to look for "crazy enough to work" solutions of Joker, and the crisis of identity of Byleth, while also giving him the deep contemplative nature and desire to understand and help others that defines all three. The aim was that James would not only be someone you can sympathize with, but that his status at the start of the book would provide an easy jumping in point for you when you read it, and that you'd feel comfortable when the story focuses on him (which it does often, but not exclusively).

Ok, enough about video game people. Let's talk about cartoons and comics.

Wizards in mythology and folkore are defined by thinking their way out of problems rather than just using brute force, and so I wanted all of my Meddlesome Youths to show different ways people can do that. In James's case, I wanted him to have guile, and ultimate my model for showing that was Bugs Bunny. Bugs is never the strongest character in the room, and sometimes he isn't even the smartest in terms of booksmarts - both Marvin the Martian and Wile E Coyote were introduced as villains who could technically outthink Bugs on a sheer scientific level. Bugs's advantage was his ability to hone in on what makes his enemies act foolishly, and exploit it as viciously and thoroughly as possible. I tried to emulate that with James's approach to problem solving, and to that end I also tried to stick to Bugs's rules of conduct - namely, James doesn't pick fights, but once someone has picked one with him, he will do everything he can to make them regret it, and often just by turning the situation into one where his antagonists torture themselves without knowing it.

Peter Parker/Spider-Man was also an influence on James's character, as he is on 90% of sci-fi/fantasy/horror fiction that doubles as a coming of age story and was written after the 1960's. In James's specific case, he was most inspired by the Ultimate Spider-Man version of Peter, in part because that's the version I read during my own teen coming-of-age years. Like that Peter, he's sweet, compassionate, driven to protect and help people even when it comes at his own expense, and maybe a tad too snarky for his own good.

John Eggbert from Homestuck doesn't have a whole lot in common with James personality-wise, but was part of the big collage of images I made when figuring out the archetypes for the Mystery Solving Teens genre, and I think James's affinity for blue clothing, cowlick stricken black hair, and glasses all might have come directly from John.

Finally, while he wasn't consciously on my mind when I planned out and began writing Wizard School Mysteries, in retrospect I see a lot of Arnold from Hey Arnold in James. Hey Arnold was a show I watched a LOT as a kid and was very formative on my tastes in stories ever since in a lot of ways (I think I can at least partially blame my obsession with angry, troubled female characters on Helga Patacki, for example), and the titular protagonist is defined by he compulsion to understand and help other people with their problems. Like, a lot of what drew me to characters like Yuu, Joker, and Byleth was planted in my mind by Arnold, that deep drive to know why others are hurting and to try and help them sort out their lives even when you could easily walk away and leave them to suffer. It's not a common trait for male protagonists to have, either - that kind of nurturing personality is far more commonly given to women, and even then only so stoic male characters can have a surrogate mom to hug them when they're sad. So it's very compelling to me when a male character exhibits it, and it was something I wanted to be a defining trait for James as well.

Jesus crumbs, that was a lot. Let's get to the next kid.

Ivan's archetype in mystery solving teens-dom is "the goofy guy," i.e. the member of the team who's more there for moral support than anything else. His archetype for wizardom is, well, let's call it "the failure wizard" - i.e. a wizard who, due to self esteem issues, really has trouble performing magic with any consistency.

And I decided the perfect intersection of those two archetypes was Schmendrick from The Last Unicorn, a wizard whose mastery of spellcraft leaves a lot to be desired, but whose loyalty and resourcefulness more than make up for it. Schmendrick was such a big influence, in fact, that Ivan's starting outfit is like 90% his by volume. He's player 2 Schmendrick. Schmendrick: the Teen Years.

Continuing the Persona 4 influence (I've said it before and will say it again: WSM is more of a riff on Persona than anything else), Yosuke from P4 fills the same mystery solving teens role as Ivan, and is also tied to the same Tarot arcana of The Magician, which showed how the Magician can manifest as a character in a story instead of just, like, a card with vague meanings attached to it - namely the idea of it being a character who's loyal and helpful to the Protagonist, but also tends to overreach. Yosuke is a kid with a lot of worries about his own usefulness that manifest in him trying to pull off big schemes with the group to prove his worth - something that Ivan does too in a slightly more lowkey, neurotic way.

Shaggy is, like, the Prime example of The Goofy Guy in these kinds of stories, so it was inevitable his influence would be here too, though it mostly ended up as aesthetics - Ivan doesn't have the gluttony or cowardice that define Shaggy's characterization, but does have the anxiety as well as the, well, shaggy/sloppy appearance.

Rincewind from Discworld, meanwhile, is another great example of a Failure Wizard, and especially one who keeps being thrust into perilous and world-saving scenarios despite his apparent incompetence. Literally being Fate's plaything, Rincewind has both the worst and best luck imaginable, which is something I've tried to dole out on Ivan in equal measure.

Ivan is also inspired by a lot of folk/fairy tale "fool" heroes, i.e. characters who are thought of as dumb or stupid by others in the stories they star in, but who show a remarkable creativity and guile when facing magical bullshit that others would never think of, which allows them to win the day against all odds. I've represented this folklore archetype with Jack from the original Broadway cast of Into the Woods, because why not?

Finally, because anime is such a big influence on this series, I'd be remiss not to mention the Shonen take on the concept of the Goofy Guy, because while Dragon Ball and Yu Gi Oh may not be mystery solving teens stories, they do nonetheless sport Goofy Guys in addition to their main heroes, and those guys function just as their mystery solving teen counterparts do. For Ivan in particulalr, Joey Wheeler and Krillin are the most direct influence, as they're both characters who never outright win the day on their own, but always play a vital part in making sure the hero can come in and finish the job.

With Gretchen, I started with Velma from Scooby Doo as a baseline and tried to figure out how many extremes I could push her into, which resulted in her going from "the smart guy in the group" to "the mad scientist in the group." She picked up some acerbic qualities from the Mystery Inc. incarnation of Velma specifically, which ultimately drew in other influences as a result.

If Ivan is Teenage Schmendrick, then Gretchen is teenage Molly Grue, the sharp-tongued cynic with a secret idealistic streak she tries to hide. And because I'm a kid of the 90's, that also drew in some Daria qualities as well - Gretchen's the snarker on the sidelines a lot because of these two, and also cares more than she lets on because of them too.

Her more Faustian ambitions and tendency to take her genius to "mad" levels, however, comes from two other characters: Futaba from Persona 5, who is initially shy and withdrawn but reveals herself to be an eccentric and somewhat terrifyingly powerful hacker once befriended, and Rose Lalonde, who begins the story of Homestuck seeming like the most intelligent and rational member of our mystery solving teens, only to go very much into mad scientist/dark wizard territory as the plot progresses. Together they take the potential for unhinged behavior you can see in Gretchen's other influences and let it off the leash.

The black mage and Wizardmon here, on the other hand, are purely visual influences - I wanted Gretchen to have an air of mystery about her, to seem just a bit ominous, while also still being oddly charismatic and likable in her own unique way, so I gave her the look of some of my favorite mysterious wizard character designs of all time.

So our first inspiration for Margot is a bit of an oddball, as it's less an influence on design or personalty and more, like, a situation that both characters are in. I watched... way too much of Inuyasha as a teen, and it left me with a lot of frustration about the great setups it had for its characters and story and the very bad delayed payoffs that ensured those setups died slow, agonizing deaths over the course of way too many episodes. Miroku's in particular stuck with me: here's a guy who has a literal black hole in his hand, one that can solve a LOT of problems very easily, but will kill him (supposedly) if he uses it too much. Because Inuyasha was allergic to ever making its setups pay off, it quickly became clear that Miroku's fears of dying to his black hole hand were weightless, because if the narrative ever cashed that check it'd have to, like, advance the plot to some small degree, and Inuyasha can't do that! No advancement in any meaningful direction ever, that's the Inuyasha motto! So Miroku inspired Margot in the sense that I wanted to do that plot element right - give a character a shitload of offensive power that comes with some nasty drawbacks, and then, like, actually show those drawbacks.

(You know how Inuyasha dealt with the fact that it could never actually pay off the drama of Miroku's hand but also didn't want him to solve every problem with his black hole hand? Bees. Demon bees. If he used his black hole hand, he'd swallow some demon bees and oh boy, they'd sting him good! So he never used it again.)

Ok, back to more traditional influences. I knew I wanted Margot to be the muscle of my group of mystery solvers, but I wanted to avoid my usual tendency to paint the muscle as a boisterous bruiser. I love writing boisterous bruisers, don't get me wrong! No Sympathies has one in Alichino, and ATOM had, like, EVERY kaiju more or less as well as a good number of supporting cast members fill the role. They're fun to write! Easy to write, too, which is why I wanted to avoid it this time. I wanted to challenge myself to show a different shade of "token tough guy" in my cast. And, since WSM is a Persona pastiche more than anything else, I looked to a Persona character for inspiration - namely, Makoto Niijima from Persona 5. When we're introduced to Makoto, she's very prim, proper, and soft-spoken, someone who thinks very rationally and proves to be a good detective in her own right. When she's recruited to the party, though, we see another side of her - namely, Makoto has repressed anger and a desire to solve problems in a more visceral and bombastic way. She's never outright boisterous, but she can tell a fucker off when pushed, and is also the token RPG character who brings fists to a tank fight and wins. Those are always the best characters. So that informed a good deal of Margot's character - I wanted Margot to be calm, collected, maybe even a little elegant, but very clearly capable of and willing to put a motherfucker in the ground if the situation calls for it.

Yor Forger's inclusion on here is funny because I didn't start watching Spy x Family until after I'd started writing Wizard School Mysteries, but when I did I saw a lot of what I was gunning for in Margot reflected in her, and I think Yor's bled into Margot's characterization a bit. Some of Margot's goofier moments come from Yor, as do some of her more humorously cutthroat ones - the juxtaposition of a character who's very sweet but also will absolutely end a person without hesitation if they threaten someone she loves is just very satisfying.

Edelgard's influence on Margot continues the theme of "female characters who will not hesitate to use violence to protect what they love and to right injustices they've noticed" that we've got going here, but also adds an important aesthetic element: namely, both she and Margot are villain coded. Tragic backstories, powers that come with terrible side effects regarding their physical health, outfits that are scream I Am the Big Bad Evil Guy, they're meant to scream villain - hell, Margot even gets an evil looking left hand, something that's literally AND figuratively sinister. I love it when heroes have villain coding, it's something that always makes me giddy.

Susie from Deltarune is also villain-coded and also a character who's influence on Margot began after I started the series - while I knew of Deltarune before starting the series, I hadn't actually gotten off my ass to play it until well after writing the first draft of the first book. But I love Susie's whole arc, being this ominous, terrifyingly huge girl with a menacing aura about her who's slowly revealed to just be troubled in a very real, mundane way, and who has a good heart when you break down her walls.

Rogue from X-Men Evolution (yes specifically that incarnation, it's the only time an X-Men adaptation has managed to consistently hold my interest) was sort of a subconcious influence, but one that I can't help noticing in retrospect. Powers connected to deadly physical condition? Check. Seems moody and evil-ish at first glance but actually a sweetheart looking for emotional connections? Check. Goth? Check!

Devi D. from Johnny the Homicidal Maniac and I Feel Sick fits a lot of those same inspiration points too, but I think her influence on Margot was primarily in terms of appearances - the reason why Margot has a big, aquiline nose and that big ol' pony tail in particular, as well as the goth trappings.

So... the seed of Rodrigo's character was planted in my brain upon my first replay of Persona 5, where I decided to spend more time with Yusuke in my party - in my first playthrough I left him out of the party after his introductory arc was over and just never really put him back in. Keeping him around more often meant I got to know his character better, and I found myself liking him a lot more than I did the first time around - this very serene guy who loves art to an eccentric degree, and perhaps a bit up his own ass about it but in a lovable way. I liked him enough that my brain finally said to me, "You know, it kind of sucks he's not a romantic option in this game." I mean, I wouldn't have picked him if he was, but still, in a better world, you could have dated Yusuke in Persona 5. I dunno, I just think Yusuke deserves to love and be loved.

Since The Muscle in mystery solving teens groups is usually a boy but is a girl in WSM, I thought it might be fun if The Beauty was a boy instead of the traditional girl. One way to do that would have been to make a very masculine man, I suppose, but I wanted Rodrigo to be a literally pretty boy. To that end, I kinda... basically made him a gender-swapped Esmeralda from Disney's Hunchback adaptation? The dark skin with the green eyes is a striking look!

Rodrigo's dynamic with James is something I discovered in the process of writing the first book. I knew I wanted there to be friction between them at first, born out of mutual misunderstanding rather than either one being a bad room-mate, but I wasn't sure how their friendship would develop until I got into it. I think in some ways Rodrigo is very much the Watson to James's (significantly less arrogant) Sherlock Holmes, which I've started to lean into now that I'm three books deep into this eight book series.

Rodrigo's wizard archetype - at least at the start of the series - is the evil chancellor/scheming vizier, the courtier who has magic powers and sinister hidden motivations. Obviously his actual personality subverts this, but visually I wanted that evil chancellor coding - which I think, in a roundabout sort of way, put Hubert from Fire Emblem Three Houses in my mind. Hubert's a great character - a 20 year old who dresses and acts like a Dracula and is constantly looming around the heir to the Adrestrian Empire like a devil on her shoulder. And he's even better when you learn that him looking and acting like a Dracula isn't an example of the character designers lacking subtlety, but a conscious and deliberate choice on his part. He's a guy who fully wants to be the scheming chancellor who's got his hands in many sinister pies - but he's also completely and fully devoted to his future empress, and only wishes to get his hands dirty so she doesn't. Like, I think my tendency to write Rodrigo as the friend who's willing to bring up flaws in the gang's plans and be a bit of a cynic for their safety, it's the influence of Hubert.

Visually I'm slowly moving Rodrigo towards the fashion trends of Red Mages from Final Fantasy, i.e. the sort of dashing, swashbuckling, princely kind of adventure wizards. That's why he got a bycocket hat in book 2 - baby steps!

I need to revisit Yu Yu Hakusho, but I remember watching just as much of it as I did Inuyasha while also being a lot less frustrated with it. And I specifically remember the main quartet of heroes in the show - Yusuke Urameshi, Kuwabara, the guy who was like Vegeta if he was in his twenties and shopped at Hot Topic, and finally Kurama, the pretty boy demon with the rose whip who was, like, just a solid dude with an intimidating amount of elegance to him, which I think was what I had in mind when making Rodrigo. So maybe the seed was planted even before I played Persona 5...

Finally, Myotismon is just here because I was playing Digimon Cyber Sleuth while trying to figure out where exactly I drew Rodrigo's fashion sense from initially, only for me to look at him and go, "Oh, yeah, Digimon informed 90% of what I find cool in character designs, obviously I was cribbing from them."

Obviously Serena Takeuchi was inspired by Sailor Moon. Obviously. Her first name is the same as Sailor Moon's in the English dub, her last name is the creator of Sailor Moon, she's a magical girl, we don't have to labor this point.

As I started developing her beyond "an anime style magical girl in a pretty bog standard vaguely medieval european fantasy setting" pitch, Serena started picking up some personality traits from Persona 4's Rise, namely having a perky yet mischievous personality, an affinity for the color pink, and a sort of pop star charisma. Design-wise, meanwhile, I wanted her to look like a character from a 90's anime that takes place in (Japan's idea of) a vaguely medieval european fantasy setting, like Record of Lodoss War or Slayers.

And that last one had a big effect, because the minute I gave Serena's outfit some elements of Lina Inverse, I think I accidentally poured some of Lina's personality into her as well. Serena went from "kinda quirky" in my mind to outright manic, a bubbly, joyful young woman who laughs in the face of danger because it means she gets to kick someone's ass with sparkles and glitter. That in turn pulled in some elements of Ann Takimaki from Persona 5 as well, since Ann is basically like Rise is Rise was more willing to throw hands.

One of my friends noted after reading the first book that Serena reminded him of Hilda from Fire Emblem Three Houses, and while that wasn't intentional I can definitely see it in retrospect - both bubbly, both extremely feminine yet very good at laying out a punkass when they need to, both a bit cheeky in their social interactions but in a lovable rascal way.

Finally, Utena... ok, so, to my deep regret, I did not watch Revolutionary Girl Utena before writing and publishing Book 2 of Wizard School Mysteries, which is a fucking shame because that was the book that had a tournament arc and would have been so ripe for an explicit Utena reference or two. Missed opportunities, man - this one felt almost as bad as not having seen Wizard People Dear Reader before writing the first WSM book, and thus making it the only one in the series that won't have a stealthy Wizard People Dear Reader reference in it (did you guys find the one in book 2? Keep an eye out for one in book 3!).

Where was I? Oh, right. So I didn't get to intentionally reference RGU in the book of this series where it would make the most sense to, and I didn't want to force a reference either, but upon writing book 3... well, I dunno, I think it may have leaked into aspects of Serena and Gretchen's relationship, just a tad. Maybe tell me if you see it too.

The biggest and most obvious influence for Charlotte is, well, Charlotte from Charlotte's Web. I mean, c'mon, they have the same name, they're both friendly spiders, we don't need to dig deeper than that do we?

Design-wise, she takes a lot from both the Transformers Animated take on Blackarachnia (namely those extra arms sticking out of her back instead of along the sides of her body like most many-armed characters in fiction) and Arukenimon's human form, i.e. a spider-themed witch lady.

Personality-wise, though, she's a bit more all over the map. The Little Mermaid was sort of the kernel of her character - i.e. a nonhuman who's obsessed with the human world, even if her attempt to know more about it proves hazardous to her health. I also drew influence from Elizabeth, the Velvet Room station attendant from Persona 3 and, like, the only character in that game that managed to pique my interest (all the others felt like rough drafts of the characters in Persona 4 and 5, sorry!). Elizabeth is... ambiguously inhuman, and at least is removed enough from humanity to be fascinated by things in the mortal world that we find mundane, like wishing fountains and jungle gyms. Her naievete about our world is balanced out by her high intelligence and in particular her much-better-than-the-player's knowledge of how Supernatural Bullshit works, which is something I wanted to put at play with Charlotte - she might be ignorant of certain realities in the mortal world, but makes up for it with knowledge about Fairyland.

Sally and Kiki come in with regards to Charlotte's attitude towards others vs. herself - like them, Charlotte is willing to try some truly daring and taxing shit to help her friends or even just, like, light acquaintances. At the same time, she asks for very little - and expects even less - for herself. There's a special sympathetic tragedy in how Sally thinks her dream of a better life with the person she loves is completely out of her reach, yet constantly does amazing things just to make his and other people's lives a little happier anyway. I view Charlotte as having a similar sort of tragic strength.

I started this writing project several years before the Terf Queen went full mask off, so yes, in the early stages - back when this was called "Untitled Mystery Solving Teens Project" instead of Wizard School Mysteries - the kids from Herby Porber were in the big collage I made of eight different character archetypes in this genre, with Draco Malfoy being in the eight archetype - the Rival. In the MANY years of gestating between then and when I finally started plotting out Wizard School Mysteries proper, pretty much all of the core eight meddlesome youths had moved very far away from the influence of their Harry Potter archetypal counterparts. Except one.

Polybeus.

But, even then, Polybeus isn't really based on the Draco Malfoy that the Terf Queen wrote, or even the one from the movies based on her books. No, he's based on the spoof version of Draco that appeared in A Very Potter Musical and its sequels, the one that finally helped me understand what on earth made all the goth girls I knew in high school think Draco was boyfriend material. A Draco who's a dick, yes, a real asshole with serious issues in fact, but genuinely has a good heart deep down and kind of gets the worst of it in all his evil schemes more than anyone else. A Draco Malfoy with Skeletor energy, basically. That Draco does not exist in the books as written by the Terf Queen, but it would be kind of cool, wouldn't it, to take that basic idea and give it a different story to live out in?

And since I'm a Spider-Man nerd, there was another character that immediately came to mind when thinking of "What if Draco Malfoy was actually sympathetic and three-dimensional?" - Flash Thompson. See, the secret sauce for Flash Thompson in the comics and, like, the rare adaptations that decided Spider-Man's non supervillain supporting cast should get decent screentime, is that he ISN'T a one note bully. He's actually a pretty decent guy, for the most part - he and Peter just really dislike each other because they're teenagers who, based on a few fleeting interactions, decided each other was a dick, and have treated each other as such ever since. A notable fact is that while Flash thinks Peter is an asshole, he fucking LOVES Spider-Man, because Flash is a good enough person to realize Spider-Man is a hero no matter what the newspapers say.

Oh, and hey, remember me saying I watched a lot of Yu Yu Hakusho, but it was long ago and I don't remember much of it? Well, one thing I for sure remember is the character growth of Kuwabara, who begins the series as a hated and vocally contentious rival of the hero, Yusuke Urameshi. However, when Yusuke gets killed by a truck in the beginning of the series, we see Kuwabara crash his funeral in tears, claiming to be furious that Yusuke died before they could settle their score, but clearly feeling a lot more than just anger at the death of the one kid who he had the most meaningful relationship with at school. As the show went on, Kuwabara becomes Yusuke's staunchest ally, never the most powerful person in the room but always willing to hold the line until Yusuke can save the day. It's a great damn arc and left a lasting impact on me - the power of introducing a character as kind of a one-note asshole foil to the hero, only for him to gradually turn into a loyal and inspiring ally.

Of course, for Polybeus to pull off that arc, he has to establish himself as an obnoxious rival first, which is where I went to one of the best for inspiration: Gary Oak/Blue from Pokemon, a snide fucker who keeps popping up when you least expect it on your adventure to talk shit to your face, get his shit wrecked by your team of overleveled monsters, and then saunter away still acting like he's leagues better than you. Perfectly punchable, no notes.

And when you've got anime rivals on the brain, it's hard not to think of Vegeta too, arguably the most iconic of them all. An aspect of him that got absorbed into Polybeus was his obsession with a culture of conquerors and warriors that our hero cannot bring himself to give a single shit about, which I think is just a very funny dynamic. "YOU WILL NEVER DEFEAT ME, FOR I COME FROM ROME, THE GREAT EMPIRE THAT SHALL RULE THE EARTH!" "Yeah cool buddy, can I deck you in the schnoze now?"

Kanji from Persona 4 was an influence less on Polybeus's personality (which is no slight on Kanji, Kanji fucking rules, easily one of the top 3 characters in Persona 4) and more on his dynamic with the rest of the group. Being a delinquent, Kanji speaks roughly and is prone to angry outbursts whenever he feels threatened, which is all the time basically where social situations are concerned, and so it takes a while for the other party members to be comfortable around him. Eventually, however, they realize his bark is much worse than his bite, and Kanji in turn finds he feels safe enough around them to let his walls down, and that's when he goes from "the loud angry guy" in the group to one of the best friends in your player character's social circle. Again, I love the turn around of that character arc - the way it makes you as an audience member suddenly have to reflect on and critique your own expectations and biases.

Finally, if James's approach to problem solving comes from Bugs Bunny, then Polybeus's approach to problem-causing has to be from Daffy Duck - all born from a volatile and contradictory cocktail of unearned pride and overwhelming self doubt and set aflame by arrogant over-reaching.

And that's it! For now... I may have made charts for some of the other characters, but I think we've all had our fill for the moment, don't you?

[sachermorte]

already dressed for a fancy event I'm going to in four hours because I love to dress like a conservative shitbag for no good reason but I'm very much reenacting the meme of the whitest dude you know in a suit on his way to his corporate job listening to gangster deutschrap

fun fact about my outfit today: the pin is called a becket star, and was traditionally worn by those who had made a pilgrimage to canterbury, much as in chaucer's canterbury tales

[shieldandarrow]

Meme that my FC was passing around

From Top L to Bottom R:

Midoriya Izuku (MHA)

Freddie Mercury's (Real Life)

Chaucer (A Knight's Tale)

Ryan and Sharpay Evans (High School Musical)

Hawks (MHA)

John Harkness (Doctor Who)

[i-fucked-your-milkshake]

do you have any tips for doing lit in grad school?

Stay curious. Take classes in areas you might not have interest in—if you’d asked me before I started if I would end up writing a thesis on Chaucer I would’ve laughed in your face, and here I am, writing a thesis on Chaucer.

There will be a moment where you realize that everything you’ve been reading across all your classes is starting to synthesize into a greater personal theory and that’s a marvelous experience. A fringe theory you read about in Rhetoric will be suddenly applicable in ways you couldn’t have imagined. Don’t fight that. Roll with it. See where it takes you. That’s where the magic happens.

Biggest thing though is time management. There will be weeks on weeks where you’re doing nothing but reading and writing. You’ll take a breaking from reading by writing; you’ll take a break from writing by reading. It’s exhausting. Leave room for the personal. Leave time for friends and family and self. I have a personal rule where I HAVE to have a personal book, regardless of what’s on my plate, so that I can remember why I did this.

Talk to profs. Set up meetings to discuss next semester offerings. Ask them questions about things they mention but don’t get into. Engage with them. So much of the graduate experience comes outside of the classroom. (Often, class feels like it gets in the way of the work, actually.) Talking to professors is a big part of that. They can guide you in ways they can’t in class—point you to books and theories and ideas that will expand your repertoire.

Similarly, talk to other students. I set up a summer book club for me a few other students and that morphed into a sort of intellectual collective where we all read and comment on each other’s papers even if we’re not in the same classes. Now we all gas each other up when we’re feeling low.

And you WILL feel low. You’ll be looking down a week where you’ve got 60pgs of essays due across three classes and have no idea how you’re going to get it done. You’ll be writing your essay and become beset by feelings of imposter syndrome. But you deserve your place in the program. You were not admitted to the program lightly. Your acceptance was not a mistake. You BELONG there. Having a network of friends is vital. They’ll remind you of that when all you want to do is cry. They’ll lift you up so you can do the work even if you think you can’t.

The group chat has the best niche memes, so join that. And there will be one. Someone in your class is in it. It’s probably a GroupMe. Find it.

And remember: it is insanely fun. Even the weeks where it feels like you’re getting your ass kicked? It’s fun. You’re going to improve as a writer, as a reader, and as an argument constructor. You’re gonna grow in wild ways. You’re gonna start saying shit like “ontology” and “praxis” and a world of thought is going to open up. Embrace it. It’ll be over soon and you’ll have accomplished something BALLER AS FUCK.

Hope this helps.

[laiqualaurelote]

🦈 or 👻 for the fanfic ask meme!

🦈 Which character is the toughest to write?

Eli Whipp, from The English. His speech is so terse and clipped that I usually end up cutting half the lines I've written for him (and then panicking that there are nearly no lines left and putting some words back). It reminds me of this character called Dick Foley in Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest, of whom Hammett writes: "He saved all the words he could." I have learnt a lot about economy through writing Eli, though. In general I find Americans harder to write - Ted is very difficult for me too and so I rarely do anything from his point of view.

👻 What is your wildest headcanon?

My headcanon for The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret, which I never wound up mentioning, is that Trent's late mother was a mediaevalist and Cressida is named for her (she was an expert on Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde). Trent's stepmother is a hairdresser named Sheila and Trent behaved appallingly to her at first because he used to be an enormous snob (having an academic for a mother did not help) but they've worked around it and now she cuts his hair.

Thank you for these asks!

[ramoth13]

But, in all actuality, that's what we ALWAYS do.

I have pointed out a million times in classrooms (both as student and as professor) that THE Bard, Shakespeare, while a genius, makes fart jokes, dick jokes, sex jokes, and many other obscene jokes besides constantly, but academics and scholars treat him as though he is the most serious aristocratic writer to have ever lived.

Geoffrey Chaucer is considered by some as one of the greatest medieval writers of all time, but read the Miller's Tale (part of the Canterbury Tales) and you might find yourself blushing like a sheltered pubescent learning about sex for the first time.

And let us not forget the fact that before they were considered "classics" Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling, Mark Twain, and even Charles Dickens all wrote for young people/kids. Many (and in some cases all) of their stories were for kids, the equivalent of today's Sesame Street or Bluey (both excellent shows that should be critically engaged with). The Hobbit, now exalted as one of the most influential "adult" fantasy novels of all time (it is), is at its core, a children's story. It's why it is so entirely different from the Lord of the Rings.

Frankenstein (AKA The Modern Prometheus) was a serendipitously published horror story inspired by a man known to have drug-fueled dreams in which he heard poetry spoken to him.

Scholarship and the academic study of bar tunes, pulp fiction, comedy plays, and cartoons are all elements that show what critical engagement is all about; the study of the HUMANITIES is not limited to high-brow, high society "great" works of art. The study of humanity shouldn't be reserved for anything, but given to every aspect. Critical engagement works at every level, and we must remember that there are only two reasons that this has not always been the case: first, because education has never before been so readily available to so many, and secondly, because as "high-brow" arts (poetry, orchestral music, art, opera, etc.,) were becoming more open to a public that could understand and enjoy them, an effort was made to eradicate any art that might bridge the social classes. Shakespeare MUST be done only in middle-English, the kind that the general populace wouldn't understand without the proper education. Beautiful scenic art gave way to abstract art, art that "someone like you just wouldn't understand" and suddenly no one put out/sponsored any operas in English... why is that? Is English not allowed in an opera? Most of the time only the well-educated in the English speaking western societies could speak more than one language. See the trick?

Art that inspires education is beautiful, but nothing should be excluded from the humanities; memes, jokes, kids cartoons, and tiktok are all part of it, as they should be.

Critically engage with all of it!

I look forward to being either way too old or beyond the grave as Bluey is discussed with sincere and passionate vigor and articulating how and why it is the artistic genius it is.

nothing brings me more joy than critically engaging with media that was clearly not designed with critical engagement in mind. it’s the media studies equivalent of like, idk, trying to skateboard up a flight of stairs.

[teachingmycattoread]

Things We've Yelled About This Episode #3.9

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Gawain Poet (all quotations from the Simon Armitage translation)

Merlin (2008-2012)

The Sword in the Stone (1963)

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

Geoffrey Chaucer (wiki)

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (wiki)

Beowulf (our episode here)

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, J. R. R. Tolkien; read by Terry Jones (audible)

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Simon Armitage

"...alliteration is the warp and weft of the poem, without which it is just so many fine threads", p. viii, Introduction to the above

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, J. R. R. Tolkien

Beowulf, George Jack

De Excidio Britanniae, Gildas

The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien

Gandalf; The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien

Beowulf, Seamus Heaney

Beowulf, Maria Dhavana Headley

chivalry etymology (wiktionary)

The campfire quote Eli is thinking of here

Leon Gautier's rules of chivalry here

Chosen people - Eli is referring to this post

Culhwch and Olwen (wiki)

Owain (wiki)

Merlin in his tree phase (wiki) Apparently sometimes he's also just...in a hole with a rock on top of it? Less cool, much funnier

Monopoly

"no evil in either of them, only ecstasy", p. 72

Courtly love (wiki)

relationship anarchy (manifesto, wiki)

"So I ask you again, come and greet your aunt and make merry in my house; you're much loved there, and by me more than most", p. 112

The first branch of the Mabinogi (wiki)

The Green Knight (2021)

Dev Patel (imdb)

a slitherer-outerer - from Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones

"If you stand for nothing, what will you fall for?" "Aaron Burr, Sir", Hamilton (spotify

The Wheel of Time, Robert Jordan/Brandon Sanderson

Postcolonial interpretations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (wiki)

Mansplain, Manipulate, Malewife/Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss (meme)

This meme cw. rape mention

Jason Mendoza; The Good Place (2016-2020)

The Jason Mendoza school of problem-solving can be summed up by this gif:

This scene from Wednesday (2022- )

This scene from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (2005 -) [image found]

Merle Highchurch; The Adventure Zone: Balance

The Merle Highchurch approach - referring to a scene in the TAZ: Balance arc Petals to the Metal in which Merle rolls to seduce a sentient plant

The Adventure Zone: Balance

This scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Blorbo from my shows (meme)

Cat Rating: 8/10

What Else Have We Been Reading

Bold of you to assume i can [x] (meme)

The Ashburnham House fire (wiki)

Batman, DC Comics

Pandaredd (youtube)

just me against the sky, magneticwave (ao3)

Rule 63 (meme? trope? piece of internet lingo?)

Tim Drake, DC Comics

Poison Ivy, DC Comics

This meme:

Men at Arms, Terry Pratchett

Tress of the Emerald Sea, Brandon Sanderson

Brandon Sanderson's secret lockdown projects (polygon)

The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien

The Bands of Mourning, Brandon Sanderson

Next Time on Teaching My Cat To Read

Alanna: The First Adventure, Tamora Pierce

[anghraine]

“the gift of men” - fic

The fic is three pages long and has taken yeaaaars to write. Anyway: some cheerful Eldarion fic!

He did not choose the marriage. He did not choose the bride; he did not even choose the day. He assented to everything, decided nothing. Yet though he wed not of his own desire, he never regretted his marriage, nor his fair and laughing princess.

-

1

Eldarion had no queen.

His folk knew better than to press him on this. For one, the traditions of Gondor discouraged him from seeking marriage now, however much they might have wished it. The matter might have been different, and indeed alarming, had he no heirs; but he had many of them, son and daughter, sister-sons and sister-daughters under the law, their children and his own grandchildren, all beloved.

For another—though he now reigned alone, king without queen, he had not always lived so. Once, he had been a prince; and once, long ago, there had been a princess.

She died of old age almost a century before the kingship fell to him.

2

Certainly, none of Eldarion’s people could say he had neglected his duty. At their will, and his father’s, he took a wife before his thirtieth year.

He did not choose the marriage. He did not choose the bride; he did not even choose the day. He assented to everything, decided nothing. Yet though he wed not of his own desire, he never regretted his marriage, nor his fair and laughing princess. 

But then, he knew her well, long before the wedding-day. 

3

Eldarion always expected that he would marry Morwen of Ithilien or Gilanor of Dol Amroth.

Both, eldest daughters of princes, came from the greatest houses in Gondor; he could not say so of himself. His father might be heir to Isildur and Elendil, his mother a peredhel of the blood of Elros Tar-Minyatur and the Lady of Lórien, the two of them sprung from the highest lineages still remaining—but not from Gondor. And coming as they did on the heels of nigh on a millennium of the Stewards’ rule, Lord Denethor and his sons beloved of the people— 

Well, by then the handful of plots had long since subsided, but he knew he must marry a lady of Gondor; ideally, a kinswoman of the Prince of Ithilien. As Morwen and Gilanor were near Eldarion in age (a more pressing concern for him than anyone else), he supposed his wife would be one or the other. 

And yet she was not. 

4

In his more fanciful moments, well before his actual marriage, Eldarion cherished vague hopes of Aravain.

It was not a great love-story, nor even a great tragedy; at that age, he did not wish to marry—but he would have rather married Aravain than anyone else. By then, she was a great knight, a faithful protector, a dear friend, indeed dearer than any woman but his mother and favourite sister. But she was not at all what Gondor expected of a princess.

Always a creature of contradictions, she was, in fact, a princess: at once the most Dúnadan of Queen Lothíriel’s daughters—she had been fostered in Ithilien for that reason—and very much the Lady Éowyn’s niece. But after years in Gondor, she regarded herself as more Aravain than Athelflaed, more akin to Morwen, Glóredhel, and Gilanor than her own sisters, more Dúnadan warrior than Rohirren princess; after the first shocks, so did Gondor regard her. 

He knew she would not have accepted him even had he dared offer, yet no man could have asked for a more faithful captain or friend; she remained at his side for nigh on a century—until old age took her, and then, she too died. 

5

Throughout Eldarion’s childhood and youth, he knew his father best as a victor of distant triumphs, the great Elessar who brought glory and riches to Gondor, an occasional towering presence. In his early years, it was very occasional; Gondor had many enemies, eager to try her battered armies, and from the first, Elessar declared himself determined to recover all that the Dúnedain had ever lost, but for Rohan and drowned Númenor. 

The Queen, Eldarion’s mother, did not reign in these absences; the Steward Faramir did, by law and—though Eldarion did not understand it at the time—policy. Gondor knew and loved Faramir, and found so many changes easier to bear with the Steward ruling from Minas Tirith. 

But by good fortune, Faramir and Arwen held each other in the highest regard; he always requested her counsel, she accorded him every honour, and Eldarion only ever knew them as close allies and friends.

Indeed, he thought it perfectly natural that the Steward and the Queen should rule Gondor together, for he remembered little else. And as a boy, he thought it perfectly natural that they should rule over him, too.

6

As a young man, he did not think so quite as much, but he had a mild temper, and appreciated that his mother simply asked him about Glóredhel. 

Eldarion had never thought much about Glóredhel one way or another, though he had seen her many times. She was several years his junior, of an age with his sister Telperiën; indeed, Glóredhel and Telperiën used to laugh and whisper together when they were in company in either Minas Anor or Emyn Arnen, and remained faithful friends. She had a lighter temper than her sister Morwen and her various cousins, including Aravain; she enjoyed songs, and dancing, and tales of victory; she had a pleasant voice and a fair face. Eldarion, without ever imagining her as a bride, had always liked her well enough. 

He said as much to Arwen, who nodded thoughtfully, and said nothing more; but Eldarion understood what went unsaid, and soon found himself easily assenting to a marriage.

So did Glóredhel; she listened as he stumbled through an explanation, then laughed and said yes, of course.

7 

Over the year of their betrothal, Eldarion took pains to acquaint himself better with Glóredhel, finding her as fearless, frank, and curious as he remembered her. 

“It will be an adventure,” she said once, and he could not help but smile—a weakness, if weakness it was, that often beset him around her. He could not quite say that he loved her on their wedding-day, not as he did later, but he was happy to take her hand in his; happy to hear the King call her daughter; happy to bury his fingers in her golden hair.

It turned white with a terrible quickness, yet not before her time. Their son and daughter were grown with children of their own, and Glóredhel’s sister-son, taken into their household in his youth, had become a renowned loremaster, and Éomer of Rohan had come to grieve over his sister with them. Yet it all seemed impossibly fast to Eldarion, each moment passing instantly onto the next, until he stood weeping between Faramir and Elessar as Glóredhel was borne into Rath Dínen.

She had lived over seventy years, and Eldarion had lifetimes ahead of him.