#in contrast to anne's

[air-mechanical]

LOOK AT ME

Cromwell running his interrogation like the master manager he is, calling everyone by their first names and nicknames, demanding Riche look at him as he vomits up another rusty piece of rubbish to throw at him, purple clothes, gloves, a 3000 strong army squeezed into his house it's all ridiculous, it all hurts so much, so the least this ungrateful traitor can do is look him in the eye as he attacks.

Cromwell's verbal destruction is undertaken by men of poor skill, wielding their words bluntly and landing poor blows. Then his physical destruction is undertaken by a man of poor skill, wielding his axe poorly and landing blunt blows.

[nosnexus]

Wanted the Rat Grinders to have a proper cover.

(In a perfect world I'd make a variant cover with The Bad Kids and the Ice Feast)

[beautiful-contrast]

[watermel0ns-dumb-cringe]

help I was in the middle of making an angsty thing and paused halfway through just to make this

[princessanneftw]

1984/2024 - Princess Anne cuddling her three-year-old daughter Zara Phillips on the balcony of Buckingham Palace. 40 years later, Zara Tindall cuddling her three-year-old son Lucas Tindall at the Badminton Horse Trials.

[adamnablelittledevil]

Armand, Maharet and Mekare's stories are so paralleled and inversely proportional at the same time and not much is spoke on that tbh.

[cosmic-walkers]

I have so many thoughts about Jane and how her main goal was to be viewed through the eyes of men. She was a product of their consumption.

The silent, one-sided rivalry going on between Thomas and Henry over her is one of the most defining parts of the season. And perhaps, rivalry is not the correct word, but they both want her, they both desire her, Henry wants her because he needs an heir, and a wife, and for all the tears he doesn’t really care about her after her death. On the other end, Thomas wants her because he believes he could’ve been a better husband to her. He proclaims it at her death, and like Henry, he is left crying and shattered.

Between Henry and Thomas, Jane was propped up as a Madonna figure; an innocent doe, a virgin queen, someone who was untouched, and must be protected, and someone who is innocent.

She was very much seen and desired through their eyes, and their eyes alone. Even when she was in the company of other women, those women were drowned out, her relationships with them were not as strong as her relationship with Thomas or Henry.

She existed mainly for the consumption of men, to marry her, to impregnate her, to desire her from afar, to believe they could treat her better, etc. It reminds me of the movie Milena, if you’ve ever seen it or part of it. Where you have this beautiful woman, but her life/person is viewed through the eyes of men, and she is overly desired by them. Even the ‘good’ ones. This isn’t really a good or bad thing in Jane’s case. I just find it interesting how at least to me, she is a character propped up by men, and viewed through the eyes of men. There is hardly a scene with Jane where she is alone, without Thomas or Henry.

[john-laurens]

We now prepared to set off on our return to Geneva, the ladies with the nurse rode in the charabanc as when they came, but I had prepared a better conveyance for Caroline. A guide of Chamouny, who, without one atom of superfluous flesh, was as big a man as your neighbour Mr. T—, and as surefooted as a mule, bore her in his arms over all the bad road, which lasted nearly twenty miles.

Letter from Francis Kinloch to Eliza Kinloch Nelson, contained in Letters from Geneva and France, Vol. 1

The imagery created by this paragraph is just too good. Here's the context:

Francis Kinloch traveled to Europe with his wife Martha and his children Anne and Frederick in 1803-1806. While in Europe, Francis and Martha's third child Caroline was born on June 15, 1804. (Complete speculation, but I like to imagine that they named her Caroline after their home state of South Carolina.) Sometime after her birth, the family visited the Bossons Glacier/Mont Blanc. The letter does not give a date for their visit, but Francis does mention that it was "a warm day in August." Based on a letter from Francis to Johannes von Müller dated August 7, 1804, it appears that this trip was undertaken when Caroline was only two months old. It is sweet to see that Francis cared about his young daughter's safety on the journey, and I just love the idea of him trying to hire the biggest, buffest, most skilled mountain climber in town for the important purpose of Carry Baby Down Mountain. (But also - why are you taking your newborn child up a mountain in the first place?)

Here's some additional description about the roads they traveled on and the charabanc the other family members used:

The Charabanc, as you will perceive by the drawing near you, is a kind of rude sopha upon four low wheels, and with short axles trees; it is easily taken to pieces, and two men convey all the parts of it over a narrow bridge in four turns. *The sort of charabanc here described is used only in mountain roads, which are very narrow. There is another sort of charabanc for better roads, and this last seems to have been the model of what we calla Dearborn waggon.

[hollow-head]

WIP i used to work with a very attractive young woman, who was also a very nice person, and she would flirt with people often and do that hair flick thing. i always wondered why girls did that. my hair’s too thick.

[agalychnisspranneusroseus]

The hard part about trying to incorporate political themes in riaau is that all the characters have very medieval-esque ways of seeing politics so no one is actually thinking about the kinds of outcomes we would see as reasonable like idk class equality. I'm a filthy communist but none of my blorbos can even begin to consider properly dismantling the system because I would have to speedrun the frog version of the development of liberal thinking on order to get the development of its modern antithesis: frog marxism.

And since the characters originally come from a much more modern settings where the concept of human rights are a thing, it might be harder to get the reader to buy, idk, Marcy ordering an execution

[averlym]

May I req soft parrlyn please

thank you for the req, here they are <3

[tezula]

I take a great deal of psychic damage every time Yukimura steps onto a court

[enchanted-keys]

shirbert’s porch scene in 3.07 is a masterpiece for so many reasons, but one that I was thinking of in particular, and that is never mentioned by anyone, is the way Anne says “Winiefred is a lucky gal” to Gilbert. I know that it’s frustrating at first because it’s getting in their way, but she’s just so sincere when she says that: her gaze is so soft, and there isn’t an ounce of jelousy in her tone, maybe a little bit of sadness, but mostly she just sounds grateful; grateful for Gilbert and who he is, for his kindness and his willingness to help people. She’s usually so quick to push him away, but right then she’s taking a moment to appreciate him and his good heart, and how he helped her with something so important to her without even being asked, because he cares too, and I think that’s beautiful :’)

[beautiful-contrast]

[sieglinde-freud]

i think the fell xenologue does a great job at characterizing some of the royals beyond the vanilla game mostly because every single royal has like one or two core principles that really make them who they are and so getting rid of those one or two things completely converts them into a completely different person. like alcryst losing his self doubt, celine loses her empathy, hortensia loses her resilience, etc etc. but i think my favorite version of this has to be fogado, who has in my opinion the most drastic change. i think all of the other royals have very outward presenting traits that you can easily catch onto and see theyve lost. but fogado is just a little different, because what fell fogado lacks isnt really a trait; he loses his sense of love. (rest under the cut bc it turned into an essay. my bad also fell xenologue spoilers obvs)

“our” fogado (?? idk how to differentiate between them. work with me here) is not an easy person to read in universe. he makes it very clear in chapter 13 that he’s pretty good at deception and is very willing to make use of that skill. his supports with timerra and pandreo also tell us he’s gotten used to keeping up a specially crafted persona meant to kind of suppress his feelings (that timerra and pandreo can see through but. like 1. theyre smart 2. sister and bff ok moving on). but he doesn’t do it out of malice or because he just likes being tricky, he lies because he loves. everything in fogado’s life is shaped by what he loves: his country, his friends, and his sister. every single motivation he has is fueled by this: the constant partying, how often he leaves the castle, all his acting. its even in his goddamn class name (cupido) and birthday (feb 14) if you needed the game to spell it out for you

so thats why when we get to the fell xenologue, the fogado we meet is changed in that one specific way: his love is gone. we know this because of a few things, the first of which is that he is honest. aside from the robe (in which he is assassinating someone! but also. lets be so honest with ourselves here. you can see his fucking face) he’s immediately upfront with his intentions: he wants the bracelets, he wants power, and he wants you to die. and thats it. he just kind of hands you that information, and then fucks off when you win. on what earth would our fogado do that? dude wouldnt even tell you if he broke his leg, he just partied a little hard last night. but thats just it isnt it? our fogado lies because he loves people, hes protecting them. fell!fogado is transparent because he’s not protecting anyone, he doesn’t care.

but the biggest kicker in fell!fogado’s lack of love is in his interaction with our timerra. our fogado loves his sister more than anything, as he literally plans his entire life around making HER life easier. he sacrifices even just spending time with her just because he needs to make sure hes fully prepared to keep her safe (not that timerra wants that for him but he doesnt really get that. which is another topic i could dive into but this post is long enough lets not make it a novel). fell!fogado though? well you see–

any love fogado holds for his sister, or any love at all really, is just not present in fell!fogado. and you could say that maybe its just because of the corruption, but then why do we still see love between the fierenese and brodian siblings? even fell!timerra still loves her brother if her conversation with our fogado is anything to go off of. but the writers know that fogado lives and dies on his love for people, its his entire being and so much more so than the rest of the cast. which is why thats what had to change in him for the fell xenologue. it wasnt really just a flip of the switch haha murder thing (though. it could have been handled better. lets be real) but it was the loss of everything that makes fogado him. and i think the fact that this gets to be highlighted in the dlc just makes base game fogado all that much more interesting, because it cements his motivation now that we know what he's like without it. fogado is a guy driven by love and its just fucking great

[ardenrosegarden]

Heracles not being able to touch his wife and children after killing them and having his father bury them in his place versus Theseus being instructed to hold his dying son and bury him himself. Lots to think about.