#literally like...they CAME FOR ME with the knight/queen dynamic

[wistfulwatcher]

#just a knight looking to her queen for approval

[a-secret-bolton-vampire]

Here, another impromptu House of the Dragon essay, following episode 6, which has left me obsessed and delighted to see Rhaenyra finally confirmed canonically queer. This is not refined at all, just all off the cuff.

Rhaenyra and Alicent parallel each other in a lot of ways, but one way that I am not seeing brought up a lot is also the way their new partners add to their parallels. Granted, since Rhaenyra and Mysaria kissed literally last episode there hasn't been a lot of time to think, but it's a sign of a much greater trend between Alicent and Rhaenyra in season 2.

The relationship between Alicent and Criston is a direct parallel and foil to the relationship between Rhaenyra and Mysaria in a myriad of ways:

Criston was spurned by Rhaenyra, and when he was at his lowest moment, Alicent came to stop his suicide and raised him up to be her sworn protector. Ever since then, Criston has remained fiercely loyal to Alicent... to an arguably unhealthy degree. He kills Lyman Beesbury not necessarily because he was against the coup, but because he personally accused Alicent of regicide. He puts Alicent up on an enormously high pedestal, as this kind of saviour of his. Likewise, Alicent is bonded with Criston due to their shared betrayal of Rhaenyra.

The relationship itself is very unhealthy. It's almost like they are codependent in a way. Criston is only where he is now because Alicent saved him. He owes a lot to her. Likewise, Alicent owes a lot to Criston for being her biggest champion. Criston is also fairly lowborn. He's from a very low noble house, and is described as the commonborn son of the steward of Lord Blackhaven. He's just at the edge of nobility, and yet he has been on a meteoric rise, shooting from just another knight to a knight of the Kingsguard, to bodyguard of the queen, to Lord Commander and later as Hand, the most powerful position in the realm after the King.

Compare this with Rhaenyra and Mysaria. Both women have been wronged by Daemon, who has used them for his own ends and disregarded their feelings. Daemon promised Mysaria her freedom if she provided names for people to hire to kill Aemond, but ended up simply fucking off to Harrenhal. There, Mysaria, having lost all she built in King's Landing thanks to Larys, is freed by Rhaenyra who decides to honour Daemon's word. Mysaria is not someone to trust easily, and Rhaenyra freeing her when she had no real reason to shows her worth to Mysaria.

Mysaria doesn't necessarily put Rhaenyra on a pedestal though. She is immensely grateful, and she feels Rhaenyra treats her as an equal and that she is meant to be queen, but there is none of this toxic obsessive codependency between the two (at least, not yet) that is displayed with Alicent and Criston. Like Alicent and Criston, however, they bond through a shared experience of betrayal by someone else, in this case Daemon.

Both relationships are those that would not be looked on lightly by society. Alicent is the dowager queen, Criston is sworn to celibacy, while Rhaenyra and Mysaria are both women in a world where queer relationships aren't exactly viewed in a positive light. Criston and Mysaria are also both contrasting partners, as they are of low rank (though Mysaria is not from a noble house unlike Criston) but are self-made people who climbed to a high position; Criston through his skill at arms, Mysaria through the trade of selling information.

Criston and Mysaria also have a contrasting relationship with the Hightowers and Targaryens. At least in Criston's eyes, Rhaenyra Targaryen betrayed him and brought him low, only to be raised by Alicent Hightower. Meanwhile, Mysaria is brought low by Alicent but raised back up by Rhaenyra. However, despite the gap in the power structure between Rhaenyra and Mysaria being far greater than that of Criston and Alicent, the power dynamic is actually completely opposite.

Season 2 began with Alicent holding power, with Criston subservient to her, with Otto working alongside her. It also began with Rhaenyra being powerless due to the crippling grief of losing Luke and then following Blood and Cheese refusing to make any moves that could hurt more innocent people, which weakens her own standing among her council. But as the season progresses, this gets flipped upside down. When Criston is named Hand, we see a major shift in his dynamic with Alicent. There is a lot of fuss made about Alicent's sex scene with him at the end of episode 2, but this actually conveys this perfectly. Without Alicent's leave, Criston suddenly makes himself at home in her bedchambers, and instead of kneeling to her or letting her be on top, he takes control of her.

Alicent grows more and more distant from Criston as he settles into his position as Hand. Suddenly, Criston feels that by vetoing Alicent from being the regent, he is protecting her from the terrible things they will be doing in the course of the war. Again, this works alongside Criston's weird complex about Alicent being his saviour. She seems so pure in his eyes that he is protecting her by taking on the sins of leadership just as he has protected her all these years as her sworn protector. The problem is that at the same time this devalues Alicent because this is another misogynistic assumption on his part that women should not sully themselves by having a hand with such nasty business. Criston thinks he's protecting her, but at the same time weakening her and making her even more vulnerable, and this is why their relationship eventually falters.

We see the exact opposite with Rhaenyra and Mysaria. Mysaria is at the mercy of Rhaenyra, but Rhaenyra allows her a place in her court as an advisor. Mysaria grows in power in this position, just as Cole did. However, that doesn't come at the expense of Rhaenyra's own power. Thanks to Daemon's reckless, self-serving actions, the Black Council's unhelpful misogyny, and undermining advice, Rhaenyra finds she does not wield influence at court. Except with Mysaria.

With Mysaria, Rhaenyra learns that there is another way to gain power, and that is with the support of the common people. Together, the two conspire to instigate riots in King's Landing and destabilize the Greens hold on the city, while Rhaenyra herself finds that she wants to be spearheading the more militaristic aspects of the war. When Mysaria sees Rhaenyra holding a sword, she says "this becomes you," supporting Rhaenyra's endeavour to take after her idol and hero Visenya and become a warrior queen.

Yet, as Mysaria later tells Rhaenyra, this doesn't in any way make her less powerful. Rhaenyra has treated Mysaria as an equal, her closest advisor, her unofficial Hand (even with Corlys newly named). The mutual bond between the two then reaches a crescendo in a tender moment of vulnerability and gratitude for each other, and their embrace quickly becomes a passionate kiss.

Criston casts Alicent down, but Mysaria raises Rhaenyra up. Criston and Alicent's relationship is based on this shared betrayal by Rhaenyra which became codependent on their united front of this shared history. Meanwhile, though Rhaenyra and Mysaria's relationship does come somewhat from the way Daemon has hurt them both, it is primarily based on honesty and compassion. In this way, as of right now, Rhaenyra and Mysaria are the most healthy couple in House of the Dragon.

One final observation is that I think Alicent and Rhaenyra are also trying to emulate certain people in these relationships. Alicent, always having envied Rhaenyra for her freedom, is finally forgoing any temperance to allow herself to enjoy sex for the first time in her life. Her doing something so reckless is her trying to be like Rhaenyra. Meanwhile, Rhaenyra kissing Mysaria is partially her trying to be more like Daemon, as much as I also believe it is loneliness and genuine attraction to her. She literally states before the kiss that Daemon was everything she wished she was. This may be only the beginning. We are starting to see a much more fiery side of her, as she begins to don the image of a warrior queen who wishes to win this war.

I will also say this, while we are on the topic; it's very meaningful to me that Rhaenyra is canonically queer, especially as a queer person myself. Queer characters are nothing new in the A Song of Ice and Fire universe, but we don't have any truly canonically queer protagonists. Dany and Cersei may qualify but that is much less to do with actual attraction to women and more simply good old lesbian experimentation (not to mention written in a pretty exploitative and male-gazey way). Rhaenyra has shades of both characters in her kiss with Mysaria, but from everything I've laid out, it's not experimentation. Rhaenyra is just bisexual.

Rhaenyra being in a polyamorous relationship with Mysaria and Daemon has been a headcanon of mine ever since Fire and Blood came out, and I've picked up on the vibes between them this season, which made me hearing about the complaints that it came "out of nowhere" really strange, because it truly didn't. It's been building up slowly the past few episodes, and it's just the logical conclusion based on what was presented.

How this will change her relationship with Daemon, I cannot say. But I will say that I believe if Daemon is jealous of Rhaenyra and Mysaria being together, it won't be because of fidelity or homophobia, but purely because they are both women he has been with, which would trigger all sorts of insecurities.

[bard-llama]

WiP Wednesday: Gascon/Emhyr

I almost forgot about WiP Wednesday today because I was so busy getting worked up over how many thoughts I have about how education and politics should work and intersect. Like, literally, I started 2 fics where characters talk about ed policy shit just to get some of it out lmao. But then I got distracted by the idea of Gascon/Emhyr. yeah, you read that right.

I blame this on @straysinfiltrator​. She mentioned Gascon/Emhyr and wrote a wonderful snip (that is not shippy, but is them interacting) and suddenly I was hooked lmao. The dynamic potential is just SO GOOD. 

And then it grew plot. Because of course it did 😂😭 So this fic is gonna be Gascon/Emhyr and eventual Meve/Reynard/Gascon and possibly also more Emhyr ships, just ‘cause I’m polyam as hell. 

“So… come here often?”

“Excuse me?” Emhyr frowned heavily at the garishly dressed Lyrian noble who had the temerity to intrude upon his Zone of Control – or personal space, as others called it.

The noble wiggled the offered glass of champagne in Emhyr’s face. “I asked if you came here often,” the noble grinned, entirely unperturbed by Emhyr’s glare.

Very few people could withstand his glare.

After a moment’s consideration, Emhyr took the champagne glass. He didn’t take a sip, though. It could be poisoned, after all.

The noble didn’t seem to care, smile growing instead as he stepped up next to Emhyr to lean against the wall.

“Name’s Gascon,” he introduced himself, “and I know who you are, of course.”

“Of course,” Emhyr echoed faintly, confused. Why was this man talking to him? “What do you want?”

“What, a guy can’t bring a handsome man a glass of champagne anymore?”

Emhyr blinked. Handsome? Him?

He supposed it wasn’t the first time he’d heard the descriptor used, but he’d never thought it was serious before. How could he, when he’d spent years forced to wear a helmet in order to converse with someone without scaring them away?

“Why did you bring me champagne?” Emhyr asked blankly.

“Well, it’s a good conversation starter, for one. But mostly because you looked downright miserable in the corner here and I’m given to understand that these diplomatic conferences are supposed to be fun.”

Emhyr couldn’t help his inelegant snort at that. “Diplomatic conferences are the opposite of fun. They’re an agreed upon torture method that we inflict upon each other out of necessity and sometimes spite.”

Considering this conference was being held in Lyria, where the queen had beaten off a Nilfgaardian invasion of the North not six months ago, spite was definitely a factor here.

“Oh yeah, Mevie hates you,” Gascon agreed, taking a long sip of champagne. “But you know, you never answered my question. Come here often?”

“...this is Lyria,” Emhyr said, mouthing ‘Mevie’ to himself. Who was this noble? To not only approach him and treat him so casually, but to treat his own queen thusly? And apparently get away with it?

“So it is,” Gascon hummed cheerily. “Been here before? To Lyria, I mean, not this ballroom in particular.”

“Not for a very long time.” Emhyr wasn’t sure why he was answering honestly, but he was. “When I was young, I passed through the land as a knight errant seeking work.”

For the first time, Gascon appeared genuinely taken off guard and Emhyr regretted his words instantly. But instead of questioning him, Gascon just grinned and asked, “oh yeah? Which parts did you spend time in?”

“Mostly down south,” Emhyr mumbled, suddenly embarrassed to be talking about this at all. “It was really just a brief–”

“Did you go through Spalla at all?”

Emhyr blinked. “Yes, actually. The lord there hired me to take care of some bandits, I think.” That made Gascon perk right up and Emhyr narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “Why?”

“That was my father,” Gascon shrugged. “Well, depending on the timing, I guess. Could’ve been my grandfather.” Hesitating for just a moment, Gascon admitted quietly, “my family was killed when I was pretty young.”

Oh. Well, that was something Emhyr could relate to, though he hadn’t thought back on his family in years, not since he’d avenged his father.

“Likewise,” he murmured.

“Oh. Is that why you became a knight errant? I imagine not many emperors can claim such a past.”

“More or less,” Emhyr said uncomfortably, already regretting having brought it up at all.

“‘More or less’,” Gascon quoted with a sardonic grin. “Okay, no questions about your past. Understood. Anything you’d prefer to talk about?”

Emhyr stared at him and he shrugged.

“I don’t exactly love talking about my past either, so I’m not gonna pry. But you’re handsome and interesting, so… anything you’d prefer to talk about?”

Really, Emhyr should just order Gascon away and go back to staring into space in abject boredom. So he was rather surprised to find himself saying, “do you know anything about astronomy?”

The delight that spread across Gascon’s face made him feel oddly warm, and he made a note to have his medic check him for signs of fever later. It would be just like Meve to somehow infect him at a peace conference.

“I do! Well, sort of. I know more about the myths and legends behind constellation names and stuff than like, anything about the actual stars. You?”

“My wife, she–” his breath hitched and part of him couldn’t believe that he was even bringing her up, but now that he’d started, he couldn’t seem to stop, “she was an avid reader, educated herself on anything and everything she could. She taught me a bit about how the North looks at the stars.”

“Yeah?” Gascon’s voice was soft, and given Emhyr as Emperor very openly did not have a wife, it wasn’t exactly difficult to put together that his beloved Pavetta had died, but it still made his chest feel oddly warm and light when Gascon offered his condolences.

“My mom was like that,” Gascon continued, not lingering on it, for which Emhyr was grateful. “She was a scholar, so she made a whole career out of it, but oh man, you wouldn’t believe the library we had when I was growing up.”

His face went distant and sad, perhaps at the memory that (Emhyr presumed) that collection was no more. Emhyr didn’t like it, so instead of letting Gascon ruminate, he pushed himself to ask, “did your mother have a favorite?”

Startling lightly, Gascon twisted to look at him. “Favorite? What, book? Star?”

Emhyr shrugged, the motion awkward in his stiff robes. It wasn’t something he did often. “Either. Both.”

“Hmm,” Gascon tilted his head, tapping his champagne glass against his lip. It was strangely distracting. “Okay, it’s kinda boring, but her favorite stars were actually Orion’s Belt, because she could always find them. I dunno if you call them that in Nilfgaard, but they’re the three bright stars in a row and they’re part of a constellation that’s supposed to be a hunter with a bow.”

Emhyr rubbed his chin, thinking for a moment. “Ah. Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka, perhaps. Near, um. Scorpius, I believe you call it? At least, that is the story Pavetta told me.”

“Yeah!” Gascon grinned brightly. “In our story, the constellations show Orion with his bow hunting the scorpion that killed him.”

“Hm. The Nilfgaardian version makes more sense,” Emhyr couldn’t help but say. “I just don’t see how that is a scorpion.”

Gascon’s laugh burst out of him loudly enough to surprise Emhyr, but oddly, Emhyr found that he rather liked the sound.

It did garner them some attention from others around the crowded ballroom, though, and that made him shift uncomfortably.

“All right,” Gascon chuckled, “what’s the Nilfgaardian version then.”

“Well, first off, it’s a peacock, not a scorpion.”

“Huh.” Gascon’s sound was intrigued. “I dunno if I’ve ever seen a peacock, to be honest. Drawings of ‘em, yeah, but never a real one.”

That distracted Emhyr from their observers. “Really? They’re quite interesting animals, actually. They’ve been known to simply wander the streets in Alba. Uh, that’s Nilfgaard’s original borders, if you weren’t aware.”

“Yeah, Lower Alba, right?” Gascon nodded. “Can they like… actually fly?”

“They can – I’m fairly certain, at any rate – but they seem to enjoy just walking around. I remember following one all the way across a park as a child. Well, that was a peahen, technically, but…”

“That’s wild,” Gascon laughed, shaking his head. “I genuinely would love to hear more, but I’m getting very urgent hand signals from across the room, so I’m assuming something’s come up. Let me get you a refill?” He gestured at Emhyr’s untouched drink with amusement.

Still somewhat bewildered that someone appeared to actually want to converse with him, Emhyr half-shrugged. “If you wish.”

“Lovely. Be right back, then,” Gascon winked at him, took his glass, and then spun on his heel and sauntered off into the crowd. If Emhyr watched him go, it was only because his garishly green suit caught the eye and refused to release it. That was the only reason Emhyr watched his hips move, too.

With a cough, Emhyr resumed staring into space – back carefully straight and not leaning against the wall – and idly wished he had a drink to wash down the lump in his throat. Maybe Meve really had infected him with something.

[vrisrezis]

hi! Can I Dragon!matsus meeting Knight s/o? How the dragon boys would help with missions?

You met Osomatsu because you were taking a break, deciding having a drink would be a nice break… he tended to love alcohol… of course.. and had the habit of scaring others off to have a taste. He was wrong to try and take from you though, you were a strong knight and were able to capture him instantly. You recognized him of course, he was known to steal and many feared him. However, you came to a compromise, upon finding out he could shapeshift back into a cute looking boy. He still had his dragon like features though. He had his red wings, his red horns, fangs, his long red tail, claws, his hands having patches of red that would blend into his actual skin color towards his wrists.

He was to help you fight for your missions and in turn you gave him booze and a place to stay.

He proved to be a lousy dragon during missions though, the only way to motivate him out of laziness being booze.

However, he proved to be useful when he could fight, since he can literally breathe fire. You can often be seen riding on your favorite dragon, fighting off whoever it may be! You quickly became a dynamic duo.

His flirting and teasing got annoying though.

Karamatsu was a simple dragon, he wanted attention. He wanted people to see how cool and strong he could be. Unfortunately hurting others in the process, so queens totoko and nyaa chan decided this dragon needed to be slayed. You were to slay it of course. However, as you fought this dragon, you were quick to realize how timid it became when you showed violence, it became scared that it transformed into a rather cute boy! This boy keeping some of the dragon features though. You were kind enough to give him a deal, and he accepted.

From your understanding, this dragon just wanted attention. It seems like in his natural form he isn’t feared much, even ignored. But people paid attention to him as a terrifying dragon that could throw ice beams out of his mouth.

He is actually just really sweet.

On missions though, a bit overconfident. You learnt that when he held so much confidence for your first mission and completely failed you.

However, other than that very helpful! Always listens to your orders, he’s a extremely loyal dragon as well! He has such a way with words to ease you whenever you feel particularly nervous about a mission.

Choromatsu was a dragon that tried to keep to himself.. mostly. But unfortunately, he ended up being captured despite this. Dragons are just naturally feared and treated less, a couple seeing him and being terrified, telling queen totoko that you must simply deal with this terrifying creature.

This was so stupid, in your opinion. However the dragon seemed to understand his situation, very willing do to whatever you wanted. So you promised him a good life, as long as he worked as your dragon. He was quick to agree to these terms, it was a good deal after all.

He proved to be a rather timid dragon though, despite all this. Getting a bit scared for fights, he proved he was good strategically, but got way too freaked out.

However, anytime you promise him a kiss on the cheek.. he seems to snap back and goes fighting mode. So no more issues.

“I’ll get totoko to kiss your cheek..” nothing. “Nyaa-chan” still nothing. “Me?” All of a sudden he’s wreaking havoc. “I wasn’t expected that but okay”

Ichimatsu was by far the scariest dragon people have had the misfortune of meeting. That evil aura being enough to drive people away. Sooner rather than later the entire village demanded you do something about this dragon. He was too much to deal with.. he was eating all of the poor cats!

But as you went finding him, you’d find he wasn’t eating any cats! But rather.. sleeping…? With them?

He didn’t even bother anyone. Though you must admit he looked very menacing. But he was really living his best life.

You tried to reason with him and tell him he’d be safe with you, he didn’t listen at first.. for awhile. Until you made it clear you’d take it by force, he was too tired to fight back, deciding it would be best to just do as you say.

As a dragon, he just be kinda lousy. He makes up for it though since most opponents just end up pissing themselves before they can do anything against youre dragon that’s 10x the size compared to a normal one. If you really needed him to fight though, you promised him a cuddle session with him, you, and your cat.

Jyushimatsu was a rather excitable dragon, always coming to visit to watch others play games and such, getting sad when he scared them away. Many telling you this dragon was harassing them, so of course you went to investigate. Imagine your surprise to see a yellow dragon smiling down at you in interest, you thought he was thinking about eating you, but he did nothing. After a conversation with him, you understood he was friendly. Which now lead to you toe becoming a great duo.

Jyushimatsu got a bit carried away during missions though, wanting to do his absolute best (and more) to help, even when it wasn’t needed. Plus, he was just so eager to destroy opponents. So you had to tell him not to go beyond what you tell him to do.

He was good to be around though, and in general made others around him a bit happier.

Besides, he gave the best hugs in his normal form.

Todomatsu was a feared dragon, whomst you got many complaints about. You couldn’t for the life of you figure out as to why that was the case, because in your opinion he was the cutest dragon you’ve gotten the pleasure of knowing. He was even pink! And he loved being around humans and trying to be social with them in his normal form. He was friendly towards you, even flirting with you sometimes.

Thanks to you, people were able to talk to him now though, since you gave a speech saying he was a good dragon that you’ve tamed, and he shall be a loyal partner in battle.

This raised some problems for him, since he genuinely doesn’t know how to fight, however you gave him so much! This is the least he can do.

He proved to be very scared during battle, he was a timid dragon when it came to fighting.

“Whatever you want totty! I will give you!” You promised, trying to get him to fight. “Date me then!” He said rather boldly, thankfully he was in his dragon form so you couldn’t see his blush. “Fine!” You yell.

Ever since then he’s been very good at fighting.

[marziblogsworld]

After going through a bunch of emotional rollar coster ride,with bloodshed, gore, screams and tears. I finally finished this beautiful masterpiece and here is my review.

So this story is about a girl who is chosen by the Hidden, has these amazing fey powers and weilds the infamous sword. Is that the whole story NO!,there is more to it than what is shown in the trailer HELL YESSSS!!!!.

As a sucker for Authorian legend, i had an eye on this show and believe me it doesnot dissappoint. I loved the story line, the direction, the characters arc, from the start of nimeu journey to meeting the end was syncronized so beautifully and amazing. You will fell in love with every piece of the forests to the leaves to the feys and the knights except for Father Cardan and Iris.

Gosh watching these two was a torture to my eyes. *drop dead*. *uuugghh go die in a hole you bitch* and much other vivid vocabulary was used whenever they were onscreen and now Iris with 'them, those trinity knights' uggh *eye roll* but i am still excited to see more of this.

This show was owned by Queens after Queens. Morgana, Kazi, Pym and sometimes Nimeu. Let me tell you all , Nimeu is a great person, but is aint a queen nor a leader, i could see her doing blunders after blunders and at time i have seen her go power hungry. I know she was learning and everything was happening so fast but still, she needs alot of practice and training to be a warrior first then to be Queen. Nimeu magic and what is meant to be Summoner wasnt shown much. I guess that would be discuss in S2 (if there is one, PLEASE BE ONE). The story was mostly about the sword, so i would really like to see what NIMEUH actually is without the sword and its power.

Ok to get things cleared up a bit, when the cast was introduced and we met Arthur i saw much opinions and criticism going on towards his appearance (i will not go into that deeply) but all i have to say, whatever his appearance or looks was, this person was ARTHUR THROUGH AND THROUGH from the heart. We all know Arthur as a fair and just person, and he potrayed it so well, he is a kind person, a great swordsman and an amazing and fair leader. Many times he stood up and showed people the way when Nimeu couldn't. He stood and fought for the fey when he himself is human( as both of them are shunned by each other) but this man didnt care, he fought for what is right and that is what we know of Arthur,regardless of what he looks like. I accept him if he is going to be the Once and Future King cuz by heart he is the Arthur we all know and love.

I screamed on the top of my lungs when Morgana made her appearance. You go girl! Also i am scared for you because i donot like what is waiting for you at the end.

I think we can all agree. PYM, SQUIRREL AND KAZI has a separate fan base by now. The best side characters i could ever ask for.

The romance part between Arthur and Nimeu was throwing me off a bit. For me Pym and Dod relationship ruled and it was pretty sweet even though it was for a short while🤧🤧i still liked it, ALSO THAT GIRL DESERVES A MASSIVE RESPECT SHE HAS BEEN THROUGH SOO MUCH. My baby PYM.

CAN I JUST SAY SOMETHING. THIS SHOW WAS OWNED BY THE WEEPING MONK AND MERLIN and whoever disagree can join the ranks of Father Cardan ( just kidding). Anyways when i came to know Daniel Sharman is in this series. I was like, let get yourself on board on his protection squad wagon. This boy was my baby when he was lssac Lahey in Teen wolf. I was protecting him then and i am protecting him now and he made me proud. Yes i will repeat it again MY BABY REDEEM HIMSELF and made me proud and he is a natural father🤧🤧🤧 PERCIVAL AND HIM yesssssss 😍😍😍❤️❤️❤️❤️. My son is going to raise this boy. I already knew there was more to him that meets the eye and i was not wrong and the best part is that he is playing one of my favourite knight LANCELOT DU LAC. YESSSS BITCHES. MY BABY IS LANCELOT. 💕💕💕 And nobody should hurt him i will riot. I will use the sword on them gladly.

Finally finally saw Merlin with some backbone. With some badassry, he was the best, he is the best and he will always be the best and that last scene *chills* *literal chills*

You go my badass Merlin. I am with you. And also Uther and Merlin dynamic was 😂 to my eyes. They were soo awesome together and Uther itself is amazing. I liked him alot.

Look people let's be clear if we can accept bbc merlin for their adaption on the authorain legend with that ending then surely we can accept this too. Everybody has a right to tell the story their way and the way Netflix told through Cursed was thorough and with depthness, from the time when Arthur himself is learning, when we will not only see his journey as king but also how others played into their role of destiny. I really liked this showed and i applaud every single actor for doing such an amazing work.

SEASON 2 PLEASE. I NEED TO SEE MORE OF MY DANIEL SHARMEN AS MY LANCELOT NOW. The best knight and the noblest of them all.😍😍😍

Also for all my bbc merlin fans, there are many scenes, scenarios and dialogues that will give you nostalgia, so brace yourself and enjoy 😁🤗

Follow me for more amazing reviews on books, tv shows and movies. Recommendations are open😉😉

Can you not feel this raw pain on his face. My baby🤧

He owned this entrance. He deserves such an entrance, he rocked in that entrance. He made me scream in that entrance 😍😍

Look at them, he is a natural father. Loooooook how far he came🤗🤗🤗🤗🤗🤗

Yes you beauty. Just like that you made our heads turn when you walk. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[brawltogethernow]

I suppose the next step then is "BBC Merlin but it's SpideyTorch"

Oh my god. TEACHER, TEACHER, SHE’S TARGETING ME okay okay uh.

Peter, secret warlock, goes to Camelot with his mother figure, May, who does not know about the warlock thing because it kicked in when he was a teenager and they both strategically decline to tell each other things. Gaius is Reed, who was the court sorcerer and is now the court scientist. (He’s not an old man except spiritually where he has been a senile professor since he was 19.) He literally didn’t change anything he was doing, considering science and magic as different points on one spectrum anyway-- No. That’s Doom’s schtick. DOOM was the court sorcerer, and was fired. He is upset about it. Reed is just a science guy but worked extensively with Victor, so he’s kind of useful, but not as useful as Peter was hoping.

I know very little about Sue and Johnny’s dad except that he’s a supervillain who...faked his death, revealed himself, and then died for real like 12 hours later? Did he also fake his wife’s death at some point? Would he do a mad king magic ban thing? Idk but for plot purposes we’ll say yes. They conveniently already share Arthur’s dead mom syndrome. Maybe their aunt whose name is different depending on what issue you’re reading is also here just to convolute the court drama. Wait no didn’t Arthur have a shady uncle show up after like five seasons. She.

Peter is very talented at finicky, specific magical formulas. (Reed: :) )But in practice he really prefers to just slam out a big wave of power, and if that doesn’t solve the problem, repeat until it does. (Reed: :( ) He gives this a go at the beginning of sorting out any problem, like restarting your glitching computer, and if it doesn’t work the problem is complicated enough to be an episode plot.

So obviously I’m still gonna do secret identity shit? Peter saves the young prince and heir’s life and is rewarded with a second job; he only came here for job reasons and you’re all lucky he doesn’t turn down paying jobs otherwise he’d be having some words with the king. Peter also accidentally becomes a masked vigilante out in the town. His very existence is illegal because he’s obviously doing magic! They keep sending his boss out to hunt him down, and their eyes are always locking dramatically and shit in brief silent stare-offs from opposite ends of the street in thunder storms at sunset until Johnny’s horse rears and breaks the eye contact causing Peter to snap out of it and flee. You know how it is.

Sue is older than Johnny and thus older than the magic ban, so she responded to it by going “:) That’s nice, Dad” and socking away a bunch of books before they could go on the fire, and now she’s just a sorceress on the dl. This is approx. a first season finale reveal, because her real superpower is being able to keep her mouth the hell shut. I literally cannot with how nobody in Merlin ever exchanges information, so shortly after Peter and Reed learn this they exchange secrets, like sane people, which opens up their resources a bit.

That said Sue is an extra legitimate royal, not the Morgana equivalent. Maybe Gwen should be Gwen, especially since I have thought Gwen/Johnny/Peter has potential since reading Spider-Man/Fantastic Four (which if you read an earlier ask, I recommend if you want to see new art of Gwen being mean in hair clips). But Peter/Gwen and Merlin/Freya are like...same energy except the latter wasn’t as well done. And Merlin’s Guinevere honestly more reminds me of Betty. Morgana--

(wheeze)

(cough)

Okay I thought this trying to reconcile as much of the cast as possible and I now can’t unthink it so. The king’s ward is Dorrie Evans. Yes she goes nebulously sapphic evil witch queen. Sure she was an unpleasant teenager and readers hate her, but you know what, I’ll simp, whatever. Let Dorrie poison some people. In a cape. This feels natural to me. Also Betty Brant and Dorrie Evans???? Betty/Dorrie vibes???? I guess!!!!

So like. The thing where Arthur gets mystically whammied by love potions once a month, except also Johnny’s normal relationship-anticipating giddiness happening organically mixed in, the part before he actually starts dating someone and becomes immediately depressed. Peter is in the bg sarcastically dismissing magical incidents saying he can’t even tell the difference, and Reed is like 😬 Please Check Anyway. Peter’s not, haha, Peter’s not jealous, Johnny is just an idiot, and, okay maybe Peter is a little jealous! But it doesn’t matter because the prince is going to marry some noble and--

Reed: Prince Johnathan is a bit like a little brother to me, so Please Stop Telling Me About Your Problems.

Reed/Sue is reciprocated but on permanent hold for class reasons. Spideytorch is in the same boat except they’re also stupid and working it out by dating their way through the whole country, except Peter is actually into that and Johnny is not.

The dragon is...Ezekiel?????? That’s the right level of wise wry mentor who’s very shady and will kill you, so he’s a dragon now. And when he tells Peter he’s the (other) chosen one, Peter full stop doesn’t believe him. This disbelief goes on extensively. Peter is not a fate-oriented person. Johnny would love to hear about the fate thing, but no one will tell him.

Literally I’m just going to add more chronologically unmoored medievalish shit to Merlin now to cram more of the cast in. There’s some kind of town crier/herald outfit, and Jonah is their boss. He’s just out in the road yelling sometimes even though he can delegate that. The buglers otherwise known as Bugle staff named Peter’s vigilante persona the Spider, which was supposed to sound menacing but is in practice also cool. This is out-of-universe fairly equivalent to Merlin’s real name as a neat two-syllable animal word and possible title. In-universe maybe I’d elbow out Emrys and just use this. Merlin is already very servants-don’t-work-like-that, so Betty just also has two jobs for no reason so she can knock elbows with them.

MJ is the court jester and knows absolutely everything, which is a dramatic mid-game reveal that isn’t exactly foreshadowed so much as always possible while carefully obscured from the viewer (the reader). Before this she’s already a Wise Fool, Shakespeare-ways archetype character, it’s just not clear how much. She is the most important character in Homestuck Merlin Spider.

Every ship is real for at least 30 seconds. Most of the extended FF cast are either magical antagonists or weird nobles.

Ben????? (Grimm, I mean. Ben Parker is dead. Ben Reilly is a recurring episodic plot.) This show was painfully formulaic and would simply not keep someone with any version of his deal in the main cast, but he’s a full quarter of the FF so. A magical accident approximated his rock body deal. Maybe specifically tying him to ~the magic of the land~. And then, uh. Wandering the country is too satellite-like. Hiding out in a forbidden castle wing is interesting but doesn’t do him justice. So I guess it’s a come and go semivoluntary transformation thing that’s kept secret? Rock werewolf. Were-rock. Good opportunity to fake out like you’re going to do a monster of the week plot, and then he contributes to the tension to abolish the magic ban.

Knights?? Wyatt is there from the beginning, being tall and reassuring (holding a sword edition). Not sure how him or his immediate ancestors got to Europe and then ended up this involved with the local nobility, but it was probably exciting. And Flash, or he’s an early addition. Either way he’s from the same village as Peter and is approximately White’s Kay, except directed at the wizard instead of the future king, and otherwise you can completely superimpose their comic dynamic including the fanboying over the secret identity angle, which is entertainingly seditious. ...Others. I don’t know enough FF characters for this. I’ve accidentally implied the eventual addition of Bennet Brant, but his evil sorcerer of the week energy is very strong, so maybe not. Randy eventually because I already implied the Robertsons and can see it.

This is so long, covers nothing, and explains none of the namechecks. Using both these characters’ franchises in one fusion is too much stuff. I keep not talking about the core relationship because it’s just. Like That. I don’t feel like I need to elaborate on the Merthur dynamic, even transposed on a different ship. It’s Just Like That.

[certainempatheticturkeymuffin]

So....

I finally got my Four Swords manga and read the entire thing in one sitting.

I have a few notes.

Red is a dumbass and I love him.

That whole hugging scene with Red and Blue came a little out of nowhere, but it was funny.

Red is an arsonist and I love him.

Green totally has the hots for Zelda.

I don't know why but Vio is my favorite.

Red is close in second though

Blue got fucking EATEN by the fucking Big Poe

And Red fucking saved him by being an arsonist

TWICE

Green is definitely the straight one, you can tell.

Shadow is dramatic as fuck

Vio is also dramatic as fuck

Shadow has a fucking DRAGON

Shadow literally destroyed Hyrule Castle and Castletown in a day. He's technically up there with Calamity Ganon

Shadow tricked Link into freeing Vaati!

My take was that Shadow was being heavily mistreated by Ganon and Vaati, which laid down some abuse subtext and....holy fuck that was sad. Maybe it's just 'cause my family was abusive that I got that read, but wow.

Shadow needs to be protected.

I love Shadow he needs to be given the good fucking things in life.

In the LU could he technically be brought back by one of Wild's blood moons? I read a fic about that. Does he count as a monster though? Then again, the blood moon enhances your cooking, so really I don't see why it can't give Shadow his physical form back.

Shadow deserves good things.

He just wanted attention and a family.

He killed himself to kill Vaati....I mean, I knew that before hand, but seeing it with my own two eyes....fuck

Shadow is a troll and I love him

He and Vio were just messing with Blue and Red lmao

Blue learned patience by being frozen in ice until Red decided to set him on fire, which, how long was that really? It was stated that they only left Vio alone for a day, so it must've only been a few hours. Must've felt like an eternity though.

I feel like Red and Blue were the main characters for most of the middle really.

I'm not complaining, their dynamic is hilarious and I love them

But I wanted to see Green and Vio interact with them more y'know.

I feel like Vio only really interacted with Shadow

And even then he was kinda lying the entire time.

Oh Hylia, Shadow's face when he realized Vio was going to smash the mirror.

That was just betrayal on so many levels

And he had just opened up about thinking Vio was the only one he could really trust.

After that I honestly feel it was dickish to just kill him.

And then he lives

Zelda is a top tier fucking Queen(tm)

She had no obligations to comfort someone who had kidnapped her and yelled at her

But she did and it was super sweet

THEN THE FUCKING SENTIENT CLOUD

I didn't know the clouds were sentient and honestly I'm still having a crisis over it

And in the beginning I thought Shadow just straight up killed Link's dad and I was like "oh damn okay this is darker than I expected"

But nope the fucker is still alive.

I feel like the knights of Hyrule were kind of a deus ex machina

And the final show down with Ganon was underwhelming

Vaati is a bitch

I think Red was the highlight of this story

And the fucking art style, because damn the expressions were funny

And I'm glad they implemented the subtle ways to tell them apart, like the textures of the tunics, the color of the shirt under the tunic(Green's is black) the light and dark eyebrows, and the eyes themselves.

Tingle was unexpected and I wanted him to go away like Green and Vio did

Honestly I still don't understand why people love Tingle, he annoys me.

Back to the actually good characters-THEY FUCKING LITERALLY TURNED A LITTLE GIRL INTO A DOLL

Her fucking doll(Rosie?) was creepy as fuck!

That trick was absolutely CREEPY AS FUCK

And I like how the four just wreck the bastard with toy weapons

And they keep them as real weapons when they leave

Like, how does that work lmao

Red set a fucking forest on fire

Red is an arsonist

Red is brilliant and I love him

Vio is an asshole and I love him

Just playing up how "Oh yeah Green is dead" and fucking messing with Red and Blue

I noticed Shadow is super touchy-feely with Vio and he's probably touch starved which makes sense.

Okay so Shadow wasn't dead, technically, is he still alive if all he can do is wave from Link's shadow and stuff?

It seems like a bad ending for Shadow.

In the LU, does this mean that Four just fucking stole the Four Sword and killed Vaati? Or did Zelda find some other way to seal him, 'cuz like, I'm pretty sure Four has the four sword in LU right????

So many plotholes but if this means I get more arsonist Red content, then I'm down.

Also, Shadow is gay af for Vio

Like, my gaydar was off the charts

YOU DON'T JUST GIVE A BRO THIS LOOK

70. And, like, Vio, you JUST fucking killed Shadow, don't give me this shit

71. This art is super gay, you can't deny that, they are literally fucking wrapped around each other

72. And Shadow wanted to fucking rule the world WITH Vio, like, DAMN he's thirsty 73. If it were me, I'd still prefer ultimate authority 74. Just in case y'know 75. And Shadow was so ready to spill his secrets 76. And he was so fucking heartbroken when he saw Vio with the sledgehammer 77. Like fuck Vidow is definitely my top pairing. 78. And Green and Zelda, the token straights 79. And we can't forget Red and Blue 80. Like Red was hardcore flirting with Blue, you can't change my mind. 81. Zelda was so fucking confused when she saw that there were four Links, and it was cute and hilarious 82. I normally don't like Zelda, but she was so cute and sweet that I really couldn't help it. 83. Also that chad drawing of a past Link that split into four was funny 84. It was just so fucking out of place 85. They literally only rescued two of the six mages, so are the other four still trapped or were they released when Vaati and Shadow "died"? 86. The knights of Hyrule had to save the four, so are they technically the weakest Link? 87. Fuck I made a pun 88. I fucking hate myself 89. Blue was probably my least favorite of the cast, but that was probably because he reminds me of my sister 90. Y'know, the sister that hits me, yells at me, and calls me names? 91. It just rubs me the wrong way. 92. But aside from that, he was great. 93. A bit of a cocky asshole, but great. 94. And Link's dad just thinking he sees his son's dead body and Shadow just yeeting him into the dark realm. 95. Damn Shadow was an asshole 96. Vaati was even worse though, trying to get Link's father to kill his four sons. 97. That would've sucked. 98. Link hiding behind Zelda's chair was funny 99. Green and Zelda with the childhood friends turned lovers aspect would be cute 100. I like how a fairy just pops up out of no where in the middle of the book

I think that's it?

I love this book and it'll probably be the only one I ever reread.

If you didn't know, I hate rereading content unless I find it or a certain part of it worth reading through again. Which is to say, one, maybe two, fanfics(oneshots technically), and maybe this manga. So yeah, quite an exclusive club.

I don't regret this purchase!

[akampana]

Would loooove to see the ozytoria art you made, and also your thoughts on them for the ask game !

Hello Anon, thank you for the ask! I made this a few months back for a draft I scrapped. It must have worked as a catalyst since Ozy came home during the white day event.

Hahahaha hope you like it anyway. :)

What made you ship it?

You know what, I really do hate to say this but it's GilArt's fault.

By now, I think you all know about my boundless love for Saber. Ozy, however, I was first interested in because of Prototype and then when I saw the art I was like. Oh. Oh no.

So, little old me researched literally every crumb there was to Ozy, found out he's quite similar to Gil, but tan different enough, especially concerning his boundless love for his wife Nefertari (and his other wives, good on you for being generous, Ozy!). And then I got interested.

I ended up drafting a really old like years old smut-ish angst fic involving Arturia and Ozy, in which they were both using each other as replacements. You know, for Gil and Nefertari. I'll put an excerpt right below the cut. (The excerpt is not NSFW it just made the ask long. )

And that's where it started. More below.

“You broke our agreement,” she hissed from under him, words cold and accusing.

“How dare you?” she whispered, “When I am not her...”

She turned to face him, wiping away his kiss with the back of her hand. “...And you are not him?”

In her mind, superimposed on Ozymandias, was a different face. One with fairer skin and hair. One with piercing blood eyes, and an arrogant curve of lip. One less gentle. One less kind. And she supposed right now, her lover saw her as his wife. With darker hair, with olive skin, with chocolate eyes and a soft smile. Arturia was everything but.

“You are not mine, King of Kings...and I am not yours.”

Ozymandias caressed her cheek with a heavy hand, exhaustion settling over him.

He found he no longer craved the tanned skin of his wife, nor the gentler gaze of her eyes. He still loved Nefertari. He always would. That was one thing that would never change. But every night he spent with this blonde woman, he was beginning to see her for her own beauty, not the qualities she shared with Nefertari.

He was falling for Arturia.

And he was tired of pretending.

What are your favorite things about the ship?

That they've both been married before. I've alluded to this briefly on the last ask, but I frequently hc them together acknowledging their marriage with other people. Nefertari is a huge part of Ozy's life and character after all, and though Guin isn't very much mentioned in Fate, she did play a significant role in Arturia's life. One of Saber's happiest days was their wedding day.

So if we put Ozyturia in conjunction with OzyxNefertari and Arturia/Guinevere or even Arturia/Gil, the dynamic we get is Widower x Widow/Divorcee, with the former missing love and the latter dismissing it.

Plus, it's not like they won't catch each other's interest in Chaldea, for example:

He's met Arthur and Lartoria both. Meeting Arturia, he supposes the gods must be trying to tell him something.

By his dialogue Ozymandias has a thing for people who have the disposition of a king, like, oh you know, the King of Knights. :D

On Arturia's part, his general aura would initially drive her to stay away, due to certain similarities with another king. Slowly, however, she'd learn he's different.

Ozymandias has...a certain wistful aura about him, and unlike the other Servants who usually hang around her post-Rayshift, Ozymandias just...disappears.

She thought herself to be rather reserved, but she then realizes she never sees the pharaoh with the other Servants, and only rarely with Nitocris. At least she has her Table and the company of her former Grail War enemies. In comparison, she and even Gilgamesh are more social.

Then, one day, he's finally coaxed out of his hole due to Master's efforts (interlude 1), and Arturia's curious enough to ask him about it.

Delighted to have a new audience, and a kingly one, no less, he retells the poems about his wife that he's only graced Master and Nitocris with.

"HM! That you have listened to my wondrous tale of my queen for these plentiful hours intrigues me, King of Knights. While I am cognizant of my own talent, that your attention hasn't lapsed once is commendable in itself."

Arturia doesn't even realize that so much time has passed, she just found herself so lost in how much love this Egyptian King had for his wife. She laments two things: that she doesn't know if she can say the same of Guinevere, and that she knows no one is ever going to say such wonderful things of herself.

I will again be bringing up that Arturia's a competitive, sore loser, and Ozy has an ego bigger than Jupiter, and I love that dynamic. While that sounds like another ship, there is a difference:

Despite his massive ego, Ozy is far more generous with his appreciation and hasn't too sharp a tongue. What that means is, Arturia is going to be persistently annoyed by his hubris, and yet also commended on her best qualities.

She can definitely learn from him to be prouder of her achievements, even if that lesson must be frequently beaten into her head by hearing "Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" over and over.

Their tangle with equality. Ozy does see himself as above everyone else as the pharoah, the god king, but in his eyes, everyone else is equal in service to him. This is why Arturia's Round Table intrigues him so much, because it applies the same principle. A circular table, so none sits at a position inferior or superior to the other, not even the king. While he certainly wouldn't equate himself to his people, that she can do so and still be revered by her followers is astounding to him.

SUN AND MOON SUN AND MOON SUN AND MOON SUN AND MOON

Ozymandias has a thing for eyes. It's rather subtle but it's there, based on his dialogue and interlude. I wonder what he'd see, faced with her brilliant, haunting emeralds.

AHOGE BUDDIES!!!! :D

I hc that she likes his voice. Even the Dajaku Dajaku. Why? Idk it's cute. Has she mumbled it to herself in battle before? Yes. Gawain thought he was having a stroke.

The MODERN AU POTENTIAL OH MY GOD CAN YOU JUST IMAGINE?

We have Ozy, a brilliant loner architect who lost the love of his life and company heiress Arturia, a recent divorcee who needs to build a new house for herself after moving out of the place she used to share with her partner. She remembers the Egyptian from the construction of one of her most successful branches, and hires his talent to help her.

He has to talk to her to understand her concept for the new place, finding out things he didn't know about the rather serious president. She's a foodie, she cares not for extravagance, and she's easily riled up by teasing. Slowly, he begins to find comfort in her presence, even when he knows all their meetings are professional.

She is forced to remove herself from overwork to spend time with him, and at first, she can't understand how anyone could stand being around someone so boastful. But, he proves his skill time and time again, delivering exactly what she was envisioning. In listening to his stories during coffee breaks, she gets charmed by his life and wishes her marriage could have been as happy as his was. :">

When the constructions end, they...well I'll leave that to your imagination hehe

Is there an unpopular opinion you have about your ship?

I know that Ozy and Nefertari are the main ship for this guy or actually, it might be Gil lol and I love their relationship as well and ship them to the heavens, it's so wholesome, but I don't think that he was married in life should be a barrier for shipping. Even if Ozy's love is particularly highlighted compared to the others. A lot of Servants had past loves and a lot lived whole lives, that doesn't stop them from possibly finding new connections. all ships are valid wheeee

Again, thank you very much for the ask! Hope you enjoyed reading through this one. :)

[to-many-towered-camelot]

book notes

for anyone who is interested in a nuanced take on fairy beliefs vs the Christian Church in the Middle Ages, this book by Richard Firth Green was actually so good, if your library has it:

[Image: Front cover of the book ‘Elf Queens and Holy Friars: Fairy Beliefs and the Medieval Church’ by Richard Firth Green]

like, obvs it’s just one person’s take on a very complex topic, but it’s well-written, well-researched, and it uses a bunch of Arthurian examples throughout to explore this dynamic (see under cut)

really interesting exploration of how the Church’s response evolved from the early-High Middle Ages (”dude, you believe in fairies? hhhmmm, do penance for 10 days”) to the Late Middle Ages/Early Modern Period (”kill them for heresy and witchcraft!”) 

and how it enfolded vernacular/fairy beliefs into Christian doctrine as fairies being either a) demons or b) the illusions of demons (and how dangerous/bad these demons were depended on the time/location/cleric in question - some packaged fairies as “neutral” demons who fell when the rebel angels did, and who must be punished on Earth but will return to Heaven on Doomsday - potentially doing this to soften things for their parishioners, who often held these fairy beliefs and reconciled them with Christianity, uh, differently than the Church officially would prefer)

and enduring belief in fairies existed in both common and aristocratic circles (can see this in medieval romances, although they’re not the only source of evidence), rather than just being used as cultural “decoration” by a more sceptical upperclass

aaaaand because of this conflation of fairy = demon, you get a really interesting blend/overlap with medieval demonology and enduring “folk” beliefs (obvs not all of medieval demonology was just rebranded fairies, but some of it defs was - you see stories being retold with “devil” instead of “elf”, for example)

INCLUDING in Arthuriana - how you get Morgan the Fairy (”le Fay”) vs Morgan who was raised in a nunnery and learned dark magic there, the Lady of the Lake as a (largely) positive force, Merlin inexplicably as a (perceived to be...) Good Guy despite being the literal antichrist, the Green Knight and all the overlap with Christian symbolism in that story, etc, etc. and they all just either??? co-exist in the same stories or appear through either more fay or more ~Christian lenses depending on the version

and it creates a very interesting and very confusing soup of Stuff stemming from a very confusing - and sometimes dangerous - soup of official and unofficial beliefs evolving over hundreds of years

anyway, WRT Arthuriana it’s got (and ymmv on these, but they’re all interesting thoughts):

(i think in Gottfried’s Tristan???) apparently Tristan has a rainbow fairy dog called Petitcriu...name a knight less deserving of such a Good Boy smh

Chretien’s Yvain flooding out Laudine at the fountain (...jerk) as a continuation of the beliefs surrounding a magical Spring at Barenton 

Gingalain moving from being the son of Gawain and the fairy Blanchemal (and having a fairy love interest, Pucelle) in the French OG version (~1200-ish) to being the son of Gawain and his human mistress (with Pucelle also being human) in a later 15th-C Middle English version)

AJDKN UJ IOE E Merlin’s conception, that one’s a wild ride - theologians REALLY didn’t like the idea of demons being fertile, and the work-arounds they came up with were...incredible. but skipping over that sheer comedy, the author draws links between Merlin’s conception and the general trend of claiming a fairy lover/whatever when a difficult-to-explain pregnancy arose. He also theorises that Geoffrey’s idea for Merlin’s father being a demon/fairy may have come from Nennius saying that Merlin/Ambrosius’ mother “never knew a man”. Later adaptations of this storyline made it even more fay-like (when they weren’t, like Robert de Boron, making it more fucked-up) by making Merlin’s father invisible (Wace) or a super attractive guy in swanky gold clothes (Layamon) - and Vortigern’s advisor explaining the creatures that lived between the earth and the moon until doomsday, etc, etc (walking that line between fairy and incubi, whichhhhhh was not clearly delineated in the Middle Ages the way it is now). also there’s one 13th-C Anglo-Norman poem where Merlin’s father is a bird that transforms into a dashing young squire, which isn’t terribly demon-y. So even though most versions of this story describe Merlin’s dad as an incubi-demon, what people understood this to mean may have been more fay-ish that we’d expect nowadays (depending on the reader, and also on authorial intention - some are pretty explicit that he’s a demon [many clerics keen to push this as the main narrative], while others refer to him as an elf or fairy). some contemporary scepticism during this time about Merlin having any sort of supernatural parentage as well

[none of the same Church anxieties about explaining away how the Plantagenets and other aristocratic families claim a female fairy ancestress - maybe bc there’s none of the stress about patrilineal bloodlines??? who knows! but yeah, much less thought given to those stories in ecclesiastical circles, and they were very popular in vernacular romances (male aristocratic wish fulfilment?). also, fairy enchantments =/= necromancy, so there are stories like the non-cyclic Lancelot where the Lady of the Lake is found out to be “a fairy by education, not by nature or heredity” (Elspeth Kennedy), with the spirits used in necromancy being demons, not fairies. also potential trend of female-associated magic becoming more passive and book-learned, gradually demonising it leading up to early-modern witch hunts.]

Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Historia and in the Vita Merlini being actually pretty circumspect about saying whether or not Arthur was alive/dead, returning/not returning, maybe due to his work/text being a (hypothesised) defence of the Welsh as being “civilised” (and having been so for centuries before the Normans came) - with the corollary that believing in Arthur’s return was somehow “uncivilised”. Author argues that this may be due to an association with fairy beliefs, and that Layamon is the one that makes Avalon explicitly fey. Also the author describes Arthur as living in a “feminised version of the Christian heaven” (iconic) and says that later writers and people could be very scornful of this belief held by the Britons/Welsh/etc, and that it was contrary to orthodox ways of thinking. 

Links the “discovery” of Arthur and Guinevere’s bodies in Glastonbury in the late 12th-C as similar to when individuals found the bodies of their loved ones, thus making it much harder to believe (and hope) that they were still alive in fairyland. Makes a suggestion that the monks in Glastonbury who “found” these bodies may have been trying to curry favour with the English crown (i.e. champion/hope of the Welsh isn’t coming back) but also may have been trying to “help”/”save”/correct the thoughts/ideology of the Welsh (i.e. “set them on the correct path to salvation”). Lots of medieval writers describing Arthur as living in “fairyland”. Precedent of people visiting fairyland and returning, so Avalon/fairyland =/= a place only for the dead (i.e. Arthur isn’t dead). An Arthurian example, albeit a less explicitly fay one, is Lancelot getting in and out of Gorre (with Gorre as a “typically supressed and rationalised” version of fairyland) in Chretien’s Knight of the Cart.

Some stuff about the wild horde (distinct from the wild hunt) being presented by some writers as very penitential (i.e. they are departed souls that may look like they’re bearing arms/hunting/whatever as they did in life, but really they are in agony e.g. because their weapons burn them) and tbh demonic (black armour, carrying torches, ominous aesthetic). Other writers thought maybe it was - once again! - demonic impersonators rather than actual mortal souls. (Should note also that the wild horde/wild hunt motifs were not always associated with their being dead). Relevant in the Arthurian context because Arthur and his court were sometimes associated with the idea of the wild horde (as in, sometimes the wild horde is described as Arthur’s court living it up in a cool, undying sort of way - “in the likeness of knights hunting or jousting, commonly known as the household of Hellequin or of Arthur” [Etienne de Bourbon, a medieval writer] - with Hellequin’s household often being used to encompass either the wild hunt or the wild horde). Ultimate point made by the author (props to him, he’s always like “if i’m right” lol) that for many clerical writers, it was very uncomfortable to leave people with the impression that Arthur and his court were living it up in fairyland (and similar for other figures associated with the wild hunt/horde) and this idea needed to be corrected/shaped to suit more orthodox perspectives - e.g. tying in with notions of purgatory, etc. 

Aaaand this one was exciting to me just bc i’ve vaguely heard about Arthur and his knights snoozing under a hill, but for some reason i could only remember this being in Victoria-era-and-onwards poetry. 3 versions of the same tale, where a servant looks for his master’s lost horse on a Sicilian mountain. Version 1) servant of a bishop finds his master’s horse in the beautiful palace of Arthur’s court beneath Mt Etna. Aside from the fact that the ancient wound Arthur received from Mordred opens once a year, it’s not very purgatory-like. Version 2) a dean’s servant is told by an old man that King Arthur has the horse on Mt Gyber (Mt Etna). he is told that his master must attend Arthur’s court in 14 days, but the dean laughs it off...then sickens and dies on the appointed day (whoops). Enough differences to this story compared to the first to suggest an oral circulation. Also a note in the version/text that such mountains are said to be the mouth of hell, and only the wicked are sent there, not the chosen. Version 3) Etienne again! Also likely changed with intervening oral circulation. The master is not an ecclesiastical figure, and Arthur’s palace is now a populous city - also Arthur is not referred to, just a nameless prince. There is a gatekeeper who warns the servant not to eat or drink while he’s there (that...is a very fairy-ish proscription). This mountain is apparently reputed to be the site of purgatory. The book author (Richard, i mean) ties these versions in with other stories/accounts of different entrances to purgatory (e.g. one on an island in an Irish lake) as being part of a gradual process of “rendering [...] fairyland purgatorial”. 

Finally, Gawain in Roman van Walewein: To get to an ‘earthly paradise’ [i.e. King Assentijn’s garden with its fountain of youth - side note that ‘earthly paradises’ were often popularly described to be fairyland/where fairies live, in addition to their theological functions, e.g. Avalon was sometimes described as an earthly paradise...i should also say that purgatory was frequently thought to be located beside earthly paradise, so there’s the proximity element] and the castle containing it, Gawain must cross a river (guided by a magical talking fox) that a) has waters that burn like fire, and b) can only be crossed by using a bridge sharper than a razor. His reaction? “Is it the enchantment of elves or magic / that I see?”. He is then guided by the fox underneath the river through a tunnel, and is told that the river’s source is in the depths of hell, and “[the river] is the true purgatory / All souls, having departed from the body / Must come here to bathe.” So it’s a very strong intermingling of fairy and purgatorial imagery/ideas!

I dunno, I just found this very ??? satisfying to read

it leaned towards lit-crit at times (which, considering the subject matter, is honestly fair enough), but it was more respectful of vernacular beliefs than so many other academic takes i see (ofc ymmv re: anything to do with non-Christian major religions, but i think the author’s pretty solid on this!), and it had an explanation for the survival of these beliefs that imo made a lot of sense, especially from a pan-European perspective, not just a Celtic one 

plus it explored the undeniable damage done by Christianity over history without making up some “ranged battle between paganism and the Church” that i see  e v e r y w h e r e  in casual Arthurian circles...which, like, i empathise with the vibe, but also! that’s just straight-up historical revisionism! (i blame MZB and the 80′s for that one)

(there was a fantastic post floating around a while ago about how the religious syncretism in Arthurian literature is much more interesting than peeling away all of the Catholicism in the medieval lit (...you ?? don’t end up with much left?) and saying that this is more “accurate” to some obscure original)

anyway yeah yeah ymmv but it’s v interesting 😊

[carewyncromwell]

Cinderelly, Cinderelly, night and day, it’s Cinderelly~... ^.^ Okay..before I jump into the next part of the Cinderella AU, here’s your usual appetizer of random historical/etc. notes!

Although carriages were developed centuries earlier, actual coaches like the kind we think of from Cinderella stories were first developed in the late 16th century in Hungary, specifically a little town called Kocs. (The word “coach” and its alternatives in other languages, such as the German Kutsche and the Spanish and Portuguese coche, are thought to have been derived from the Hungarian kocsi, meaning “of Kocs.”) They then really caught on in the rest of Europe after Queen Elizabeth I of England started using them in the 1580s. The terms “coach” and “carriage” are often used interchangeably, but if one wanted to pin-point the advancements coaches specifically made in contrast to carriages of the past, there are a few differences one can pick out in how they’re built. Coaches generally are four-wheeled enclosed vehicles with doors and/or windows (glass was added in later centuries), and often include a “boot” seat on the outside for a footman and/or luggage to sit on. Coaches also generally have a reputation for providing a smoother ride than previous modes of transport because they’re suspended between the wheels rather than directly over or beside them. After the invention of the coach, one can find carriages (royal ones, in particular) adopting some of these same attributes.

Sadly wheelchairs really weren’t a thing in the 16th century. The first self-propelled wheeled chairs were developed in the mid-17th century and refined in the 18th, with sedan chairs or litters (A.K.A. chairs you carried) generally being used by the nobility prior to that. But there’s no way in Hell I’m not going to give McNully the independence he deserves, so I used a completely anachronistic design inspired by this antique wheelchair I found online, made circa around the 1840′s. Hey, this is a fantasy world anyway, so bleh. :P The flower detailing on the wheel is supposed to evoke an emblem I see being on Florence’s green and gold coat of arms (get it? “Florence?” “Flora?”). You might also notice that McNully has little Snitch-like “wing” frills on each of his buttons! XD

Another fun thing I learned while doing research -- although cloaks were often worn for warmth during the medieval period and beyond, in England during the Elizabethan era, their use was actually actively discouraged and even prohibited, as they were associated with criminals and rebels! Therefore it was common for a lot of English noblemen and women to wear thicker clothing made of wool and accessories like muffs, gloves, and even jackets for warmth instead. I tried very, very hard to find historically accurate examples of period-worthy jackets and capes for women around the time of the Renaissance, and was very frustrated to find a lot of fantasy-esque costume pieces or historical clothing from later eras that were simply mislabeled -- but I did find one lovely recreation of a 16th century wool jacket, so that’s what I used as reference for Carewyn’s jacket in this sketch, though I personally imagine it as a dark red, so as to better blend with her burnt orange and beige servant’s uniform. Bill’s uniform is based off a real castle guard uniform from early 16th century France, though with a much simpler color palette (I see Royaume’s colors being blue and red). Like with McNully’s chair, there’s a crown on the chest of Bill’s uniform, which I see being on Royaume’s coat of arms (“royaume” is literally French for “kingdom”).

In her canon, Carewyn was born when Jacob was nine years old. Although in most of Carewyn and Jacob’s canon post-Portrait-Vault, they end up being only two years apart in age, that’s only because Jacob stopped aging while trapped in a Portrait for seven years. From Carewyn’s fifth year on, Jacob and Carewyn in canon therefore act much more like contemporaries, even though Jacob actually kind of ended up partially raising Carewyn alongside their mother Lane.

Previous part is here – whole tag is here – Katriona “KC” Cassiopeia belongs to @kc-needs-coffee and I hope you all enjoy! xoxo

x~x~x~x

Every day over the next week, Carewyn met Orion at the gate of the palace of Royaume, and the two would spend an hour or so together. Orion would ask her about life at the palace, Carewyn would playfully respond, and sooner or later, they’d end up getting diverted and talking about something else completely, whether the upcoming Winter Festival, the language of flowers, art, poetry, the meaning of life, music, fencing, or (after seeing a rather beautiful eagle flying overhead) what it might be like to fly. Carewyn honestly wasn’t entirely sure what Orion got out of their meetings besides entertainment, and naturally she couldn’t afford to indulge in such entertainment too long, when she had so much work to do around the castle and she still had to find out where Jacob was positioned. But she had to admit, with the King and Queen having invited Iris over to stay in one of the guest suites at the palace for the remainder of the month, Carewyn didn’t mind having an excuse to stay far away from her cousin. Lately Carewyn had actively planned her days so that she could clean the guest suites at teatime, when Iris would be in one of the foyers with the King, Queen, and Prince on the opposite side of the palace. She did not want a repeat of the other day, after all...particularly since she’d also need time to change out of the nicer, collared dresses she’d wear when spending time with Orion.

Orion, meanwhile, was of course getting a bit more than entertainment out of his and Carewyn’s meetings. Through speaking with Carewyn, he’d sussed out some very helpful information about Royaumanian culture, the dynamics within Royaume’s royal family, and both their and their country’s financial state. One day he told his closest confidantes at court, Skye and McNully, some of what he’d learned...but Skye didn’t react quite as favorably as Orion had expected.

“...I gave Lady Cromwell a copy of the sheet music for ‘No One is Alone’ last week -- you remember the song, of course? And from what I understand, Prince Henri and the castle staff have quite taken to it. Not that I’m surprised -- Carewyn has a very soothing voice. I’m sure she performed it very well. But the Prince listening to the words at all is a good sign -- I even asked Carewyn if the Prince enjoyed them, and she said she believed so. She also found their message meaningful...one of Florence’s best-loved anti-War songs, and one about looking through another’s eyes and forgiving past grievances, no less! That can only be a good sign, for Royaumanians to take heart in it. It surely must have been fate that Lady Cromwell and I collided at the market -- I had a feeling we were kindred spirits, when she came to my aid, but now I am most assured of it. I might hazard a guess that she wishes for peace just as much as I -- for the sake of her brother fighting in the field, yes, but also selflessly for the sake of others, not wishing to see any other person in pain...”

“She sounds like a perfect knight in shining armor,” said Skye, her voice oddly cutting.

Orion looked up at Skye, startled by her tone. Her arms were crossed over the chest of her faded blue linen dress.

“Anything else you want to tell us about the fair Lady Cromwell,” she said rather icily, “or are you actually ready to talk about how you plan to end this War?”

Orion blinked slowly. “...I thought that we were already discussing that.”

“Really?” scoffed Skye. “‘Cause it sounds to me like you were busy gushing over your new conquest.”

“Conquest?” Orion repeated. His confused tone then melted into something more soothing and indulgent, “Oh -- no, Skye...you misunderstand me. I have no interest in courting Carewyn -- she’s just my contact point, with the palace.”

Skye gave a very loud, disbelieving snort. “Ha! Right, of course she is -- that’s why you can’t stop gushing about ‘Carewyn this’ and ‘Lady Cromwell that.’”

“Skye has a point, Orion,” said McNully, though his voice was a lot less confrontational. If anything he sounded almost sheepish. “I mean, about 85% of your report was about Lady Cromwell. You used her name over ten times just in the span of a minute.”

Amazingly Orion’s calm, hard-to-read expression didn’t crack. His hands clasped lightly in front of him.

“Lady Cromwell plays an essential part in this strategy. I’m an outsider looking in, without her insight -- a ship sailing blindly, without the light from a lighthouse to give me direction.”

��A lighthouse for a lost ship -- oh yeah, those sound like the words of someone who’s focusing on winning a war and not swooning over a pretty face,” said Skye scathingly. “Maybe instead of always running off and playing dress-up, you could actually bother to do your duty and go help fight on the battlefield for once!”

Orion’s lips came together tightly, but it didn’t make his expression any less composed. McNully shot Skye an uncomfortable, faintly disapproving look.

“Easy, Skye,” he murmured. “You know Orion -- ”

But Skye didn’t seem to hear McNully. Instead she tore into Orion.

“Face it, Orion -- you just like being treated like a commoner again and being able to make believe that you don’t have any responsibilities or worries...well, guess what? You’re not a commoner anymore! You’re the Prince of Florence -- you reckon little Miss Knight-in-Shining-Armor would take kindly to that, when she finds out?”

Orion’s dark eyes narrowed ever-so-slightly upon Skye’s face.

“Carewyn’s not an unreasonable woman,” he said softly. “I’m certain she would understand the reason behind my secrecy.”

This, if anything, only seemed to make Skye madder.

“Of course she would,” she muttered sourly. “Little Lady Royaume can do no wrong in your eyes, can she?”

She turned on her heel and stormed out, leaving Orion feeling very resigned and confused. McNully gave a heavy sigh, before facing Orion with a more serious expression.

“She’s overreacting, as usual,” he said, “but she’s still 60% right. It’s risky enough for you to get this close to anyone right now, when your position as Crown Prince is threatened by the likes of Lord Malfoy. He’d frankly love to have something like that over you. But someone from Royaume? The granddaughter of one of the most powerful, wealthy, and feared noblemen in their country? Orion, that’s dangerous.”

Orion leaned his hands on the table, looking down at the map of Florence and Royaume laid out on top of it.

“McNully, I assure you...my objective has not changed,” he said very levelly. “Everything I have done is for Florence -- for peace and balance. I admit, Lady Cromwell is a fascinating woman, and certainly one to be admired...but I spend time with her to gather intelligence I can obtain nowhere else. That is all.”

McNully looked doubtful, but didn’t directly address it. Instead he said, “I understand she’s your eyes and ears inside the palace, and the intelligence you’re getting is valuable...but don’t forget, she isn’t on your team. She’s on Royaume’s. And right now, Royaume is kicking our tail out there, on the battlefield.”

Orion’s dark eyes drifted away from the table as McNully leaned his arms on the table himself.

“It’s getting bad again,” he murmured very seriously. “I know you said the palace of Royaume’s strapped for funds, but somehow or another, they’ve scrounged up enough to get more cannons, and their troops have been moving them around every couple of hours so that our men never know where they’re going to be firing from next. It’s been very effective. Whoever’s been giving Royaume’s King and Queen military strategy lately, they’re a bloody genius.”

McNully clearly was irritated about this, given the flash that shot through his narrowed eyes.

“Your father sent me a request for a counter-strategy this morning. You know it’s likely if the strategy isn’t one he can execute on his own, he may ask both you and me to join him there, on the front lines.”

Orion did not respond. His expression was as unreadable as ever, but there was something oddly detached and avoidant in his posture.

“I know you don’t want that, and you know I have faith in you,” said McNully, “but your strategy is a slow burn, Orion. It requires both patience and time...and we might not end up having as much of those as you think.”

Once again, Orion chose not to answer. McNully sighed again.

“You know I’ll be right behind you in a coach, if you need me,” he said tiredly. “Just...mind that you use your head as well as your heart, all right?”

Orion threw on his black traveling cloak and headed back to Royaume not long after, hoping to meet up with Carewyn for an evening stroll. There was a notable chill in the air -- if it got much colder, he thought that any rain might instead come down as sleet or maybe even snow.

When Orion arrived at the gate, however, he was met not by Carewyn, but by KC. She was dressed in a high-necked gown made of black velvet and holding a leather-bound book and a stack of parchment in her arms.

Orion tilted his head slightly to glance at the piece of parchment on the top of the stack, which had several “X’s” scattered over an oddly familiar map.

“Plans to bury some pirate treasure?” he asked pleasantly.

KC gave a lightly amused snort. “No, just military plans.”

Her lightly freckled face then grew a bit more serious. “I guess you’re here for Carewyn?”

Orion had been ready to ask more about the military plans KC was holding, but decided not to circle back to it when she changed the subject.

“Yes. Has she been detained?”

“I guess so...” said KC. Her lips twisted into a concerned frown as she looked out at the darkening sky.

Orion’s eyebrows knit together over his eyes slightly. “You seem concerned.”

KC bit her lip. “Mm...it’s just...well, you see, one of the royal carriages broke down earlier today, when the Queen was riding through the country with Lady Yaxley.”

Orion raised his eyebrows. “Lady Iris Yaxley, do you mean? Carewyn’s cousin?”

“Yes. No one was badly hurt, fortunately, but the Queen, Lady Iris, and the coachman and footman were forced to ride the horses back and leave the carriage behind. When they got back, they asked the royal carpenter, Charlie Weasley, to go fix it. Charlie said that he probably wouldn’t have the proper tools to fix it here at the castle, so Carewyn offered to ride out with him, so that their horses could drag the coach together to the Weasley family cottage, about forty minutes away. The problem is,” she said with a deepening frown, “they left over two hours ago, and they’re still not back yet. Bill headed out after them on his own horse not long before you got here...he’s Charlie’s brother, so he knows the route they would’ve taken...”

Orion’s dark eyes had narrowed significantly.

“Which road did Sir Weasley take after them?” he asked, his calm voice nonetheless touched with the faintest edge.

KC pointed. “Northwest -- toward the mountains.”

Orion nodded. “Thank you.”

And with this, he turned on his heel and rushed back toward where he thought he might find McNully’s coach. He needed to borrow a horse.

Setting one of the black horses free of the black coach, Orion rode off toward the mountains, his slightly-too-long dark hair flapping freely behind him. The road was well-marked, but it soon veered off into dense woods as it migrated up toward the mountains. Orion had never gone so far west into Royaume before, let alone far from Florence before. Despite himself, he had to acknowledge the beauty of the landscape. The views of the castle below were breathtaking -- it looked as tiny as a toy, and yet the infinite glass windows made it sparkle like some diamond-like beacon in the darkening sky. He wondered if his own palace in Florence looked so beautiful to others, at a distance. As much as he himself hadn’t been raised a prince, it was difficult for him to look at his own palace as anything other than a cage.

As he went further uphill and the sky darkened, it also grew colder. Orion was starting to see his own breath on the air. He thought of Carewyn alone in the cold, perhaps hurt, and had to take several deep breaths to sooth his nerves. He was never in a right state, when he let his thoughts run too wild or his fears chatter too loudly.

Finally Orion caught sight of two familiar ginger-headed men, standing by an overturned coach, covered in mud and missing one of its back wheels. One of the men was the tall, freckled castle guard from the other day who Carewyn called Bill, dressed in his high-collared blue and red patterned uniform tunic and matching white feathered, blue-velvet hat -- the other was much stockier, but no less freckled, dressed in a burgundy-colored tunic and loose brown pants and boots, and he wore his ginger hair in a ponytail not unlike Orion’s when he was at court. When Orion approached them, Bill immediately reacted with suspicion -- Orion explained what KC had told him and asked where Carewyn was, and was incredibly startled to hear her voice coming from over the edge of the cliff.

“I’m down here!”

Orion couldn’t help but feel a flash of concern. He raced over as if to look over the edge, but Charlie lashed out an arm in front of the taller man to stop him.

“Uh, I wouldn’t look over if I were you, mate,” he said, having trouble biting back his laughter despite himself.

He pointed at the broken carriage. Hanging over one of the doors was what looked like the burnt orange and beige skirt of a dress and several wool petticoats.

Orion blinked a few times in great surprise, his tanned cheeks darkening with a faint blush. Bill, however, reacted with anxiety.

“Carewyn!” he shouted over the ravine. “Are you in your underwear down there!?”

“Ugh -- well, I couldn’t very well climb down into this briar patch and wrench this wheel loose in my dress, could I?” Carewyn called back up rather haughtily. “At least my bloomers are slightly akin to the sorts of trousers you all wear.”

“You’ll catch a death of cold out here!” said Bill.

“I’m all right,” Carewyn reassured him. “Ulk -- ugh -- I have the wool jacket Andre made for me on...”

Charlie took a step forward, his eyes moved up toward the darkening sky pointedly so as not to look over the edge as he called down,

“Bill’s right, though, Carewyn -- it’s getting colder by the minute...and it’s getting dark too. Are you sure you can lift that thing up and over all by yourself?”

“Ugh...I admit, it’s a bit difficult!” she called back. “But I think I can manage.”

Recalling Carewyn’s blatant refusal of help in retrieving her horse, Orion -- still fighting back a slight blush -- called over the ravine himself.

“We do not question your capabilities, Carewyn,” he said patiently, “but would you like our help?”

“Ugh -- don’t be silly,” said Carewyn, sounding faintly haughty. “You, Charlie, and Bill would break your necks, climbing down here. And I’m still in my undergarments -- I have no interest in anyone seeing me prance around without proper clothes on, thank you.”

“It’s no use,” Charlie muttered under his breath, “I’ve tried to offer her help for the last hour, but she keeps putting me off, saying she’s fine. I don’t get why she feels like she has to do everything by herself...”

“Probably because she’s always had to, Charlie,” said Bill quietly. His voice betrayed a lot of sympathy and sadness as he exhaled through his nose.

Orion’s black eyes deepened with some compassion for Bill as he called back over the ravine to Carewyn,

“Your points are well made, my lady...but we’d still like to help you.”

“Ugh -- you can help me by leaving me my dignity and not looking over while I’m only half-dressed...ack...”

“Would you accept us doing more than that?”

“Urgh -- I am...sorry to have made you and Bill come out all this way -- but I’m all right, really.”

Bill glanced at Orion out the side of his eye, and then back at the cliff. Despite his distrust of the man, the eldest Weasley was sort of glad he wasn’t the only one who disliked how reticent Carewyn was to accept help.

“You don’t need to apologize,” he said earnestly. “I was -- we were worried about you, Carewyn. You and Charlie.”

He and Orion glanced at each other. Bill wished the other man’s expression wasn’t so hard to read. The castle guard tried to twist his uncomfortable frown into a smile that Carewyn would hopefully be able to hear over the edge of the cliff.

“Come on...let’s get you and that wheel up and over so you can get back into your dress.”

There was a silence. Then Carewyn said a bit more quietly,

“...You don’t need to worry about me.”

“Wha -- oh, come off it, Carewyn!” said Charlie exasperatedly. “To hell we do! You think I was mucking about, calling you my pal and saying I needed to figure out a nickname for you? Now let us help you, or I’ll consider making that nickname an irritating one!”

There was another silence. Then Carewyn sighed very loudly and tiredly, and Orion couldn’t help but grin, because he could tell she’d finally given in.

“Oh, all right,” she said begrudgingly. “But I don’t really know how you’re going to help, when you can’t look at me.”

Orion closed his eyes.

“Describe your surroundings, Carewyn,” he said. “Paint a picture for me, with your words.”

“...Well, I’ve gotten the wheel out of the briar patch. I’m trying to roll it back up, but it’s as large as me, and the downward slope and the ice is making it difficult. Plus the wheel isn’t in great shape -- all of its spokes are broken, so there isn’t much for me to push up on, while rolling it uphill.”

“I would’ve told her to just forget it, but it’d be much easier for me to carve a new wheel if I have framework from the old one,” Charlie explained. “I’m already going to have to make the new spokes and hubcap completely out of wood instead of using any gold or metalwork, but it’s still going to take a lot of time...even more so if the old wheel framework can’t be saved...”

Orion considered the matter, visualizing the set-up down below on the inside of his eyelids. “...What’s left of the wheel...is it made of metal or wood?”

“Wood...but there seems to be some sort of metal lining around the rim, held on by nails.”

“That’d be for durability, I reckon,” said Charlie. “Wood alone would get chaffed badly on the ground, moving in a constant circle down cobblestones or over anything rocky.”

Orion opened his eyes and looked over the broken coach. His gaze lingered on the thick leather straps coming off of the front that no doubt would’ve attached it to their horses. Then he abruptly got up, rushing over to undo the straps from the carriage.

“What are you doing?” said Bill, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion.

Orion quickly knotted the long, thick leather straps together with several complex-looking and strong knots.

“Carewyn,” he called over very calmly, “I’m going to lower this down to you -- use the buckle and loop it securely around the inside rim of the wheel, so that it’s tight. Give it a light tug when it’s secure.”

He blindly tossed one end of the rope made out of leather straps over the edge of the cliff. After a minute, he felt a light tug at the end.

“Gentlemen,” Orion murmured to the Weasleys, “I’ll need you to hold this, for just a moment. Carewyn,” he added, as Charlie and Bill both grabbed the end of the makeshift rope and he let go, “I’m going to need you to step onto the wheel yourself and hold on.”

“What?” said Carewyn. “Orion, you can’t lift both me and the wheel -- it’s far too much! I’ll climb up and out myself -- ”

“Not to worry, my lady -- none of us will be doing the lifting,” said Orion serenely.

He led both his black horse and Bill’s chestnut horse over by their reins, and -- taking the makeshift rope from Bill and Charlie again -- he looped the end under the straps of both his and Bill’s saddles. He gave several tugs at all of the connections to make sure they were tight and secure before mounting his horse.

“Sir Weasley, if you would assist me.”

Catching onto Orion’s idea at last, Bill rushed forward so he could jump up onto his own horse.

“Mr. Weasley, you may want to have your hands ready to help Carewyn climb out when she gets close to the top,” said Orion over his shoulder. “Sir Weasley, together now.”

With a lot of effort and strain, the two horses were able to lift Carewyn and the broken wheel up and out of the ravine. Once Carewyn was out, all three men averted their eyes so she could put her dress back on. Once she was suitably redressed in her orange-and-beige dress, snood, and dark scarlet wool jacket, she, Bill, and Orion helped Charlie secure some makeshift posts he’d carved out of some nearby tree branches under the broken coach so that their four horses could lift it up off the ground and help support it without its second back wheel. Then the four hobbled the coach up the mountain the rest of the way to the Weasley family cottage.

The home of the Weasley family, affectionately nicknamed “the Burrow,” was built up against the side of a hill. Attached to the house was a large farm with sprawling pastures and short, rustic wooden fences. Its roof had clearly been patched up multiple times over the years with whatever kind of wood was on hand, making it resemble a patchwork quilt.

When the group arrived, Bill and Charlie’s youngest sibling and only sister Ginny immediately ran out to greet them -- she’d seen them coming up over the horizon and was beyond thrilled to see that it was her eldest brothers. Bill and Charlie’s teenage brothers Percy, Fred, George, and Ron soon followed along after. Fred and George -- who were identical twins -- were quick to crow that Charlie had brought them an early birthday present (namely, the coach), and Percy scolded them that clearly it was for work and they should let it alone. Orion and Carewyn ended up staying back at a distance, both faintly baffled by the amount of warmth and noise emanating from the seven siblings as they chattered amongst themselves, constantly stepping on each other’s feet and interrupting what everyone else was saying. Neither of them had ever encountered a family quite like this before. When Bill and Charlie’s parents, Arthur and Molly Weasley, emerged from the house, however, Molly very quickly bustled every last one of them inside, including Orion and Carewyn.

“In you go, the lot of you,” she said in a forceful, but very warm tone of voice. “You all look like you need some supper-- ”

“Oh -- no, Mrs. Weasley,” said Carewyn very quickly, “I couldn’t impose -- ”

“Nonsense, dear!” said Molly, as she took Carewyn’s hands and led her inside. “Why, you’re positively freezing! To think, you came all the way out here without a proper muff for your hands...”

“I had to help Charlie with the carriage,” Carewyn said, her eyes drawn away awkwardly rather than looking at Molly, “I couldn’t hope to have my hands free, using a muff...”

“Then both of you should come inside and get warm,” said Arthur, startling Orion with an amiable clap on the back. “Any friend of Bill and Charlie’s is a friend of our family.”

Carewyn had never been the subject of such coddling and generosity before in her life. Her mother had always taught her to treat people with respect and compassion, of course, but she had been a soft-spoken and understated person, and their family life had always been very quiet. And of course at the Cromwell estate, it had been less modest and quiet, but far less affectionate as well. Never had she ever visited such a loud, crowded, and faintly uncomfortable place that still nonetheless felt like a home, full of warmth and love.

Even Orion found himself feeling a bit unsettled by the Weasley family’s overwhelming hospitality. He’d been in plenty of unruly, crowded, and loud settings like this before -- but none of them had ever been quite this...well, jovial. It made it so that Orion yearned for peace, quiet, and returned distance, and yet also couldn’t help but marvel at the positive vibes that rippled off of this family and how much they could give, despite clearly having so little. When dinner was served, Orion had to politely decline a bowl of beef stew because he didn’t eat meat, and Molly Weasley immediately handed the bowl off to Ron so she could set about making Orion his own plate, piled high with cheesy mashed potatoes, sauteed mushrooms, and roasted cauliflower seasoned with garlic and chives.

The Weasley family and their guests sat in an uncomfortable, messy half-circle around the large brick fireplace, laughing and talking as they ate. After supper came the dessert of hot, fresh apple dumplings, and after dessert came some hot tea and scones. After all, said Molly Weasley, having guests over was a rare treat, so they were going to celebrate appropriately. Neither Carewyn nor Orion could remember ever having felt so full in all their lives.

As everyone enjoyed their scones and tea, stories and songs were swapped around the fire. At one point in the evening, twelve-year-old Ginny -- who was perfectly thrilled to have another girl around, for a change -- begged Carewyn to sing for them. Apparently Bill had told his family all about her lovely voice. So, with some encouragement from Charlie, Arthur, and Molly, Carewyn bit back a broad, amused grin, took a deep breath, and started to sing.

“Mother cannot guide you...now you’re on your own.

Only me beside you -- still, you’re not alone...”

Orion had thought to himself that Carewyn must have done the song from his youth proper justice while singing for the Prince, but hearing her sing it in person, seeing her smile at him and her eyes sparkle as she did so...it was a completely different matter. As before, Orion felt all of the tension in his shoulders ebb off of him, as easily as dirt was washed away in warm water. He bowed his head and closed his eyes, tilting his head a bit so that he could hear her better, as his breathing and heart rate slowed. Even with his eyes closed, he could hear a smile in every word Carewyn sang...even when she likely wasn’t smiling at all, he thought. How could she be smiling, when lines like “sometimes people leave you half-way through the wood” and “people make mistakes -- fathers, mothers” rang with such emotion and pain? Was that pain visible on her face? Orion thought not, given Carewyn’s sense of grace and composure...but he heard it, all the same. He felt it -- her heart, aching with a kind of deep, blazing empathy Orion had never encountered in anyone else before.

When Carewyn came to the end of the song, Orion opened his eyes at last. The Weasleys all clapped, delighted, but he barely heard them as he turned to Carewyn.

“...That was remarkable,” he murmured.

Carewyn smiled. “I’m glad you think I did it justice.”

“Mm,” said Orion. “I’ve...never heard anyone drown like that, before.”

Carewyn couldn’t bite back a laugh. “Perhaps I didn’t do it justice then, if I sounded like I was drowning...”

“You were drowning in the words’ meaning,” corrected Orion. “Enveloping and submerging yourself in them -- allowing them to pull you in and take your breath away.”

He smiled, his black eyes very soft upon Carewyn’s face.

“It was...very moving.”

Molly’s face spread into an indulgent smile as she reached forward and patted Carewyn’s hand. “It was absolutely beautiful, dear.”

“Orion’s right, Carewyn,” agreed Arthur. “Your feelings really came through. I could tell the words mean something to you.”

Carewyn offered a polite smile, even as her eyes drifted away. “...I suppose they do.”

“It sounds like a lullaby, sort of,” mused Ron. “Even if it talks about your mother not being around.”

Ginny tilted her head toward Carewyn, Ron’s words prompting concern.

“...Do you not have a mother, Carewyn?”

The rest of the family went very quiet -- some like Percy shot Ginny warning looks, while others like Molly and Ron couldn’t help but glance at Carewyn in similar concern.

Carewyn’s gaze had drifted off onto the fire. Although she was turned away and her face was stoic, however, Orion could see her eyes rippling like turbulent ocean water, before she closed them solemnly.

“...I had one,” she answered softly at last. “She died when I was twelve.”

“Was she sick?” asked Ron, very hesitantly.

Carewyn bowed her head and gave a single, silent nod. Everyone in the room knew what that meant. The Plague had swept through both Royaume and Florence several times, over the span of the War -- one of the worst years was about nine years ago now...probably the same year Carewyn had lost her mother.

Orion’s black eyes narrowed ever-so-slightly upon her face. Molly looked like she wanted to envelop Carewyn in the biggest hug and was only holding back the urge because of her husband’s tight, reassuring squeeze to her hand.

“Oh, you poor dear,” she murmured.

Carewyn raised her head at last, her expression once again touched by a small, resilient, pretty smile.

“It’s all right,” she said gently, her eyes only briefly grazing each of the Weasleys’ faces. “I’ll always miss my mother...but I’m getting along all right. And I still have Jacob.”

“Your brother?” asked Percy, and Carewyn nodded.

“He left for War the same day he and I moved in with our grandfather,” Carewyn explained.

“Your brother must be quite a bit older than you, then,” said Orion.

Carewyn glanced at Orion out the side of her eye, smiling slightly. “Nine years older, yes. You know...you actually remind me of him, a bit.”

Orion raised his eyebrows. “Oh?”

Carewyn was forced to stifle a giggle behind her hand. “Jacob is also the sort to do things in his own clever way. Only he’s a lot more aggressive than you -- and more talkative, and arrogant, and overprotective...”

“And uglier,” inserted Fred.

“And smellier,” added George.

“With a long crooked nose and ears like a bat’s.”

The younger Weasley siblings were all laughing now. Carewyn had to cover her mouth to stifle her giggling.

“No!” she choked. “I don’t mean it like that! He’s wonderful, really. He’s just...well, an absolute idiot about how to interact with other people. He’s completely brilliant, mind you -- he could give you whole lectures about anything from geography to mathematics to physics...but coming up with spontaneous gifts for no occasion at all, just based on someone’s interests? He’d need some prodding, to do something like that.”

She smiled at Orion, who couldn’t help but grin fully in return.

“It was truly nothing at all, Carewyn,” he said. “With your love of music, it felt like that song would be something you would appreciate.”

Arthur glanced at Orion curiously. “Where is that song from, Orion? I’ve never heard it before.”

“I learned it as a boy,” Orion answered. “I would hear it sung outside the window of the workhouse, sometimes.”

Molly looked very troubled. “Workhouse? Orion dear, you don’t mean to say you grew up in one of those terrible places?”

Orion felt Carewyn’s gaze on him. When he looked back at her, her almond-shaped blue eyes were rippling with concern as well, though much gentler and more empathetic than Molly’s. He tried to offer her a smile.

“Let’s just say the words spoke to me as well, at the time,” he said lightly. “Not just to me, either...all of the boys there, one way or another, were where they were because of other people’s ‘terrible mistakes.’”

Orion’s gaze drifted down to his own hands as he lightly clasped them in his lap.

“...The War doesn’t touch you the same way here, but...the closer you are to Florence...the more the reality of it hits you in the face, every day. Even when you’re not on the battlefield itself -- even when you’re just at the border -- you, and the ones you care for, run the risk of getting caught in the crossfire. And on the border of Florence and Royaume...in those towns where it’s hard to tell where one country starts and another begins...tensions are like gunpowder. One spark from the tiniest match can set it ablaze -- can make everything implode, and force you to start all over again.”

His face was unreadable, but his black eyes were endless, rippling with the recollection of the fire and smoke -- the red and blue colors of Royaume, on the saddles of horses -- the life leaving his mother’s eyes -- his own heavy, terrified hyperventilating...

He closed his eyes and took several very deep, measured breaths before continuing.

“In such a place...one can find people desperate enough to want to lash out at others, to avenge their pain,” said Orion solemnly. “But there was one sweet old woman who owned a flower and herb shop near the workhouse. She’d had to rebuild her establishment several times over the years, and from what I understand, she finally had to leave town not long after I did...but every time she caught wind that the army was coming to town, looking for new recruits...she’d sing the song just loudly enough that we boys could hear it through our window.”

He absently played with the crudely carved circular charm on the cord around his neck in one hand.

“And although there were those who still enlisted afterwards...many others did not.”

Carewyn’s eyes widened.

“‘While we’re seeing our side,’ ” she sang again, more softly, “‘maybe we forgot...they are not alone. No one is alone.’ ”

Orion’s lips spread into a smile as he looked at Carewyn, his black eyes rippling gently as he nodded.

“So it’s against the War, then,” murmured Charlie. He glanced at his parents, who both looked concerned.

“Did that woman with the flower shop give you that?” asked Ginny curiously, indicating the charm around Orion’s neck.

“Yes,” said Orion. “She gave it to me one night when I tried to run away, to soothe my nerves. Its effects wore off by the next morning, but I’ve never really had the heart to throw it out.”

Percy sputtered, looking very pale. “Th-then she was a witch?”

“Whoa,” said Fred and George, looking almost too eager.

“Did she turn all the army into pigs?” asked George.

“Did she lure you in and try to cook you in a soup?” said Fred.

Orion smiled indulgently. “Of course not -- ”

“Well, thank Heavens for that!” said Molly, shooting the twins a very reproachful look. “Magic isn’t something to make fun of, you two -- it’s frankly a wonder you weren’t hurt, dear...”

Orion frowned. “There was no danger, Madam Weasley, I assure you.”

“No danger! Orion,” Molly scolded him indulgently, “I applaud your courage...but nature has its own way of things, and any magic that twists it out of shape is more dangerous than it’s worth.”

To the Weasley family’s surprise, Carewyn actually spoke up.

“Mrs. Weasley, men tend fields, plant seeds, domesticate horses and dogs...treat illnesses and injuries...cut hair and wear makeup and put on heeled shoes to make ourselves appear taller. Would that not also be twisting nature’s intent?”

Molly actually faltered somewhat. “Well, yes, but...that’s very different from magic, Carewyn! Magic is...well, it’s wild. Uncontrollable.”

“It’s untamed chaos,” said Arthur more levelly than his wife. “A kind that’s done a lot more harm than good.”

“But it still can be used for good,” said Carewyn very firmly. “And if it has that potential, why must we treat it as though it and all of its users are inherently reprehensible? If magic can be used to save lives, or heal the sick, or even just calm a scared boy down after something horrible...”

She glanced at Orion out the side of her eye.

“...Then it seems to be like any other weapon or tool, or even any other person -- something that could protect or hurt.”

Orion felt like his heart was being flooded with warmth, and his entire expression melted with pride and something like affection as he stared at Carewyn.

She truly is a woman to be admired. The memory of Skye’s irritation and McNully’s warning rippled over Orion’s mind and he found himself faltering. Admire...yes. Anyone could grow to admire such a woman, couldn’t they? To respect and esteem her...to...grow an attachment, to her... Even I? Could I...?

The Weasleys exchanged uncertain looks amongst themselves.

“Come to think of it,” said Ron thoughtfully, “wasn’t there that old myth about fairy godmothers who grant you wishes?”

Fred brought an arm roughly around his younger brother’s neck and put him in a rough choke hold. “Aww, ickle Ronnie wanting a pwetty new dress?”

“‘Oh fairy godmother, I just gotta have a new dress for the Winter Festival!’” said George in a high-pitched squeal.

“Geroff!” growled Ron, as he pulled free.

“Oh, but that would be fun!” sighed Ginny. “Dancing at the Winter Festival, in the prettiest dress you’ve ever seen...you’re going to the Festival, aren’t you, Carewyn?”

“Probably not, Ginny,” said Carewyn gently, “I’ve got so much work to do...”

“Oh, but you have to!” whined Ginny. “The Festival’s tradition! Right, Orion?”

“So I’ve heard,” Orion said modestly, “but I’m afraid I’ve never attended a Winter Festival either.”

“What?!” said all of the Weasley children except Bill in thoroughly aghast unison.

“It’s the biggest celebration of the entire year -- ”

“Everybody in town will be there -- ”

“ -- well, aside from the noble tarts -- ”

“ -- but hey, who needs them?”

“Everybody makes the best mince pies and hot apple cider -- ”

“There’s dancing and singing and games and gift-giving -- ”

“You just can’t miss it -- ”

Before long, they’d completely gotten off the topic of magic all together, so the Weasleys could tell Orion all about the Winter Festival. Carewyn took the opportunity to start carrying dishes into the kitchen so that she could help Molly clean up. While she did so, Bill pulled her aside.

“Carewyn...can I talk to you? Alone?”

Carewyn blinked, but nonetheless put down the dishes she was carrying and followed Bill off into a secluded corner.

“What’s wrong?” she asked in concern.

Bill bit the inside of his lip, his brown eyes drifting over in the direction of the fireplace where the rest of his family was sitting with Orion.

“Carewyn,” he said slowly, “who is that man, really?”

Carewyn’s eyebrows knit together. Bill ran a hand over the undone collar of his tunic absently.

“He’s hiding something, I know it. And I’m sure you see it too. He dodges questions he doesn’t want to answer, and as much as he’s even told us tonight about himself, he never gives important details. He lived near the border, but he didn’t mention what town he’s from. He lived in a workhouse, presumably after losing his parents, but he never said what he lost them to.”

“Those things might not be easy for him to talk about, Bill,” Carewyn said softly.

“Yes,” said Bill in a bracing voice, “but he also hopped the walls of the palace, completely ignorant of how tight royal security is and why, has enough time to chase after you most every day, and gets paints from people he can’t identify and learns songs from people who, from the sound of things, practice witchcraft.”

Bill crossed his arms. He clearly was trying to be considerate to Carewyn’s feelings, but couldn’t hold back his concerns.

“Look, I...I understand you like the man. And I understand why -- Ginny and the others seem to have taken to him pretty well, too. But there’s no reason for someone to hold back that many secrets, unless they’re up to no good. He could be a cad, or a criminal, or maybe even something worse. Judging by his stance on magic, he could even be a magician himself...”

His brown eyes narrowed slightly upon Carewyn’s face.

“I’m just...worried about you, that’s all,” he said lowly.

Carewyn considered Bill for a long moment. Then, reaching out a hand, she gently took hold of Bill’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

“Bill...I understand how you feel. And I’m grateful, truly grateful, for your caring. I hardly deserve it, and it...it means a lot to me.”

Bill frowned deeply, ready to say something, but Carewyn cut him off.

“But believe me when I say that people don’t just keep secrets because they mean to do harm. Sometimes -- for some people -- they’ve had to learn to hide themselves and shield their hearts...so much so that even when they encounter good people, it’s hard for them to let their guard down. Sometimes they’ve known so much pain that, even though they’re kind people, they’ve numbed themselves to a degree, just to protect themselves. Lied so much...that it becomes second-nature. Or worse, lie because they don’t know who they can really trust...because so many people have hurt them that they don’t know what trust even feels like anymore.”

Bill’s expression lost some of its edge, though it still looked wary.

“...And if he is a magic user?”

“Then he’s one of the good ones,” said Carewyn firmly.

Bill still looked a bit unsure. Carewyn squeezed his shoulder a bit more tightly, her eyes resting there instead of on his face.

“Bill, my brother is only alive, thanks to magic.”

Bill was startled.

“The Plague swept through our whole house,” said Carewyn lowly. “First the landlord and his family -- then my mother...and then Jacob. We were living hand-to-mouth, and I didn’t have anyone else to go to...so I went to the Cromwell estate.”

Bill’s brown eyes became a little smaller, darkening with grim understanding.

“...You went to your grandfather.”

Carewyn nodded. “He disowned Mum long ago, but he was still our family, so I thought he might be willing to help us. He agreed to take Jacob and me in and nurse Jacob back to health, so long as we paid back his generosity. Grandfather then tracked down a witch who could cast a spell to save Jacob’s life.”

Bill’s eyebrows furrowed. “Lord Cromwell hired a -- ?”

“Do not repeat this, Bill!” Carewyn said very sharply and urgently. “To anyone, do you understand? No one.”

Her eyes then softened visibly, becoming grimmer and sadder.

“Jacob was dying. There was no other option.”

Bill looked like he was in pain, just hearing this second-hand. He swallowed, and then gave a nod.

“So that witch saved your brother’s life,” he said quietly.

Carewyn nodded, her eyes full of emotion despite the stoicism of her features.

“The spell she cast bound Jacob’s life to Grandfather’s will. Jacob was brought into the house on a stretcher just after dawn, and within a half-hour...he was up on his own two feet again.”

Carewyn closed her eyes. She could still remember Jacob’s blazing, relieved smile as he barreled down the stairs and threw his arms around her, cradling her like a baby.

“My Wyn -- my sweet Wyn -- ”

Not long after that, though...Jacob’s arms were yanked away -- all of him was yanked away -- held back by Blaise and Claire and Pearl’s husbands, who all had work to together just to restrain Jacob as he fought to reach her, screaming and raging like a mad man --

“WYN! NO! GET OFF OF ME -- WYN! I WON’T LET YOU -- CAREWYN!”

Carewyn opened her eyes, the soft longing fading from her face completely and leaving a much more stony expression behind.

Bill himself, however, looked more troubled than ever.

“You said your brother left for War the same day you and he arrived at the Cromwell estate,” he whispered shakily. “Do you mean that, right after saving your brother’s life...Lord Cromwell immediately sent him off to War -- all while knowing how few men return home alive?”

Carewyn’s lips came together tightly.

“Grandfather sent him to the front, so that Jacob could start paying back the debt I owed him,” she said, her voice very soft and oddly distant. “After all...a man who wouldn’t die, so long as he willed it...would make an excellent soldier.”

Bill looked horrified.

“Then...” he whispered, “...then Jacob’s only alive because your grandfather decides whether he lives or dies? You only know your brother’s still alive after so many years at war...because Lord Cromwell is bound to him through magic, and he’s holding his life over your head?”

Carewyn withdrew her hand from Bill’s shoulder and turned away.

“Carewyn...that’s monstrous!” said Bill, and he was unable to keep his voice from rising. “I didn’t even know magic could do something like that -- but -- but that’s nothing, compared to...”

He couldn’t restrain himself. He actually threw an arm around Carewyn and pulled her into a hug from behind. The small ginger-haired woman stiffened like a startled cat.

“Bill?”

Carewyn looked up at him -- were those tears, in his eyes?

“Have you...never told anyone else, about this?” Bill murmured.

Carewyn tried to turn around, her blue eyes welling up with regret and pain. “Bill...”

She brought a hand through his hair, trying to soothe him the way she used to for Jacob.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I -- I didn’t mean to upset you -- I only wanted to explain why I’m not scared of magic...please forgive me.”

Bill closed his eyes to try to hold back both his righteous anger and his tears.

“Forgive you?” he repeated in a choked voice. “For what, trusting me with the truth?”

“For making you worry unnecessarily,” Carewyn said forcefully, trying to ignore how uncomfortably her stomach was squirming.

Bill opened his eyes, looking both flabbergasted and more upset than ever. “Unnecessarily?”

He roughly grabbed both of Carewyn’s shoulders and forced her to look up at him.

“Now you listen here, Carewyn Cromwell,” he said, taking on the sort of tone he only ever used with his younger siblings when they were being rowdy, “you may get to decide if you want to interact with me or not, or rely on me or not, or accept my help or not. But you don’t get to decide whether I worry about you or not. And from here on out...”

Bill’s brown eyes were blazing with resolve.

“...I’m going to worry about you. Because I hate the thought of someone feeling like anybody else worrying about them is somehow a problem.”

Carewyn was left speechless.

Bill’s face broke into a broad smile through his tears. “Until your brother’s back from the War, Carey, I’ll be looking after you for him -- no arguments, no dismissals, no saying you’re fine on your own. Got it?”

Carewyn looked at Bill, perfectly stunned. Then her gaze fell away toward the floor.

“...It sounds like...I really don’t get a choice in the matter, then,” she whispered.

“Nope,” said Bill, grinning broadly.

Carewyn was unable to fight back the weak smile prickling at the sides of her lips, nor the emotion flooding her eyes, even as she kept her face turned away.

“...And I suppose ‘Carey’...is a suggestion of a nickname you plan to give Charlie, for me?”

Bill’s eyes sparkled fondly. “Well, every one of my siblings has a nickname, in case you haven’t noticed.”

[clayandstuff]

Becho Musings Part 2

Some more musings about Becho while simultaneously addressing unfounded blorke takes that make my blood boil and have no basis in reality. Focusing on S5 and on since I’ve already covered Becho’s relationship before they got together, this will look at them specifically as a couple. Posting this for posterity on my blog.

TL;DR

Not to accidentally validate any of these blorke claims by talking about them or giving them attention, but they’re so easily debunked by canon I can’t help myself... 

Garbage take #1

Echo is just following Bellamy, she doesn’t love him, he is her King, they have a spy/king dynamic (lmao this isn’t even a real thing like wtf does this mean? You can tell blorkes are pressed about the knight/princess racist trope their ship falls into but you can’t just make things up! What a sad, misguided attempt to create a false equivalence between bellarke and Becho. A spy/king dynamic is literally not a thing - and unsurprisingly, it doesn’t accurately represent the relationship between Bellamy and Echo at all - but nice try I guess), Echo is only looking for someone to follow and take orders from, etc. 

There’s so much to break down in this hot garbage take:

Before I get into absolutely destroying this hot garbage, let’s quickly address how the subtle framing of these “arguments” purposefully doesn’t acknowledge Bellamy’s feelings for Echo. Attempting to discredit Becho by designating Echo as a follower deliberately disregards Bellamy’s active role in his relationship and his feelings for her. Bellamy loves Echo and that’s clear throughout the show, but it’s wonderfully vocalized on screen multiple times in S5. Bellamy considers Echo his family (5x01 “we’re family and nothing can change that”) and it’s explicitly verbalized in 5x07 (”Our friends are there. People we love”) and once again in 5x12, from Clarke herself, when she told Echo “Bellamy loved you”. So, ya know, Bellamy loves Echo. That’s not debatable.

So first off, Echo’s relationship with Bellamy is not at all like her relationship to the Azgeda royal family (who she was in servitude of and essentially employed by). This is one of the worst takes I’ve ever seen and I’m not sure how anyone can logically come to that conclusion? (Which is mainly due to the fact that this claim is made in bad faith and isn’t actually based on logic or what we’ve seen in canon, but I digress). Not to mention Echo refers to Roan and Nia with honorifics and obviously does NOT do that with Bellamy, seriously wtf show are blorkes watching... Being loyal or devoted to someone does not mean the same thing for every relationship. Context matters. People can be loyal to each other for a variety or reasons, family/survival/clan/duty/temporary alliance/self-preservation/etc. Echo's never even hugged Roan, that already contextually makes her relationship with Bellamy very different from her relationship with Roan. Being devoted to someone because it's your job to protect the royal family (as a member of the Queen's guard and spy for the Ice Nation) is not the same as being devoted to someone because you are in love with them, in a romantic relationship with them, and want to keep them safe because they’re precious to you. Hello?? 

The other glaring inaccuracy with this garbage take is that Echo is not someone who just follows people or orders. That’s never been her character. She is a soldier, like Bellamy - but even when she was loyal to Azgeda she was never just a good little follower. She singlehandedly took control of Polis for Azgeda and commanded the entire Azgeda army in Roan’s absence. She doesn’t sit around waiting for people to give her orders or tell her what to do next. That’s simply contradictory to what we’ve actually been shown on the show. Mischaracterizing her as such is nothing more than a blorke ploy to minimize (and outright ignore) her strengths and agency as a character, intentionally erasing the fact that she is a brilliant strategist, skilled warrior, and a trusted political confidant. 

Also, did blorkes forget that she’s literally a goddamn spy?! Being a spy is not the job for a follower who can’t think for themselves and needs someone to take orders from. A spy is given a mission and it’s up to them alone to make it happen. There’s actually an enormous amount of freedom and trust given to a spy. No one gives you step-by-step instructions to achieve your goal. You are literally on your own, often in enemy territory, having to think on your feet, adapt, and come up with a plan to get the job done. Oops embarrassing they forgot she’s a spy (it’s laughable to watch S7 and think she would ever actually betray her friends. She. Is. A. Spy. Infiltration is her job - we even saw her successfully infiltrate Diyoza’s camp in S5 and Diyoza herself actually admits she “got played” by Echo - CMON. Loyalty is her defining characteristic. PAY ATTENTION)

Calling her a follower is such a gross mischaracterization. Just look at her relationship with Roan (her actual King). She constantly argues with him, gives him push back, and even insinuates that he’s weak (to his face) on more than one occasion (in 4x01 when she flat out tells him “we can’t afford for our people to think you’re weak” and he gets offended enough to call her out on it, and then again when she’s sparring with him in 4x02 and offers to take his place once she knocks him on his ass). She doesn't even follow orders all that well if we're being honest (bless her little panda heart). She's the one who tells Roan to "send me to Arkadia" when she thinks Skaikru isn't being honest. She's the one telling Roan, the king, what to do! Not only does he let her talk to him like that, he actually values what she has to say. 

Furthermore, the one time we see Roan actually give her a direct order (to bring Octavia back alive) Echo ends up NOT doing that (lol). She isn’t afraid to speak her mind or make her own decisions. One of her biggest character defining moments (that gets her banished from her clan) is when she decides to act of her own volition and go directly behind Roan’s back, to cheat in the conclave. No one ordered her to do that, it was all her. And there’s also all of the S7 Bardo Disciples plot which further proves that Echo isn’t just some mindless follower (cough cough Bellamy with the Shepard cough cough and Pike...). She’s always been her own person who thinks for herself and does what she believes is best for her people. (Even as far back as her introduction in S2 when she realizes Bellamy is Skaikru but still decides to trust and work with him in Mt. Weather. She also silences all those grounders in the cages with a single command and they ALL shut up and obey her, but sure yeah she’s just a follower 🙄🙄🙄)

So now that we’ve established how she interacts with Roan, let’s look at how she interacts with Bellamy. I’ve already detailed their attitude towards each other before they get together here, but now let’s look at how they act as a couple. 

In S5, we see in their first scene together that they are very affectionate towards one another (so much kissing, arm rubbing, smiling, and forehead touching) as they mutually comfort each other. Echo is apprehensive about things changing on the ground because of Octavia and the fact that she’s still banished, but Bellamy makes an effort to get her to smile (even going so far as to joke about her “almost killing” his sister and him being more stubborn than Octavia. He gets her to laugh with him and even exclaims “good!” once she finally relaxes and smiles). He also tells her “we’re family and nothing can change that” - very different from her relationship with Nia (who Echo bowed down to when in her presence) who used Echo as spy/weapon of war, and Roan, who cast her out after using her political knowhow to effectively lead. Then on the Eligius ship in 5x03 they get their battle couple on by working together and fighting side-by-side to take out the prisoner who woke up. Later in that same episode, they jointly come up with a plan to deal with the cryo-sleeping prisoners that isn’t just murdering them (ultimately utilizing Echo’s plan to use them as leverage since Bellamy doesn’t want to kill them and Echo knows that it’s a strategic mistake to leave their enemy with reinforcements if they can stop it). When they don’t agree on something, they always talk it through and compromise (a sign of a healthy and mature relationship, where both people are regarded as equals and their input is valued). 

Also, Echo was the one who came up with the plan to counter McCreary’s forces when he’d stolen Diyoza’s battle plans. Echo and Bellamy share a voiceover as they both relay the plan simultaneously to their separate groups. Once Bellamy finishes explaining, Octavia says to him “tell Echo I said well done”, giving Echo credit and acknowledging the fact that this is indeed Echo’s idea. Can someone kindly point me to where Echo is being a follower waiting patiently to be given her orders from her “King”?? Because as far as I can tell that never actually happens...

Side note, anyone else remember how blorkes were irate that Echo was the one leading Spacekru at the end of s5. They complained that it didn’t make sense for Echo to be in charge because “Raven was smarter” and Echo was being “so bossy”. Let’s just take a moment to acknowledge the contradictory nature of the arguments “Echo is so bossy and leading Spacekru” but also “she’s just a follower with a spy/king dynamic to Bellamy”. She can’t be both 🤣 stick to a story please. (Also, I LOVE Raven so this is in no way me shading Raven, she’s amazing and brilliant). Bonus: when the show runner is sick of your garbage takes and calls you out

To reiterate, the contradictory claims and clear disregard for facts and the truth of the show just further proves that their “complaints” are made entirely in bad faith. They are rejecting reality and demonstrate no comprehension of canon - their garbage takes should not hold any weight and are merely a form of lashing out because they’re upset their fanon ship never happened.

Getting back on topic...

So, S5 is where Becho are canonically established as a romantic relationship and the audience gets to see, for the first time, how they interact after 6 years in space and falling love. (Can I just point out that the entire purpose of a time jump is to have our characters change and be in emotionally new and different places - it’s a storytelling device to change the status quo and shake things up - it’s perfectly acceptable to have Becho get together during it given their history with one another. I address this in more detail later so we’ll put a pin in this for now)

Once they get down to the ground, Bellamy fights for Echo (both figuratively and literally) with Octavia and at every turn he doubles down on his love for Echo. To summarize, Echo won’t turn in the defectors and is willing to be banished for it, leaving Bellamy to stay in Polis with Octavia so he can still have a relationship with his sister. However, Bellamy won’t let Echo do that. He doesn’t want her to leave and he doesn’t want to be apart from her. He offers to defect with her! He would chose to give up his relationship with Octavia and Clarke (who he just found out was alive and reunited with) to be with Echo. Echo doesn’t like that plan because she doesn’t want Bellamy to be in harm’s way. She even tells him “we’ve been through this. You’re not going with me” to which he responds “like hell I’m not!” and she tells him “you are not dying for me”. Bellamy seems inconsolable at the thought of her leaving and can’t even look Echo in the eye when he’s telling her that he’ll be in the rover and it’ll only take him a few days to get to her, and once again Echo comforts and reassures him. 

While Echo is at Diyoza’s camp trying to take down the eye, Bellamy has been staring at the monitor nonstop for 8 hours waiting for any change or sign that Echo made it there safely. Harper has to come in and tell him "you've been staring at that all night" and to “go, get some sleep”, knowing that if left on his own he would emotionally exhaust himself worrying about Echo and her safety indefinitely. Bellamy responds that the eye should be down by now and even says that he "wishes it was me over there". (This line reminds me of when he took her place in Mt. Weather to get bled in the harvest chamber. He is always willing to put himself in her place if it means getting her out of danger - he loves her and would do whatever it takes to keep her out of harm’s way). 

Eventually Bellamy marches through the desert and carries Echo’s sword for her. He even sits by the fire and holds onto her sword because he can’t reach out and hold Echo (meanwhile Echo is being comforted by Emori that she’ll be together with Bellamy soon - I love a good yearning parallel!). When they reunite at the end of the season, they hug, grip each other tightly, and stay pressed together just being in each other’s embrace (again, this is NOT how she acted with Roan or Nia... this is a romantic relationship, and it's obviously played out on screen very differently. Echo never received a singe bit of comfort - physical or otherwise - from anyone in Azgeda). 

Before they get out of the rover after rescuing Octavia, the minute Echo and Bellamy are reunited, Bellamy reaches out for Echo's hand and holds it (a callback to earlier in the season when he was reaching out for and grabbing onto her sword in her absence). Then they battle-couple-it-up again and take out the gunners making it possible for Wonkru to march through the gorge. They are equals (and partners) on and off the battle field.

S5 ends with Bellamy staring at Echo in cryosleep, yearning for her once again. And in S6 right off the bat they compromise with each other to get things done. The planet is dangerous and Bellamy doesn’t want to take fighters but Echo counters that it might be a mistake not to bring their to best fighters (Echo vouches for Octavia here) and Bellamy doesn’t want Octavia to come so instead he agrees to wake up Miller - another compromise where they make decisions together and work as a team. In S6 we also see in real-time Echo opening up to Bellamy and trusting him enough to let him in to her traumatic past, strengthening their relationship (directly in front of the audience) as Bellamy promises “from now on, we look forward not back” and comforts her with a loving forehead touch and a kiss. 

Bellamy and Echo both come up with the plan to rescue Clarke from Josephine (Echo directly gives Bellamy the go ahead to “go save Clarke” while she stays back and saves the rest of their friends after they set off the EMP taking down the radiation shield). While Bellamy is in the forest, he expresses regret and worry for Echo explicitly two separate times (Bellamy asks Clarke “what about the people I left behind” and Clarke assures him his actions helped to keep Echo specifically (as well as Madi) safe. He has another separate conversation with Octavia about Echo where Octavia reassures him that “Echo’s strong” and “she’ll be okay”). Bellamy also gets more reassurance from Murphy, who informs him that “Echo is in trouble” but he’ll “do what [he] can for her”. He tries to console Bellamy because Bellamy is currently captured and can’t get to her to help. Once Bellamy returns from his mission in the forest, he sees Echo smiling right at him and he sprints into her arms, hugging her desperately and smiling into her shoulder with his eyes closed. Becho is a loving, healthy, mature relationship filled with trust and mutual respect, where both people are treated as equals.

So yeah, no follower spy king dynamic BS. Equal partners in love.

Garbage take #2 

Becho is toxic because he got mad at her and called her a spy, etc.

 Blorkes love to incorrectly imply that Bellamy’s little outburst in 6x04 at the party means that “Becho is toxic”. Well, if you actually watch the rest of the episode you’d see that there was a loving resolution to this “fight” 🙄

As Echo is walking away from Bellamy at the party, Bellamy instantly hangs his head in regret. He then immediately goes to find her and apologizes. He tells her “I’m a jerk. I was taking my feelings about Octavia out on you” and “I’m sorry”. Then we see Echo open up to him about her past and would you look at that! Their romantic relationship is being explicitly developed on screen! The trust! The love! The tears in Bellamy’s eyes as he listens (it hurts him just to hear what she’s been through)! The way he gets up on his bad leg (thanks Clarke) and goes to comfort her, kisses her head before he even sits down and tells her “Everything we’ve been through has brought us here. From now on, we look forward, not back”, fully committed to her and reaffirming that they’re in this together. Then Bellamy touches his forehead to Echo’s, but that’s not close enough so they kiss to be together. Their love is so palpable. 

Show me where this is toxic??? Because it’s not and you can’t just say things. Words have meaning. I don’t understand how anyone can deny that lovingly resolving a misunderstanding only strengthens Becho. Getting in disagreements/arguments is part of every relationship. Becho having one (one-sided) “fight” doesn’t make them toxic. Especially when Bellamy immediately goes to apologize, knows that what he did was wrong and wasn’t fair, and they talk about their feelings and work through it together. That’s like the exact opposite of being toxic.

It's fine not to ship them, but there's no need to be willfully obtuse about canon or what the show presents. Their romantic relationship is not toxic and is arguably the healthiest one on the show.

Garbage take #3

Becho’s development happened off screen, Becho has no development, etc.

In season 5 Bellamy and Echo are revealed to be in a romantic relationship. I’ve already addressed how the ‘no development’ claim is just a blatant lie, so I won’t repeat myself here (you can just read about it in my other post which was previously linked). But let’s talk about why this “argument” is also pretty garbage and is once again made in bad faith.

S5 is THE definitive Becho season (and it absolutely slaps). Blorkes couldn’t accept that Becho were a couple because they intentionally chose to ignore all of their previous development and then had the nerve to (falsely) claim that it all happened off screen. (Which is blatantly untrue, but even if it was true - quick reminder that “lack of development” doesn’t seem to be an issue for Marper - it’s just a problem for Becho 🙄 even though most of S4 was explicitly focused on developing Bellamy and Echo’s relationship while Harper and Monty had sex once and then were instantly a couple...hypocrites 🤷). It’s the flagrant refusal to accept what’s being shown on screen that bothers me. You don’t need to make up lies and spread asinine comments about the characters - you can just acknowledge that the show is going down a route you don’t personally like. You don’t need to twist yourselves into a pretzel to justify your preferred ship. Just be honest about what’s really upsetting you.

I’ll admit that it’s fair to say you wished we could have seen more of their development becoming explicitly romantic, but the ground work is absolutely there and to say there’s NO development and that it all happened off screen (ala Gina the walking plot device who didn’t exist as a character until she showed up as Bellamy’s gf for all of 5 mins before getting killed off) is just simply untrue. And while I’m addressing genuine criticism/complaints, it’s definitely frustrating that we never got to see any flashbacks of the Ring during S5 despite getting to see both Clarke and the Bunker during the 6 year jump. Thankfully, we did eventually get to see Becho’s first kiss flashback (swoon 🥰) in S7 but even without explicitly seeing Spacekru flashbacks during S5, all of Becho and Spacekru’s interactions throughout the season made it perfectly clear how much they all loved each other and were a family. The writing and character interactions easily convey to the audience Spacekru’s closeness and tightknit bond and it was a joy to watch. Because Octavia becomes Blodreina, you need to see at least some of how that happened, so we get bunker flashbacks. And Madi is an entirely new character, so we have to see how she met Clarke. But it’s actually not that big of a leap to get to romantic Becho since it was clearly set up (we also don’t see Memori break up, but again it’s not a big leap to understand why they would given the explanation we got), so Spacekru flashbacks aren’t actually necessary although they would have been greatly appreciated.

Garbage take #4

Bellamy doesn’t care about Echo and abandoned her for Clarke

This is somehow the narrative blorkes like to perpetuate about S6, but again this is completely factually incorrect. If what they are referring to is Bellamy going to get Josephine out of Clarke’s body while Echo stays back and looks after everyone else, it still makes no sense. There is no reading of the show in which this garbage claim has any basis. Bellamy would never willingly leave Echo behind (splitting up to take care of something they previously established they were going to do is not abandoning her 🙄x50).

Here’s what is actually happening in that scene: Echo is the one who tells Bellamy that she will stay and “keep the others safe”, and that he should “go save Clarke”. (keep in mind that saving Clarke actually isn’t the end goal of what they are trying to do here anyway. They are trying to get Josephine’s mind drive to use as leverage with Russell so that their people can have a place to live). Echo told him to go because the alarms were going off and they needed to get Josephine to Gabriel instead of waiting for Jackson to get to them and take out the mind drive. Context fucking matters. Blorkes just love to twist anything onscreen to fit their agenda and it just ends up making them look delusional.

As for “Bellamy not caring about Echo”, show me where????? S6 gave us one of their softest and sweetest scenes (as well as a fireside cuddle) that begs to differ. All of S5 begs to differ. Hell, all of S4 begs to differ too. In fact, the entire goddam show begs to differ. Bellamy “sprint into the arms of my girlfriend Echo” Blake begs to differ. This garbage take has no basis in canon. It’s once again just another bad faith claim by blorkes who are hardcore projecting. Because guess what? Not caring about the other person is exactly the way Clarke feels (or more accurately doesn’t) about Bellamy. Clarke left Bellamy to die in Polis in S5. Clarke physically slapped him in his face. This is canon. That’s THEIR ship, that’s not how Bellamy feels about Echo.

Blorkes like to say Becho don’t have any scenes together, but they’re really just so tilted that Echo gets her own plotlines every season, has relevance to the story, and actually isn’t solely defined by her relationship with Bellamy. She can’t be “just Bellamy’s girlfriend” while blorkes claim that “Becho doesn’t even have any scenes together“. Those are two contradictory statements guys... again, stick to a story please. So we have Schrödinger’s Echo, who is somehow both “just Bellamy’s girlfriend” and also “doesn’t have any scenes with him”. Give me a break. Neither of these statements are true and they’re honestly just dumb. It makes blorkes furious that Echo gets narrative focus each season, so they decide to twist that into “she and Bellamy don’t share any scenes”. But guess what? Queen gets both 👑. She can cuddle by the fire with her little spoon boyfriend and also spread the seeds of revolution while sniping at Russel with her bow and arrow during an execution to save her family and friends.  

Also to the people who think S6 was so good for bellarke

Why didn’t Bellamy actually realize that Clarke wasn’t Clarke. Josephine reveals herself to him, he didn’t figure it out 🥴 (Echo was able to piece it together though, so Clecho Endgame I guess)

At the naming day lantern thing, Clarke tells Bellamy that she “lost sight” of him (supposedly) being important to her. She tells him that he is her family too (which he doesn’t verbalize back oop) and she won’t forget it. How nice that that’s something Clarke COULD forget and that she said that to his face 🥴

Bellamy is oblivious that Josephine is impersonating Clarke, so much so that when he hears her say “chill out” to Gaia, he repeats back “chill out? Happiness looks good on you”. He can’t even tell that’s not Clarke and he actually thinks she looks happy 🥴

Why was Bellamy completely unfazed, not jealous at all, and totally cool with Clarke having sex with Cillian. He even says “I take it you had fun with the doctor?” and Josephine!Clarke says back “let’s just say it’ll be a while until he recovers” and Bellamy couldn’t care less that “Clarke” is talking to him about her sexcapades with other people. There’s no angst or jealousy or longing looks or sadness lsdjsdkf. He’s genuinely happy for her. Then he makes an “ugh TMI” face and turns away. As if the thought of Clarke having sex in general is uncomfortable. Great blarke content, much romance  🥴

When Josephine has control of Clarke’s body she flirts with Murphy (and not Bellamy... a huge L in the metastory)

When Josephine is in Clarke’s mind and has access to all of her innermost thoughts and feelings - there’s no mention of any hidden or repressed romantic feelings for Bellamy (but we do get Josephine taunting Clarke about an actual love interest - “it’s why you cry when you think of Lexa”). Where was all this good blarke content guys?? 😩

The crumbs were extra stale in S6 if you ask me... almost as if the story between Bellamy and Clarke is, in fact, not a romance  🥴 🥴 🥴

ANYWAY

Becho as a couple are emotionally supportive of one another, unshakably stable, communicative, open, and loving. They support each other, they fight for each other, and they absolutely cherish each other. Whoops looks like I accidently wrote a thesis paper (and I’m sure I still managed to leave a bunch of stuff out). Thankfully, the show is the show. And it will always be about canon romantic Becho. And blorkes can die mad about it while we rewatch and enjoy the show to our heart’s content 😊

[agent-of-sam]

Favorite Thor Ships: Part 1

Out of all the MCU, the Thor movies are my favorites.

It helps that I'm a multi shipper and all the women in Thor's life are awesome. So I want to do some posts about my favorite Thor ships. And I’m starting with my personal favorite: Thor/Sif.

                                                      Totally biased, I've been quietly rooting for Thor and Sif to hook up since 2011 and no matter what direction the story takes Thor x Sif will always be my favorite potential relationship.

Obviously, part of this is just because I have a massive crush on Sif, the character, and Jaimie Alexander, the actress. I love her...why?

Lady Sif is sort of the MCU equivalent of Wonder Woman, an immortal who combines strength and nobility with a sense of warmth, compassion, and emotional openness. 

She doesn't get a huge amount of screen time but comes off as an incredibly well-rounded character, especially in a genre where many female character are assigned valued based on how well they can mimic the traditional cliches of male Action Heroes.  

Sif is able to switch from playful and cocky, to stoic and serious, to gentle and supportive, depending on the situation (as benefiting a literal goddess).

In other word's, she's Girlfriend Material of the absolute highest quality! 

Beyond that, I love that she's so high-key Romantic in her feelings for Thor. Having your Badass Warrior Princess character mournfully pining as she gazes across a crowded room at her lifelong friend, her eyes brimming with unspoken feeling... it's exactly the kind of over the top, melodramatic bullshit that I love about the Asgardians and their weird alien/pseudo-Shakespearian/mythic warrior culture. 

At the same time, she's never fawning in her interactions with Thor. They banter like old friends and flirt in mid-combat. 

Sif tries to counsel him when she thinks he needs perspective or patience. 

She advocates for him when he's not around.

To me it's a very romantic set-up, a long-term friendship based on loyalty and mutual trust with the potential to develop into a very deep relationship. (Though, flipping it around, I can definitely see how female viewers might not appreciate their Super-Hero/Immortal Warrior Woman power fantasy character being portrayed, pining from the sidelines for several centuries).

Plus, their dynamic has this tropey, genderswap thing going on. A Fantasy Prince and his Loyal Female Knight. Except the Fantasy Prince is a giant Viking Immortal with a magic hammer and he and his girlfriend ride into battle side by side which is both hot and romantic to me.

Of course the downside  to Thor x Sif as a relationship (also maybe what makes it appealing)... is that it's all potential. As far as we know, Thor is either unaware of Sif's feelings or does not reciprocate. Which is weird because Thor generally comes off as a very socially/emotionally aware guy... at least in the context of Asgardian society. 

One of my favorite things about Thor is that he's confident but honest and genuine as well. He never comes off as a "ladies man" i.e someone who puts on a smooth, crafted persona specifically to interact with women. 

However, he clearly seems to be aware when women are attracted to him (Jane Foster, the woman in the subway)...so how come he doesn't seem to notice the very obvious torch Sif is carrying?

My personal headcannon for this is that they either casually dated as adolescent (whatever age that is for Asgardians) or came very close to it. But then Frigga and/or Odin stepped in, took Sif aside and basically told her to hold off because they thought she had the potential to be a good queen.

Before his time on Earth, Thor was reckless, arrogant, impulsive, and quick to violence. He wasn't ready to be a king or a committed lover. And so Sif was encouraged to do the responsible thing and wait. 

The irony being that by the time he had matured into the person he was supposed to be, he had met somebody else.

To me, there's something there that mirrors the fall of Asgard. Why not wait? They're gods after all, there's always going to be more time.

Then Thor gets banished and comes back different. He's met a mortal woman and doesn't want to be king anymore. Frigga, who Sif always thought would be her mother-in-law one day, is dead. 

Thor goes searching across the universe and then Odin sends her away from Asgard. And when she finds her way back even her home is gone. Her people live on Earth now, or at least the fraction of them that still survive after Hela, Surtur, and Thanos. 

Thor is gone again, traveling through space with a bunch of mercenaries she’s never heard of.

Maybe I'm just projecting because I want someone in-universe to mourn Asgard and everything those people must have lost in what must seem like a very short amount of time to them.

I always thought Thor x Sif had the potential to be a very stable, well-rounded couple. However, given Thor's general arc in the first two movies  it would have seemed a little off, thematically speaking, if he ended up with the immortal warrior princess/long-time friend that his parents wanted him to get with all along.

However, post-Ragnarok/Endgame I think there is a lot of dramatic/narrative potential to a romantic reunion between Thor and Sif, someone who knew him before everything started and can see how much he has changed. Maybe someone he didn't realize how much he cared for until she was gone. 

For her it's a second chance at something she thought was lost, a piece of her past that's come back damaged and different but still worth fighting for.  

--

Obviously, this is all conjecture. There's no guarantee that Sif will return in Thor 4. As a shipper part of me is hoping for it, however as a fan of her character I'm also worried about her being crammed in and either sidelined or mischaracterized by the those behind the scenes.

If she shows up in the Loki show, that's more screen time and room for character development. 

However, I'm not hugely interested in Loki's show and depending on the direction it takes I'm not sure that it will play to her strengths as a character. My dream scenario was for Sif to have her own Xena-style high fantasy adventure (with Thor showing up in a supporting role) but that’s seem very unlikely.

---

Anyway, I'm a multi shipper and I'm planning to do more of these for Thor x Valkyrie and Thor x Jane. I just wanted to get my fave out of the way first.

[whitemagnolia1]

Delena Fic Rec:

This is the hardest thing I’ve ever posted here lol.

Forever Mine: The night Damon Salvatore met Elena Gilbert changed the course of their destinies forever. But just as the future made itself known, the past caught up with them to destroy it all. Together on the run, Damon finds himself falling for this girl. Hard. But, Damon Salvatore doesn't love and he won't let her change that. No matter how much his soul...his body begs him to give in.

A Woman’s Worth:  AH/AU–Love hurts. This story takes on a literal meaning when Elena is a victim of abuse by her boyfriend. A journey of the silent sufferings of a girl with no one to turn to and unwilling to ask for help. Enters Damon, a social worker determined to rescue a damsel in distress and falling for her along the way. What is he willing to sacrifice in the end to save a girl he loves?

Tomorrow:  Will you be there beside me if the world falls apart? And will all of our moments remain in your heart? Will you be there to guide me all the way through? I wonder will you walk by my side and follow my dreams? With the Nazi reign of terror at its zenith, Damon and Elena form an unlikely friendship in WW2 era Czechoslovakia.

Where the Fireflies Dance: Elena just wants to forget. She moved away for college, and is trying to make a life for herself, when her roommate invites her to her family's ranch for a summer that could change Elena's life. Damon Salvatore is a flirt. But the only girl he's ever really loved is the daughter he's fighting for custody of. Then his sister brings home a friend for summer and everything changes.

Addictions:  When Elenas' life has been consumed by addictions, can anyone save her?- OOC,AU. *WARNING* Story contains strong language, substance abuse, graphic smut/lemons. For mature audiences only. Consider yourself warned.

Breaking Point: Elena wants to learn to fight compulsion. Damon's all-too willing to help, but will either of them be able to deal with the consequences?

Crying Lightening:  "I should have helped her. I should have done something. I deserve this. I deserve to die" - Damon is an 18 year old troubled lost soul with a bad reputation and Elena a 17 year old popular high school student who thought she had everything she ever wanted, that is until she got to know the eldest Salvatore and realizes that life is about more than being crowned Prom Queen! AU R&R

Casually Cruel:  AU/AH/ 'You're different, not the guy I used to know' -Maybe you never really knew me- 'Yes I did'. She knew the depths of his soul, loved and accepted every part of him. Now he's lost and he doesn't think she can find him and she's not sure she wants to.

Someone Like You: You fall in love, get married, fall in love again, get your heart broken. What if it got broken by a heart surgeon that never came back to fix it? Damon/ Elena - AU/AH

Echoes of the past:  Each of us has a past that shapes and defines us. Some pasts are filled with pain and heartache. Can Damon and Elena overcome their pasts to allow themselves a chance at happiness? Or will things from their past resurface to destroy their future? AU/AH Complete!

Forbidden Fruit:  Damon is friends with Grayson Gilbert. When he meets his daughter Elena, sparks fly. Considering the age difference and the fact that she is his friend's daughter, he tries to fight the pull every step of the way. Will he succeed in keeping her at bay?

Held Captive:  My favorite one shot I wrote last year, Re Published into a mini short story. Damon, a notorious War Lord captured the lovely, innocent Elena as part of his war games but things are not as simple as he'd thought. Set in medieval times.

I’d Kill Us Both:  AU/AH For years, Elena has been married to Stefan, but in love with his older brother, Damon, who left for the Marines shortly after the wedding. But now he's back, and not hiding his feelings. Will they finally have the chance to be together? And what if someone from Damon's military past followed him back home, putting them all in danger? Is love worth the risk?

Hopeless:  AU. AH. Elena has found that she likes her older sister Katherine's best friend Damon a lot more than she should. Little does she know he likes her more than he should too. Through the years things start to change between them, but if anyone found out they'd be in big trouble.

A Gentleman’s Agreement:  Possible S4 idea. VampElena has shut herself away from most of her friends, and the Salvatore brothers are at a loss over what to do. She is in for seduction and romance she never saw coming, but sooner or later a choice must be made. COMPLETED.

How Never Became Forever:  Elena's established rules and guidelines for her relationships. She knows how to stay emotionally detached and when to cut the cord. But then she meets Damon, who could potentially change everything. AU. AH.

Kiss Me, Break My Heart:  Elena Gilbert has been in love with her best friend Damon Salvatore for years, but when he asks her to help him win back the woman of his dreams, Elena decides she's had enough. Now Elena wants to move on, but Damon's not making it easy on her. AU/AH

Pretend You Love Me:  While their marriage is falling apart, Damon and Elena must learn to get past their demons or lose each other forever. AH/AU. Officially issuing an angst warning.

Auto In:  AU/AH /Life is wonderfully uncomplicated for Damon Salvatore. Take accident claims as a call center rep by day, charm his way into a new bed each night. Go to work, drink with friends, sex. Simple and straightforward and fun. Until a coworker, Elena Gilbert, makes him question whether some things are worth changing for. But is he the only one who needs to let go of a previous life?

Locked In a Loveless Marriage:  When Elena asks Damon Salvatore for a loan, he agrees on the condition that she marries him. What happens when she finds herself falling in love with a man who has told her he will never love her? AU. All human.

A Hymn For The Broken: AU Elena is a novelty. The only female werewolf to ever exist. She tries to stray away from the past, that turned her into a monster, but a string of grisly murders threaten, and she is called back home. Once reconnected with the Pack, and an old flame, Elena finds herself torn between two worlds. The normal life she'd made for herself, and the call of the wolf inside.

Physical Attraction, Chemical Reaction:  It all started with a night of hot sex. Where things could go from there to Elena and Damon? Could they fall for each other although they don't believe in love anymore? AU/AH

Never Break the Rules:  Handsome and tough, he had always done what needed to be done. He was supposed to be her knight in shining armour. He just never expected to be the one who needed to be saved… Ignoring swarming butterflies. Brushing off skipped heartbeats. Settling on lingering stares. Rules were never meant to be broken. What if there was a love that could break all the rules?

Love Lessons:  New to Mystic Falls High, Damon Salvatore is both excited and horrified to find he is falling in love with his student, Elena Gilbert. But what happens when they overstep the boundaries, and their friends and enemies discover their illicit secret?

Death is Just a Feeling:  "This life will be good and beautiful but not without heartbreak. In death comes peace, but pain is the cost of living. Like love, it's how we know we're alive." – Elena Gilbert ***HAPPY BIRTHDAY Short on words***

The End of Paralysis:  Enter Elena Gilbert, 24, hardworking, lovely, and insatiably in love with her long time best friend, Damon Salvatore. Can she make him see that they belong together? Delena. AH/AU.

Lucky 13:  AU/AH: Mistaken for a glamorous, selfish woman named Katherine Salvatore, the badly injured Elena finds that plastic surgery has given her Katherine's face, the famos Damon Salatore for a husband and a powerful dynasty for in-laws.

It’s A Boy Girl Thing:  Based off the movie with the same name, an ancient curse is awakened and cast upon Elena and Damon. The results cause them to switch bodies, waking the next day in the body of not only the opposite sex, but the last person they ever wanted to switch bodies with. A hilarious battle of the sexes ensues, but eventually they wonder if they'll ever get their own body back. ALL HUMAN D/E

Somebody I Used To Know:  Grieving the sudden death of their parents, Damon and Elena are forced to face their past choices and mistakes. Take a wild a journey through 20 years of their lives...together, apart and everything in between.

Sweet and Sexy Mistakes:  An expert on the dynamics between men and women, Damon Salvatore knows his uptight new publicist could use his help getting a date. The only problem is, the more time he spends with her, the more he realizes he doesn't want her dating anyone but him!

To Save A Sinner:  AU/AH: Damon Salvatore, the new star swimmer and transfer student at MFU, befriends the dark and mysterious Elena Gilbert, a girl the rest of Mystic Falls considers crazy. When he discovers the deep, haunting secrets she keeps from the world, can he handle the truth or will it cost him his heart and even possibly, his sanity?

Through The Ghost:  Damon, a carefree soldier & Elena, a no-nonsense physical therapist at an Army base met under ordinary circumstances. Stuck between attraction and resistance, they struggled to define their relationship until fate made the decision for them. 4 years later a heartbroken Elena battles to make good on a promise when she discovers nothing but the shell of the only man she's ever loved.

Maybe Less, Maybe a Little More:  Vampire Damon and Human Elena meet in a snowstorm. He wants to kill her and she is instantly attracted to him. What will happen over the next ten years? Fic for the A2A x-mas exchange. Non-canon, Oneshot, Delena endgame, rated M for sexual content and some gore. ENJOY THE DRAMA MYLOVES! :D

Do You Believe In Angels:  "Damon?" She asked. He looked at her, waiting. She took a shaky breath, "Do you believe in angels?" "No," he said, "Not anymore." . . AH/AU: Two children with tragic pasts meet at a refuge. Hurt and alone, they clinge to each other to survive. This is their story, and everyone involved along the way.

Alcohol:  Damon's drunk and she looks like Katherine. Elena's drunk and he smells like Stefan.

Memory Serves:  Elena accidentally asks for her soul mate. What happens when magic delivers 1864 Human Damon? How will the Vampire Salvatore brothers deal? Vampire Damon is tortured by intimate memories of Elena. He feels so close yet far away from her. AU1x14 - COMPLETE -

Desperate Love:  A whole different version of Season 4, without sire bonds or dead brothers. A meditation on the nature of love, free will and morality in an imperfect world, through: suspense, romance, steam, angst, and friendship. Tons of Delena as well as Stefan/Caroline/Klaus, Jeremy and Ric, too. Lemons!

The Valentine’s Day Corruption of Damon Salvatore:  This is my fic in response to the prompt by Ciara 2531 for the A2A Valentine Exchange on Live Journal. As always, it's rated M for a reason...

The Best Man: Damon and Elena meet at a wedding, which ends hotter than anyone would have thought.

Insanity Is Beautiful:  They called him crazy, insane even. People feared him and avoided him at any cost, even in the asylum. So what is Dr. Elena Gilbert supposed to do when she not only takes this insane monster as a patient, but falls in love with him, and him with her? (this one is only this low on the list because it’s incomplete)

[elareine]

batlantern model au

Here you go!

Bruce Wayne prided himself on his agency, The Dark Knight Presents. It was his baby, the one thing he built from the ground and could be rightfully called ‘his.’

A veteran model himself, he’d specialized in people who brought more to the table than their measurements. Everyone who worked here had become one of his kids, in a way, from Dick Grayson, their best-selling male model, to Tim Drake, who preferred to work behind the cameras. Then there were Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain (always racing for the title of ‘Queen of Sportswear Ads’), Harper Row (definitely more punk), Barbara Gordon (elegant and the best at faking ‘cold and regal’), Jason Todd (the man for all those cowboy jeans ads), Damian Wayne (rocking a suit) and Duke Thomas (quirky or sophisticated—a face for everything and everyone.) TDKP could offer something to every photographer or company that came asking.

(Bruce made it a policy to send Jason whenever someone asked for ‘young, waif-ish, barely legal if you know what I mean.’ For some reason, those clients still ended up paying. Bruce had no idea how Jason persuaded them, and he’d like to keep it that way.)

Yes, all in all, Bruce had his life together, and he liked it very much.

If it wasn’t for fucking Hal Jordan.

Literally. Bruce did not swear (much). He should not have fucked Hal Jordan.

They’d done shoots together, way back then. Apparently, photographers liked the ‘way their dynamics and opposing styles played off each other.’ Which meant that they had disliked each other on sight.

Hal was… everything Bruce was not. A player, an egoist, someone who flirted with the camera and kept it shallow. Modeling at its worst. And he got Bruce’s goat like no one else ever did, always riling him up, making fun of everything Bruce loved until Bruce had no choice but to bite back.

Hal had always looked weirdly pleased when that happened. Bruce tried not to think about how he’d recently found out that Hal liked it when Bruce bit, literally.

It was just one night. It shouldn’t have mattered much. Not even when they were doing a shoot like this, one of only four Bruce had agreed to this year, because it was for a good cause and because his friend Clark had personally asked him to.

He was suspecting ulterior motives there now.

“Stand closer,” the photographer said. Hal obeyed with an alacrity Bruce had seldom seen from him, inching forward until they were mere inches apart, looking at each other. The tension felt thick enough to cut.

Bruce was an honest enough man to admit that Hal being shirtless wasn’t helping.  

“Okay, that’s nice and intense. Now dial that down. I want intimacy.”

Immediately, Hal’s head tipped back, his eyes going half-lidded and heated. It was a come-fuck-me look, and Bruce had seen him turn it on so many people before, but only ever once on him. Not to be outdone, he let his own expression melt into something more private, tilting his head just so, inching closer until nothing was separating them but a breath… just like that night, when Hal had moved in and suddenly everything had been heat passion want you yes yes always yes—

“Jeez guys, that’s a bit much. We’re doing a charity calendar here, but not the naked kind.”

They sprang back. Bruce read his own embarrassment in the on Hal’s neck. Hal wouldn’t be Hal, though, if he let a little thing like shame stop him. “Hey, so… I saw a rather large broom closet on the way in. How about it?”

Bruce had to fight to keep his expression sober; if he didn’t, the photographer would surely scold them again. “I think that can be arranged. Once we’re done here,” he added severely, “not on a break.”

He was going to spring for a hotel room, though. His kids would never let him hear the end of it if he was caught in a broom closet.

Besides. Bruce was thinking he might like to take his time, this time. Once might not be enough.

“Guys, I’m serious, stop it with the bedroom eyes!”

[heatherjeff]

2020 Book List

It has been ages since I have written and, like everyone else, there seems to be a bit more unstructured time in my everyday life. It makes perfect sense the impetus for a return to blogging is books, reading is fundamental! 

My friend, KDaddy, annually shares the list of books he’s read. The first time I noticed his list I was thrilled, took notes, commented on how happy I was, and proceeded to read many of his recommendations. When it became clear 2020 was going to be a little different books became an even bigger part of my days as well as an escape from the grind of the news and the pandemic.

When KDaddy tagged me with his book list this year, it occurred to me I have a little platform where I can post my own year in review. Books are the best and reading has served me well my whole life, 2020 was no exception.

First, a few facts. This year I read 35 books, for comparison I read 24 in 2019. That makes me happy especially since there are not a million things about 2020 to invoke a sense of accomplishment. I have long kept a book journal since my title and author memory is similar to a sieve. At the start of the pandemic everyone in my house was gifted a kindle, I was not a fan of the plan, paper books are my love language. As this time has worn on, the kindle has proven to be a brilliant and magical purchase. Libby is a completely modern wonder and the next time I am in NYC I will, for sure, treat myself to a library card from that library system.

With no further ado let’s talk books.

Definitely Read:

The Nightingale: A Novel by Kristin Hannah

Two sisters reacted to the unfolding atrocities of WWII in very different ways. Both were fierce, suffered in ways unimaginable to most of us, and illustrated the many ways women are impacted by a war. Such a powerful read.

The Home for Unwanted Girls by Joanna Goodman

Great read based on a true story about a teenager who became pregnant. Her family forced her to give up her baby and it was placed in a mental institution for the sole reason the child was an “orphan”. Many more plot twists follow, this was a gem of a book.  

Women in Sunlight: A Novel by Frances Mayes

This book kicked off as total cliche and morphed into complete life goals. Three older women, all single for a variety of reasons, strike up a friendship and move to a Tuscan Villa. I want to be them someday in Italy living with the locals.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer

YA This came highly recommended from my youngest. It opened his eyes to the world in a huge way and he was very committed to sharing this story with all of us. William is a complete force of nature and against (truly) all odds changes the trajectory or his family, his village, and his life with ingenuity and desire. Love this book so much.

Little Fire’s Everywhere: A Novel by Celeste Ng

Heard so much about this book and completely loved it all. So. Many. Plot. Twists.

Dear Martin by Nic Stone

YA read from my kid, a MUST read. This book was chilling on a 1,000 different levels. Race, police profiling, education, culture- Nic Stone packed it all in and it opened my heart and sparked some good conversations in our home.

Girl, Woman, Other: A Novel by Bernardine Evaristo

This thoughtfully constructed book was a gift from another reader friend and is one of my favorite reads of the year. It shares multiple first person layered viewpoints from British women who span every part of society. Great read.

Dutch House by Ann Patchett

Let’s be clear, I love Ann Patchett. Love. Whenever she authors a new novel I am jazzed and the Dutch House is no exception. The house becomes an actual character in the story and has everything to do with the brokenness of family who moves into it.

Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight

Unpopular opinion, I am not a fan of Nike. I am a tremendous fan of Phil Knight’s innovation and hustle. Phil is a visionary and expert storyteller.

The Tatowist of Auschwitz: A Novel by Heather Morris

The novel is based on interviews with Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew who used his position of relative privilege to positively impact the lives of as many fellow prisoners as possible. I had to read this book fast since it impacted my sleep, which it should. Incredible read.

American Dirt: A Novel by Jeanine Cummins

Ooofff, this book is hard to read. I started and stopped because I could not sleep and opted to read it during daylight hours only. It is seriously terrifying in a million ways. It is about a family who has to flee from Alcopulcio to the United States due to extreme violence from the local and very well connected drug cartel. This book is a testament to the grit of illegal immigrants and an eye opening read about the terror they face.

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson

True story of Bryan Stevenson’s quest to navigate the criminal justice system in the rural south where he aims to help the most disadvantaged in the system. Timely, eye opening, and full of action items we all need to help with for the betterment of our society.

City of Girls: A Novel by Elizabeth Gilbert

Books by Elizabeth Gilbert are some of my favorites and I was concerned when I started this book, it was a struggle. It came together and I ended up loving it. A story about NYC in the 1940’s centered around a girl/woman who is sent to live with her aunt at her playhouse full of showgirls. It was such an unrelatable read, it transported me to a time I have never really considered and it was a trip worth taking.

Totally Enjoyable:

True Colors by Kristen Hannah

Reads like YA fiction and I loved it. It’s about a ranch family, their horses, land, siblings, their live father and deceased mother. It is not deep and is a fun read.

In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware

This book was intense, fun, & slightly scary. A “hen party” in a, literal glass house, becomes the scene of a murder.

The Queen of Hearts by Kimmery Martin

This is a fun read about two best friends who become doctors together and then the plot thickens. Can’t say more, it is complicated.

Freud’s Mistress by Karen Mack

This was my last library loan before the pandemic. It is a fascinating read based loosely on the dynamics of Freud’s family, drugs, affairs that feel a bit like incest, a huge male ego, this should not sound familiar in any way!

The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

YA, loaner from my kid (which came to my nightstand highly recommended). This is a sweet, sweet love story of two teenagers who have very different backgrounds and lots of big feelings. The whole book takes place over the course of one day.

It All Comes Back to You by Beth Duke

This was a surprise hit and it sucked me in. The story is about a nurse in a retirement community who befriends a resident who lived a big life.

The Queen’s Fortune: A Novel of Desiree, Napoleon, and the Dynasty That Outlasted the Empire by Allison Pataki

I admit, I am a fan of royalty, it is so intriguing and this book was completely spellbinding. The story is based on Napoleon's France and it was messy.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

NF This book is amazing. A poor black woman has cancer cells removed from her body, these rapidly reproducing cells become known as HeLa cells and change the trajectory of modern medicine. There are so many consequences from this seemiling small discovery and the impact to the medical world and to Henrietta’s family are far reaching.

The Woman in the Window: A Novel by A.J. Finn

Read this in one day at the beach, I was sucked into this story of Anna Fox and her salacious neighborhood drama.

The Last Romantics by Tara Conklin

I know I liked this book and made a note about the “pause” taken over the summer when the kids in the family basically ran wild. That’s all I’ve got.

Untamed by Glennon Doyle

There was a ton of hype around this book and it is well deserved. Glennon tells it like it is and, like it or not, she has a lot of points that hit. I read this on my kindle and think I would have liked reading the physical book more.

This is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett

Short stories from Ann Patchett? Yes, 100% yes. The story of her relationship with Lucy, of Truth and Beauty: A Friendship, was wonderful as was the explanation of her book store in Nashville.

After You: A Novel (Me Before You Trilogy) by Jojo Moyes

I have zero idea that Me Before You was a trilogy! It is a total candy read, you are not going to learn much about your soul or the universe, but it is fun and better than TV. And yes, I will read the third book in the trilogy because candy is good! 

The Saturday Night Supper Club by Carla Laureano

Also a trilogy, another happy surprise. This book is fun, another candy read, and so appealing. When I was a kid I wanted to have a restaurant so this story made my heart happy. It is a bit too clean, a bit cliche, and an enjoyable read.

Daisy Jones & The Six: A Novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid

This novel will transport you to a land of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. I read this was loosely based on the story of Fleetwood Mac, true or false, this book captures a moment in history and reads a lot like a play and is completely enjoyable.

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

This is the book written before Little Fires Everywhere, similar deal-  family strife/mystery, kind of riveting with lots of twists. Solid read.

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb

NF, look at a therapist who finds herself in need of therapy. It is kind of a russian doll type of read with layers, upon layers, hidden within each other.

With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo

YA, another loaner from my kid. Such a great book about a kid who wants to be a chef and express herself through her cooking. She is a teen mother living with her abuela, it is a heartwarming book and I love the main character’s spirit.

Sidenote: schools around here are closed for the duration yet students can reserve library books and go to the local library of your choice where their school librarians greet them, warmly, in the parking lot for a drive by pick-up. It is a wonderful and much appreciated service being offered to our kids.

Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty

This book is ridiculous, it had a strong start, went sideways but was fun and overall enjoyable. The premise is nine people descend upon an exclusive health retreat. The woman who is in change morphs from motivating to overlord, obviously.

No Thank You:

13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher

YA read, loaner from my daughter. I did not like this one bit, it made sucide seem so glam. Glad I read it and am always happy when my kids share books with me and I will always hate stories of kids’ suffering.

There There: A Novel by Tommy Orange

This book was hard to follow, had too many characters, and there was a very dark thread that I did not enjoy.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

This book hit me at the wrong time this year. The dystopian nature felt a little too close to home. I know it is a work for the ages but it was all ouch.

Wow, that felt good to reflect on and process. I have never really looked for threads in my own reading and knew a few things already but like seeing the balance of candy books and hard, timely topics. All in all I feel great about my 2020 reading list and hope there are titles that interest or resonate with you too. Here is to libraries reopening someday in the near future so we can browse the shelves with abandon.

[yellowfoot-06]

Why you should read Cucumber Quest

      So it is currently 2 am in the morning and I decided to write an essay. I may put this in draft form and continue if I get too tired. This will probably be less me trying to convince you to read it and more me gushing about Cucumber Quest. This is also just me distracting myself from what is happening with it right now.  There will be no pictures but just me referencing pages of it because I am on the computer so it is hard for me to put in pictures compared to Mobile. More under the cut if you care for this and link if I was somehow able to convince you to read this underrated comic.

https://cucumber.gigidigi.com

Main Details

      This section is just a simple overview of the comic and I will elaborate more in the Character/Story section. The comic is about a little flat planet called Dreamside. The pancake planet is inhabited by bunny people and like, some pigs in one country/kingdom. An alien named Queen Cordelia has taken over the Donut kingdom and is trying to collect the Disaster stones to summon the Nightmare Knight, an ancient evil that used to destroy Dreamside 500,000 years ago (And the Dreamsiders somehow haven’t technologically advance in half a million years using the theming of two characters) Anyways, now it is up to Cucumber and his sister, Almond, along with two other characters to help defeat her and save dreamside! You should probably read Cucumber Quest and come back after reading the prologue and Chapter 0 (Also the beginning of chapter 1 for good measure) because there is some suspense there that is hard to not spoil when talking about the story and characters.

Art Work

        Anyways, here is an entire section about the artwork and designs alone because of how beautiful it is. The artwork is probably all you need to know before reading the comic. Page 804 is probably a good non-spoilery example of the artwork. You can also see the gradual improvement in the artwork if you compare the artwork from prologue to (currently the latest chapter) chapter 5. It makes sense to see the artwork progress because it is 9 years old (since I’m writing this) and it is still going on. In the printed version (which only goes to chapter 3 for now) You might notice that the artist/author, Gigi D.G., Redrew some of the pages. The printed version also has some exclusive stuff in it if you want.                                                                                                                         

        The character designs are another plus. Now they are very visually pleasing because of the colours used for them. They all have nice and soft colour schemes. Most of the characters also all are the same species say for the antagonists and some other characters. This kinda separates the villains from the protagonists (The antagonists also have different speech bubbles and some of them have this thing where the style slightly changes when they come on screen with the protagonists). The setting kinda makes everyone's designs unique yet fitting (There is literally a character that is just a giant black circle and she somehow fits). On the side note of unique character designs, even when the color schemes _and _outfits change on the characters change, you can still see that it is them based on the designs and personalities. Pages 346 and 349 are good examples of this yet slightly spoilery. Other good examples are basically the entirety of chapter 5.

Characters/ Story

       I mashed both the characters and story section into one because the characters are the ones moving the story along and it is kinda hard talking about one without talking about the other. Anyways, let’s talk about the protagonists, Almond, Cucumber, Sir Carrot, and Nautilus. You can also put the antagonists in the protagonists territory because of how well written they are.                           

       Cucumber is a great main protagonist because of his ideals. His character is slightly cliche, you know, the nerd preteen (At least I think he is that age range) has to now save the world and he doesn’t want to do it. Now there is no real “Oh, I don’t think he can do it” in there but he does have an idea of pacifying the antagonists and everyone thinks that is a silly Idea except for Nautilus. Now, Gigi puts a twist on the second part by making him slightly possessive of this idea. So much in fact that he kinda ignores the people around him. He tries to pacify the Nightmare Knight in chapter 3, it was working until Almond comes along and ruins it. Now, the Nightmare Knight scares them with a near-death experience. They talk about it now shook, and Cucumber now sees Almond crying and realizes that she was just trying to protect him. From the outside view, it seems like the antagonists are awful monsters, so it looks like Cucumber is needlessly endangering himself when the better answer would be to stab them all to death. I just love this twist and how he becomes more insensitive to others when trying to sympathetic to the antagonists. The end of chapter 5 is also a good part of Cucumber’s ark when he believes in an assumption and starting less to believe in his own cause.                                      

              Almond also has a great story ark in this comic. In the beginning, she is cocky and believes that saving the world is just gonna be a nice adventure like in the tv shows she watches. She is actually the main reason they are on the adventure, to begin with. Her stubbornness and cockiness starts to dilate the further she is on this adventure and when she sees the real danger that is happening. In chapter 4 this is brought up by Cucumber. She still has some of her beginning ark in her but now it seems like it is a mask that she puts on.        

           The other two protagonists are Princess Nautilus and Sir Carrot. Sir Carrot came into the story before Nautilus so I’ll talk about him first. Sir Carrot is just a simple knight that wanted to help two bakers out. He is not really interesting compared to the others. At the beginning of the story he was scared by everything but you can really see a reason begin to form in chapter 3 and onwards. He has a really interesting dynamic with the Nightmare Knight and with some other characters. The final protagonist in the group, and my personal favorite, is Princess Nautilus! She is probably the funniest and most comedic out of the three. Her comedic shenanigans make me laugh a whole lot. There are only two characters that make me happier when I see them. She hardly changes in the story, the only real changes that happen is that her comedy starts to dwindle as the story progressed. A big part of her ark is a little eel named Liquus. They have such a cute dynamic together that started to dwindle more after chapter 3.                                                                                               

       Now, time for the most interesting characters, the antagonists. The first villains we see are Queen Cordelia and Peridot (pronounced Peridoh). They have a nice and cute familial connection. Cordelia is stubborn and confident. She is a cat from an alien planet that came to conquer Dreamside with the help of the Nightmare Knight. When Cordelia summoned the Nightmare Knight, her confidence starts to break as she sees his power. She seems to be a powerful conqueror with confidence in her actions, so seeing her in fear is a slight surprise as summoning the Nightmare Knight in the first place was her idea. When she interacts with Peridot, she is calm and motherly, another thing that separates her from her average personality. The Nightmare Knight is also very intriguing because he is basically stuck in a place he can’t escape from as both sides are antagonizing him and he has this cycle but it can’t keep going on forever and with fears of what happened before and-                                             

         Great, now that we got all the other characters off the plate (except for the side characters) now we can talk about the best characters (in my opinion) the Disaster Masters! This is where the gushing really begins! They are the most interesting when you think about the logistics of each character and the cycle they have been. I can’t talk about every character since there are 8 and this section is already extremely lengthy. So I am speeding through each of these. Splashmaster: adorable but not really interesting. Ya Boi: great and the first example to show that everything is not completely what it seems. Mutemaster: probably the most forgettable and gets over shined by Ya Boi. Rosemaster: Oh ho ho! This is where the story starts to turn darker and she is a really good character, her chapter might be one of the best. Thebestmaster: Name says it all, he is the best and if you say otherwise I will personally stab you through the screen. Quakemaster: Same as Splashmaster, except replace adorable with menacing. Mistmaster: Terrifying and even more so if you think about what happened to him. Glitchmaster: You know about the circle I talked about earlier? Yeah, that's her. She is a lot more spooky with context.                            

         Woohoo! This is (hopefully) the last paragraph of the section! The side characters are where the comedy mainly lays on. These characters are very wide-ranged. You have characters such as psychopathic 10-year-old, realistic Rabbit, and a bunch of crabs. These characters are normally comedic and a great part of the story. Some characters are more important like Cosmo, the psychopathic 10-year-old. Other characters are just jerks jokes like Cucumber’s father. Even though some aren’t important, all of them are likable/enjoyable.

Final

     Finally! If you read the entirety of this, then uhh, you read it! Here is a link to  a Youtube video that is a lot shorter and more concise than this essay, and the link to the comic again: 

Video: https://youtu.be/4uiO9ZKj2HE

Comic: https://cucumber.gigidigi.com