#joust do it

[princesssmars]

thinking about princess reader and royal knight rhaenyra…

as the young princess of dorne, tourneys were nothing new to you. you’d never really cared for them, finding the blood and violence unnecessary and borderline barbaric. when you could you would beg your mother to come up with an excuse to your father to let you stay at the palace, citing sickness, weariness, anything.

but this time you had no choice. because as your family entered into the royal watching booth, politely greeting the members of your father court, your father stops before extending his hand to your guest - king viserys of westeros himself.

you’d heard many things about him, partially from overhearing your mothers gossip and from the workers talking a little too loudly when you’d sneak in the kitchens. you obviously knew he was a targaryen, his long silver gold hair and peculiar eyes telling anyone with a short distance of his heritage.

but more importantly you’d heard that he was a mostly kind and generous king, with a large portion of his people happy under his reign. there was no better option for your father to invite to his event.

you gracefully presented yourself to him, smiling when he kissed the back of your hand and gave you a polite compliment. he introduced his wife, the beautiful queen aemma, and his vibrant young son baelon who excitedly shook his hand at you and everyone else in the booth.

after the introductions everyone say down to let the people know the tourney could commence, cheers ringing as you settled into place in front of your father and next to rosalei, one of the fellow younger ladies in court who was your closest friend ever since she snuck some sugared treats to your room when the head cook had banned you from them for a week.

the even was like any other : knights got in their horses, they picked up giant sticks, then ran at each other on said horses with said sticks and tried to knock the other man down. yet again the event did nothing to entertain you, focusing on the small conversation you were keeping up with rosalei while paying attention to the ones around you. for now, your father and his guest had discovered their shared love for the histories and had veered to the animosity but occasional generosity between their people.

your father is close to getting on to the topic of a equally beneficial trade deal when whispers from the small folk take over the crowd, some standing up and pointing at a contender who had entered the fighting area. you bend over the edge of the booth to catch a look, ignoring your mother chastising your posture and manners.

it’s a knight everyone’s looking at, that’s true, but a knight unlike you’ve ever seen before. their armor is black and scarily imposing, a beautiful construction of steel with strong pleats and swoops. their horse is somehow darker than the armor, black as knight with a bright sun medallion around its neck. its only then you notice the flag in their hand, along with the dragon emblems on their armor.

"you have a competing knight, your grace?" you ask, turning your head around when you are only met with silence. the visiting kings face is red, smile so forced it looks like he’s going to quickly gain a cramp in his jaw. the queen is resting a hand on his shoulder, subtly trying to comfort him while they exchange hushed whispers.

“said…show strength…not what i meant-“

the queen tries to comfort him more before they look in your direction, along with every one else in your booth. your body goes rigid for a second before you realize they’re looking behind you, turning your body to see what was so intriguing.

the targaryen knight, poised right beneath the opening of the booth, helmeted head and joust sword tipped towards you. and even without being able to see their face you know their eyes are trained on you.

you can also tell that everyone is waiting for you to do something. so with all the farce you can muster you gently pick up your favor, raising it high enough for the people to see, and let it slide down onto the joust.

no further words are shared, the warrior staying in place for a few more seconds before goading their horse back into position. as you watch you plop back into your seat, breathing slightly stuttering at the encounter while your friend pokes and prods for an explanation for whatever that was.

even if you had the time you wouldn’t be able to say much, feeling like a warm thick jelly has suddenly made its home inside your throat. put of the corner of your you can see one of the kings guards looking at you, but before you can turn to look back at him the sudden roars of the crowd snap your attention to the game.

almost like a bolt of lighting does the warrior speed down the jousting lane, sword aimed steady at the burly man who had bested most of the other men in the contest. just when his sword is aimed inches away from the knight, then bend their body dangerously close to falling off of their horse before thrusting at just the right moment to knock the man down, the sound of galloping hooves and crunching metal all you can hear.

the cheers from the commoners is near deafening, but all you can focus on is the knight, who instead of basking in the success and praise is yet again looking in your direction. but looking back at the aghast king viserys, you can’t exactly tell who they are trying to impress.

after congratulating and thanking the people for coming and competing, and giving a personal thanks to the king for making his way down to your kingdom, your father dismisses everyone to enjoy the other tourney activities while the royal families go to prepare for later celebrations. after giving the royal family of westeros a quick goodbye, you grab rosealai’s hand and hurry out of the booth to grab a quick bite from one of the fair booths and to try to talk all you can about what just happened.

but right before you ca leave the booth you’re stopped in your tracks, no one other than the black knight standing in front of you. you blink up at them, waiting for them to speak before their hands raise to take off their helmet to reveal themselves . it’s almost in slow motion that you take in every part of their face - a soft angled jaw, pink lips, a broad nose, short silver hair -

“rhaenyra! finally, please show a bit of grace to our hosts and introduce yourself.” king viserys comes up beside you, gently scooting beside you to wrap an arm around the armored shoulders of the knight. “the last impression i’ll have my daughter making is that she’s yet another rude and british knight.”

neither of you move however, gazes locked and bodies still. only about a thousand thoughts are running through your head at the current moment.

the knight is a woman. the knight is an attractive woman. the knight is princess rhaenyra. princess rhaenyra who came up to your booth and quietly asked for your favor.

without a word spoken or breaking ye contact, the heavy hand of the princess grabs yours, physically strong but gently soft, bringing it up slowly before pressing a kiss to the back of your hand.

you’ve always been able to keep your composure in the face of extreme emotions, a necessary trait as a royal who had to make quick and harsh decisions. sadly that all seems to be going out the window as you feel your cheeks warm and your breathing get faster.

“it is an honor to meet you, princess. and even greater an honor to win a competition with your favor. i hope similar opportunities make themselves available in the future.”

her voice is melodic yet curt, no room for doubt or wrongful interpretation. you break her gaze to look down at her lips, looking back up to see her doing the same before a sly smile appears on her face.

clearly the moment goes on a little too long for comfort, the king further ushering his daughter to greet your father and mother after giving the two of you a worried look. when her body passes yours you can feel her hand discreetly brush against your side, shivering slightly at the cold of the steel even through the fabrics of your dress.

your father quickly motions for one of his guard to guide you back to the castle before turning to your guests with a welcoming but greedy smile. you can feel rosalei’s barey contained excitement as you rush out of the entryway, not before looking back one last time and seeing purple eyes already trained on your body.

maybe tourneys weren’t so boring after all.

can you tell i don’t really know shit about tourneys. sorry if some things are inaccurate i’m getting everything through hotd, asoiaf wiki, and tiktok’s 💔

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Merle Oberon (Wuthering Heights, The Scarlet Pimpernel)—She was mixed race (born in India and her mother was Sri Lankan) and still managed to make it in the British and American film industries (by passing) despite a rough start in life and industry racism. She was the first Asian person to be nominated for any Academy Award (best actress in 1935)! She also survived a car accident in 1937 and kept on acting until 1973, despite potentially career-ending facial scars. Also, she met her third husband while they were filming a movie together in 1973 (her last movie and she still looks great!). They fell in love and got married in 1975 when she was 62 and he was 36. She died 4 years later in 1979. Iconic.

Jean Seberg (Breathless, Saint Joan)— Some of us watched À bout de souffle as a lil French undergrad and had the trajectory of our lives changed by Jean Seberg. She IS French new wave!! She is the moment!! She sadly had to work with a lot of shitty directors in her career but even so, she has this magnetic energy whenever she’s on screen. In her personal life, she was also very supportive of civil rights causes, and was even targeted/harassed by the FBI for financially supporting the Black Panther Party.

This is round 3 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Merle Oberon:

Beautiful. Talented. Biracial. Also please refer to the following promo from the aforementioned A Night To Remember, in which she plays the writer George Sand:

Her performances always give off this perfect blend of of being composed, refined, and aloof while still being deeply passionate and I eat it up every time.

Linked gifset

A rare example of a WOC working in lead roles in this era (mostly because she worked very hard to pass as white and had to hide her south asian heritage sadly). She has this very regal vibe but also a simmering intensity—even holding her own as Cathy opposite Laurence Olivier as Heathcliff.

I need all the gothic fans to STAND UP for our cathy!!

She has such a unique face when it comes to old hollywood actresses - a lot of them start to melt together in my brain - but Merle has always stood out to me<3

Jean Seberg:

anyone who plays Joan of Arc is kind of hot by default tbh

she's gorgeous, she's cool, she has the original blond pixie cut

She donated a lot of her money to civil rights organizations such as the NAACP and the black panther party as well as Native American school groups, as a result of this the fbi ran a smear campaign against her and a surveillance campaign which is thought to have led to her suicide tragically.

idk if this is propaganda but the COINTELPRO and the FBI are widely blamed for her death. If the FBI was after her for supporting the Black Panther Party you know she was good

[chainymail]

best advice to all knights regarding pre-tournamet anxiety is to bend your squire over sometime before they finish arming you, rut into them as fast and clumsily as you can, your chainmail hauberk cutting into their bare ass, spill into them because they’ll ask for it, then struggle into the rest of your gear as your squire lies prone and leaking on the floor. Remind your squire to stand up, clean up , and carry your banner before you ride out though, it’s incredibly important that all the nobility see how weak-kneed and red-faced they are.

[nauti-ca]

my stormlight oc, lore, and her mistspren, khiteas, in his lance form

she’s an iriali truthwatcher and a woman in stem :-)

[fluentisonus]

something something guy who is so so unhealthily dependent on these very specific formalized roles & narratives they've been cast into to maintain an ultimately broken relationship & can't handle it when the people around him increasingly start going off script

[ohpsshaw]

All Typhus wanted was to go to his stupid friend's stupid coronation and now he has his stupid memories back and feels the stupid crushing weight of Father's disappointment for not killing indiscriminately this whole time. Coping has been hard.

Typhus and I are HUGE Sceleritas fans. I like to imagine that every night-visit is actually two hours long, with Typhus telling Sceleritas all about his week and then ignoring all his advice. Some part of him recognizes and trusts his butler, just not enough to kill all his friends. …but if it’ll get him back in daddy’s good graces, maybe…

[mortiscausa]

March to Camelot: an arthurian palette challenge for march 2024

When: March 1st to 31st Rules: The objective is to try to draw something Arthurian inspired by each word prompt using the palette provided. This could be anything from a full illustration to a character design. You have 5 days to complete each prompt, except for the last prompt where you get 6 days. If you have any questions, please feel free to send an ask. Why: I've been running a B5 palette challenge over on my fanart blog for the past couple of years and thought it'd be fun to do something similar with Arthurian Legend, even if it ended up just being me doing it. :') Finally, remember to tag your work #march to camelot or @ me so I can reblog and share your work. Happy drawing!

[mmhberry]

society if the new medieval camp had pvp jousting where you actually have to defend your house as knight and a medieval-themed questline that’s expanded on

[stitchy-face]

THE BIT AND THE BLADE ⚔️🐎ON SHELVES FEBRUARY 197X

"Butch may have bested the infamous Drake Knight Valegra at the tourney, but will it be enough to tame the tensions between them?

Find out in THE BIT AND THE BLADE, a steamy romance x tournament story coming soon . . ."

[palimpsessed]

COC, day 12: Normal

“But not today. Today I’m someone else entirely. Today I’m just a bloke with fake red wings.”

“It takes my breath away when it hits me:

In every group of people, there’s someone moving too smoothly, someone’s face shining pearl-white in the spinning lights. With Normals. Without Normals. In twos and threes. In their element. A man looks down at me from a Cadillac Escalade and flashes a bloodless grin.”

@carryon-countdown

[narfin-frood]

I think "the eye on the skullship" would be a cool episode in this au, getting a look at Mr meteor's kingdom, the daily lives of it inhabitants and how they been faring during his absence and other plot stuff.

thank you very much, i'm so glad people are taking inspiration from my au!!! and i thought i'd go ahead and answer these both at once, since they're somewhat related

i thought about this ask for a while and i even attempted to do a little boarding for the potential eye on the skullship (skullcastle?), but it was right before hitting a slump and i never got very far. instead of it being a vlog series, i might have him do a newsletter or something in the style of an amateur newspaper, and have him go around highlighting all the boredom and directionless monotony around the castle? he'd be met with a lot of "idk if we're allowed to be like, on our phones in here, man", and a lot of his questions would be "where do you think lord lackadaisical went" in so many words.

the last bit would happen right after the letter from lord lackey granting ownership of the kingdom to the watchdogs arrives and andy gets to open a full-size newspaper business writing about the watchdogs or something nice like that :)

since i'd think the kingdom would be forked over to the watchdogs like, late season one? this episode would probably be way earlier in the series, since i think the letter confirming lord lackey's permanent absence is what i'd use as the inciting incident for lord westley. i guess in a way it'd be smashing the little guy and the eye on the skullship into one, but there'd be a separate "the little guy" type episode focused on dominator, and the entirety of season 2 would be haunted by westley instead of her.

ermmm tldr TEOTSS would be similar, but the setting would be slightly different, and it would be earlier in the series.

[portrait-of-a-moron]

I wanna see someone who has “ceo of [ship]” in their bio and someone who has that ship in a DNI list duke it out in a parking lot

[marlynnofmany]

Stars and the Slapping Thereof

If the last spaceport had been a flat parking lot kind of place, this one reminded me of a hollow skyscraper made for birds. I don’t know how the whole thing stayed up, honestly; the walls were more open air than anything else. Spaceships parked at every level. Elevators and gravity tubes zipped around vertically, while moving sidewalks spun in opposite directions.

From where our ship sat, I had a fine view of a mixed-species group in teal uniforms all trying to crowd onto the inner sidewalk ring at the same time. They moved off to the right with only minor awkwardness. Behind the ship, I heard the unmistakable sound of a human falling over and swearing about it, most likely after stepping on the other ring accidentally.

Not that I’ve ever done that, mind you. Nooooo, not a bit of personal experience with undignified pratfalls.

“Is that— No, that isn’t them,” Paint said, paying attention to something completely different. “I hope there will still be a spot near us when they get here.” She rubbed her knuckles together in agitation, orange scales clicking.

Zhee flicked an antenna. “Kamm is always punctual,” he said. “It will be fine.”

I leaned out of the ship’s shadow to count the empty spots. “We can always go stand in one to reserve it for her.” I reconsidered. “Right? Or do the pilots land too quickly here?”

Zhee was saying something disparaging about the general population’s safety awareness when a hoverchair separated from the crowd and whirred up to us. The driver was a pale human with glittery star crystals in his dark hair, thin legs that clearly didn’t get much use, and bare feet. The toenail polish was even more galaxy-patterned than his hair. Stylish. He called out as soon as he was within polite speaking range.

“Is this the Unflattenable?” he asked, pointing at our ship.

I looked up and back. “Oh! No, but it’ll be here soon. We’re waiting for it too.”

“Ah,” he said. “Sorry. Your ship looks a lot like it.”

Zhee didn’t move, looking in both directions with his big bug eyes. “Same manufacturers,” he said.

Paint was more enthusiastic. “We haven’t seen them in forever!” she told the man. “They’re going to help us deliver a bunch of stuff in one trip.”

The man nodded. “They’re bringing cargo for me. I hoped they’d be here by now.”

“Should be soon,” I said, peering around at the many directions a ship could approach from. No sign of another lemon-looking craft with solar sails.

He nodded again. Everyone was awkwardly silent for a moment. A distant ship landed with a thump of faulty thrusters. Pedestrians on both sidewalks held loud conversations as they slid past.

“So what’s your ship called?” the man asked.

Zhee straightened up. “This is the good ship—”

Paint beat him to it. “Slap the Stars! Isn’t that a great name?”

The man burst into laughter, then apologized at the angry tilt to Zhee’s antennae. “Sorry. I love it. I’m not much of a spacer, and I keep being surprised by some of the names that ships have around here.”

“That is a perfectly normal name,” Zhee told him with an abrupt motion of one pincher. “Strongarm manufacturers. It is human ships that have the truly absurd titles.”

I grinned at him. “You’re still not over the droid jousting ship Hold My Beer, are you?”

Zhee’s tone was extremely dry. “I will never be over that.”

“I saw some great ones earlier!” Paint said, unfolding a screen and connecting to the port’s public information hub. “Let’s see, there’s the Glorious.”

“A fine Mesmer name,” Zhee put in.

“The Deep Thrum; I like that. Might be Frillian? Oh, and there’s the human warship Funwrecker.”

I laughed. “Yup, definitely human.”

“And the Better Than You.”

“That could really be either human or Mesmer,” I said with a look at Zhee.

Zhee flexed his pinchers, looking haughty. “It all depends on whether it is true.”

Paint kept reading. “What about the Solar Flare? That could be anybody.”

“Heatseeker,” Zhee said. “Solar flares are hot.”

Paint, a Heatseeker herself, scoffed quietly. “Not everything is about heat.”

“Don’t most Heatseeker ships have food names?” I asked with a glance at the other human, who was following all this with open curiosity. “Pretty sure Captain Sunlight has family with a ship called the Worm Jerky.”

“I guess they do,” Paint said thoughtfully. “It’s a good luck thing. I didn’t realize it was that common.” She looked back at the screen. “Oh, and that might explain this other ship called the Raw Flesh.”

The human spoke up at that. “The what?”

I held up both hands. “It’s got to be a translation issue. A food thing. Some specific uncooked dish. Like sushi?”

The human just shook his head and made a face like he’d tasted something unpleasant.

“There’s also the Conqueror of the Next Ocean,” Paint offered. “That one’s probably Strongarm.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” I said. “They’re so proud of crawling out of their first ocean.”

“Strongarms are the ones with tentacles, right?” the human asked.

“Right,” I told him. “They look kind of like an octopus or a squid.”

“You said your ship was designed by Strongarms? What was it called again?”

“Slap the Stars,” I said. “Strongarms do slap a number of things with those tentacles. It’s a fun bit of sass in a ship name.”

“It’s not sass,” Zhee said scornfully. “It’s an intent to master all things, whether the things want to be mastered or not. Very admirable confidence.”

Paint looked up in distress. “I thought it was a game!” she said. “Something with pebbles on a table, right? Isn’t that a thing?”

The door to our ship opened to admit the scaly yellow form of Captain Sunlight. I turned to her for answers. “Hello, Captain! Can you tell us what the name of our ship actually means?”

Unflappable as ever, the good captain barely quirked a browridge as she walked over to join us. “Something about slapping stars, I imagine,” she said. “I always thought of it as a nod to the way damp tentacles can put out sparks of flame without getting burned.”

I threw my hands skyward in mock exasperation.

Captain Sunlight kept talking. “But then, I’m not a Strongarm. Let me ask one.” She spoke into her communicator, addressing the pilot on duty. “Wio, what is the Strongarm association with slapping stars?”

Faint and tinny, Wio’s voice said, “Pretty sure it’s something about gathering food. Spiky ones. I don’t know; I’m from a different planet.”

The human was chuckling quietly to himself at this point, while Zhee looked grumpy and Paint scrolled through more names for clues. Captain Sunlight glanced at me.

“Looks like we’ll just have to ask someone who was actually there when the ship was named,” she said, nodding toward the next dock. “Here she is.”

A bright yellow ship with folded solar sails came in to rest beside ours, remarkably stealthy when I wasn’t paying attention. The other human said a quick goodbye to us before scooting over to wait for the hatch to open.

As eager as we were to see the crew again after long last, we kept a professional distance while they did business. A pair of Heatseekers brought out the human’s crate — a fancy model with its own hover engine — and a Strongarm tactfully proffered the payment tablet.

Then Captain Kamm herself appeared, in all her deep green glory, with a polite greeting for the human and an enthusiastic wave of several tentacles toward us. “Hello over there! It’s been too long!”

“It has!” Captain Sunlight said, strolling over while the human handed back the tablet and hitched the crate to the back of his chair. I followed, with Zhee and Paint right behind. Captain Sunlight continued. “We’ve got a burning question for you. What was the original meaning behind our ship name? We seem to have come up with several. I’d ask Pockap, but…”

“But he’s far away, and also an idiot,” Captain Kamm finished, speaking about her cousin with complete honesty. He’d only been in charge for the very beginning of my time on the ship, and “idiot” was generous.

“As you say,” Captain Sunlight agreed.

“Well, if I recall correctly, it was actually inspired by a human thing,” said Captain Kamm.

“What?” I blurted. In my peripheral vision, the other human paused before going on his way.

“That thing you do,” Captain Kamm said, waving a tentacle. “Slapping each other in camaraderie.”

“We what?” I repeated, sharing a baffled look with the other guy.

Captain Kamm waved the one tentacle again, then flopped two against each other, making a wet sound. “You know,” she said. “You slap hands. Very friendly. The idea was to bring that kind of cheerful energy to the stars.”

I held my hands apart, thinking of applause, then it hit me. “Oh! Do you mean a high five?” I turned and demonstrated; the other human matched it perfectly.

“Yes!” Captain Kamm said. “That! That’s what your ship is named for!”

I laughed; I couldn’t help it. Zhee made an opinionated hiss while Paint exclaimed that that was much better than the game explanation.

“Glad I could be a part of this,” said the human. “See you around! May you slap many stars.”

“The same to you!” I said, waving as he steered onto the walkway. “Hooray for solving a mystery that we didn’t realize needed solving.”

“Those are the best kind,” said Paint, and I had to agree.

~~~

The ongoing backstory adventures of the main character from this book. More to come!

[gideonisms]

I feel like I just need to pick one machine to get really good at fixing and then I will be set. But there are so many machines in this world, how do I choose

[sandcastle-art]

Spearmaster and all of the main crew lined up together! :) I still want to do Nightcat and Inv/Enot, but right now I'm just happy to have all these guys done ^-^

also, they're getting their own tag in case I ever want to draw more, they will be under #g: rainbound on here.

[thatsbelievable]