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385bookreviews · 3 months ago

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1.66.2 The Camelot Betrayal by Kiersten White

SPOILERS

Pages: 368

Time Read: 6 hours and 8 minutes

Overall Rating: 3.5★ Storyline: 3.5★ Dialogue: 4★ Characters: 4★

Genre: YA Mythological Fantasy

TWs for the book: Violence, death, blood, murder, kidnapping, misogyny/sexism, mentions of r*pe, fire, physical/domestic abuse, injury, deadnaming, gaslighting, abandonment, emotional abuse, su*c*dal thoughts, confinement, animal cruelty, alcohol, self harm

POV: Third person

Time Period/Location: The fictional city of Camelot

First Line: Guinevere's room was dark, night more a cloak than the bed curtains she never drew.

Guinevere: You really feel bad for Guinevere this whole book, as the weight of not knowing who she is really hits her, and everytime she tries to do something good, bad things happen as a result. Her conflicted feelings about Mordred and Arthur's conflicted feelings about her, on top of hurting both Lily and Lancelot's feelings, and her guilt over Hild and the dragon, really compound on each other to make her story a lot more tragic than you thought in the first book. The only thing that really aggravates me about her is her touch magic, she touches people like Morgana and Mordred, and yet things still get past her. I know there still needed to be surprises and betrayals and that's hard to do when you have a character with that kind of ability, but it was still frustrating.

Morgana (Morgan le Fay): I am so interested to see what her deal is and what her true intentions are, because she is definitely not what she was portrayed to be for almost two entire books.

Lancelot: I feel like Guinevere and Lancelot had a lot more romantic tension in the first book that I was expecting to increase in this one, but instead it kind of fizzled out and we were back to Mordred vs Arthur.

Storyline: This book lost a half star from the first one for me because most of this book felt like filler content for the actual plot. Don't get me wrong, I definitely still enjoyed it, and all of the events we experienced definitely helped to further develop Guinevere's character, along with everyone else (although Arthur still feels a bit flat). But you were definitely still left wondering the whole book what is actually going on, without getting any real, concrete answers about much of anything.

Representation: Brangien and Isolde are lesbians and in a relationship. I said in my post for the first book that based off fan art and my understanding of her appearance, Brangien is POC, and upon reading this book, if I'm reading correctly, I believe she is intended to be East or South Asian. Tristan is the only black character in the book, and it is implied that he is aroace. Sir Bors has a withered arm.

Summary: I am enjoying this book series so far, it definitely is very YA but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's an easy read and I'm excited to finally get some answers in the last book as honestly I'm not sure what the deal is. I thought for sure that Guinevere must be the daughter of the Lady of the Lake, I had put that together after the scene in the first book when Merlin gets shut in the cave, but now Guinevere might have been the real Guinevere all along? Also, this might just be me so if anyone has any insight into this I would really appreciate it, but these books kind of take a strange pro-industrialization stance? Obviously they are not in any kind of industrial era during this time, but it seems to me the side of "good" and "humanity" is one without magic and nature, and "good" characters like Arthur don't seem to think there can be any kind of coexistence. There is definitely some nuance, but I'm hoping the third book will really round that out and the conclusion isn't just "magic is gone forever, the end". That will be very disappointing.

Complete Recap: Guinevere experiences someone else's dream. She isn't supposed to be able to dream because she is sacrificing them so Brangien can see Isolde. Troubled, she goes to Arthur for comfort. Since it is harvest time, she has taken up the duty of ensuring things are prepared for winter. Her and Lancelot ride the perimeters of the land, not only to be thorough but also to check for the Dark Queen's magic encroaching on their land. She finds a wild forest growing where it shouldn't have been, and uses an iron knot of magic to infect the soil and stop it from being able to grow further and destroy their fields. Sir Tristan goes and retrieves Arthur, and they burn the forest down and send Guinevere and Lancelot home, which frustrates her, but she can't stay because being in the presence of Excalibur will hurt her. She goes home to meet with Sir Gawain to check the silos of grain, and then begins her walk home with Brangien. They discuss Dindrane's upcoming marriage to Sir Bors, and how they will have to travel to her father's manor for the wedding. She also tells Brangien she will have to take her dreams back so she can figure out what's going on. They go and meet with Dindrane for several hours to discuss wedding plans, and then go home, where Brangien prepares to have one final dream with Isolde before Guinevere takes her dreams back. Guinevere decides not to sleep, fearing the dreams to be from the Dark Queen, and goes outside, only to find Lancelot on guard. They sit together, and she uses magic to see that Arthur has beat back the forest, but she is sickened upon viewing Excalibur.

The next morning she goes to meet Arthur upon his return, and he jumps in the lake and swims with his knights, starting up a cheer for Guinevere for discovering the threat. She goes to view the knights in training at the arena later, mostly to help have a distraction for Brangien so she won't just be mourning the loss of her dreams with Isolde. She notices that Lancelot is apart from the other knights, and that one of the new aspirants won't listen to her because she is a woman. The other knights reject the newcomer for disrespecting Lancelot. On their way back to the castle, a pretty blonde girl with freckles like Guinevere runs up and hugs her, calling her sister. Guinevere is confused until she realizes that the real Guinevere, the one who died had a younger sister named Guinevach, and that this must be her. She feigns sickness and quickly excuses herself, as she knows nothing of the real Guinevere's past. When she gets to her rooms, she calls for Lancelot and Arthur, both who appear. She immediately thinks that the Dark Queen must be behind Guinevach's sudden appearance. Arthur is more of the mind that it really is the real Guinevere's sister, and that Merlin changed Guinevere's shape somehow to make her look identical to dead Guinevere. Guinevere and Lancelot set up more magical protections around Camelot, making sure to also cover the back of the mountain the castle is on so they won't be caught off guard from behind. Lancelot suggests to Guinevere that the dreams might be coming from the Lady of the Lake, and further, that she might not have sealed away Merlin because he took Excalibur, but because he took Guinevere from her. Guinevere then begins to wonder if she is the daughter of the Lady, and that Merlin made her so afraid of water so that she would never find her. Arthur goes to dinner and unsheathes Excalibur around Guinevach, but she has no reaction. This does nothing to assuage Guinevere's fears though, and after deciding to scout the southern lands and place more magic, Arthur and Guinevere make plans to leave early for the wedding and send Guinevach home.

Guinevere and Lancelot go to the southern border, and Guinevere sets up magic that will kill anyone with intents to harm her that try to cross into the land. Lancelot swims down the river to place the magic rock on an island in the middle of the river, but Guinevere begins to regret it and tries to go after her. She is stopped by wolves possessed by the Dark Queen. Guinevere begs them to leave her alone, but when they don't, she is forced to use fire magic and burn them to death. She begins to return back to where Lancelot had left her, and bumps into Mordred. He is sad the wolves have been killed, saying he was there to try and cure them of the Dark Queen's influence. She crosses the line of her magic, and tells him about it, as she doesn't want to see him killed. He steps forward anyways, saying he means her no harm, and nothing happens. She tells him to go away and he does and she returns to Lancelot. She meets with Arthur upon her return, and she tells him about the wolves and the magic but not Mordred. Upon returning back to the castle, Guinevach tries to see her again, but Guinevere rejects her, telling her she is too busy and that she needs to return to Cameliard. Guinevach is angry and distraught and runs off. They leave the next day for the wedding, planning on meeting up with the rest of the wedding party on the road. They camp in the woods, and Guinevere awakes in the middle of the night. She is talking with Lancelot when they sense someone in the woods. Guinevere and Lancelot subtly wake everyone and they jump up ready for a fight, but the man recognizes Lancelot and scurries off. While traveling the next day, Brangien, who was supposed to be with the rest of the wedding party, comes riding frantically on her horse to catch up with them. She tells them that King Mark won't be at Dindrane's wedding because he is putting his wife, Isolde, on trial for witchcraft. She is frantic, thinking Isolde probably tried to do magic to see Brangien in her dreams without Guinevere's help and was caught. Arthur is confused, because he thought Tristan was in love with Isolde. Tristan and Brangien explain that Brangien was Isolde's handmaid, and they were in love. Tristan was his uncle King Mark's knight, and he was tasked with finding King Mark a new wife. He found Isolde and arranged the marriage, but he also discovered Brangien's secret plan to make Tristan and Isolde fall in love and then pretend to be dead using a potion so that Isolde could move on and be happy. Tristan convinces her otherwise, but they are spied upon and King Mark tried to have them executed. Isolde begs mercy and they were banished, and fled to Camelot for safety. Guinevere begs Arthur to allow her, Lancelot, Tristan, and Brangien to go on a quest to save Isolde, and he agrees, as long as they are at Dindrane's father's manor in time for the wedding. They agree, and rush to the coast to catch a ship. They find a girl named Hild who speaks enough English to understand them and agrees to ferry them down to King Mark's castle. Guinevere gets on the ship but is overcome by panic, and Brangien puts her to sleep for the two day journey.

When they arrive, Guinevere notices that the dragon she saved from Sir Bors is nearby. They plan for Guinevere to go in pretending to be a servant, go to Isolde, give her a potion that will make her appear dead, and then they will hide down by where King Mark's former wives are interred in the cliff by the sea and steal her. Lancelot doesn't like this plan, but Brangien could be recognized, so she goes in alone. She gets lost immediately, and when a guard stops her, she begins wailing about it being her first day and being lost. He leads her back to the kitchens, and she subtly follows where he's going. He spits vehemently on the floor outside of a door, and she assumes that's where Isolde is and uses magic to get in. Isolde begins to panic upon seeing her, but Guinevere shows her a flower Brangien gave her as a sign that she is there to help. Guinevere gets the bars off the window and tells Isolde to jump into the tree, but before she can, King Mark barges in. Isolde jumps anyways, and King Mark begins to choke Guinevere to death. She uses her touch magic to force her way into King Mark's mind in a blind panic, and he releases her, but she erased his entire mind in the process. In order to cover her tracks she lights the castle on fire, and then drags King Mark out and begins wailing about Isolde being dead after lighting herself on fire and trying to kill King Mark. She manages to make it out of the castle and get Isolde from the tree, and they run to meet the others. Brangien and Isolde have an emotional reunion, but Lancelot is aghast at Guinevere's injuries and worried that Arthur will dismiss her for allowing Guinevere to get hurt. They go back to Hild, and she says that she will take them closer to where it is they need to be, but asks them to meet with her brother and his men to ask if they want to work for King Arthur. Brangien puts her to sleep for the journey on the ship, and when they arrive, Guinevere cuts the connection to the dragon, as she only kept it to lead him away from King Mark's burning castle so they wouldn't think that he had burned the castle and try to hunt him down. They go to meet with Hild's brothers and his men, but the ringleader, Ramm decides to hold Guinevere at ransom. Lancelot tries to fight, but they are outnumbered, so Guinevere tells them to go away and where to meet her, and they leave. Once alone in a shack, she uses the dragon tooth to summon the dragon again. Hild comes in and begs her forgiveness, saying she didn't know Ramm would be with them. Guinevere forgives her and tries to convince Hild to leave with her. Hild tentatively agrees, but when the dragon attacks, she runs to try and save her brother. Guinevere hops on the dragon's back, and they escape until the dragon's leg gives out from a spear. She uses her magic to communicate with the dragon, and he only came because he thought she would go to sleep with him that last winter. She gives him back the tooth and runs away, but succumbs to her injuries and passes out.

When she awakes, she thinks she is still dreaming when she finds Mordred fixing her dislocated shoulder and tending to her wounds. Since she thinks it is one of the dream she has about him, she begs him to kiss her, but he refuses, and tells her she is not like Merlin when she begins to lament about the dragon. He lights a signal fire for Lancelot and then leaves. Lancelot finds her, and when she comes to she realizes that Mordred wasn't a dream, but she once again doesn't say anything about him to Lancelot. They meet up with Arthur and his men again. He wants to make camp immediately to learn what has happened to Guinevere, but Guinevere insists they continue the hour to Dindrane's father's manor, as the wedding party has already arrived. Upon arrival, Dindrane is angry with Guinevere for leaving early and leaving her alone to deal with Blanchefleur. Guinevere is apologetic, and tells Dindrane that she can wear her jewels to the wedding and that she will sing her praises to her family to make them jealous. Dindrane drags off Brangien and Isolde, who is now posing as one of Guinevere's lady's maids. Alone in their rooms, Guinevere tells Arthur the truth of her adventure, minus Mordred. Arthur is angry with her for her actions, and points out that any time anything happens to a man in King Mark's kingdom, their women will be accused of witchcraft. He leaves to deal with something, but then when he comes to bed that night he is no longer angry and tries to comfort her. The next day, Guinevere spends time sewing with the women of Dindrane's family. They are very judgemental, so Guinevere spins a story about Mordred and Sir Bors battling for their chance at Dindrane's hand, and Mordred losing is what caused him to be banished from the kingdom.

That night, Guinevere dreams of Mordred again. When she wakes up next to Arthur, who is also still awake, she kisses him, but he doesn't kiss her back. She is mortified, and asks him why. He says that she is his best friend, and that he doesn't want to rush anything. He also is afraid of being like that with anyone because his mother died in childbirth, and his former love Elaine did as well, along with his son. He does kiss her finally, and Guinevere decides to be patient for his sake. Dindrane is married, and Arthur puts more effort into paying attention to Guinevere. When he inevitably does have to leave her to talk with the men, she dances with Dindrane and Brangien. Arthur says they will leave for home the next day. Arthur, however, ends up having to stay there with his knights to talk alliances with people, so he sends Guinevere home. When she arrives in Camelot, however, she is shocked to see that Guinevach is still there. She instructs Dindrane to spy on Guinevach and get as much information as she can from her, and to have Lancelot question her lady's maids and Sir Gawain to discover why she did not leave the city as instructed. Since Arthur is away, she rules in his place, holding meetings about the harvest festival and land and other mundane things. Guinevach interrupts the meeting, forcing Guinevere to announce her as her sister. Guinevach declares that everyone can call her Princess Lily, and seemingly tries to undermine Guinevere during the meeting. After the meeting, Lancelot and Guinevere go to try and search her rooms but are caught by her lady's maid, Anna. Anna is friendly, and Guinevere's touch magic doesn't reveal anything insidious. Guinevere has another dream that night of the Lady of the Lake, this time in embrace with the Dark Queen. When she wakes, Lancelot asks if she is alright. She says yes, and says she dreamed of the Lady again, back from when Camelot was new. Lancelot says that the Lady made Camelot, and Guinevere is shocked, as no one new where Camelot had came from or who built it. Lancelot then confesses that when she was an orphan, the Lady of the Lake saved her and gave her food, helping her get strong so she could kill Uther Pendragon. When she finally went to do it though, the Lady revealed that Arthur had already pulled Excalibur, and instructed Lancelot to return her kindness. Lancelot assumed this meant serving King Arthur, and then, when they met, Guinevere. Later, Brangien theorizes that since the Lady made Camelot, Guinevere's touch magic could be pulling the Lady's memories from the stone itself. Guinevach tries to see Guinevere but Brangien rejects her. Guinevere prepares to go and hold another meeting, but when she arrives, she finds Guinevach already has held the meeting and resolved everything to do with the harvest festival. Angry, she goes to sit beyond the lake and wait for Arthur to come home.

She goes to the combat arena to see Lancelot train, but when she arrives, Guinevach is also there, sitting in Brangien's spot. She tries to remind her of things their father used to say, criticizes how close Lancelot is to Guinevere, and tries to get her to shoot a bow and arrow with her, claiming Guinevere is very good at it and wanting her to teach her. Guinevere takes all of this as Guinevach trying to reveal her as an imposter, and she refuses to give her a lesson. Arthur appears and decides to humor Guinevach, and then escorts her to a play while Guinevere follows with Anna, angry. Arthur tries to convince Guinevere that Guinevach really might be just the real Guinevere's sister, acting like the fifteen year old she is, but Guinevere is still convinced something is amiss. She goes to sit outside, but Anna is in the alcove she usually went to with Mordred. Anna suggest Guinevere talk to someone older and wiser about her problems, so her and Lancelot go to see Rhoslyn the next day at her village. When they arrive, however, they find her and her girls frantically packing. They say they've been threatened by the men nearby. They have until nightfall to leave, but the men attack sooner. Guinevere helps shield the children while Lancelot and the others fight, but then Mordred appears to also help in the fight. Afterwards, Mordred tries to question her about their last encounter and about why she did not tell Arthur about encountering him, but she walks away. Ailith, a girl at the camp, asks Guinevere if she will allow her to come back to Camelot with her so she can be with her lover. Since she was banished for magic when she was a child, Guinevere just brings her back on the ferry, not bothering to disguise her in any way. She finally decides to confront Guinevach. She holds her hand to ensure she is telling the truth, and asks her why she is pretending to know her. Guinevach breaks down, revealing that she really is Guinevere's sister, and that she ran away from home to come to Camelot, and she is angry with Guinevere for not coming back for her like she promised and trying to send her back to their abusive father. She says she only undermined Guinevere to try and prove her usefulness and has been trying to marry one of the knights so that way she never has to leave. Guinevere is appalled with herself and apologizes profusely to Guinevach, who truly wants to be called Lily. She tells her that something happened while she was at the convent that erased most of her memory.

The harvest festival finally arrives, and Arthur teases Guinevere for her paranoia about Lily. Anna keeps her company as Arthur goes off to do the farming tournaments, starting a strange conversation, wondering what would happen if she left, and if she truly belongs there. Guinevere internalizes the sentiment and begins to wonder about such things herself. She goes back to the castle to change, and then her and Lily return to the festival and watch the knights compete in the games. Lily stays to watch Sir Gawain, and Anna brings Guinevere some spiced wine and leads her to a bench, Lancelot standing out of earshot to be respectful. Ailith comes up to them to say hello to Guinevere and show her a chicken she caught, and then addresses Anna as Morgana. Before Guinevere can process, the wine making her feel strange, Anna, who has actually been Morgan le Fay the whole time, presses a knife to her. The wine was a potion to make Guinevere tell the truth. She asks Guinevere what she is, and she tells her immediately that she is a changeling, that the real Guinevere died. Morgana tells her that she is the real Guinevere, because no magic to alter memory has touched Lily. Guinevere asks if she is there to kill Arthur because she tried to kill him when he was a baby, but Morgana tells her that is a lie and tells her the true story. Her and Arthur's mother Igraine discovered that Morgana was pregnant with the Green Knight's child, and she arranges to have Morgana sent up north and then come back years later a "widow" to explain the presence of the child. Morgana didn't go north though, she went into the woods and lived with the Dark Queen and the Green Knight. She gained magic while there, and when Mordred was old enough, she was about to leave to go back to her mother when the Dark Queen warned she was too late. She used her magic to see Uther and Merlin conspiring to change his shape so he could sleep with her without her knowing. Merlin prevented her from seeing the future of Arthur and everyone else, so she left to find Arthur to make sure he didn't end up in Merlin's clutches. But she was too late for that as well, and Arthur was lost to Sir Ector and Sir Kay. After she finished telling her story, Morgana tries to convince Guinevere to leave with her, but Arthur begins to walk up, so Morgana promises to tell Guinevere the truth if she finds her. After Morgana walks away, Guinevere is momentarily too stunned to speak, but finally manages to tell Arthur that Morgana was there. Him and his knights immediately go after them, and Lancelot escorts Guinevere and Lily back to the castle. When the sisters arrive at the hallway before Lily's rooms, however, they find a man standing there. He says he is Hild's brother, and that she is dead, so he says he has to kill Lily to make it even. Guinevere and Lily run, and Guinevere hides her in a secret chamber beyond a pillar on the outside of the castle. The man comes to try and kill her, but Lancelot kills him first. Guinevere pulls Lily out of the chamber before swinging in herself, staring down at the hole in the floor and hearing the rushing water beneath it. She contemplates throwing herself down the hole, like the Lady of the Lake did in her memories. Lancelot stops her.

Arthur and Guinevere fight over Mordred and Morgana's intentions, but come to know solid conclusion. Arthur returns to the harvest festival on Guinevere's instructions, and her and Lancelot remedy the awkwardness that has been between them. The next morning Arthur takes her to a secret herb garden at the top of the mountain for a picnic, and he tells her he's ready for them to make things work in an actual relationship, but leaves before she can answer him so that way she has time to think. At dinner later, she is about to give him an answer, when he receives a letter that the his and Elaine's son who he thought was dead is actually alive. He gathers his knights and leaves Camelot immediately. At first Guinevere is happy for him, but then when she thinks about it, she realizes that the only people that knew about Elaine's baby were her, Arthur, Malegeant, and Mordred. She realizes the letter must be a trick to make Arthur leave Camelot. She sends pages after him, and, in order to protect the granaries, leads Lancelot out of the secret tunnel in and out of the castle and uses both of their blood to make a shield protecting the city. Lancelot tries to usher her back inside, but Guinevere deceived her. Lancelot needs to stay inside the city, and Guinevere outside of it, or the barrier breaks. Lancelot begs her not to do this, but she does, turning to leave to go free Merlin and demand answers of him. Mordred rides up instead, and tells her that the note to Arthur about his son was not his doing, but rather Malegeant's men. He takes her to an approaching army of Picts, led by King Nechtan, who is clearly under the control of the Dark Queen. Morgana also meets up with them, and since they have Guinevere, which is what the Dark Queen wanted, they turn around and leave.

#book review #book blog #books #book reviews #ya #book summary #the guinevere deception #the camelot betrayal #the excalibur curse #kiersten white #king arthur #lancelot #queen guinevere #mordred #king arthur retelling #fantasy #mythology

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stari-hun · 7 months ago

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I actually only hold angst in my heart for Journey to Mor Panhk, everything about that event is so deeply touching in a ruins you forever kinda way. Reading that story was like playing Alter Ego or a game that puts you into so much retrospective. Don't even get me started on how Kumar is character for the Eldest Daughters. The thing about it is that the antagonist of Mor Panhk is someone who could've been ANYONE. It makes me think of the Funkyfrogbait video making rounds right now where they said "how many Einsteins have spent thier lives washing dishes? How many Mozarts have bent over stoves instead of pianos?" then learning about the fact that Mozart had an elder sister who some said were better than him yet none of her works survived. Kumar wasn't born with innate talent but she had the skill and tenacity to work herself to make her arcanum strong enough to where two geniuses (one being her own student) had to learn her life's work in order to stand a chance against her. But in the end it'll never matter to her parents because they had a son with exactly what they wanted too. The only issue between them in the cold narrative is that Shamane never wanted that either, he was more livid than anything about what their parents did to her. They have the same tragedy that Theopil and Isolde have, Shamane wanted to love and be with Kumar because he saw her for the talented older sister she was, but Kumar didn't want anything to do with that. Kumar had other plans, and when the bitterness of being abandoned for the sin of being born "wrong" in her parent's eyes, she wanted nothing more than to wipe out the conditions and environment that hurt her off the map. In the end, we could've all been Kumar. I think that's one of the reasons I fixate on her the most and think of her all the time along with Isolde, they're characters who were done wrong then did wrong to others, their wrath at their original abusers overflowing to innocent people. Whether you take her as the Eldest Daughter abandoned for the idealized dream of her parents that a male child could do it better, or you identify with her as another marginalized person who was told they were made "wrong" when they were born a certain way.

Shamane’s character event is one of the best because of when it happened in the game. It showed us exactly how arcane creatures behave and adapt to the ecosystem before we got to [Farewell, Rayashki]. Where Windsong told us exactly what arcane creatures are like, and how they merge into the ecosystem alongside humans. Shamane’s job was to be apart of nature and live in harmony with it while being a person. Most notably, the event showed us how creatures like carbuncles, who are the main reoccurring enemy in the game, aren’t entirely feral like we thought. People like Jessica and New Babel can control arcane creatures like carbuncles, in Jessica’s case she can even talk to them, but they don’t necessarily make friends with them and convince them to fight by their side.

#kumar #kumar maxxing #kumar reverse 1999 #I just deeply identify with her in all ways #I think if her and Vertin had met maybe things couldve been better #to tell her how being born into the wrong place at the wrong time isnt anyones fault #If we wanted to go further we can also look at how Kumar and Vila couldve had switched situations too as people with nowhere to go #They spent their lives looking for place after place but they were never truly welcomed in any #even as a genius in arcanum AND science Kaalaa wasn't accepted by her peers because of the sole fact that she was an arcanist #Between Dust and Stars is all about how her struggles MIRRORED Kumar's and how Kumar didn't tell her about the Black Dwarf #Not only to test her but to make KB see how no matter your skill you'll still be second guessed because of what you were born as #if the game didnt want me to take it as a metaphor for being queer and a daughter of a mother with sons #then they wouldnt directly imply constantly through the series that being an arcanist is parallel to irl marginalized groups #think of how kakania was treated constantly in book 6 as an “irrational arcanist” now replace arcanist with woman #reverse 1999 #anywho ell o ell but thats just my yap sesh!#honeystar #scoups of angst

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ohnoitstbskyen · 3 years ago

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Ruined Miss Fortune vs Ruined King Miss Fortune

Ruined Miss Fortune is, to me, a deep disappointment of a skin, for multiple reasons.

The first is the method of her Ruination. Basically: Gangplank isn't dead and Fortune is super duper way the hell extra special scared of him, and so she voluntarily gets Ruined by Viego because he'll give her the power to definitely for sure kill Gangplank this time!

It sucks. The entire scene sucks. The way her characterization is played sucks. She is fully written as a Hysterical Woman™ who is too emotional to see reason and who gets corrupted because she can't handle her anger and fear, and the f***ing visual imagery of Miss Fortune willingly submitting to Viego by asking him to penetrate her with his eight foot Overcompensator Sword is just... good grief, the semiotics of that entire thing are just bafflingly bad.

The second is that if she had to get Ruined there was a much, much more compelling way to do it that would actually relate meaningfully to the core themes of the entire Ruination event.

Viego is driven fundamentally by a tragic loss, and total inability to cope with the grief of death. He lost Isolde and, being the spoiled little hyperromantic princeling that he is, absolutely could not accept that something he loved could be "taken away from him."

Miss Fortune is driven fundamentally by a tragic loss, and total inability to cope with the grief of death. In her case, it is the brutal murder of her mother by Gangplank, and the complicated mess of survivor's guilt and vengeful hatred that has left her unable to ever put her mother's memory to rest.

So... what if we had built some kind of thematic connection between the two characters, a shared form of loss, the connection of which is exploited by the abusive, manipulative monster to further his own goals? What if Viego had said to Fortune "I will bring back to life she who you love the most?" with the absolute insane certainty and sincerity with which he believes he will bring back Isolde?

And rather than MF being the dumbass who gets taken in by an obviously lying man's obviously false offer of power because she's just so scared of Big Bad Gangplank, she gets taken in by a moment of connection and a glimmer of hope, however vain, that the literal worst thing that ever happened to her can undone?

I dunno, given that the entire Ruined King event was thematically about learning to cope with grief, to let go of those who are dead and to stop making other people's lives and deaths about yourself, that seems to me like it would have been cool, actually.

Anyway the third reason is that the skin itself is basically a bland-as-hell "EVIL = SEXY!!!" fanservice skin, which first of all is extremely tame and boring as fanservice (srsly, cleavage and a bit of thigh action? That's the best you can do for a sexy evil pirate queen?), but which also simply does not fit the character story being told here.

Miss Fortune falls for power, she falls for the strength to destroy her enemies, she falls for the power to rule and control. The Ruined Skin looks no more dangerous, powerful or domineering than her Captain Fortune skin, it's just a sexy pirate halloween costume with all the colors turned off.

Now, in the spirit of fairness, there are some production reasons for this. It was not a Legendary skin and Riot puts a hard budget limit on how many actual changes you can make to a design at lower skin levels. So no changing her animation, for example, and only limited changes to her model itself and no changes to its rigging. There was probably a corporate and technical mandate not to stray too far from her base form.

On top of that there is in-game readability. Silhouettes are important for character recognition, and Riot are... usually quite careful about broadly preserving them skin to skin to avoid gameplay confusion. Usually.

So yeah, there's some limits on how much you can do, but if you want an example of what I would consider a good "Ruined" version of Miss Fortune, Riot Forge and the people over at Airship Syndicate helpfully went and made one:

Good feature number one: The Crown. The corruption of Miss Fortune as it is told in the Ruination is that she lets her paranoid lust for power blind her and this allows Viego to take over her mind.

So what do we have here? A crown literally blinding her, mimicking the shape language of Viego's crown, indicating his deception of her and his domination over her mind. That's some good visual storytelling.

It is also Sauron-esque as hell, so it reinforces Miss Fortune as an imperious, domineering, regal presence. Queen, sovereign, it is the visual language of power.

Good feature number two: the chains incorporated into her design, which are just about the most widely used visual shorthand for enslavement and control. Riot L4T3NCY, creative lead at Riot Forge, confirmed for me that this and the blindfolding of MF were both extremely conscious choices in her skin design here:

Good feature number three: Miss Fortune's own pirate aesthetic is entirely supplanted by Viego's Camavoran army aesthetics. There is no hint of the Bilgewater fashion left here, everything that was Bilgwater about her has been torn away, which again is good, solid, basic storytelling showing us that she is mind-controlled and subverted.

Good feature number four: I am definitely reaching here, but I quite like that the hands that grasp her guns are the most wraith-like and corrupted. It is Miss Fortune's grasp for power that is corrupting her, and it is the trauma of the loss of her mother, a gunsmith who is intimately connected to her weapons, which is ultimately the source of the paranoia and power lust that has destroyed her. Is this intentional at all? I have no idea, but I like the idea.

Good feature number five: It is still sexy. Not in as blatantly pin up-ish a way as the base game Ruined Miss Fortune is, but there's some solid Hot Mean Evil Lady appeal in that cleavage and armored bustier. MF has always been a flirty, sexy character (albeit definitely too much so in the past *shudders in League Judgment*), and that aspect is still present here, without being distracting from the character storytelling of the skin.

I think Miss Fortune being ruined by Kevin McKilledbyhiswife of Camavor is a bad idea on the whole, I think it gets catastrophically in the way of her much more interesting base story of slowly being corrupted by the structural violence and brutality of Bilgewater itself, reducing it all down to a "Sad Woman Very Angry About Dead Mom" personal grief narrative (which is honestly a little too eager to paint her desire to see justice done to Gangplank for his crimes as a bad thing.)

But if she has to be Ruined, at least do it with some gosh darn character storytelling as part of the skin. If she has to be Ruined, at least do it in a way that thematically reflects on and interacts with the general themes of the Ruination event as a whole.

Don't do it just for a D-tier generic hot lady fanservice skin.

#league of legends #miss fortune #ruination #viego #the ruined king #ruined king #gangplank #sarah fortune #sentinels of light #riot games #character design #league of legends lore

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goodqueenaly · 3 years ago

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Thank you so much for your amazing reply and the amount of effort you put into it. I did not recognize the Tristan and Isolde, Lancelot and Guinevere parallels here until you brought it up, but it probably will check many of the boxes. Lancelot was considered the Queen’s champion by many. I’ll be severely disappointed if the ‘love potion’ is foreshadowing of a Lancelot and Elaine sort of thing instead, though. I really hope they flesh out Daella’s personality, or preferably both the sisters.

You're very kind! (original post here)

I wouldn't worry too much about the "love potion" aspect of it. While GRRM certainly likes to explore and play with the tropes of chivalric romance, he's not usually one to go with strict 1-1 parallels with real-world literary tradition (or, for that matter, real-world history). The author doesn't need to repeat beat by beat the story of Tristan any more than he does the story of, say, Lancelot or Amadis or Gawain or any other hero of chivalric romance; rather, he can pick and choose which tropes of chivalric romance he wants to play straight and which specific plot points he wants to borrow from the rich trove of such stories in the real world while also potentially examining and questioning certain other tropes and plot points. If anything, perhaps GRRM was inspired by that aspect of the Lancelot and Tristan stories to have young Rhae put a love potion in Egg's drink, so that he would marry her instead of Daella (although it's not like love potions are unique or original to chivalric romances); perhaps in turn GRRM will tease an allusion to the Tristan and Isolde story by having Daella, in conversation with Dunk, reference the childhood love potion Rhae tried to use on Egg (with maybe the implication that she and Dunk need no such potion).

Of course, it's also worth pointing out that the author has consistently written Dunk to be very attractive to a number of people throughout the stories. Naturally, Dunk himself was very much attracted to both Tanselle (who certainly seems to have liked him in turn) and Rohanne Webber (who flirted heavily with Dunk throughout "The Sworn Sword", particularly at the end), but Daemon the Younger gives the love letters of James I and the Duke of Buckingham a run for their money in a complete lack of subtlety regarding his attraction toward Dunk; even at Whitewalls, Bloodraven-as-Maynard Plumm notes that "[t]hose girls up on the dais cannot seem to take their eyes off you", and when the newly married Lady Butterwell sees Dunk ready to tilt, she "pushe[s] out her chest in a way that turn[s] him red beneath his helm". (And again, it remains to be seen what happens at Winterfell, given that Dunk was smooching someone in the godswood.) Given that setup, I don't think we need anything like a love potion to believe that Daella is attracted to him; I'm fully prepared to believe that Daella will find Dunk very attractive on his own.

In any event, I certainly hope that Daella and Rhae both get lots of characterization in future Tales. Given that their marriages were teasingly left out of the family tree for TWOIAF (and Aemon's memories do strongly suggest that both did in fact marry and have children), and given that the reign of Maekar was barely noted in that book, I'm hoping the author is saving lots more details about Egg's family members for later Tales. (Too late for Egg's own mother, of course, but that's a separate point.)

#asoiaf meta #tales of dunk and egg #speculation #daella daughter of maekar #duncan the tall

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officialwagnerrant · 4 years ago

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Wagnerrant Review #4 - Mishaps and Emotion

Work: Tannhäuser House: Bayerische Staatsoper Date of performance: 11.07.2021

Team Director: Romeo Castellucci Conductor: Asher Fish With: Georg Zeppenfeld, Klaus Florian Vogt, Simon Keenlyside, Dean Power, Andreas Bauer Kanabas, Ulrich Heß, Martin Snell, Lise Davidsen, Elena Pankratova, Sarah Gilford, Soloists of the Tölzer Knabenchor

Review: @dichterfuerstin

With Jonas Kaufmann’s Tristan debut right next to Anja Harteros’ Isolde debut (Watch the stream on staatsoper.tv, July 31st, 5PM CEST, it’s worth it), it’s hard to believe that the event I was looking forward to the most in the 2020/21 opera season was a performance of a four-year-old production that I’ve seen online before. But it was and so I did everything to get my hands on tickets for this season’s only performance of Tannhäuser at Bayerische Staatsoper. I cannot describe how happy I was when I got them and how sad I am now that it’s over. I hope that writing this review will help me revive those five hours at Bayerische Staatsoper – truly a special evening.

The best part of the entire production is the opening scene. Romeo Castellucci uses the fairly long overture and Venusberg music to visualise Tannhäuser being lured to Venus. A group of topless woman shoots arrows at a picture of a human eye, later the picture changes to that of a human ear, bewitching Tannhäuser’s senses until he gives in. A Tannhäuser-double walks on stage and climbs up the backdrop. This entire scene is choreographed flawlessly, every arrow compliments the music, and their placement on the backdrop is planned in a way where it works both for the picture of the eye and for the ear.

Castellucci did everything himself in this 2017 production of Tannhäuser. He directed, designed the sets, the costumes, and even the lighting. Solely the choreography by Cindy van Acker isn't his work. The result is a stunning unity of visuals on stage. It’s those that tell the story, not the characters. Elena Pankratova, who returned to the production to replace Daniela Sindram, pretty much only had to sit around as Venus, but she doesn’t have to move. It’s the mountain of flesh she’s sitting in, and the fact that both her and her lovers seem to melt away in fat and skin, that explains to the audience that Venus is a personification of both Lust and Gluttony. In act two, the singers could just stand in the wings to sing their lines. Not their acting tells us how they define love, but a single word written on a cube serving as altar and speaker’s desk at the same time. When Tannhäuser finally bursts out the confession that he’s been with Venus the words disappear and instead black colour gets spray-painted around in the cube. The black, forbidden aspect of Tannhäuser’s soul. The entire production gradually becomes blacker. While act one is even fairly colourful – fleshy pink for Venus, and bloody red for the Wartburg-knights’ costumes the deer they’re hunting, act two is white with only implied skin and nudity, though a lot of it, and act three is black until the curtain-call. This third act is the most impactful part of Castellucci’s production. It doesn’t raise nearly as much questions as act one and two – why do the knight’s costumes look like BDSM-fetish outfits? Why are there feet all over the stage during the Sängerkrieg? It shows the passage of time in the most impactful way. While more and more ridiculous numbers appear on the black screen – millions and millions and millions of year pass, the audience is shown the process of corpses rotting. And it’s not Tannhäuser’s and Elisabeth’s corpses, the names on the graves are those of the singers – Klaus and Lise. The message of this image? Tannhäuser and Elisabeth can’t be together in this timeline, but their story surpasses their lifetime. But no matter how powerful the imagery: Once again the singers do pretty much just stand and sit around while the stage speaks for them. Thus they can’t convince through their acting choices, but have to put everything into their voices.

And they do. Especially Georg Zeppenfeld convinces as Landgraf Hermann. He is probably the most reliable singer of our time, he doesn’t seem to have off-days. And as always he’s at his best in this performance. His voice carrying easily through the performance and singing a dignified, powerful Landgraf. And no matter what happens, he always remains calm.

The opposite of calm is obviously Tannhäuser. Klaus Florian Vogt debuted the role in this back in 2017 and hasn’t been replaced for even one year ever since. With good reason: His unusually light voice is a perfect fit for the sometimes too self-assured, sometimes insecure Tannhäuser. In addition to this, Vogt noticeably puts his whole soul into his performance, even though he apparently did not have the time to fully revise his, which led to a kind of sad “In ihr liegt in Maria” instead of the famous “Mein Heil liegt in Maria” and other mishaps. He makes up for his mess-ups by making his Tannhäuser especially emotional. He’s not afraid of letting a character’s emotions influence the sound and spices up the Romerzählung by singing with a different voice when quoting the pope, in comparison to when he’s just Tannhäuser. Lise Davidsen as Elisabeth is equally impressive. Having heard her as Sieglinde just some weeks before, I remembered her sometimes not being loud enough to get over a Wagnerian orchestra. This time however, she was in perfect form and every single one of her notes reached the audience, even the more quiet and scared lines in act three. I loved those especially. Davidsen dares to give her Elisabeth an insecure, questioning tone for “Sie sind’s” and “Sie kehren heim” and thus makes the audience really understand how much she fears Tannhäuser not coming back. With their voices harmonizing perfectly, with their acting skills, their creativity and emotion, Davidsen and Vogt make a great duo and we can only hope to hear them together in many more productions – next up is Die Walküre in Bayreuth.

The most impressive performance, however, delivers Simon Keenlyside as Wolfram von Eschenbach. Stepping in for another singer with just one day’s notice is hard, especially if this singer is Christian Gerhaher, munich’s favourite baritone. But Keenlyside, most well-known for his Mozart-interpretations mastered his unexpected Wagner-Challenge with ease. He acted as if he’d been rehearsing the production for weeks, and his big voice filled the Nationaltheater with ease, while always embracing Wolfram’s character. Not once he slipped into just singing his lines. Of course one could criticise that he never seemed to keep his hands still, unusual, when you’re used to Gerhaher’s interpretation of Wolfram von Eschenbach, but let’s be honest: This would be nothing more than beckmessering. Keenlyside is not the only one stepping in, though the others had about two weeks to prepare for their roles. Elena Pankratova, returning as Venus for Daniela Sindram, who was supposed to take over the role this season, and like Zeppenfeld and Vogt an original cast member in Castellucci’s production sings, as if she had planned to come back to Venus, her strong Soprano outshines the unflattering costume her director gave her.

Last but not least, Asher Fish conducted the performance for Simone Young. While it would have been nice to see a female conductor for diversity’s sake, opera is a world still very much dominated by men, one cannot complain about Fish’s conducting. He works out orchestra parts that are hardly noticeable, sometimes works them out too much, like when Tannhäuser is discovered by the Wartburg-society in act one he pronounces the more rhythmic parts so hard the music ends up sounding like traditional dance music you’d expect at German fairs. But just like Vogt seems to have finally found his libretto in act two, the conducting gets more balanced and with sensible dynamic- and tempo choices Fish gives the opera the amount of tragedy and sadness it needs, together with the mixture of euphoria and anger Tannhäuser’s descriptions of love in act two need.

Even if not everything went well – the choir could have been more balanced, the very first set change in act didn’t go as smoothly as it’s supposed to go, and not everyone knew their lines – the performance was touching, very nice to see, and fantastic to hear. I’m so glad to have been there, and cast and crew deserved all of the applause they got – certainly more than ten minutes of clapping and cheering.

#tannhäuser #wagnerrant review #richard wagner #not a rant #opera

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bforbetterthanyou · 4 years ago

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I’ve always been curious about what got you so interested in Tudor era history. My love of the Enlightenment era was started by the Hamilton musical believe it or not. That newfound love of history along with Six: The Musical got me interested in the Tudor era and caused me to do some research into it, now the Tudor era is my second favorite next to the Enlightenment era. Is there anything in particular that inspired your interest in the Tudor era? Or was it more of a gradual thing that branched off of a different interest?

Kind of both.

I’ve always loved history since I was a kid—something I think I inherited from my grandpa—but his interest is in 20th century military history (specifically from the American perspective); which is ironic because nowadays I’m really not that interested in military or American history lol.

But when I was like 11-12 my sister, whose 5 years older than me, went through a phase where she was really into period dramas (this was 2008-2009) and she made me watch all the movies and shows with her. She made me watch all sorts like the 2005 Pride and Prejudice and the Tristan + Isolde movie with James Franco and Sophia Myles (which I actually re-watched recently out of nostalgia and it sucks but a pre-Tudors Henry Cavill plays a minor character). But the two she made me watch that really stuck with me were The Other Boleyn Girl and The Tudors. When I first watched TOBG, the story went completely over my head—the only thing I took away from that movie after the first time was I loved the aesthetic (the clothing and architecture) of the period and my hopeless romantic adolescent brain became obsessed with the scene where Mary is taking care of Henry after his hunting accident and that’s how he fell in love with her (the wounded soldier/caretaker trope; the first piece of historical fiction I ever wrote was based on that trope). But, again, the characters and the overall plot went completely over my head at the time so I didn’t do any research or anything (keep in mind I was like 12: I don’t even think I realized the movie was based on real people and I couldn’t even pronounce ‘Boleyn’ correctly.)

It was like a year later that my sister made me watch The Tudors (my sister was like 17 and I was about 12 or so—in hindsight, it was probably highly inappropriate for us to watch that but our parents weren’t really around much so they pretty much let us do whatever we wanted). But again, I don’t think I realized at first that the show was based on real people (or that it was the same people as TOBG) all I remember is that I liked it enough to keep watching it even after my sister got bored of it and stopped watching. It wasn’t until the first time I re-watched the series when I was 14 that I started to actually get more interested in the behind the scenes and that’s when I learned the show was based off these real people and events. And then after that, it slowly turned into me doing research on the period and for a while it kinda faded in and out of my consciousness—sometimes I’d be really interested and do a lot of research and then sometimes it would sort of go on the back burner and I’d be more interested in other things. But even when I was more interested in other things I’d still re-watch The Tudors sometimes (I distinctly remember once when I was 17 we had a friend of my parents living with us and I wasn’t happy about that and I knew she was really religious so there was this one time we were watching TV together and she told me I could choose what we watched so I intentionally put on The Tudors knowing that the sex scenes would make her uncomfortable; I was a real fucking bitch when I was a teenager).

Then when I was 20 (so about 4 years ago) I started this blog. And at the time, I was interested in Anne Boleyn and Tudor history but I didn’t realize how much of a novice I was until I started discovering other Tudor blogs and really it was through Tumblr that my interest skyrocketed and I started learning so much more than I ever did in those 6 years just doing my own independent research.

Sooo….that’s my story lol. It was one thing specifically that sparked my initial interest but after that initial spark, my interest (and knowledge) grew very gradually.

#anonymous #ask

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c0rpsedemon · 4 years ago

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i am curious, as someone who’s only exposure to arthurania was reading jane yolen’s young merlin as a child, would you mind saying why hnoc is a bad adaptation? i’m super curious but no worries if not <3

this has been sitting in my inbox for months bc i kept telling myself i needed to write a full essay with proof from medieval lit to make myself feel smarter. however, since i’ve recently lost all credibility bc i can’t articulate points to save my life, and since i’ve realized that i could answer this in a just a couple paragraphs, now seems like the right time to answer this ask. sorry for the wait.

under a cut bc length

also warnings for mentions of racism bc this is hnoc we're talking abt and sexual assault bc this is med lit we're also talking abt

the basic problems are pendragon polycule itself, the story beats of the album, the fridging and lack of characterization of morgan le fay, the clear influence of pop culture arthuriana, and whatever the fuck happened with gawain/e.

pendragon polycule is... just not a good take. there’s a bit in the lancelot-grail abt arthur viewing lancelot like a son (and lancelot not giving a shit abt him). also arthur knew his parents for years before lancelot was even born. plus lancelot just Doesn’t care abt him and i can’t stress this part enough. arthur repeatedly tries to have guinnevere killed, mostly in the lancelot-grail, and guinn didn’t really have any say in marrying him bc she was a teenager. lancelot and guinnevere is a lot better but that’s not saying much. guinn doesn’t exactly treat lancelot too well... like at all, BUT it’s not intrinsic to their relationship and is completely caused by medieval misogyny and i’m all in favor of modern retellings saying fuck that. but also lancelot has multiple pseudo-canon boyfriends (this is med lit after all), and one pseudo-canon husband so like... there were better options. (also lancelot’s husband is basically in a lavender marriage with guinnevere’s maybe girlfriend who most authors just eventually forget abt as the story progresses).

this next one is a problem with a lot of modern arthurian works bc the inclusion of elayne of astolat is too much to ask apparently. the grail quest isn’t tied to the fall of camelot, it just happens to be one of the last grand adventures the knights of the round table have. the event that traditionally sets off the fall is the death of the maiden of astolat/the lady of shalott/elayne of escolat/she has a lot of names, her story has a few variations but usually she either is cursed to stay in a tower and weave and only be able to see the outside world through a mirror positioned across from her window, until lancelot rides by and she rushes to see him out of the actual window and her mirror shatters, setting off her death, or she lives with her father and brothers and takes care of lancelot bc he was injured for a time and she gets to go on adventures to find him and she’s friends with gawaine and she dies bc lancelot rejects her and this version’s a lot more fun but also more happens which makes it harder to explain. the way her story ends however, is that she dies after she makes arrangements for a glorious boat to drift from astolat to camelot carrying nothing but her dead body and a letter explaining that she died of love for lancelot du lac and the court mourns the death of such a beautiful and young maiden (her age varies a lot but i’ve always read her as a young teenager at most). but the important thing is, camelot is doomed from the moment she washes up on its shore bc she’s an omen of the end and has symbolic meaning and all that, the maiden of astolat washes up on camelot’s shores, the court mourns the loss of a maiden in her prime and she marks the end of camelot’s prime as well, morgan le fay reappears after being presumed dead and warns arthur of guinnevere and lancelot’s affair, aggravaine and modred conspire to bring lancelot and guinnevere’s affair to light, they succeed but lancelot escapes, guinnevere is to be burnt at the stake and lancelot rescues her, killing aggravaine, gaheris and gareth (gawaine’s brothers) in the process, gawaine drags his uncle and camelot to war bc he was driven mad due to the loss of his brothers, lancelot accidentally kills gawaine, his best friend and maybe boyfriend (i have RECEIPTS), and gawaine forgives him on his detahbed while lancelot and guinn rejoin arthur, meanwhile modred, who practically had the throne handed to him, usurps and invites the saxons in, camlann happens, and camelot is destroyed. no where in there is the grail quest.

morgan le fay is honestly the most questionable part of the album bc there’s not a single text where she dies. like.... at least with eurydice in udad she died in the original... there’s no basis for morgan dying. also she is NOT modred’s mother and anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar, she interacts with him once in the vulgate bc she had three of her nephews over and that’s IT. it’s a horrible take which originated in the mists of avalon by marion zimmer bradley who is an honest to god monster for reasons i don’t want to trigger tag this post for. also she’s one of the most dynamic and thought-out characters in the entire canon and they just made her a watered down morgause (modred’s actual mother, morgan’s sister, canonical milf)... there was no reason for it to be her apart from the fact that she’s more well known......

pop culture arthuriana is,,, one of my least favorite things. no, morgan wasn’t modred’s mother, no, morgause wasn’t abusive but her husband sure was implied to be, no, aggravaine didn’t kill his mother, that was gaheris, he loved his mother, you’re only saying that bc he has a reputation as the “evil” orkney, no, the once and future king is not a good descriptor for arthur, stop making me read it, no, morgause wasn’t the one to initiate the thing with arthur resulting in modred, no, lancelot and arthur weren’t friends, no, tristan wasn’t a self-centered asshole, tennyson is a fucking liar, no, galahad didn’t have sex or want to, he’s one of the first ever explicitly asexual characters out there, no, galahad’s conception was NOT consensual, lancelot was tricked, and no, elayne of astolat wasn’t galahad’s mother, she’s implied to be younger than him. those are just the big glaring ones, but i swear it’s bc of arthuriana’s reputation as a mythology and the connotations belonging to that word (no one true canon (which is true but there are still things that just AREN’T canon, not completely written down, passed by oral tradition) that causes ppl to see mediocre modern texts and go “oh. well this is abt as close to the original as i’m going to get” and don’t bother to look into so much as malory (who i only name bc he’s one of the most well known medieval authors with the most commonly used storylines, don’t read malory kids, he’s a mediocre-at-best writer even by medieval standards). the big perpetrators of modern arthurian tropes are the books the once and future king by th wh*te, who is a shitty person and lets it bleed into his writing (which isn’t like... nice to read or anything, seriously why do ppl love this book so much it doesn’t have redeeming qualities), and the mists of avalon by marion zimmer bradley (it’s poorly written, the story is a mess, and mzb is honestly a monster and one google search will tell you that), and unfortunately the writings of tennyson, which are mostly good but he clearly didn’t read the povest (a later text that’s also my favorite, known for significantly improving ppl’s opinions on tristan, isolde and co.) before deciding he hated both tristan and isolde and he has HORRIBLE takes on them. high noon over camelot is SEEPED in pop culture arthuriana and i think it would have been so much better if the band had read so much as a SUMMARY of the events of le morte. it’s evident in the song “the once and future king” bc it’s,,,, literally named after one of the worst books in existence. it’s shown in the morgan le fay thing, and it’s shown in the pendragon polycule thing. and hell, i think you can even explain away the lack of elayne of astolat with pop culture arthuriana, bc ppl have had bad takes on her ever since th wh*te combined her character with that of ela*ne of corbenic, and the band probably went “huh, let’s write lancelot’s abuser out of this” and they would’ve been right to do so if that’s who elayne of astolat was.

the final big issue is gawaine, the closest thing the genre has to a protagonist, he’s pretty much canon bi and, in some texts, arospec, he’s a dashing knight of great reknown and he derails every romance to steal hearts, commit murder, and make out with every knight and lady mentioned. and in hnoc he’s... racist. that’s it. it’s,,, almost completely unfounded by the arthurian canon and shows a major misunderstanding of his motivations (like i said earlier, he wants to avenge his brothers bc there’s a reoccuring motif of how much the orkneys value family). i say almost bc in one text it’s his motivations for killing palomydes but i’ve never heard it mentioned by name bc that’s just what it’s known for. most arthuriana fans just look away from it except when critiquing hnoc but that one text is an outlier, shouldn’t be counted, and i highly doubt the mechs made hnoc gawain how he is bc they found this text. it’s just a bad text.

hnoc has,,, quite a few more minor issues, such as villainized ladies of the lake (their ONLY crimes were sealing away merlin bc he tried to assault teenage nimue/ninniane (proto-nimue/vivianne from the vulgate), and that one time vivviane/ninniane kidnapped adopted baby lancelot), assigning brain to merlin (y’know,,, the predator who helped arrange the [redacted] of arthur’s mother and tried to assault a teenager,,,) although merlin is portrayed in a positive light throughout modern arthuriana so i don’t think they knew, giving a song to pellinore, who my perception of has been forever altered bc i was introduced to him through malory and the explanation of torre’s conception, which you can just look up “sir torre arthurian” to find out abt if you can’t just Guess, if they wanted a song abt the questing beast palomydes was Right There AND has been associated with the questing beast for longer, but once again i don’t think they knew.

also namedropping a bunch of knights in the fiction is... it Suggests a bigger world full of all these other stories but they just don’t work bc the world of hnoc wasn’t designed in a way where the appearance of half these characters would make sense. like,, tristan is referenced as dying in the grail quest in the same sentence as bedevere (one of the characters who is known for almost always surviving), but tristan Isn’t one of the knights who dies on the grail quest, his possible deaths (ignoring the potentially happy ending of the povest for a second) are either being murdered by his uncle, king mark (bc mark married tristan’s gf to try and get tristan killed and also to spite him), bc he was driven into a fury bc of tristan and isolde’s affair, or he’s injured and only isolde (the best healer in the world) can save him so he sends for her and if the ship he sent for her is supposed to fly white sails if she’s there, or black sails if she’s not, and the ship flies white sails but his wife (also named isolde) says it’s black sails (the why depends but usually comes down to jealousy), and so he gives up bc he thinks all hope is lost and usually succumbs to his injuries, either way isolde dies of a broken heart over his body. there’s no way for the tristan and isolde story to play out like it’s supposed to in the world of hnoc, just as there’s no way for any story with gawaine (and Oh Boy are there a lot of stories with gawaine) or pretty much anyone else, without severely altering the canon.

of course, there are still parts of hnoc i like a lot, most of the music i adore and i just like the idea of space cowboys and the secret good hnoc that lives in my head. and it has one of my favorite characterizations of galahad, even though galahad hnoc is nothing like galahad arthuriana. it’s not GOOD but i like it and it’s fun to turn my brain off too, and i’ll always value it as my introduction to arthuriana.

also there are modern arthurian tropes i do like such as characters being genre-savvy/knowing they’re fictional/knowing they’ve done this before (which hnoc does wonderfully!) and bedevere-as-the-storyteller (everyone say thank you lord tennyson).

WOW that was longer than expected, i feel very passionately abt this, when i was planning to write a fully sourced essay i meant to include a bit at the bottom with recommendations to get into better arthuriana and i think i’ll keep that in this post.

if you like hnoc for the arthurian music i’d like to suggest heather dale’s arthurian music to you, she does occasionally fall into the trap of modern arthuriana (some parts of lancelot and arthur being close, morgan as modred’s mother), sometimes she’s just wrong (galahad at lancelot’s trial, a lot of tristan and isolde), and her stuff is kinda straightwashed sometimes (sir gawain and the green knight, for example) but i’d be lying if it wasn’t catchy, and it’s not quite as bad as hnoc adaptation-wise. culwch and olwen is pretty accurate (albeit abridged bc culwch and olwen has SO many tangents), as is lily maid (it’s abt elayne of astolat!).

if you liked hnoc for king arthur... in space! then may i recommend to you my own fanfic? it's not posted yet but the second i finish writing the first chapter i'm going to make a Big Deal out of it that'll be impossible to miss!

if you want to learn abt arthuriana through tumblr-osmosis like i did at first, i’d like to recommend the love of my life @acegalahads, first and foremost (it’s me on a sideblog i’m just obsessed with myself), and i can’t recommend my arthuriana mutuals over there, @/gringolet, @/merlinenthusiast, @/jcbookworm, @/elayneofshalott, and @/elaineofascolat (the elayne urls have been popular recently), also i know for a fact that my mutual-in-law, @/itonje makes great arthuriana posts that i look forwards to whenever i open the tag.

here are a few good reference posts, a quick guide to the characters, a guide to characters of color, and a much more comprehensive intro to arthuriana post with even more texts linked to it.

if you want to ease into med lit, i’d like to introduce you to pre-raphaelite poetry, alfred lord tennyson and william morris are my favorites, although tennyson can’t be trusted with tristan and isolde. the poem the lady of shalott is basically a rite of passage for arthuriana fans, although when it comes to tennyson’s writings abt elayne of astolat, i prefer lancelot and elaine, which is part of his much larger story, idylls of the king. for morris, don’t trust what he says abt aggravaine killing his mother, but my favorites of his are sir galahad, a christmas mystery, which sounds like a shitty disney sequel, and palomyde’s quest, which i blame for my love of palomydes (that and the one bit of the povest where he asks tristan to be his greatest enemy and that he wants nothing more, gay ppl,,,,).

if you want to read abt lancelot and his husband, there’s the lancelot-grail cycle, which i believe was taken off of archive dot org and i think i found it on @/tobeisexhausting’s blog but don’t quote me on that.

the povest, which was a religious experience for me and i can’t reccomend enough if you want to like tristan and isolde, is here, i don’t know who scanned it but i think i found it on @/lanzelet’s blog

the dutch texts are just good in general, here’s a link to their section of a(n unfinished) site for hosting various texts by my former mutual @/reynier (who’s no longer on tumblr). i’d like to recommend lancelot and the white hart specifically bc it’s mainly just just gawaine being gay for lancelot.

if you want older works, here’s my scan of the history of the kings of britain, and here’s culwch and olwen and pa gur.

oh wow this is even longer than i thought it would be so i’m going to wrap this up by saying that i always love to talk abt arthuriana more than anything if you have any questions or just are curious!

#med lit on main #asks #hnoc #the mechs #romeo.txt

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juliandev0rak · 4 years ago

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Friends 🐑 🧶

Six: Friends – who was their best friend when they were younger? Did they have a friend group? Were their siblings their friends?

echoes of the past event

@arcana-echoes

Willa Clary, she/ her

Armara, a village in the south

18 years before the events of The Arcana, Willa is 9

Words: 1740

Warnings: none

It’s been a dreary morning, the rain nearly constant as it often is this time of year. Willa’s been stuck inside all day, helping her mother wind yarn into skeins. The wool is itchy against her hands and Willa is bored but it’s not like there’s much else to do on a day like this in Armara.

Willa decides to play around with her magic while she works, she knows she’s not supposed to but it’s too fun to resist. With a flick of her finger the entire pile of yarn by her feet winds into a neat ball. She smiles at her work proudly but her mother’s disapproving look has her back to winding the next skein by hand.

When she’d first started showing signs of magical abilities her parents had been frightened. As far as they know there isn’t anyone in the family who can do magic, and it was quite the surprise. In their village, magic is regarded as dangerous and her parents had told her to hide her powers. The people who live in Armara are superstitious, and though they used to believe in magic it had been many years since a magician had lived there and feelings had changed.

Her brothers are upstairs in the loft playing, and she tries not to feel bitter that she’s doing chores while they play. When the yarn is done her mother moves to the kitchen and Willa is put to work canning preserves and salted fish to put aside for the winter. The work never stops, her mother likes to be prepared and as the only daughter it’s up to Willa to help.

The rain finally stops around midday and her brothers immediately run outside to enjoy the sun, joining the growing group of neighbor children in the village square. Willa looks out the window somewhat wistfully, she knows there’s too much work to do for her to be able to join them.

Her mother notices her at the window and says “Well go on then, go play.” Willa turns around in surprise and stares at her mother.

“Really?” She says, not waiting for an answer, she’s already halfway out the door. She runs out to join the rest of the kids. They’re busy playing a game with a ball, two teams each trying to kick the ball through their team’s goal post. She watches her brothers and a dozen other children play, and no one asks her to join. Willa decides she isn’t one for games like this anyways so she takes a seat on the still damp ground, pulling at the daisies that grow in the grass.

Her hands start to weave the stems into a chain and she busies herself with the process, trying to ignore the laughter and loud chatter from the other children. She’s always enjoyed alone time, but she has to admit it would be nice to feel included. Any chance of that had been quelled when word of her magical abilities got around. Parents had forbidden their children from playing with her, and even her brothers had been on thin ice until it was deemed safe enough to play with the non-magical Clary children.

Armara is small and tightly knit, only around six dozen families live there. One of the neighbors had learned of her magic and soon enough the whole village knew that Willa was a “witch”. When she first heard the name, Willa was excited, being a witch sounded like great fun, but she soon learned that they meant it only in cruelty.

The few village girls she’d been close to had swiftly stopped asking her to play, and her mother had been more than happy to keep Willa inside to help with the work. Her only friends these days are the sheep and the other animals she finds in the forest. Deciding she’s had enough of watching the other children play, Willa decides to go in search of these friends.

Armara is situated on a cliffside above the sea and most people are shepherds or fishermen. Willa’s family are the former, their small flock of sheep graze in the meadow behind her house. Behind the meadow lies the forest, a cheery place that seems diffused with light even on gloomy days. Amara is a safe place to grow up but it’s boring and, Willa thinks, stifling.

The only place she’s able to practice her magic is in the forest, with the odd wandering sheep for company. She’s always understood how animals feel better than most, but in the last few months she’s been able to actually understand them. At first she thought she might be making it up, but when the animals started replying to her she knew it was just another magical ability, another thing she’d have to hide.

“Niamh?” She calls as she approaches the meadow, searching through the grazing sheep to find her favorite. Her parents think she’s silly for naming the sheep, but the sheep seem to like having names. None of the animals she’s talked to seem particularly bothered that she can understand them, and most of the time they don’t respond even though Willa knows they can hear her. She doesn’t hear full words, more vague ideas and emotions.

“Friend!” Willa hears as the sheep who most frequently talks to her makes her way through the crowd of other sheep. Willa immediately leans down to pet her, Niamh affectionately nuzzles back.

“I know all of you hate the rain, I’m glad it’s stopped for a bit!” Willa smiles, thinking of all the sheeps’ complaints she’d been privy to over the last few weeks. She continues to babble on about her day, and though Niamh doesn’t say anything back she can feel her understanding and contentment. Some might think it rather sad that Willa’s only friend is an old sheep, but Willa couldn’t ask for better company, even if she is mostly silent.

After catching Niamh up on the village gossip and promising to come back tomorrow she heads into the forest to practice a few spells she’s been working on. Willa’s magic is intuitive, she can make things happen but she can’t always replicate the action, she’s been dying for a sunny day to practice outside.

A few steps into the forest she grins and walks over to a pile of leaves, time to practice. She’s been trying to levitate objects whenever she has the chance, but anything heavier than a leaf just wobbles and stays put. She sits down on the ground again, suddenly remembering how muddy it is and that her mother won’t be happy that she’s stained her dress. But the damage is already done, she turns to her magic instead.

She stares intently at the pile of leaves, willing any of the leaves to move. Just when she thinks she might be almost there a voice behind her startles her.

“What are you doing?”

Willa turns around to see Isolde, a shy girl about her age who she hasn’t talked to much before. Isolde lives alone with her grandfather down by the cliffs on the outskirts of the village. They usually keep to themselves. The other children in the village pay no attention to her because she isn’t often around, and she doesn’t talk much when she is.

“Oh, hello Isolde, you startled me!” Willa says, hoping Isolde will drop her question.

“Are you doing magic?” Isolde asks, tilting her head to the side. She has dark hair and dark eyes, an uncommon trait in Armara where most people are blond or red haired, it’s another reason she’s treated as a bit of an anomaly. Not quite an outcast like Willa, but someone different than the rest.

“Uh.. yes?” Willa responds, unsure how the girl will react.

“Well let’s see it then.” Isolde says, sitting down next to her. Willa takes a deep breath, she’s even less confident with an audience now, and wills her magic to her hands. She can feel the rush of tingling warmth that always accompanies her magic and tries to focus on just one leaf.

Her eyes lock on the bright red leaf and she exhales and imagines it lifting into the air. To her delight, the leaf does just that. She turns to grin at Isolde, forgetting that she’s supposed to be afraid that someone just watched her perform magic. Isolde is smiling back just as big though. Something in Willa sighs in relief, finally someone who isn’t afraid of her.

“Can you do it again?” Isolde asks, so Willa does.

From that day on the two of them are inseparable. After her daily chores Willa practically runs to Isolde’s house on the cliffs. She finds that Isolde’s grandfather is much kinder than he seems from the times she’s seen him in the market. He makes the girls cups of cocoa and tells them stories of his hometown in the north, regaling them with the time he saw a kraken or when he accidentally insulted a pirate and narrowly escaped with his life.

The girls play together as children do, creating stories of their own and making daisy chains for the sheep. Isolde doesn’t think that Willa’s magic is weird or scary and Willa thinks that Isolde is an excellent listener, even if she doesn’t talk much. She even tries to teach Isolde a bit of magic, Isolde doesn’t seem to have much talent for it but she’s always excited to try.

Willa’s mother is relieved to see her daughter finally coming out of her shell and talking to people instead of sheep. For the winter solstice she even knits Isolde and WIlla matching sweaters with their initials on it. The girls wear them nearly every day when they meet up to play. The spot they meet at in the forest becomes their clubhouse, they use tree branches to make a fort and it’s their castle, their pirate ship, their playground.

Best of all, Isolde and Niamh get along and it even seems like Isolde can understand the sheep sometimes. Willa counts herself the luckiest girl in Armara to have magic and two friends to call her own. As the seasons change and the rain turns to deep snow Willa still feels warmer inside than she has in a long time, the stares and whispers don’t matter to her as much when she knows that someone is finally on her side.

#arcana eotp #apprentice willa #willa just wants to be friends with everyone- and yet #i was eating toast when i wrote this lol #idk why i felt the need to mention that but- setting the scene #it was really good toast...#laura leech there i left the toast tag in lol

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scentedflowersong · 4 years ago

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The Swan-Mills Saga Annual Couples’ Awards

Ladies (and in broader sense gentlemen), welcome to the most prestigious event of the year - The Swan-Mills Saga Couples’ Awards!

Tonight, we are going to celebrate the accomplishments of love. A jury of thoroughly selected individuals cast their votes and you are welcome to witness their picks of the best couples.

Following rules were chosen for this year’s contestants:

1. the couple must feature in Sins of the Past, The Once & Future Queen (by the ever so talented @swanqueeneverafter) or both,

2. during these two stories, the couple must pass a major relationship milestone.

We sincerely hope you’ll enjoy our picks...

!!!WARNING - SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Rocky Road to the Chapel of Love

Pairing: Ella of Valencia/Henry Swan-Mills Status: married Henry and Ella Swan-Mills went through a bit of a rough patch with Henry letting his fianceé go on an adventure alone (or well not alone, which was half of the problem), but in the end, they managed to overcome all hurdles and as far as we know are happily married and living in a house of their own.

The Star-Crossed Lovers

Pairing: Tristan/Isolde Status: Isolde is dead Quite the opposite fate awaited the pair(s) in our second category. Before Romeo&Juliet there were Tristan&Isolde. Although not exactly the milestone most couples want to go through, the death of Isolde brought the pair immortality AND a place in our contest (which makes it almost worth it in the eyes of our jury).

Honourable mention: Zelena Mills/Robin Hood 2.0

The Old Married Couple

Pairing: Xena/Gabrielle Status: engaged Contrary to what the title of this category (and their behaviour of the last 50 years give or take) might suggest, the Warrior Princess and the Battling Bard of Potidaea have yet to seal the deal. Finally, at the end of TO&FQ Xena asked her soulmate for to marry her, and I think it’s pointless to say that the jury is crying tears of joy even now.

Cottage Core/Teashop AU

Pairing: Tinkerbell/Tiger Lily Status: dating With a few twists in the timeline caused by an impromptu trip to the past (of which more later), the couple taking our next award are literally a pair of your fairy aunts who will sell you delicious herbal tea spiced up with fairy dust in their newly opened shop. Not counting X&G, Tink and Tiger Lily are quite possibly together for the longest time of all the couples featured here. Certainly a very pleasant surprise.

The Fresh Meat

Pairing: Drizella/Dr Whale Status: dating And from the ‘oldest’ to the very freshest twosome in the United realms. With both of her sisters married, Drizella decided that she’d like to put a ring on it too. The jury could not be happier fo her and Storybrooke’s hottest surgeon, Dr Victor Whale, to find love after their past hardships. Perhaps we’ll even get invited to their wedding soon...

The Wholeass 10-course Meal with a Cherry on Top

Pairing: Merida/Anastasia Status: married Speaking of weddings, this one was the titular cherry on top. Where to even start with Anastasia and Merida? They got it all, meet cute, crush/flirting without noticing but everyone else knows phase, the meet the dead relatives stuff, True Love’s Kiss AND a wedding/coronation! Looks like Scottish lasses know how to get thing done, eh? (the jury hereby asks for a step-by-step instructions)

Once Upon a First Time

Pairing: Emma Swan-Milla/Regina Swan-Mills Status: married Before you start to protest against Swan Queen getting awarded despite already going through all the standard relationship milestones, let us point out a very simple fact - thanks to the aforementioned trip back in time Emma, Mulan and Tiger Lily were forced to make, Mrs Swan-Mills met a pre-Evil Queen version of her wife and managed to be Regina’s first lover. Thus making their night of passion in a tent their first time thirty years before they officially meet in the “You’re Henry’s birthmother?!” scene, which is by the jury unanimously seen as an award worthy relationship milestone (not that Emma needed any more reasons to be smug little shit about it).

Something to Talk About

Pairing: Lena/Zelena Mills, Lena/Kara Danvers Status: unknown And so we’ve come to our last category. As the title may suggest both of these pairings are about to be the talk of the town for weeks, if only we knew which of them. During her journey from darkness, Morgana Pendragon left behind (among other things) her name and chose a fresh start where else than in Storybrooke as a new mayor. It goes without saying that as such, Lena is one of the best catches in the United Realms, the question is, who is gonna capture her (literally magic-filled) heart - the former Wicked Witch who saved her life, or the cunning new reporter with Daily Mirror? ;)

Now, thank you all for reading, let us know what you think of our picks.

A special thank you goes to the one and only @swanqueeneverafter for giving us all of the pairings above and much much more (just through the course of SOTP and TO&FQ twice the number of couples were featured).

May we meet at another celebration of The Swan-Mills saga again soon!

#the swan-mills saga #Sins of the Past #The Once & Future Queen #henry x ella #zelena x robin #tristan x isolde #xena x gabrielle #tinkerbell x tiger lily #drizella x dr whale #anastasia x merida #morgana x zelena #lena x kara #emma x regina

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masqucradings · 5 years ago

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hold! who goes there? why , is that 𝒄𝒆𝒄𝒊𝒍𝒚 𝒈𝒘𝒚𝒏𝒏𝒆 the 𝒕𝒆𝒎𝒑𝒕𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒔 of 𝒓𝒆𝒅 𝒌𝒆𝒆𝒑? they do look 𝒅𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒔 for a 𝒘𝒐𝒎𝒂𝒏 of 𝒕𝒘𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒚 - 𝒔𝒊𝒙 years. don’t they call 𝒉𝒆𝒓 the 𝒄𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒖𝒕𝒆 𝒒𝒖𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒏𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕? i’ve heard they’re also 𝒄𝒐𝒍𝒅 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒚 though. don’t take my word for it but they do look an awful lot like 𝒃𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒆 𝒌𝒐𝒌𝒅𝒆𝒎𝒊𝒓. ( pinterest / google doc )

BASIC INFO

NAME : cecily gwynne

PRONUNCIATION : ses - uh - lee g - w - ih - n

TITLE : courtesan at the dovecote brothel ( in actuality , she is a spy and assassin ).

AGE : twenty - six

PLACE OF ORIGIN : red keep , elysi

FAMILY MEMBERS : her mother , isolde , and a slew of aunts and cousins she left in red keep. her father , nicholas , passed away when she was young. her older sibling distanced themselves from the family when they were eighteen ( see wanted connections ).

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION

HEIGHT : five foot five

HAIR COLOR : brown

EYE COLOR : dark green

GENDER : cis female

BUILD : soft curves , lean muscle in her arms and legs

DISTINGUISHING FEATURES? : striking eyes

ANY HEALTH RELATED ISSUES? : not physically , but cecily deals with anxiety sourced from her own paranoia.

PERSONALITY

for a woman who makes her wealth by offering her company , a coldness radiates off of cecily gwynne. under her poise and cunning is a woman desensitized to violence , a stranger to warmth. cecily works incredibly hard to sculpt her reputation into one that reflects seduction and mystery ; the queen of the night , not a title to scoff at. those who find themselves in her company are entertained by a witty and blunt courtesan. she does not sugarcoat things for her regular clients and typically they appreciate her ( what appears to be ) honesty. around friends and at events , she carries some of her courtesan charm over , but she feels free enough to embrace her dry sense of humor and carefully crafted insults. she likes the drama of things and will never say no to indulging in her bad shopping habits.

at her core , cecily feels hollow. everything she does is for her family and yet she is so far away from them that she has no one to anchor her to the person she once was. sneaking along in the shadows or aiming a knife at someone’s back is when cecily feels at peace , for at least she has a purpose. she likes to feel powerful and smart , but her inflated ego has turned those into weaknesses ; for�� she always thinks she has the upper hand. it is difficult for her to maintain friendships that are deeper than superficial since her loyalty is hard won.

POSITIVE TRAITS : clever , poised , intelligent , charismatic , thoughtful , patient , strategic , captivating , observant.

NEGATIVE TRAITS : arrogant , indulgent , insensitive , cold , stubborn , untrustworthy , dishonest , dangerous , paranoid.

ADDITIONAL INFO

HER ESTRANGED SIBLING : her sibling had always disapproved of cecily and her mother , especially their dabbling in low magic. they left the home to pursue magical studies when they were eighteen and cecily has not seen them since , making it almost ten years of no contact. cecily remembers them striving to climb up the social ladder properly through the magaesterium and assumes that they remain with them. for cecily , her sibling is a distant memory she tries to forget. there is a deep seeded anger she stores just for them. she resents them for abandoning their family just because they didn’t like what the gwynnes did. the sibling is two years older than cecily & would be twenty - eight.

HER MENTOR : they found cecily pickpocketing in red keep , her fingers attempting to lift the pretty watch wrapped around their wrist. they promised to train her for a life that would lead to riches and prestige , not to mention her mother would be taken care of. when cecily agreed , she and her mother were sent to a remote farm where her mentor trained cecily and others in the art of espionage and killing. this person raised cecily out of nothing and she owes them far more than she would like. they keep contact mostly through letters but from time to time , cecily drops in on her old home at the farm to visit both them and her mother. her mentor will also stop by the brothel , pretending to be a client when really they and cecily are sharing a cup of tea.

HER MARKS & CLIENTS : nobility who frequent her courtesan house , may they be regulars or new to the dovecote. cecily picks her clients carefully so to only have to put up with those who definitely have information she wants. when her main business was not serving her well , she took other clients and those are the few she has amiable relations with.

CURRENT HANDLER : submitted to the main as a wanted connection but if any other muses fit hmu !! cecily was recently hired by the house this person is either a member of or loyal to. the person was then chosen to be cecily’s handler , which means to meet her in glasswater keep to receive her reports and to also keep an eye on her. they have a back and forth rapport / frenemies kind of dynamic. i can see this dynamic developing in a few ways so i’m open to anything!

HISTORY

the gwynne women were purveyors of fortunes and other low magic. they served with a knowing smile , as if they already had your whole future laid out in front of them and they were laughing at what was to come of you. cecily came from a long line of these women who never married but instead took lovers and bore them children. the partners were always welcomed to stay and raise the children among the gwynne’s , but they rarely stayed. cecily’s father surprised her mother by refusing to leave. when he did go it was unwillingly. she remembers his scratchy beard and thundering laugh , and then she remembers her mother’s sobs released in the dead of the night after he died. in the day , her mother wore a bright look , eyes gleaming with excitement and curiosity. cecily adored her more than anything in the world. she wanted to be her when she was just a child , wishing she could grow up faster so to follow her to wherever she went.

soon , she did grow up and was allowed to join her mother as she swept through the streets of the red keep. cecily treasured those stolen moments in between job , her mother would entertain her with stories and anecdotes , all to keep a smile on the young girl’s face. all she wished was that her sibling enjoyed the outings as much as she did , and that her father was there too. but the lines had been drawn in the sand and cecily grew distant from her older sibling when they decided to pursue magic. they thought cecily and their mother inferior for involving themselves in lowly magic, but it was all the gwynne women knew to do . . . until cecily’s sibling left home to properly study what they called real magic. cecily’s mother was distraught , though she wouldn’t say it to cecily. the girl , only sixteen at the time , knew her mother’s tells and the walls of their apartment were just as thin as when her father died . . . though this time her mother’s cries were softer and more hollow , as if she could not believe someone else left.

the gwynne family maintained their business of fortune telling as the years went on , but they lost some of their regular clients and money became tight. cecily and her mother always knew how to cut corners to survive but this was an even tighter corner to cut. cecily took to pickpocketing in the busy areas of the city and got fairly good at it. her desperation to care for her mother led her to the path that changed her life. she attempted to lift a fine bracelet off of someone when they caught her wrist. cecily thought she was going to lose her hand but instead the person laughed and admitted she had attempted to pickpocket a rather skilled thief. they took an interest in her and her mother and would return to talk to cecily every day , often with a loaf of bread or fresh fruit to share. eventually they offered to take care of cecily and her mother. cecily had been suspicious , never really trusting someone she met on the street , but the person explained they would be teaching cecily a trade.

the trade was not what she expected when her mother and her were brought to a remote farm north of red keep. she had not cared what it was going to be , only that her mother would be cared for and that cecily would get a job out of it. when it was presented that she would train to be a spy and assassin , cecily was of course shocked but she did not leave. rather , she dedicated herself to the training and came out a superb fighter. she trained at the farm from seventeen to twenty - one and harnessed her natural skills of stealth and persuasion , while learning the grittier parts of the job. she didn’t at first have the stomach for the killing , not even when they went out to hunt. it was her mother , who helped in the kitchens , who reminded her it was all a matter of survival and to think of how she was raised — her mother and father tried to give them security but the gwynnes never rose out of poverty in red keep. nobles would walk by the slums and gawk but never help. the reminder of their arrogance and lack of compassion made something in cecily snap : why should she care whether another noble lives or dies . . . they didn’t care what happened to the common folk. if they wanted to pay to kill one of their own , cecily would not stand in the way — in fact , she would happily help them along.

her mother gave her the encouragement she needed to throw herself completely into training. when she turned twenty - one she had a job waiting for her in the northlands and then in another part of the world and another. cecily realized she and her mother would never starve again. while she traveled to carry out jobs , her mother decided to remain at the farm and take responsibility for the kitchens and other household duties. cecily was sure that her mother would be safe and free. they lost contact with her aunts after her mother made the decision and cecily, to this day, still aches for her family. in the past when she visited red keep she would sneak around their neighborhood just to catch a sight of a cousin or aunt but she kept her distance , for their own safety.

cecily spent a fair amount of time traveling to do her job but three years ago realized that she could serve a greater purpose by installing herself in one of the capitals where there was sure to nosey nobles who wanted secrets sniffed out. she came up with the idea of posing as a courtesan — she felt no discomfort with the job as she had spent her early twenties training to kill people. she was used to the uncomfortable. besides , she knew if she collected a group of clients and established herself she would have more access to the nobility. there was the downside of the total isolation. she was far away from her makeshift family when she settled in glasswater. it made her cold and distant. no longer did she have someone reminding her of who she was before she got into the business of espionage and murder.

most recently , cecily has taken up a contract with the (tbd) house , gathering information on their behalf and then sending it to them. it pays well but she knows she’ll trade loyalties as soon as someone offers a heavier coin purse. she has little investment in the growing rebellion. though as she was originally from red keep and had looser morals instilled in her , she finds their sentiments against interracial marriage to be in bad taste to say the least. though she can’t help but be enamored by their dreams of choosing their own ruler. cecily has her own share of distrust of the current establishment , but she knows who pays her bills and she cannot afford to lose her biggest clients. cecily is prepared to become a wartime spy and assassin , not to choose sides but to survive.

#this is .. LONG #if you need a shorter version hmu #kc.intro #*・ﾟ ﹙ ♡ ﹚ . HEADCANONS ↻ you do not know fear until you know me

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morningelvis · 5 years ago

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Which continuity do you prefer, legends or canon?

legends by a sizable margin

i won’t echo everybody else’s complaints about the sequel trilogy – i’ve sworn off complaining about disney star wars because i’d been doing it for years and i’m tired of it. there’s lots of little things about canon leia that i like, like her relationship with han and the events of bloodline, but the circular nature of the films is just disappointing to me. also i don’t believe han and leia would’ve had only one child!

legends isn’t perfect at all: there’s a book set after rotj in which han shoots leia with a tranquilizing dart and kidnaps her because she considers marrying a prince for political reasons. plots dictate that leia is a very absent mother – she’s hardly around for the first three years of her children’s lives. but i love the story of the solo family. i love eu characters like winter retrac and prince isolder. i love the throwaway lines that reveal that han and leia have sex on the floor. most of all, i love jedi and chief of state leia. she’s a total badass while still retaining her flaws. not every portrayal of her is perfect, but i love eu leia just as much as, if not more than, ot leia

if you’re asking because you’re interested in reading works from one canon, don’t let me stop you! my qualms with disney canon are mostly with the films. there’s plenty of books that i really like that are set before tfa. feel free to ask for suggestions!

#ask #anon

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ronannott · 6 years ago

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❧ he is a boy made of smoke — a soldier, a weapon, a wound in motion ❧

❝ He’s the same on the field as he is everywhere else. Strong. Graceful. Fucking ruthless. ❞ JORDAN BOLGER? No, that’s actually RONAN NOTT. A SIXTH YEAR student, this GRYFFINDOR student is sided with the DEATH EATERS. HE identifies as a CIS MAN and is a PUREBLOOD who is known to be STUBBORN, UNTRUSTING, and WRATHFUL but also DRIVEN, RESOURCEFUL, and COURAGEOUS. { JANE, 22, NZT, SHE/HER }

aloha this is ronan (and jane again, which is just embarrassing) and he is... Something™

he has a pinterest here

ronan is the eldest of two children of theodore nott and isolde montague; he was born three years before his sister, but their current age gap is... a little more complicated

[ emotional abuse tw ] // theodore nott was always a hard man. rigid and cold, with expectations. he was never as good a teacher as he believed, always expecting more from his children than he was capable of teaching them, and yet never letting up. their inability to reach his expectations was not the fault of his teaching —- it was always, always on them. ronan pushed himself to be better, to fulfil under his father’s tutelage, and when it became evident that his father’s expectations exceeded his father’s capabilities, ronan pursued things privately —- upon arriving at hogwarts, seeking out thalia rookwood for personal training, but even prior to that, conducting his own study, spending his own time seeking to please his father. it was never quite enough, but sometimes theodore looked like it almost was, and ronan lived for those moments of reprieve.

[ experimentation tw, kidnapping tw, just generally despicable actions warning ] // theodore nott had always hated vampires. all part-humans, really, but vampires were a special abomination in his eyes —- that which was human, was alive, and then turned into something other. a corpse walking. death made flesh. a monster pretending to be a person. theo had always been one for experimentation, someone who enjoyed exploring old magical texts and following their alchemical recipes, but it was when his children were younger that he finally got his hands on certain dark texts (ones which would make aleister crowley’s beliefs look saint-like) and took the next step: no longer would he experiment on materials, but finally, on vampirism itself. of course, you can’t attack a concept without knowing what it’s made of. you can’t destroy a disease without curing the sick. and for that... you need the sick.

[ emotional abuse tw ] it took him a while to graduate to it, beyond his theoretical writings, but eventually, he began capturing and experimenting on vampires. the cellar was his domain, and his children dared not challenge that authority. besides, they had their own studies to do —- memorising military strategy from historical battles for ronan, reciting the properties of magical plants for eithne, and every distraction that kept theo down there was one more thing standing between them and his punishing gaze roving over and over them, finding faults in areas they already believed picked bone-dry. [ end experimentation/kidnapping tw ]

this was the way things were. their mother, isolde, was present and loving but not strong —- something about her had always seemed fragile, delicate, but that was okay. their father was strong. it was okay if their mother was soft, because their father was strong enough to keep her safe. and if their father was getting more distracted, spending more time downstairs, well, that was okay too, because he’d trained ronan and eithne, hadn’t he? they could protect her. and he was still there, of course; his presence was permanent, constant, and it was a relief for him to be downstairs, because as much as his children loved him, they were suffocated by him too. [ end emotional abuse tw ]

[ torture tw, experimentation tw, murder tw, death tw, parental death tw, violence tw, attack tw, kidnapping tw, just generally despicable actions warning ] one night, it all changed. it was the winter of ronan’s fifth year, and he was sixteen. eithne was a second year, and still twelve. she was the one in the library that night, nearest the door to the cellar. in every other respect, the night was the same as any other. only this time —- one of theodore’s subjects escaped. it’s a blur for ronan. he remembers his father hoarsely shouting his name — and running running running — and the door to the cellar open — his father’s throat ripped out — someone—-something—-crouched over eithne, drinking hungrily, greedily, desperately, and then looking up — mournful eyes, furious and desperate and guilty and a thousand other things ronan didn’t know how to decipher — and then they hurled themselves out the window and ran into the night.

ronan doesn’t remember much of that night after those flashes. he knows he went down to the cellar, to his father’s sanctuary, and found devices that made him feel nauseous in ways he wasn’t sure he’d ever be rid of. he found cauldrons and flasks, labels and meticulous notes in his father’s precise handwriting. ink is stark on parchment, standing bright against the page, and the words burned through his mind. he could barely process it, but he processed enough to understand what it was that had attacked eithne, what it was that had killed his father——what it was that his father had done. [ end tws ]

there was blood in some of the flasks, and grabbing the only ones labelled as ‘clean’, he rushed back up the stairs to give them to his sister. there was blood, so much blood, and his mother was there — when did she get there? — and she was crying, wailing, something cracked as she saw her husband’s body and screamed. and ronan? he went into soldier mode. evaluate the risks. save those who can be saved. use any resources at your disposal. he used essence of dittany to staunch the flow of eithne’s blood, refusing to think about how deathly pale she looked, and moved her to her bedroom, before floo-calling his uncle arthur, who worked with the department of law enforcement. arthur, his mother’s brother, surveyed the scene, and then sent ronan to take care of his mother and calm her down, saying that he would ‘handle everything’.

and handle it he did. he never asked about eithne, and ronan didn’t tell him anything, fearing subconsciously what arthur might expect him to do, but when ronan came down later, it was to a few kindly looking officials asking him about the attack, if he’d seen the vampire at all, how very very sorry they were about this attack, if he had any idea how the vampire had gotten past the wards, if there was any reason why the vampires might have targeted his home— .... if it wasn’t so overwhelming, ronan might have corrected them without thinking, but as it was, his training kicked in, in combination with the effects of the events of the night, and he stayed quiet — numb — answering minutely, in shock, with all the uncertainty of a teenage boy who has no idea how to fathom everything he’s experienced the last few hours.

the upshot is this: his father is dead, at the hands of a vampire whom he tortured, by the looks of what ronan finds in his notebook; his sister is a vampire, and there’s nobody they can ask for help, nobody who they trust to keep their secret, and so they must try hazard it out on their own; his mother loses some of herself that night too, dying in the attack alongside his father’s whole self & his sister’s ability to breathe, and ronan doesn’t know how to keep her together by himself.

so he asks theodore’s brother, edward, to move in. edward nott is an experimenter like his brother, fascinated by history and magic and the intersection of both, in old alchemical texts and the applications he can find, but he is interested in the nature of magic, and he has no use for his brother’s cellar of horrors. he’s scatter-brained, absolutely, and has no pragmatic tendencies, but he’s the nott patriarch now, and his presence keeps prying questions away.

the public story is: theodore nott was attacked by a vampire for his anti-vampire rhetoric, and the trauma of viewing the attack has left eithne nott reluctant to return to hogwarts, and has instead opted to be home-schooled. the rumours are: eithne nott had a breakdown about her father’s attack, and is now practically a squib, the poor thing, no wonder the notts keep her home, imagine the shame— the truth is neither of these things, but they are both much better to be believed, as far as the notts—ronan, really, because ronan is the one in charge now, even though he’s a teenager, even though he’s lost his father and practically his mother too, because he’s the only one left, and someone has to hold everyone else up, right?—are concerned. and so ronan does not speak against the rumours, simply trains with thalia, even harder than ever, and dedicates himself more to becoming what his father wanted, because he knows, deep in his heart, that saving eithne was a weakness his father would never forgive.

[ emotional abuse tw ] ( he has a complicated thought process about it, and it’s all due to his father’s teaching. he cannot help but think of it as a weakness, as him not being strong enough to do what his father taught, and to kill the monster before she became a monster, not when she wore his sister’s face —- but the flipside of that is that in his weakness, he gave her a chance, and that chance showed him that, for all the differences between the eithne she is now and the eithne she was before, there are all the more things that have stayed the same. and so he has this warring sense inside himself, of thinking himself weak for sparing his sister because he knows his father would not have, and—treasonously, perhaps, which explains for the guilt which accompanies the stubborn defiance of this thought, contrary as the two emotions may be—thinking he was right to do so. there’s a lot to unpack there, because his father’s teachings are so drummed into his and eithne’s heads, and there is guilt at the defiance even as the defiance exists, there is believing it was a weakness as well as believing in its rightness, and i think one day he’ll unravel that. for her part, eithne has very complicated thoughts on her father too. she resents him for what happened to her, for what he did which allowed this to happen to her, but she feels guilty for that too, because he died in that attack, and she loves him, just like ronan did, and she doesn’t know if it’s disloyal to resent him for what happened. she’s forever twelve, visually, and that’s something she doesn’t have words to explain her grief and fury over, but emotionally speaking, she’d only just be turning fourteen in july, and she is in no way equipped to handle the tangled emotions she has wrt her father and her vampirism. ronan throws himself into becoming what his father wanted (or has, for now) as a way to process his grief and his guilt, especially because he cannot regret saving his sister, and eithne tries to dispel her emotions by wrecking things in the manor. eventually, i think, they’ll both come to terms with it, or at least confront the truth of what their father was and what that means to them, but for now: they are young, and grieving a man they do not know how to believe in anymore, and also the people they could have been. ) [ end tw ]

it’s kinda funny, in a way that isn’t comedic at all, how theodore would have never given eithne the chance ronan did, because as far as ronan can tell, she’s much more like him than ronan ever was. ronan was moulded by him, but he learned military strategy; eithne’s the inquisitive one, who’s always had the desire to see how things fall apart and fit together, though ronan is sure in every bone of his being that she’d never experiment the way theodore did. sometimes when eithne’s angry, she gets that exact same stormy look in her eyes that theodore did, and it’s all ronan can do not to flinch. he’s learning to see it as eithne’s expression, though, and not a ghost of his father. it’s slow-going, but he’s learning, because the last thing he wants is for eithne to look at herself and see her father, because love always came with something hard with their father, and for the first time, the two of them are really discovering what love looks like without conditions. his father is in the way he thinks—-the way he’s been trained to think, with years of studying strategies—-and fights and duels, and he feels his echoes in everything he does, but it’s in eithne he sees his father, and he loves and hates those moments in equal measure. the one thing that the vampirism and his father’s passing did for the siblings that ronan does not regret is that it showed them how much they mattered to each other —- ronan had always loved his sister, but it wasn’t until her turning and the fact that he did ( and still does ) all he can to save and protect her that really showed them how much they mean to each other. his father was his hero, but he loved his sister just as much as he loved him, and he couldn’t hurt her, not even with all their father’s words in his head, and he wouldn’t let anyone else hurt her either, and that meant everything to her. whatever else, the nott siblings would do anything for each other, and now they know it.

the past summer was especially integral for figuring out how they were moving forward. it had been some six months since eithne’s turning, but it was the first time since the winter solstice when his father died that ronan had been present for a long stretch of time ( given the shortness of easter break ). three months together, to figure things out, and ronan spent most of his time with his mother and sister, or trying to read up on things about vampirism, even delving into his father’s notebooks for any information which could help eithne. when he wasn’t doing that, he was training harder than ever before, or sorting out practical matters, like finances.

when it was time to return to hogwarts, he was incredibly reluctant to leave his sister and mother, but there was something undeniably relieving about it —- he’d been going stir-crazy, and it was what set him to try out for gryffindor beater. he’d played quidditch before, in his youth and in the summers, but he’d never felt any need to try out for the team —- nor is he sure he’d have been accepted to it, given the amount of talent the team had always possessed, and it was only this year with openings in beater position that he considered it —- until now; with all his focus going into his sister and his trainings with thalia, and the classes he’d always valued with his father, he needed some other outlet, something to call his own. he was a natural fit for beating —- not only in the physicality, but the inherent protectiveness of the role. not that he’d ever considered his other teammates people he’d generally protect, but he’d been in the role of protector for eithne for so long that it felt surprisingly natural to fit into it in other spheres, even for irritating people such as lily potter. on a broom, politics and personality didn’t matter, not really.

until, well. the war hit. ronan’s montague cousins had largely been involved earlier —- aurelia, tbd* and tristan, particularly —- but ronan himself had been left mostly alone, given everything with his family. it was known to some of the death eaters that he trained with thalia, and given his father’s death at the hands of a vampire and the effect it had on his sister, it was widely assumed he’d want revenge against part-humans, especially with some of his cousins vouching for it, and so he was left alone until the deaths on halloween. and then — expectations were expectations, and ronan knew what his father would want. moreover, he knew being the perfect soldier would help keep attention on him, and not thinking so much about his sister, and how nobody had seen her for a long time. it wasn’t that he didn’t believe, exactly —- it was what he was taught, after all, and it was only within the last year that he’d had a reason to have a crisis of faith wrt his father’s teachings on the vampire front, let alone everything else that had been in the world... though, his father had always been more concerned with creature status than blood status, though he did tend to be slightly more patient with purebloods than others, in part because he tended to know them or their families —- it was more that his decision-making process was focused primarily with his sister and the family reputation, and had not managed to detach itself from the weight of his father’s expectations.

ronan mostly spends his time at death eater meetings with thalia, who’s been a mentor for him for a long time --- there’s a sort of reputation there, about rookwood and nott, that they’re two who can get something done. he’s not as vicious as odilia travers, but he’s no less physical, and he’s a soldier first and foremost.

[ kidnapping tw ] his opinion on the taking of lily potter is... complicated. it’s not so much about who it happened to as how it happened. he's a soldier, and that was a covert act, a sneaky one, an unfair fight? and he knows deception, he practices in... not deception so much as i guess trying to hide things, with his sister, and his mother and uncle and even some elements of his father's legacy, like trying to keep the notts afloat (i suppose pragmatically rather than any other way —- money's fine, he's not got to worry about that — though i do think theo's experiments were costly, but they can manage — but it's more that his uncle is not practical, and not particularly interested in being helpful, he's scattered and too focused on his experiments (thankfully less sharp, less inhumane than theo's, more about the nature of magic), and isolde was never especially a strong personality but has certainly deteriorated since the attack, so ronan's just been the only one focusing on it all), but those are a very different thing from... the sheer sneakiness and unfairness of a kidnapping, i guess. like he is a gryffindor, and there are some things —- sometimes you do what you have to, in war, but kidnapping a teenage girl (especially one like —- as frustrating as she can be, she's also still a face he knew every day? he remembers what she looked like at eleven?) is, idk, it's a factor, i guess. there’s a skewed sense of honour at play there, similar to how he made the choice to keep protecting eithne, to do anything to keep her alive, even if she’s technically dead —- ( i think for most of his life --- and probably at sorting, then --- he thought he was loyal to causes and groups first, because nothing made him doubt it? but now he knows he's loyal to people more than a cause, but even with that, he's loyal to the right person over the wrong one when it comes to the people he loves, like loyalty to eithne wins out over loyalty to theo, and i don't think it's that he loves her more than he loved his father, i think it's about... when it's between the people he loves, he can't choose there so then he goes to the next process, which in his head was maybe what his father would have called weakness but i think came down to... which was the right one to go with? even if he doesn't realise/wouldn't frame it that way? ) i also don’t think ronan realises the kidnapping not sitting right is due to that skewed version of honour (or i guess it's a straightforward honour type that's been skewed by the framing he was taught) or if he thinks it's another like... element of weakness? but i think he recognises it's different to the eithne situation, i just don't know if he's cognisant that it's like... idk, why it mattered that it was unfair? or if he recognises that it reminds him of what his father was doing, or if he's consciously not realising that/subconsciously avoiding it (even as he subconsciously is aware of it on some level, because it contributes to the feeling)? because a big aspect of how her taking sits with him is absolutely how it reminds him of what his father did, because that’s an awful thing to do to people, especially now that he’s more sure that vampires really are more like people, no matter what his father said, because he can see it in eithne, and then he thinks about it happening to eithne, and his mind sort of --- shuts it all down, in order to compartmentalise it, but it bleeds over, and it’s honestly a bit triggering for him, but i really don’t think he’s cognisant of that

he’s big on physical and duelling training, and has been seeking out a lot of stuff about that himself, and with thalia’s help. dada is probably his best subject, followed by transfiguration. fire & smoke, these are his areas, especially smoke —- the aftermath of a fire, the thing that fills a house burned to its bones, something deadlier than fire, even if it’s never shining as bright. he’s a hard worker, but it’s a learned behaviour more than it is inherent. a product of his childhood, really. he’s always loved history, but he’s not sure if he would if he’d discovered it by himself? as it was, his father taught him history, made him study it, and it’s part of the foundation of his life, but he doesn’t know what his relationship to history would look like if you took his father out. his fury is like his father’s too, odd as it may seem —- his father has always been cold, and there’s an inherent warmth to ronan, and fire does not burn in ice, but there’s something there, in how consuming it can be. theodore’s fury and hatred was all-consuming. i’m really hopeful that ronan’s won’t consume him —- that he won’t lose himself to it. he’s dedicated and determined, and absolutely resourceful. when he was sixteen and grieving and traumatised, he swallowed his bile and bucked up his courage and rooted around his father’s cellar, using everything at his disposal to try figure out what could be used to help eithne. he has a lot of secrets, a lot of things he keeps to himself out of necessity, and i think there’s something lonely in that sometimes. there are parts of himself he can’t share with anyone, not even his sister, so he has to swallow them down and hope they never escape. before it all, he was focused, but he always had a tendency towards quick retorts when his temper was stung and withering looks in classrooms. nowadays, he’s slightly more reticent, a bit more careful with his words, but there’s grief and rage that wasn’t there before, things from the last year and a half only, and they are a bleeding edge in his mouth, and sometimes they come out. he isn’t cruel for sport, and he isn’t one to go after people for entertainment, but he has never been much good at backing down when incited to a fight ( he’s learning—-or trying—-but it’s a hard habit to break ) and when he’s furious, he doesn’t much care about the destruction his words or actions could wreak. as long as it doesn’t hurt his sister.

character parallels: diego hargreeves, the umbrella academy — this bears explaining, probably. wrt theodore’s parenting style, there’s a general sense of parallel to the hargreeves, i think, in that theodore is cold and expectant, and isolde is nurturing, if not a particularly strong personality. diego comes into play in a few ways: at his core, diego adores his mother and is immensely protective of his siblings, even if sometimes he’s an asshole —- that’s pretty solidly ronan wrt isolde & especially eithne; there’s the physicality, the fighting ability, which ronan and diego both share; and, although he’s not there yet, eventually ronan’s mindset regarding his father will shift to something closer to diego’s. right now it’s closer to luther’s, as a product of emotional abuse and desperately craving his father’s love, approval & pride, but it’s something he’s been grappling with since the night eithne turned, and eventually resentment will win out over guilt, and recognition over that blind love. i just hope he doesn’t lose himself in it. i think ronan will always love his father—-even if he shouldn’t, i think it’s too entrenched in part of him to ever shake out completely—-but i think he’s certainly coming to a time where, while he might eventually forgive him (he also might not—-i’m genuinely unsure here), he’ll never be able to buy into him or endorse him again. it’s a pretty shattering realisation he’s coming to, because theodore was his hero, undeserving of the title as he may be, but it is one that is coming nonetheless. ; bellamy blake (the 100) — his love for octavia is the big thing, but i think there’s also something to be said for how emotionally ruled he can be, and how he makes bad decision after bad decision (in season one) but his motivations are always understandable and his heart is in the right place --- and when he chooses to lead, he leads. [ murder tw ]there’s also a line in the novel when bellamy catches his mother, aurora, trying to suffocate octavia, and he stops her, but aurora says like... ‘you can have a sister or a mother. you can’t have both.’ and that’s also pretty fitting with this dichotomy of theodore and eithne --- he can live up to his father’s expectations, or he can believe in his sister’s humanity, but the two are mutually exclusive [ end tw ] ; rhys (seven black diamonds) — again, rhys is notable for his protection of his sister, but he’s also a supreme soldier. he’s the best fighter other than maybe his mother (whom he is also v protective of), and family and duty mean everything to him, and it’s an interesting conflict when those two things begin to contradict each other.

#iidyintro #kidnapping tw #death tw #parental death tw #torture tw #emotional abuse tw #experimentation tw #violence tw

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