#lost lagoon reread

[aylish91]

Just wanted to say i rlly love the way you write leviathan nightmare sans, i keep going back to reread ur writing about him 😍

Thank you so much Anon!!! This really means a lot to me! Sorry it took me so long to respond. I had a blip in the works I finished just for you! It might be a bit rough though, haha.

There's been intrigued Nightmare and supportive Nightmare. But now we have:

A Protective Nightmare!

TW for very brief mentions of someone being trapped/strapped down.

~ ~ ~

The ocean was becoming more restless, waves crashing hard against the sides of the Ship. You could faintly hear their raging through the hanger’s door. It caused your water to slosh in your tank as you lay on the bottom. 

Tired. 

You stared across the walkway into Cross’s tank, understanding now the reason for several of his scars. You wanted to weep. He had been forced on his back, almost completely paralyzed while they transported the both of you. Straps held him in place so he couldn’t turn over, sockets void but aware.  

So terribly aware. 

You shouldn’t have gone out so far on your own. You shouldn’t have gotten so close to the lagoon. You definitely shouldn’t have ignored Cross when he eventually found you. You didn’t understand the danger.  

He knew better...  

Things shifted as the boat tipped dangerously to the side. Soon after, alarms blared from behind reflective glass when a deep and angry vibration cut through the ship and the water of your tank.  

You lifted your head as much as you could, hope building within your chest. Cross twitched, faint eyelights reigniting to peer down at the large metal door. You both ignored the shouts that could be heard through the walls. 

The vibration came again, stronger and louder until the boat was slammed with a great force. Machinery and tools flew from their spots. You could feel when the vessel lifted, anything not bolted down rolling and tumbling with a crash.  

Water spilled from both tanks to follow the carnage. However, you could finally hear the words rising from the thundering snarled vibrations. 

“You dare to take what belongs to me!! Dare touch what is mine!” Everything jostled, metal folding under pressure. “For your insolence, you shall all face OBLIVION!!! 

You had to cover your ears from all the noise and chaos around you. Metal tore from blackened claws, bent and broke from massive tentacles. The heavy metal door into your prison was ripped away, revealing Nightmare’s constricted eyelight. Rushing water followed.  

 As movement slowed, you gave a weakened cry of joy at the sight of the boys hastily entering around tightening tentacles. Horror was quick to break both tanks, Killer and Dust releasing Cross to drag him back into open water. Horror carried you out, dodging Nightmare's clawed hand when it rent metal. Your last wakeful moments were of the sinking ship being pulled down into the darkness by a raging leviathan. 

~ ~ ~ 

It was warm and heavy when you woke, a soothing thrum trying to pull you back. If it wasn’t for the subtle shifting around you, you would have. Curling into yourself, you carefully stretched in preparation for waking. 

The world around you constricted, quiet words reaching through your haze. 

“My Pearl. I had thought I’d lost you. My light… My treasure.” 

Your soul leapt for joy, eyes opening to the one you had waited for. The one you had hoped for, voice breaking. 

“Nightmare!” 

Unfurling from your living cocoon you allowed the guardian to cup you in his hands, clutching you to his chest. For the first time, his stoic face distorted from emotion as he whispered your name. Tears pooled at the corner of your eyes, as you finally allowed yourself to let go, curling and pressing into his warmth. 

“I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to, to, and Cross!” 

Nightmare held you tighter, safe from all the terrors around you. “Shhhh. All is well. You both are home now. Just, stay with me. I will keep you safe.” 

You clung tighter. “Please. Don’t let go.” 

He sank down into his own tentacles, barricading you from the outside. “Never… Not again…” 

Leviathan Master List Grand Master Post

[tangledbea]

Speaking of eclipses would the hidden moon festival mentioned in lost lagoon be a lunar eclipse or a solar eclipse?

I'd have to reread it, but my impulse says lunar eclipse, because the moon isn't being hidden during a solar eclipse, it's doing the hiding.

[zonerobotnik]

WARNING SPOILERS!!! Marco is the villain from the lost lagoon. He's described as having black hair and blue eyes. He's so tall that he has to bow down to walk through the doors in Xavier's shop and by the one picture we have of him he's extremely gangly. And he has a bad hygiene, his breath smells like onions and socks. And he wanted to kill Cassandra and cut of Rapunzel's toes as a warning. And he obviously thinks very low about women in general.

Ohhh! Wait, he had a name? I totally forgot he had a name, and so did Google, apparently! I remembered Dahlia, but not the, uh...is he Saporian, or just a treasure hunter? I honestly didn't care enough about him to remember. 😅

Guess I need to reread it, because I only vaguely remember he exists. 🤣🤣🤣

Also, dude, why her toes? Her TOES?! 🤨😓 Weirdo.

[seabreezeraincloud]

First off, happy 2023 and I hope this year will bring wonderful joy for you!😊 Anyway, I saw your tweets about the Lost Lagoon book. I've heard about the book on a couple occasions, but never looked into it. So if it's as bad as you mentioned, then thanks for the warning! I hate when my favorite characters aren't their canon self too. But with that being said, have you also checked out the other Tangled series books/comics yet, and if so, what do you think of them?

Okay, so I wanted to finish it before responding to this ask, which...proved to be rather difficult because large chunks of it are actually pretty boring. Full disclosure, I've always had trouble staying focused while reading - I zone out, I skim paragraphs, I often have to reread sentences multiple times, blah blah blah, I'm a shitty reader - but...this is Tangled. More importantly, this is Tangled prominently featuring Cassandra. My current obsession. All things considered, I should at the very least not be bored by this book. And yet, I found myself not really giving a shit about what was going on until the climax (which...is supposed to be the most exciting part of a story, so at least it achieves that bare minimum). I didn't care about the lagoon, I didn't care about any of the new characters, and I didn't even care about Rapunzel and Cassandra. It felt like a whole lot of nothing. It honest to god gave me flashbacks to elementary school, trying so hard to finish books I didn't really like because I had to take tests on them as part of my grade.

While I don't think it's a downright awful story or anything, the fact that it's working with already-established lore and characters that I practically know like the back of my hand at this point is the main reason I'm so critical of it. There is a slight improvement in the characterizations after the interlude, but that "off" feeling still lingers throughout, especially with scenes that directly contradict what happens in the show. The dialogue comes off as rather stilted half the time, and everyone only loosely resembles their canon selves. Honestly, while I could probably rant on Cassandra's characterization in more depth because she's the character I'm the most passionate about, Rapunzel and Eugene are arguably even more out-of-character than she is. Cassandra's exaggerated introversion is paired with a much less socially stunted Rapunzel who actually reflects on the way she treats Cass and a way too polite and humble Eugene who's actually nice to Cass when he first meets her. It's like their flaws were sanded down to balance out this portrayal of Cassandra being overly whiny and rude like an angsty teenager instead of the socially apt 22-year-old with reasonable reservations she is canonically. Y'know, like a fanfiction.

Honestly though, I am glad I read it. It's not good, but there are some scenes I enjoyed at least a little. Like I said, the climax was generally able to hold my attention. The scene where Rapunzel admits that telling Eugene about Cassandra sneaking her out of the castle was a hurtful thing to do was kinda nice, despite it further hammering in the fact that this story is very much not canon to the series lmao. Are these canonical contradictions in both characterization and plot distracting? Yes. Is it boring at points? Yup. Are there parts of it that are downright stupid? Of course. But at the same time, getting mad at a children's book released back in 2017 near the beginning of the show's run in 2023 as an adult who has been obsessed with the series for almost three years now is a little silly. After all, it did get the gears in my head turning about Tangled and I love thinking about Tangled a little too much.

And that's...believe it or not, the short version of my thoughts lmao. I have a lot more to say, but this post is already a bit long and I haven't even answered your question yet, so I'll stop myself here.

Anyway, regarding other Tangled books: I have seen random bits from various picture books floating around on social media, although I haven't had the means to actually read through any of them in full. They seem...cute, I guess. If anything, they have some really good illustrations that are fun to look at (I mean, I do have one of them as my blog header lol). I plan on giving Vanishing Village a chance eventually to see if it's any better, but I'll probably need to take a break first.

I have read most of the IDW comics, and I think they're pretty fun for what they are. They do represent the characters better than Lost Lagoon does, and while they obviously have no impact on the series, I find them more worthy as soft canon content as they do capture the style and tone pretty well. I think it helps that they generally stick with short, light-hearted adventures without really poking at the larger narrative too much. I enjoy them.

[bestworstcase]

farran rereads lost lagoon: chapters 16-17

back at it.

re: romance novel: “I saw a patch of red flowers, and I thought they would be striking against Cass’s dark hair. She wasn’t exactly a flower wearer, but maybe she’d let me pin one on her dress? The color would set off her fair skin so perfectly. And she could at least keep some in a vase by her bed. I refused to believe there was a person alive who didn’t feel better with freshly cut flowers in her room.” that’s gay rapunzel

i do admittedly have some ambivalent feelings about this passage. on the one hand it’s - yes, very gay. but also it feels to me like such a clear illustration of the difficulty rapunzel has with empathy and listening to other people when their experiences or expectations or needs diverge from hers; she acknowledges that cass isn’t into flowers, but follows it up with “but maybe i can get her to wear some anyway,” and of course there’s the whole refusing to believe anyone could feel differently about having flowers in their room than she does. and it also has this weird undercurrent of - god, i don’t know how to phrase it in a succinct way.

this specific passage was on my mind when i wrote this bit in moonless air chapter 4: 

Still. She plucks at the stitches of her jack-of-plate, self-conscious.

It’s the nicest thing she owns. Soft green velvet sewn over sturdy layers of canvas and steel. Armor. She’d saved up for more than a year to buy it for herself on the anniversary of her adoption two years ago, and at the time it had been nothing but a frivolous luxury. Stupid, really. She’d never had real reason to wear it in Herzingen, not for anything besides teaching herself how to move with its weight and entertaining ridiculous fantasies—but last night, Moira had intimated that their destination in Vardaros is fancy as well as dangerous. So the jack seemed… appropriate.

Sharp. She twitches.

Clothing—fashion isn’t– Cassandra’s always hated dresses. It’s a trait that demands a certain amount of indifference to what other people think of her appearance.

And she can do indifference. Cassandra has indifference in spades. But nobody’s ever paid her a compliment quite like that before: baldly appreciative. Straightforward. Not like all the times Rapunzel coaxed her into tolerating crowns of late-summer flowers because the colors look so nice with your complexion! and not like the Commander’s gruff praise for how grown-up she looked in the hideous pastel gowns that had come with the lady-in-waiting gig.

because – like, cass is butch, and “not a flower wearer,” and here in lost lagoon we have this passage where rapunzel expresses this pretty straightforward attraction to cassandra but in the context of imagining cassandra presenting in a much more feminine way than she is comfortable with - in a dress with flowers in her hair etc - and it just... rubs me the wrong way a little bit. and this is not to say like cass can’t be butch and put a flower in her hair but when it’s paired with rapunzel specifically acknowledging that cass doesn’t WANT to wear flowers then it - yeah i feel weird about this passage. 

and that translated into cass having a whole little crisis over being complimented for her appearance without implicit pressure to be more feminine for the first time ever

anyways

i still can’t get over the name monsieur lefleur 

rapunzel summarizes hervanian culture as “brash but can be funny; distrustful but not mean-spirited” so, basically, they are americans

she is feeling very Prepared to meet with them, in contrast to every other time she’s met with foreign dignitaries or nobility before this. eugene tries to warn her that cass is PISSED with her and she just brushes him off, as one does, by saying that cass is “not all bubbles and moonbeams” but that she is “a softy” inside. 

of course this leads up to cass blowing up and going off while rapunzel tries to calm her down and just - groan this line. 

“People don’t change! You told a criminal a detail that puts my entire future at risk!”

how many times have i said “cass doesn’t act this way in tts” i feel like it’s a constant drumbeat. but i have to say, again, that cass doesn’t act this way in tts. i don’t think it’s unrealistic for her to think like this, given that her father is essentially corona’s chief of police and she idolizes him, but i feel the need to reiterate that there is zero sign of cass having this mindset in tts proper. and it does sort of bother me when people read this into cass’s character because it undermines and delegitimizes her dislike of eugene in early s1. 

which like. tts itself sort of frames their mutual dislike as a mutual problem, but it’s... really not? and imo the best illustration of this is in this exchange from cassandra vs eugene: 

CASSANDRA: Unbelievable. Did you eat all the cookies?

EUGENE: I’m not a pig, Cassandra. I ate all of your cookies; I’m saving mine for later.

CASSANDRA: Ugh– you are nothing but a self-serving, inconsiderate, arrogant freeloader!

EUGENE: [scoffing] You know, I can rattle off insulting adjectives describing your personality, too, but to do so would imply that you actually have a personality, and I just wouldn’t feel right about doing that!

this is the dynamic every time they squabble in early s1. 

1 - eugene does something selfish or thoughtless - in this case taking all the cookies and milk for himself. 

2 - cassandra calls him out for it, and he doubles down, often taking a potshot at her in the process. 

3 - cassandra gets mad and calls his behavior what it is (self-serving, inconsiderate, arrogant)

4 - eugene gets defensive and insults her as a person, typically with variations on calling her icy / unfeeling / humorless / joyless. 

which is to say, their fights are initiated by eugene’s poor behavior, and cassandra attacks his behavior but eugene attacks cassandra herself. like, eugene is the dude who insults you and then goes “pfft why can’t you take a joke” when you get upset with him. that’s what this is. 

moreover, when eugene’s, for lack of a better term, residual flynn rider-ness starts to taper off, cassandra’s criticism of his behavior also tapers off, AND she gets much gentler about how she phrases this criticism once he starts to actually take it on board. but there’s no accompanying shift in the way eugene speaks to and about her - the jibes about her being humorless or cranky or soulless literally never stop and at no point does he ever seem to consider that cass might not appreciate them as much as he thinks she does. 

(to be clear, i don’t think they bother cass very much if at all - but they do create and reinforce a perception on eugene’s end that cass Doesn’t Have Feelings and the background radiation of that contributes to the toxicity that develops in season 2.)

like again, pulling from cassandra vs eugene here, eugene is extremely insulting towards cassandra even when he’s ostensibly coming to her defense: 

RANDOM THUG: Look at that, Fancy-Boots has got something to say!

EUGENE: Name-calling? Come on, we’re better than that, aren’t we? Sure, we could sit here and make fun of each other—tease Cassandra for her chronic joylessness, or me for my uncommonly good looks, or you for your poor dental hygiene, tragic fashion sense, robust body odor, and what are clearly woefully misguided decision making skills, but do you really want to go down that road?

ALL OF WHICH IS TO SAY - besides demonstrating an obvious willingness to give eugene another chance once he starts doing the bare minimum to not be a dick to her, cassandra doesn’t like eugene because eugene is an asshole to her and takes the enormous privileges he is given completely for granted. 

saying “well she doesn’t like him because he was a criminal and she doesn’t believe criminals ever change” erases that completely and reframes the conflict as cassandra treats eugene unfairly because of bigotry that she needs to unlearn. lost lagoon takes this even one step further in that lost lagoon eugene is genuinely trying to be responsible, he is taking his new lot in life seriously. he doesn’t need cass to tell him off for acting like an ass because he doesn’t act like an ass. he shows actual interest in getting to know cass and makes an effort to break through her hostility in order to get along. unlike his tts counterpart, lagoon eugene really doesn’t do anything wrong, and that makes cassandra’s intense hatred of him on the grounds that he was a thief look completely irrational and, like i said, bigoted. 

it’s just very frustrating to me.

anyways

rapunzel tries very hard to persuade cass that it’s actually totally fine that she told eugene the secret because she just can’t keep secrets from eugene (except the lagoon which she has arbitrarily decided is totes fine to keep secret and i am pretty sure this contradiction never gets pointed out) - and cass is having none of it, and of course arianna interrupts before anything can get resolved. 

they rush out and monsieur lefleur interrupts them, asking questions about the lost lagoon. he reveals that he heard an ~elegant cloaked person~ inquiring about it in the library. he asks for the book. they say no. the red herring smells to high heavens, and the chapter ends with rapunzel subtly telling cass to hide the book ~for the safety of the kingdom~ and oh my god i just can’t handle the low stakes. 

seventeen picks up from there with cassandra’s point of view; she’s suspicious of lefleur and angsts a lot about how she has no time to train and she needs to get out of corona yada yada. her plan is literally to just walk until she finds someone to hire her on as a guard which. lol. this kid.

i feel like this is the strongest passage in the whole book: 

She said there couldn’t be any secrets between Eugene and her. But why—especially when it meant sacrificing my future and everything I held dear? I’d read about romantic love in poems, and it seemed to me like a spell. Sounded great for the lovebirds, but what about the other people.

Did I just not matter in the face of this love, even though I had been the one to risk everything to show Rapunzel the world? Was I just supposed to fall on my sword because Eugene was uncomfortable that he didn’t have every last piece of information about Rapunzel?

she has a brief argument with owl, who is a pretty obvious stand-in for her own doubts / feeling that she truly belongs in corona and doesn’t actually want to leave. but she has no choice! but it’s stormy, so she can’t leave! oh no!

(i think if tts really strongly felt she had no choice but to free corona, a measly thunderstorm would not be enough to stop her.)

[istumpysk]

Operation Stumpy Re-Read

AFFC: Samwell III (Chapter 26)

Night belonged to the bravos and the courtesans. Dareon's new friends, Sam thought bitterly. They were all the singer could talk about of late. He was trying to write a song about one courtesan, a woman called the Moonshadow who had heard him singing beside the Moon Pool and rewarded him with a kiss. "You should have asked her for silver," Sam had said. "It's coin we need, not kisses." But the singer only smiled. "Some kisses are worth more than yellow gold, Slayer." That made him angry too. Dareon was not supposed to be making up songs about courtesans. He was supposed to be singing about the Wall and the valor of the Night's Watch. Jon had hoped that perhaps his songs might persuade a few young men to take the black. Instead he sang of golden kisses, silvery hair, and red, red lips. No one ever took the black for red, red lips.

Don't ask me about the moon, silver, or red lips.

This plan is dumb. Who in Braavos is going to pay for a ship that takes them to another continent, where they can't speak the language, so they can join a celibate military order in some frozen barren land? I'd rather be broke and starving on a lagoon.

+.+.+

"All that weeping makes me want to slap her," he complained, "and I can scarce sleep for her sobbing."

You would weep as well if you had a son and lost him, Sam almost said. He could not blame Gilly for her grief. Instead, he blamed Jon Snow and wondered when Jon's heart had turned to stone. 

+.+.+

Once he asked Maester Aemon that very question, when Gilly was down at the canal fetching water for them. "When you raised him up to be the lord commander," the old man answered.

Yeah, Aemon had nothing to do with it.

+.+.+

A hollow rumbling echoed off the roofs of Braavos, like the sound of distant thunder; the Titan, sounding nightfall from across the lagoon.

The Titan makes thunder!

+.+.+

Some days he did not seem to know where he was. Some days he would lose his way when saying something and begin to ramble on about his father or his brother. He is one hundred and two, Sam reminded himself, but he had been just as old at Castle Black and his wits had never wandered there.

Man, Jon really did kill this guy, huh? That's fantastic.

Don't even think about judging me.

+.+.+

I should have used our coin for wood, Sam chided himself every time. I should have had the sense to keep him warm.

Instead he had squandered the last of their silver on a healer from the House of the Red Hands, a tall pale man in robes embroidered with swirling stripes of red and white. All that the silver bought him was half a flask of dreamwine. 

[...]

A chill had gotten inside Maester Aemon during the voyage and settled in his chest. By the time they got to Braavos, he had been so weak they'd had to carry him ashore. They'd still had a fat bag of silver then, so Dareon had asked for the inn's biggest bed. The one they'd gotten was large enough to sleep eight, so the innkeep insisted on charging them for that many.

Samwell is quickly cheated out of all their money. Hindsight is 20/20, but Jon probably should have seen that one coming.

+.+.+

"Oldtown," Maester Aemon wheezed. "Yes. I dreamt of Oldtown, Sam. I was young again and my brother Egg was with me, with that big knight he served. We were drinking in the old inn where they make the fearsomely strong cider."

If I read the words 'Oldtown' or 'fearsomely strong cider' in one more chapter, I'm cancelling the reread.

+.+.+

The autumn gales had hounded them all across the narrow sea. Sometimes they came up from the south, roiling with thunder and lightning and black rains that fell for days. Sometimes they came down from the north, cold and grim, with savage winds that cut right through a man. Once it got so cold that Sam had woken to find the whole ship coated in ice, shining as white as pearl. 

I'm including this because I'm paranoid.

+.+.+

"There's no more wood." Dareon had paid the innkeep double for a room with a hearth, but none of them had realized that wood would be so costly here. Trees did not grow on Braavos, save in the courts and gardens of the mighty. Nor would the Braavosi cut the pines that covered the outlying islands around their great lagoon and acted as windbreaks to shield them from storms. Instead, firewood was brought in by barge, up the rivers and across the lagoon. Even dung was dear here; the Braavosi used boats in place of horses.

Sounds like a great trading opportunity for a lumber baron.

Trees did not grow on Braavos, save in the courts and gardens of the mighty.

Why does the lemongate theory exist? The explanation is right there. It's sitting right there on the page. Who the hell convinces themselves a lemon tree can't exist in Braavos? As if Braavos is in the middle of Siberia or something.

+.+.+

"Not this time, Sam. I dreamed . . . in the black of night a man asks all the questions he dare not ask by daylight. For me, these past years, only one question has remained. Why would the gods take my eyes and my strength, yet condemn me to linger on so long, frozen and forgotten? What use could they have for an old done man like me?" Aemon's fingers trembled, twigs sheathed in spotted skin. "I remember, Sam. I still remember."

He was not making sense. "Remember what?"

"Dragons," Aemon whispered. "The grief and glory of my House, they were."

Aemon Targaryen believes he's being kept alive for some greater purpose.

After the gods are finished tossing the coin, they decree every Targaryan must also be an imbecile.

+.+.+

"I see them in my dreams, Sam. I see a red star bleeding in the sky. I still remember red. I see their shadows on the snow, hear the crack of leathern wings, feel their hot breath. My brothers dreamed of dragons too, and the dreams killed them, every one. Sam, we tremble on the cusp of half-remembered prophecies, of wonders and terrors that no man now living could hope to comprehend . . .

Red like the red door? Red like the Red Keep? Red like blood? Maybe it’s Jon’s shadow you’re seeing.

My brothers dreamed of dragons too, and the dreams killed them, every one.

Kill them all!

I'm guessing this is why we believe that Egg guy caused Summerhall?

+.+.+

He closed his white eyes wearily, then forced them open once again. "I should not have left the Wall. Lord Snow could not have known, but I should have seen it. Fire consumes, but cold preserves. The Wall . . . but it is too late to go running back. The Stranger waits outside my door and will not be denied. Steward, you have served me faithfully. Do this one last brave thing for me. Go down to the ships, Sam. Learn all you can about these dragons."

Damn, not a Targaryen saying this.

Fire good, ice bad. Traitor.

+.+.+

His swordbelt hung from a peg on the wall, beside the old cracked horn that Jon had given him.

Horn!

+.+.+

His swordbelt kept threatening to fall down about his ankles, so he had to keep tugging it back up as he went. 

George was tired of being criticized for Samwell not losing weight while ranging.

+.+.+

Dareon . . . I should not think ill of him. He could be hurt, perhaps that is why he did not come back. He could be dead, lying in some alley in a pool of blood, or floating facedown in one of the canals.

Keep this same energy for Jon, please.

+.+.+

In the Seven Kingdoms nobles draped themselves in velvets, silks, and samites of a hundred hues whilst peasants and smallfolk wore raw wool and dull brown roughspun. In Braavos it was otherwise. The bravos swaggered about like peacocks, fingering their swords, whilst the mighty dressed in charcoal grey and purple, blues that were almost black and blacks as dark as a moonless night.

Will this be important later?

+.+.+

The other one, the dark-haired bravo in the burgundy brocade and yellow cloak whose name would appear to have been Terro, made some comment in Braavosi, and his fair-haired friend laughed, and said, "My friend Terro says you dress above your station. Are you some great lord, to wear the black?"

"He is not a lord," a child's voice put in. "He's in the Night's Watch, stupid. From Westeros." A girl edged into the light, pushing a barrow full of seaweed; a scruffy, skinny creature in big boots, with ragged unwashed hair.

Who is this?

+.+.+

"He has no coin," mocked the fair-haired bravo. His dark-haired friend grinned and said something in Braavosi. "My friend Terro is chilly. Be our good fat friend and give him your cloak."

"Don't do that either," said the barrow girl, "or else they'll ask for your boots next, and before long you'll be naked."

"Little cats who howl too loud get drowned in the canals," warned the fair-haired bravo.

"Not if they have claws." And suddenly there was a knife in the girl's left hand, a blade as skinny as she was. The one called Terro said something to his fair-haired friend and the two of them moved off, chuckling at one another.

She reminds me of someone, I just can't quite put my finger on it.

+.+.+

"The bravos never bother anyone without a sword. Not even stupid camel cunts like Terro and Orbelo."

Excuse me, do you kiss your mother with that mouth!?

You will.

+.+.+

"Who are you?"

"No one." She stank of fish. "I used to be someone, but now I'm not. You can call me Cat, if you like. Who are you?"

"Samwell, of House Tarly. You speak the Common Tongue."

"My father was the oarmaster on Nymeria. A bravo killed him for saying that my mother was more beautiful than the Nightingale. Not one of those camel cunts you met, a real bravo. Someday I'll slit his throat. The captain said Nymeria had no need of little girls, so he put me off. Brusco took me in and gave me a barrow." 

Hmmm.

At first glance that looks like a completely fabricated story, but there might be something hiding here.

+.+.+

She looked up at him. "What ship will you be sailing on?"

"We bought passage on the Lady Ushanora."

The girl squinted at him suspiciously. "She's gone. Don't you know? She left days and days ago."

I know, Sam might have said. He and Dareon had stood on the dock watching the rise and fall of her oars as she beat for the Titan and the open sea. "Well," the singer said, "that's done." If Sam had been a braver man, he would have shoved him into the water. When it came to talking girls out of their clothes Dareon had a honeyed tongue, yet in the captain's cabin somehow Sam had done all the talking, trying to persuade the Braavosi to wait for them. "Three days I have waited for this old man," the captain had said. "My holds are full, and my men have fucked their wives farewell. With you or without, my Lady leaves on the tide."

[...]

Even worse, he had refused to return the passage money they had paid him, the silver that was meant to see them safe to Oldtown. "You bought my finest cabin. It is there, awaiting you. If you do not choose to occupy it, that is no fault of mine. Why should I bear the loss?"

I don't know, maybe we should have sent Grenn along too.

+.+.+

"You said you saw a singer . . ."

"At the Happy Port. He's going to wed the Sailor's Wife."

"Wed?"

"She only beds the ones who marry her."

You hear that? Always get dinner first.

+.+.+

Dareon cannot wed! He said the words! "I have to go."

You're the one that keeps cloaking Gilly.

It's fine, kill Dareon, and bring him back.

+.+.+

He ran. It was a long way over slick cobbles. 

PATE?!

+.+.+

Behind them a purple galleas had been painted on the wall, crewed by women clad in thigh-high boots and nothing else. 

An immature person would make an Arya joke.

+.+.+

"I'll go," said Sam, "but you'll come with me."

"No. I'm done with you. I'm done with black." Dareon tore his cloak off his naked bride and tossed it in Sam's face. "Here. Throw that rag on the old man, it may keep him a little warmer. I shan't be needing it. I'll be clad in velvet soon. Next year I'll be wearing furs and eating—"

Sam hit him.

He did not think about it. His hand came up, curled into a fist, and crashed into the singer's mouth. Dareon cursed and his naked wife gave a shriek and Sam threw himself onto the singer and knocked him backwards over a low table. They were almost of a height, but Sam weighed twice as much, and for once he was too angry to be afraid. He punched the singer in the face and in the belly, then began to pummel him about the shoulders with both hands. When Dareon grabbed his wrists, Sam butted him with his head and broke his lip. The singer let go and he smashed him in the nose. Somewhere a man was laughing, a woman cursing. The fight seemed to slow, as if they were two black flies struggling in amber. Then someone dragged Sam off the singer's chest. He hit that person too, and something hard crashed into his head.

Samwell is ✨ stressed. ✨

+.+.+

The next he knew he was outside, flying headfirst through the fog. For half a heartbeat he saw black water underneath him. Then the canal came up and smashed him in the face.

[...]

I'm going to drown, he thought, in a blind black panic. He thrashed, trying to claw his way back to the surface, but instead his face bumped the bottom of the canal. I'm upside down, he realized, I'm drowning. Something moved beneath one flailing hand, an eel or a fish, slithering through his fingers. I can't drown, Maester Aemon will die without me, and Gilly will have no one. I have to swim, I have to . . .

There was a huge splash, and something coiled around him, under his arms and around his chest. The eel, was his first thought, the eel has got me, it's going to pull me down. He opened his mouth to scream, and swallowed more water. I'm drowned, was his last thought. Oh, gods be good, I'm drowned.

Hyle Hunt is teleporting across the map faster than you can say season 7.

What is dead may never die, Samwell. Rise again, harder and stronger.

+.+.+

His rescuer leaned over him, huge and black and dripping. "You owe Xhondo many feathers. The water ruined Xhondo's fine cloak."

It had, Sam saw. The feathered cloak clung to the black man's huge shoulders, sodden and soiled. "I never meant . . ."

". . . to be swimming? Xhondo saw. Too much splashing. Fat men should float." He grabbed Sam's doublet with a huge black fist and hauled him to his feet. "Xhondo mates on Cinnamon Wind. Many tongues he speaks, a little. Inside Xhondo laughs, to see you punch the singer. And Xhondo hears." A broad white smile spread across his face. "Xhondo knows these dragons."

Yay! Xhondo of the Cinnamon Wind!

"Not for a year or more, I fear. From here the Cinnamon Wind sails east, to make the trader's circle round the Jade Sea."

"I see," said Dany, disappointed. "I wish you fair winds and good trading, then. You have brought me a precious gift."

"I have been amply repaid, great queen."

She puzzled at that. "How so?"

His eyes gleamed. "I have seen dragons."

Dany laughed. "And will see more of them one day, I hope. Come to me in King's Landing when I am on my father's throne, and you shall have a great reward." - Daenerys II, ACOK

Final thoughts:

We know he'll eventually meet Sansa, but I think it's important he meet Rickon and Lady Stoneheart too.

-> return to menu <-

[bookgeekgrrl]

My media this week (10-16 Oct 2021)

�� STUFF I READ 📚

😍 👂 Bodies and Bows (Apron Shop #3) (Elizabeth Penney, author; Kim Niemi, narrator)

😍 The Accursed Vampire (Madeline McGrane)

😍 Fire and Ice (Castielslostwings) - 189K, Destiel - first responder BDSM AU - a tour de force of friends-to-kinkyFWB-to-lovers with some really good hurt/comfort; great, in-depth characterizations, fantastic BDSM - slow burn, incredibly detailed and very, very satisfying

😊 you are my sunshine (my only sunshine) (espressohno) - 40K, Cherik - more angst than you might think from the set up (though appropriately tagged) but it absolutely does have a HEA + the angst was C&E vs homophobes, not C v E.

😍 👂 The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick (Mallory O'Meara, author & narrator) -LOVED this - loved O'Meara's narrative voice, loved the story of Milicent, loved the story of O’Meara finding Milicent. I do have to say that LA is not the only place you can build a found family! And FUCK YOU Bud Westmore. 

😍 (let go of) the same dream (liadan14) - 44K, Kaysanova - very non-traditional a/b/o AU - excellent!

🙂 Sink or Swim (endingthemes) - 57K, Cherik - Overboard AU

😍 A Hint of Amnesia (missgeevious) - 48K, Schitt's Creek - Overboard AU - really well done; great plot adjustments to fit the fusion that still left everyone very much in character

🙂 Bonded to the Alpha (Bonded to the Alpha #1) (Robin Moray)

💖 +205K of shorter fic so shorter work shout out 💖

DILF (twentysomething) - TW: Sterek, 30K - reread; absolute classic teacher/single parent AU

Effects of Obliteration (geneticallydead) - MCU: Stucky, 25K - reread; love this WS recovery fic with the angst dialed back just a baby bit since the Asset’s been frozen and forgotten since 1985.

Clark Kent vs. The Wayne Family Values (quidhitch) - DCU: SuperBat, 12K - it’s always fun when Clark & Bruce think they can hide their relationship from all the various BatKids.

Art Nouveau (voluptuous_panic) - MCU: Stucky, 12K - Steve’s on an unsatisfactory blind date but is way, way more interested in the hot hipster bartender with all the body mods.

📺 STUFF I WATCHED 📺

Leverage: Redemption - s1, e15-16

Legends of Tomorrow - s3, e16

Only Murders In The Building - s1, e9

Elementary - s1, e9

Star Trek: Discovery - s1, e14-15

What We Do In The Shadows - s2, e1-4

Midsomer Murders - s22, e4 “The Scarecrow Murders”

🎧 PODCASTS 🎧

Strong Songs - "A Day in the Life" by The Beatles

You're Wrong About - Mike Lives in a Downtown Hotel

Big Gay Fiction Podcast - Christmas Lights and Halloween Scares with Author Roan Parrish

Song Exploder - Hrishikesh Hirway TED Talk - What You Learn When You Listen Closely

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - The Spritz Cookie Gravestone

99% Invisible #461- Changing Stripes

This is Good for You - Ep 17: Nostalgia Is Good For You

Ologies with Alie Ward - Chiropterology (BATS) Encore with Merlin Tuttle

Twenty Thousand Hertz - Video(less) Games

Strong Songs - "Think" by Aretha Franklin

🎶 MUSIC 🎶

Ted Lasso playlist - all songs from s1 & s2

Presenting Janet Jackson

Presenting Hall & Oates

Adam Ant

CREDITS: Quincy Jones

The Rockats

Presenting The Beach Boys

The Monkees

Best of Rachmaninoff

1984: I Wanna Rock! ROCK!

Wall Of Sound

The Wrecking Crew

Aretha Franklin

[duhragonball]

JoJoLion Index

I’m in a list-y mood tonight, so here’s my groupings of all the arcs in JoJo Part 8.  I’ll put them under the cut in case the titles have any spoilers.

Soft and Wet ch.1-6

California King Bed ch.7-11

Paisley Park and Born this Way ch.12-17

Shakedown Road ch.18-22

Paper Moon King ch.23-25

I am a Rock ch.26-32

Jobin Higashikata ch.33-38

Doobie Wah ch.39-42

Love Love Deluxe ch.43-46

Walking Heart ch.47-55

Milagro Man ch.56-57

Dolomite's Blue Lagoon ch.58-63

Urban Guerrilla ch.64-70

Ozone Baby ch.71-76

Doctor Wu ch.77-82

Wonder of You ch. 83-108

The Radio Gaga Incident ch.109-110

I sort-of liveblogged JoJo in 2017, and by the time I got to Part 8 I decided to do a post-per-chapter kind of thing, but this turned out to be extremely frustrating, because the individual chapters don’t get that much plot progression done on their own.   Also, I had to keep starting and stopping, doing the first 69 chapters in 2017, then picking it up again in 2018 and maybe 2019, I forget.  By 2020, I sort of lost interest in remembering where I left off. 

The biggest hassle with liveblogging a JoJo Part in progress is that I felt like I had no idea where the story was heading.   It always seemed like I would talk about something that ended up having nothing to do with the main plot.   For example, Josuke got adopted by the Higashikata family, then he had a Stand Battle with Daiya.   Then he had a Stand Battle with Kei Nijimura, the Higashikatas’ maid.  Then the Shakedown Road arc.

At the time, I thought all three of these were connected, and that Daiya and Kei were part of a larger scheme laid out by Norisuke, a scheme that included Shakedown Road.  But in hindsight, the arcs have nothing to do with one another.  “California King Bed” is Josuke demonstrating that he can’t be manipulated by the Higashikatas.   “Born this Way” is Kei’s revealing her true identity and explaining to Josuke his origin.   And “Shakedown Road” ends with Josuke learning the connection between the Joestar and Higashikata families. 

I wish I could have understood all of that on the first read, because it seems so clear to me now.  Same deal with the final boss of Part 8.   The main thing that frustrated me with the second half of Part 8 was that I had no idea when or if the final villain would arrive.  Because I had no idea how long Part 8 would last, you see.   So with each new bad guy, I kept feeling like things were beginning to approach a climax, but that didn’t really start rolling until much later on.  

I had similar gripes with Parts 4, 5, and 7, because it just didn’t seem all that obvious to me that a particular moment in the story marked the beginning of the end.   This is why Parts 2, 3, and 6 are so awesome, because there’s no such issue.   Part 2 is awesome start to finish, so it doesn’t matter.   Part 3 ends in Cairo, full stop, so you know what to expect.   And Part 6 is set in prison, so you know when Jolyne leaves the prison that things are going to start happening very quickly.   That’s not to say Parts 4, 5, 7, and 8 are bad, not at all.    But I think it’s no coincidence that I had to experience Part 5 a second time to appreciate it more, and I’ve always enjoyed Part 4 episodes better on the rewatch.    And it’s probably why I’ve got a hankerin’ to reread Part 8, now that I know how it plays out. 

I think I might want to do a “””proper””” liveblog of JoJolion some day, and now that I have a general breakdown of the story arcs, I think it looks a lot more manageable.   What I’m really interested in is exploring what all the characters are trying to do at any particular time.   Their motives and reactions to events as they happen.   But JJBA tends to play close to the vest with that stuff.   I can’t really do what I want to do until I’ve learned who’s who and what Stand powers everyone has.  So you almost have to read the whole thing twice.  That probably doesn’t bode well for me reading Part 9.   I don’t want to wait ten years to understand what’s going on.

[variansss]

i’m eyeing my rapunzel and the lost lagoon book. i haven’t touched it in a year and a half. imagine if just.........reread it......for the cassunzel feels...

[swan2swan]

6vapemaster9 replied to your post: Also I reread the scene from The Lost Lagoon...

Don’t forget Dahlia talking about how much she supports Rapunzel’s “pushing boundaries”

Almost every single line in that scene is Dahlia riding at the same speed but on a completely different track.

[hoffemutter]

You know what, I’m gonna reread lost lagoon and y’all are gonna deal with me babbling about it because honestly, that book gave me more Arianna content than the entirety of the show’s second season

[waitlifted]

(( I need to reread lost lagoon tbh it's been a hot minute and it is canon to my cass portrayal so ))

[tangledbea]

What’s the moonssandra foreshadowing in Lost Lagoon? If I remember right you said there was some foreshadowing to it in your Tangled Talk but I can’t seem to pick it out

Franky, I don't remember. I've only read the book twice and the more people use it as "canon evidence" of things, the less I care to reread it, since I know the books aren't canon. (Also, I like Vanishing Village much better.) I'd have to relisten to the podcast and see if it jogs my memory what I was thinking at the time.

[zonerobotnik]

And Varian and Rapunzel attending dancing classes together would be interesting, especially if Varian is an adult and Eugene gets jealous.

There was a dancing teacher named LaFleur in the lost lagoon if I remember correctly.

Was there? I'll have to reread that, I didn't remember any of her tutors being mentioned by name.

[kelseyfitzherbert]

1, 20, 68 :)

1: Are you religious? 

I’m kind of in between here. I, personally, am not religious. It’s not that I don’t believe in a higher power, I just don’t make it the center of my life like many people do. But, I am open to going to church. I’ve gone with my mom & I go with my in laws and I am getting married in a church. But it’s definitely not my favorite place to go. 

20: Do you read a lot? What are your favorite books? 

So, I have a really obsessive personality. I like to read, a lot, but I don’t like to branch out. I like to reread the things I love. My favorites to reread are the Twilight saga, the Fifty Shades trilogy (listen I love me some Christian Grey) and I have been known to reread Rapunzel & The Lost Lagoon constantly (I’m currently halfway through it while I patiently impatiently wait for Vanishing Village). I love reading fanfiction, too, but usually just the same ones over and over again. Like ‘What You Don’t Know’. 

68: What advice would you give your 13 year old self? 

So I was 13 in 2008. I was in middle school. I would tell myself to lay off the junk food so I wouldn’t have to deal with the issues I deal with now! And not to care what people think about you!! 

[bestworstcase]

farran rereads lost lagoon: chapters 9-10

it’s been a hot minute! previous installments here, in case you’d like to refresh your memory first.

- this chapter opens with rapunzel observing that cassandra is angry and concluding, correctly, that it’s because rapunzel followed her. i think this is a very interesting choice for howland to make. tts rapunzel is not like this. she often, particularly in s1, fails to notice when cass is frustrated with her and is startled when that frustration erupts into anger after repeated pushing. she is also generally quite bad at linking cause and effect together like this; she might recognize that cass is angry, but miss why. she stomps all over cassandra’s boundaries in large part because she doesn’t know any better. she can’t see how her behavior is hurting cass. but lagoon rapunzel does know better. she’s far more emotionally intuitive, and she can see right away that sticking her nose into cassandra’s business upsets cass, yet she will continue to do it. part of me wonders if this change is to facilitate the character growth lagoon rapunzel gets (which tts rapunzel does not)? it’s much easier, after all, to fix poor behavior if you’re able to see how it’s hurting people you care about.

- rapunzel here also observes that cassandra’s “eyes were wide and vulnerable,” indicating how afraid cass was of the water situation. cass denies that she was afraid when rapunzel asks her. this has a lot of similarities to how cass acts in fanon, cassunzel fanon in particular—outright denying her feelings, even when rapunzel accurately identifies them. and i know i’m beating a dead horse here, but tts cass is not like this. tts cass readily expresses her feelings to rapunzel—except when she thinks rapunzel isn’t willing to listen to her. in COTB, her reticence with rapunzel comes on the heels of rapunzel doing something cassandra pleaded with her not to do. in RATGT, rapunzel outright tells her to ‘be okay with’ the way rapunzel treats her, and in RDO cass bottles up her feelings and refuses to talk until rapunzel forces her to. actively hiding her feelings is a behavior she develops after becoming friends with rapunzel, because rapunzel continually dismisses or ignores her feelings. this is probably not the last time i am going to harp on this over the course of this little reread. it’s a huge pet peeve of mine.

- re: romance novel: “I hadn’t seen Eugene since the night before. After Cassandra left my room, I sent Pascal to follow her. I instructed him to come get me if she went anywhere.” ksdkjf

- cassandra, of course, wants the lagoon to be their—or rather, ideally, her—little secret, because she’s decided this is the thing that will prove she’s ready for the guard. her approach to getting rapunzel on board with this secret-keeping is to imply that frederic and arianna might compromise corona’s national security if they are informed. i think this is very funny.

- (again, contrast this to what happens in tts: when cass begs rapunzel to keep their midnight excursion a secret, she explains her reasoning in detail, because tts cass knows how to communicate like an adult.)

- “It’s so…blue” jksdfl cass has a way with words huh

- i do not think ms howland knows what a lagoon is, because what she is describing is absolutely not a lagoon. it appears to be a cenote. i suppose ‘rapunzel and the lost cenote’ doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, though, does it?

- cassandra reveals that she doesn’t know how to swim. i will get into this in a moment.

- corona has 315 miles of coastline, according to ms. howland. for purposes of comparison, rhode island has around 380 miles of coastline. now! in addition to those three hundred odd miles of coastline, corona has 212 lakes, 121 ponds, 67 rivers, of which 17 are significant in size and let out into the sea. with some cursory research i haven’t been able to get a precise count of the number of freshwater bodies of water there are in rhode island, but wikipedia tells me that about 90% of the inland freshwater in the state is contained in 237 lakes and ponds, which is a bit less than corona’s 333 total lakes and ponds, so… assuming the other 10% of rhode island’s inland freshwater is contained in a few dozen smaller lakes and ponds, those numbers are quite close as well. and according to wikipedia, rhode island has 59 rivers, of which 17 are ‘considered major rivers either geographically or historically.’ 

there is not really a point to this digression except that i think it is interesting. rhode island is 1,214 square miles in size and based on the general closeness of these numbers i have decided to tentatively conclude that corona is meant to be roughly similar in size. let’s call it a nice even 1,250 square miles for the sake of ease and to account for the greater number of lakes and ponds. 

this is quite a bit larger than the kingdom appears to be in tts—unless the kingdom is very lopsided and island city is situated within a couple dozen miles of the nearest border—but it’s also quite small for a country. (europe has a few very small microstates and city-states, but excluding those, the smallest country in europe is almost twice the size of rhode island). 

for my own writing, i decided that corona was quite a bit larger than this—bitter snow corona is in the neighborhood of 13,125 square miles, of which about ⅓ was formerly saporia and another ¼ is the disputed territory/province of malinar, meaning saporia is/was about 4,375 square miles, malinar is about 3,288 square miles, and pre-conquest corona would have been about 5,462 square miles—but, if you’re writing fanfiction and looking for an approximate ‘canon’ size for corona, 1,250 sq miles is not a bad guess. just remember that that big old wall rapunzel’s so eager to get to the other side of has to be within about twenty miles of the island capital in order for horses to be able to comfortably get there and back in less than a day! so either the island has to be very near the nearest border, or the wall isn’t actually corona’s border but rather a defensive wall around the capital or something like that. 

- now back to cassandra, and the matter of her inability to swim. i think, given that they live on an island and the generally high standards to which he holds his daughter, it beggars belief a little that the captain did not force the issue of her learning how. it’s a safety matter. if you live near water you need to be able to swim.  but, fine, she has a phobia, whatever. it’s for the romance novel™

- but i hate this. i hate it. ms. howland expects me to believe that:

1 - cassandra hasn’t been in swimming lessons since she could walk

2 - cassandra’s phobia was so severe that the captain never forced the issue of her learning to swim, while living on an island

3 - rapunzel magically knows how to swim, because the three or four minutes she spent almost drowning in a slowly flooding cave and then being spat out into a river and dragged to the bank by eugene was sufficient for her to become a great swimmer.

4 - all it takes for cassandra to overcome her debilitating phobia of water is for rapunzel to spend maybe ten or fifteen minutes gently coaxing her into the water and teaching her how to tread water

5 - swimming in the lagoon with rapunzel then becomes one of cassandra’s most treasured pastimes, and

6 - merely a few months after this, cassandra is a strong enough swimmer to (in fitzherbert pi) DIVE INTO THE FUCKING OCEAN FULLY DRESSED WITH HER BOOTS ON in order to rescue shorty before he drowns.

and NO!!!!!! NO! THAT’S NOT HOW SWIMMING WORKS THAT’S NOT HOW ANYTHING WORKS!!

now i get it. i get it. this is a romance novel and the symbolism of rapunzel liberating cassandra from her fears and teaching her a valuable new skill that they bond over and becomes their shared special secret thing to do together is obviously powerful and a staple trope for the genre. but it makes so little sense for this to be a skill that rapunzel has but cassandra does not. it feels almost infantalizing of cassandra and aggrandizing of rapunzel. like… rapunzel is an exceptionally competent young woman, yes. but no she can’t fucking swim you can’t learn to swim from that one time you almost drowned in a FUCKING cave. fuck!

- i’m still on the first page of chapter 10 and i am steamed.

- “It’s amazing how fast you can pick something up when your life depends on it.” FUCK you, ms. howland. you don’t learn how to turn sommersalts or swim laps by almost drowning. at most you might teach yourself how to doggy paddle.

- this scene would have worked just as goddamn well on the romance novel front if cass were the one who knew how to swim and rapunzel desperately wanted to learn and made big sad puppy eyes until cass caved and agreed to teach her. like! ffs you could even squeeze in the phobia stuff - rapunzel freaks out when she gets to a certain depth because it throws her back to being in that cave and cass, who has plenty of experience dealing with her own panic attacks, is able to gently calm her down.

- but that would require ms. howland to allow rapunzel to be bad at something. grumble.

- i don’t think rapunzel is qualified to give cass exposure therapy.

- this is nitpicky but i’m annoyed. this is not how you clean plate armor. “First you hang your suit of armor up to make sure every piece is properly aligned and that there’s no rust” WHAT? it’s not… like, it’s not like a onesie. plate armor is a bunch of individual components tied or buckled to an arming doublet or, in some cases, to other pieces of plate. you can’t ‘hang up’ a suit of plate armor the way you’d hang up, like, a jacket. you can put the pieces together on an arming doublet that you’ve hung up on a dummy, but… why would you do that in order to clean it.

“Then you attach the foot coverings” gjksdfjk just… the mental image of cassandra painstakingly putting a suit of armor together on a fucking mannequin and buckling the sabatons to the greaves or what the fuck ever she means by this and trying to clean the set that way is destroying me

“Then you need to polish the chest plate, with a soft cloth, work in circles, going outward” okay yes but you’d do the cuirrass separate from the rest of the set and you’d do the inside too and cass ought to know the proper name for all of these pieces please it’s not hard

“The arms can be tricky because the joints” WHAT. for arms you’ve got, like, a pauldron (or spaulder and rondel), rerebrace, couter, vambrace, gauntlets. these are separate pieces. you clean them one at a time, inside and outside. does howland think you just… don’t need to clean the inside of a set of plate armor? does she think the inside isn’t just as if not more susceptible to rust as the outside? does… does she realize that you can take plate armor apart i am CONFOUNDED

WHAT is a “mouth cover” in this context. is she refering to a visor. hinged pieces like on an armet? does she mean a bevor? the bevor isn’t even part of the helmet aljksdflkjsfdj

cassandra refers to cuisses and greaves as “thigh plates” and “shin [plates]” respectively i’m die. she also completely skips the poleyns. i do not think this cass has ever cleaned a suit of plate armor in her entire life.

i am losing. my. mind.

- in the immediate aftermath of cass learning how to tread water i think rapunzel asks her more personal questions than she does in the entirety of tts itself. like, it’s almost jarring how much more interested both rapunzel and eugene are in cassandra as a person in this book than they seem to be in tts. compare this conversation to the way cass opens up to rapunzel in beginnings - here, it’s prompted by rapunzel asking questions, expressing interest in cassandra’s feelings and encouraging her by telling her she’s brave. in beginnings, rapunzel builds a pillow fort in cass’s room because she wants to force a bonding moment and cass, after initially trying to kick her out, relents and volunteers some personal information as a kind of apology for being hostile. the vibes are completely different, so different that it feels like i’m not even reading about the same characters.

- like can you imagine tts rapunzel saying something like “it’s your story, that makes it important” to cass? lmao

- cass reveals that she’s afraid of water because she got dragged out by the undertow at the beach when she was small, and her dad saved her and then got so mad at her that she remembers being as afraid of him as she was of the water. this is not unrealistic per se, but… if cassandra was as scared of her dad that day as she was of drowning, then… shouldn’t that have more of an impact on her relationship with him? like…he screams at her after she almost drowns and she walks away with this debilitating phobia of the water but zero lingering fear of him?

- this chapter has given me a headache

- re: romance novel: “Rapunzel gripped my hand. This time I didn’t flinch.” snrk.