#nevva winter

[chaotictissuebox]

Pendragon would be very funny if all the travelers went to every territory. I made this and thought of @birdybirdnerd

[torchwoodsoho]

attack on @birdybirdnerd !

[junkydrawr]

Nevva Winter

[theyearofrisinglight]

Listening to What Was I Made For by Billie Eilish and seeing it's such a Nevva Winter-coded song. I actually get emotional listening to it remembering she basically asks Elli that during their botched reunion in The Soldiers of Halla 🤧 and it hits even more while reading this one shot fanfic, Within the Songs of Life by Defying_Expectations on AO3. If only we had a TV series or enough Nevva fanart to make an edit with it, sigh.

[leahnardo-da-veggie]

Honeycake

I sat along a dusty alley, watching carriages clatter by with bitterness. Today had been a slow day. Nobody with their pockets hanging loose, or a purse that was begging to be nabbed. No, all these stingy old bastards were clutching their belongings to themselves. Fake nobility, the whole lotta ‘em. All I managed to stea- Ahem, I mean procure, was a grimy brass locket. And what was a woman supposed to do with such slim pickings?

That was when he showed up. Almost feminine in his features, with a distinct air of elfin grace. A proper high noble, it looked. I eyed his coat, hunting for the telltale bulge of a wallet. Of course, because it was just that sorta day, there was none.

"Bugger it all,” I mumbled. It looked like I was skipping the beer tonight. The cashless noble paused at the entrance to my alley and sniffed. His pampered nose probably couldn't stand the scent of reality, I thought bitterly. Then he strode in, walking to stand over me.

Instantly, I pulled up my coat. Noblemen walking into dark alleys never meant anything good. They were always looking for whores, drug dealers or assassins, and I was none of ‘em. I scuttled aside, hoping he was looking for someone else, but he said, “Hello. Miss Bella, daughter of Rose, daughter of Sonja, yes?”

I twitched slightly. Why did bad things come in heaps? Was he a copper, come sniffing about my little alley in search of Bella-the-thief? “Dunno whatcha talkin' ‘bout, milord. I nevva ‘eard of no Bella, and me mam, sure as Ako knows, wassn no Rose,” I said, praying he wouldn't push further.

The noble pressed his lips together. “I see,” he said, looking down at me, faintly amused. “Well, did you write this, Miss Not-Bella?”

Ah, crap. I knew learning to write would haunt me someday. My mother had, in fact, been Rose-the-baker, and she had brought me to Ako's temple to learn to write. The priestesses there watched as I drew squiggles in the dirt, learning from Ako's Word. They taught me other things too. Like how to pick locks, how to lie through your teeth, and how to steal without getting caught. Great people, Ako's priestesses were. But then the gov'nor of Jannik decided they made too much trouble, and burnt their temple down, and hunted all their followers.

And of course, the easiest way to find a follower of Ako was by looking for lowborn who could write and used His name in their cusses. “Damn,” I said, not bothering to look at the paper. “Milord, I dunno howta write. Nevva even touched a piece o' paper in my life.”

The nobleman sighed. “Please, little one, stop this farce,” he said, his voice gentle. “I know you are Bella, and I mean no harm. In fact, I have come to tell you that your plea to Ako has finally been registered and granted.”

I choked on my own spittle there, and looked up at the paper. It was in my child-self's hand, awkward and emotional, little drops of tears staining and wrinkling the paper where they landed. I had written it after my mother was taken by disease, when I had just seen my tenth winter. It was a desperate prayer for safety and love that never came. I had it memorised by heart.

“Ako, I know you can't bring my mother back. But please, could you send me to a place where I will be safe and loved and have as much honeycake as I want? Your Faithful Bella, daughter of Rose, daughter of Sonja,” I read aloud, knowing the gig was up.

Yep, same letter. I looked up at the nobleman, wondering if he had been a priest at the temple. That was when I finally noticed his eyes. They were a vibrant purple, like dye freshly harvested, or a bellflower in full bloom. It was an eye colour no mortal would have. I sighed heavily. “Wait, milord. Dinnae tell me you're an Angel of Ako. I wouldn' believe ya,” I said. Maybe I'd had too much beer last night, and I'd wake up tomorrow with a horrible headache.

But the nobleman still stood there, a mildly bewildered grin on his face. “Look, little one. I am sorry it took so long to get back to you. But there were hundreds of thousands of letters, and it took so long to fulfil some of them,” he said apologetically.

I couldn't help it. I started laughing, cackling like an addict high on Bonny. “Twenty years,” I said. “You heard my pray'r twenty years later. Oh…” I looked up at him, at those utterly impossible eyes, at the depths that lay within them, and I found that I truly believed. “This has to be a dream.”

The nobleman, or angel, or hells, even Ako himself, offered me his hand. “Lady Berralis would never be so cruel, my child. Come on, now,” he coaxed, pulling me to my feet. “Come home.”

Flicking his wrist, a portal opened. The light on the other end was warm, like an eternal summer. It tore the weariness from my bones like I had soaked in the hot springs of legend, and broke the chill that had grimly settled into me. I glanced back. “Tell me,” I said. “Are you an angel? Or…"

“Or am I Ako himself?” The nobleman laughed, a sound like the sweetest honey, the deepest-flowing rivers. “Do you truly think the God of Mischief himself would tell you, little one?”

I smiled at that.

“Wait,” he said, as I put a foot into the portal. “I almost forgot this.” From the depths of his coat, he withdrew a little package.I accepted it curiously and opened it up.

“A honeycake,” I said, grinning. “All the honeycakes I could eat, eh? Takk, Milord. For everything.”

I took a big bite of the honeycake, savouring the richness, and the undercurrent of spice. A tiny part of me wondered why I wasted my money on all that beer when I could have been buying honeycakes instead, and I laughed.

Then I stepped through the portal.

[fictionkinfessions]

Canon elements for Dva, Doomfist and Moira [Overwatch], The Mistress [Doctor Who], Penelope Garcia [Criminal Minds], Ghetsis Harmonia [Pokemon BW], Ozymandias [Watchmen], Camille Saroyan [Bones], Edith Finch Jr. [What Remains Of Edith Finch], Beverly Barlowe [Eureka], Audrey Parker [Haven], Nevva Winter [The Pendragon Adventure], Annie Scrambler [The Electric Company] and Ral Zarek [Magic The Gathering]

frog

[incorrect-pendragon-quotes]

I’d walk through fire for Nevva. Well not FIRE, because it’s dangerous. But a super humid room. But not too humid, because my hair

Saint Dane

[aboyandhisstarship]

the hunger games or the quillan games which one is worse for joe average? which games are worse etc

oh man i have spent a truly ungoldy amount of time thinking about this as a kid. 

but before we can have this discussion they need to be a few concessions. 

1. pretty much everything about  Quillan we know is from Bobby’s experice as Challenger Red, Nevva Winters and Saint Dane. Bobby was never able to talk to pretty much anyone else about Quillan they shut him down real quick. 

2 one of those sources is Saint Dane, who is an insane lying time traveler 

Spoiler's for the Quillan games under the cut: 

the other is Nevva winters who we find out is in league with Saint Dane and got another Traveler killed, and betrayed Bobby the people of Quillan and pushed the territory into chaos. so we must take all we learn from them with a small grain of salt. as they were manipulating Bobby into a controlled outcome. 

another thing worth noting is I only ever read the hunger games back in ninth grade (freshman high school) so it’s been a minute and I have not gotten that far in my Pendragon series re read for the Camp camp AU So I may be mistaken on  some detail's. 

alright with that out of the way let’s hop right into it. 

(spoiler's for at least the Rivers of Zadaa, the Quillan games and maybe more of the pendragon series)

Quillan is the seventh territory Saint Dane attacks. he is stabbed by Bobby after he kills Loor on Zadaa, he hops into the flume and sends Bobby a taunting rhyming message through the flume to come to Quillan.

The flume is in the wall of a warehouse so large that Bobby can’t find his way out for at least a couple of hours and the Quigs are robot spiders (it’s possible that Quillan may not even have animals anymore?) 

one thing Bobby is made a challenger because Nevva left him challenger clothes' by the flume, Katniss becomes a tribute to save her sister. this is another big difference between our main characters, Bobby has been running around the universe trying to stop saint Dane for years. he has a mixture of Zadaa and Denduron warrior training, to put him in the context of the hunger games...Bobby is a career.

that is not to say of course that Bobby would enter the games of either world on purpose. god no he hates death games as much as the next guy. but he is in a unique position  to experice the games differently. 

speaking of lets talk about the fundamental difference between the Quillan games and the Hunger Games.

1. Hunger games have a winner 

ok now the term Winner is pretty subjective. but in the technical sense there is usually a single winner of the Hunger Games, one person survives and is rewarded with the “perks” of winning.  on the other side Bobby straight up asks 13(?) his Dado butler if any Challenger's ever retire, and the Dado answers no, they all die playing the games. so the Quillan games have no winners (except for Blok but more on them later) 

2. There is no government, the World of Quillan is run by evil Walmart 

pretty much what it says on the Tin by the time Bobby shows up Blok runs the entire place, or at least it is claimed to be that way by Nevva and Saint Dane. they are un reliable sources for sure but  we do say the board members acting as judges and governors in cases of failure to preform to the company's liking. and we do see the punishment for not being able to sell a large enough volume of jackets in summer is death...which while a bit dramatic leads us to the final major difference between Quillan and Panem 

3. The Purpose of the Quillan Games are a tool to give the people of Quillan hope for a better life, while the Hunger games, are a truly  baffling  attempt to control an enslaved populace

honestly if Panem was a territory I would say the whole hunger games idea was Saint Danes to cause the up rising, because damn the hunger games are a god awful idea. oh you don't want a group of people to rebel...I know lets take there children by force and force them to fight to the death every year! oh and let’s make them watch!  yea not a recipe for success, not to mention the fact that they gave one of those districts nukes! (the capital are damn geniuses I swear) a rebellion is inevitable. on Quillan the rebellion is also inevitable but not because of the games (ok it’s not just the games on Panem, but the Hunger games DO NOT HELP)  on Quillan the rebellion's is inevitable because of Mister Pop and there suffering. but back on topic, the People of Quillan bet on the games in the hopes of winning extra food, money a better job house etc, you know stuff that makes life suck less. but since just about everyone is dirt floor poor. they don’t have much to bet with, except...there lives! again sorry a bit melodramatic, but also true we see on several occasions people who either lose the stand alone arcade games or the proper televised games and are hauled off by Dado’s to some unknown fate. Nevva says they are either enslaved as unpaid labor or worse, forced to work in the reactors which are impossible to survive. naturally there is some betting on the Hunger games, but it is not the poor and down trodden doing it in hope of a better life. it is mostly capital dicks being capital dicks. 

4: Challengers are “better taken care of” before they die.

a man must be healthy before he can be excuted. same basic idea, since there are no winners in the Quillan games (and they are not called the Hunger games...really flexed your legs with that one huh the capital, you guys came up with that in what 10 maybe 15 minutes) they as Leebarge claims are treated like royalty, and it is true they are well fed and given nice, if clown filled rooms to live in and they throw a party every night. a party that is already pretty hefty but even more so on the days when someone doesn’t die. the tributes generally spend next to no time with each other before the games and are to busy trying not to starve to death and killing each other to throw a party during the games proper. 

but now that we have discussed the key differences let’s talk where they are on the same footing. 

1: the “Prizes”

both games have the same Prize for “winning” I put Winning in quotes because as already discussed you don’t actually win the Quillan games  you just don't lose for a while. if you win the hunger games, you become super doper dummy rich and your entire district gets more food for the entire year. oh yea that will stop people wanting to lynch you with your entrails. then again what you get for being a challenger is way way worse. according to 13 the Robo Butler, Challenger's are chosen by Veego kidnapped from there families and forced to compete, if they win there families get food, and if they lose. and they will sooner or later there family get the ashes.

2. The rise up

both Books have people  rise up after a big scale tournament, there is one big difference...Quillan is betrayed by Nevva Winter the Dado’s destroy Mr. Pop  the last shred of Non Blok controlled Cultural history on Quillan and Saint Dane has his second territory, and Bobby almost dies for nothing.  the Hunger games if I recall correctly it actually works and things suck a lot less...hopefully anyway. 

Conclusion:

this is a difficult issue to tackle but I am going to say, Quillan is worse for Joe Average. having to bet your life for a chance for food is a bit worse because it is only the illusion of hope as Saint Dane claims.  the games them selves...depends on the year but I will say Hunger games, mostly because if I recall all challengers are about Bobby’s age or a bit older 16- 18, there are no 8 year old's being forced to fight to the death. but yea other then that I would put the two death games on Par. 

do you agree? let’s discuss! thanks for reading!

[pendragonthegreat]

Nevva WInter (gimmi gimmi)

i imagine nevva is like a business major and i really want her to be in college because that's the setup i have for how she meets the rest of the characters (aja's a high school senior and she takes some classes at the college, so she meets nevva there and the rest of the group meets nevva through aja :3)

iwould really like to give her some hobbies but i feel like she's the kind of person who puts so much time and energy into work and school that she forgets to have hobbies. in the hypothetical earth au fic that could be part of her character arc. she takes up crochet or something

also in the hypothetical fic i would have her reunite and make up with her mother and at least have them end up on some kind of good terms because i love when stories are full of love and hope

[fatalism-and-villainy]

top five prideful and narratively doomed figures

ooooh such a good question! unfortunately when I get questions like this I tend to immediately forget all the media I’ve ever consumed, but I came up with some good examples here. 

1. Lucifer/Satan (Paradise Lost) - obviously. The OG Prideful and Narratively Doomed character, who so desperately wants to transcend the metaphysical bounds placed on him, while knowing that it’s impossible, and that doing evil is the only way he can approximate being equal to God, but with even those efforts amounting to nothing. Milton didn’t invent the “prideful and narratively doomed” trope but he did make it sympathetic (and sexy). 

2. Fëanor (The Silmarillion) - The fire imagery is so fitting for his character because there’s just so much intensity to everything he does - the creative energy, the intellectual restlessness, the unshakeable convictions. The way he responds to his fate by claiming that being seen as a coward is worse than being seen as a monster and countering that at least he will be remembered until the end of time….. yeah. 

3. Roy Batty (Blade Runner) - A considerable amount of my appreciation of him as a character is due to his book characterization - the movie really cuts out the juicy bits of his backstory and ideology, particularly his conception of himself as a messianic figure (and “the sanctity of android life!”), but the movie is what really gives his death an epic, tragic register (“time to die”).

4. Morgana (Merlin) -  I haven’t actually finished this series (someday! it’s on my Netflix list!) but I Know How It Ends. And, god, she started out so idealistic and firm in her convictions, and then was scared of what she was, and alone, with the only person on her side one who was primarily interested in using her (WHY DIDN’T MERLIN TRY TO HELP HER OR TELL HER HE ALSO HAD MAGIC INSTEAD OF POISONING HER), and gaaaah. 

5. Nevva Winter (Pendragon) - My being upset over Nevva being narratively doomed is partly meta - I could rant about how the resolution to her arc re the metaphysics of the worldbuilding was total bullshit, or generally how poorly/inconsistently written and lacking in interiority she was - but her arc also pushes all my narrative buttons! She grew up in a capitalist dystopia, lost both her parents at a young age, and was just fiercely intelligent and ambitious (we’re told she “challenged everything and questioned everyone”), who was seduced by the worldview of a man who promised to actively make things better for her world (UNLIKE the “good guys”) but ended up using and exploiting her and eventually became her destruction when she tried to redeem herself. (Not to mention the part where she wasn’t supposed to exist according the laws/metaphysical whatever within that fictional universe.)And I’m upset and she deserved better! 

[thewickedbohemian]

That polyfictionkin feel when you’re kin with so many sociopolitically influential figures (like in my case Beverly Barlowe, Ozymandias, Ghetsis Harmonia, Nevva Winter and Doomfist) that when shit of this magnitude hits the whirling device you feel basically “phantom influence” (as in thinking, regardless of if it’s thinking you should have the power you did in those lives or thinking you have more control than you do in your own over world events, you should have clout you don’t have and could change so many things with it if only you had the opportunity)

[theyearofrisinglight]

I keep thinking about this tweet bc I don't know??? Lmaooo like it depends on how well they're written??? Like this reminded me how I really was (maybe still am👀 a little bit) a Saint Dane fan and there were some points I was like <he's-got-a-point-you-know> (that is until the final books lol) and he has some iconic lines and the energy he has,,, but I'm even a bigger Alder stan who is the antithesis of Saint Dane in every single way.. Despite everything tho I could never throw the stone at Saint Dane. I mean I can't anyway, he'd k word me first lol. But then there are characters like Emhyr and Leo fuxcking Bonhart, or even Dandelion from the Witcher who isn't even a “bad guy”, and still I feel like throwing a boulder at them lmao so it all depends if I like them I guess not if I think I'm pure bc I'm not

[birdybirdnerd]

was planning out the next installment of the flirty bobby series, which is nevva, and decided to finally open the fuckin book and set out a solid design for her. every single time ive drawn nevva ive drawn her differently, so i went about fixing that. this is her canon appearance when she first meets bobby. idk if her outfit changes in the quillan book again but im not looking through it to find out. i do know that when dane got his makeover she got one too, but im not drawing that yet

[sosuke-of-secondearth]

As we walked along, I never  felt more insignificant. It was like being one of those fish that moved around in a giant school, with everybody turning at the exact same time. No, I take that back. At least fish have interesting things to look at. The city of Rune was nothing but a whole lot of gray, and loaded with zombies. I’d rather be a fish.

Pendragon: The Quillan Games by DJ MacHale

[fatalism-and-villainy]

10 & 19

10. do you have a guilty fav?

The Pendragon series kind of fills this role - they’re mostly dumb YA fantasy/adventure with bad worldbuilding (and plot holes/character inconsistencies so egregious that I’m convinced that last 2-3 books were ghostwritten) but they’re still very important to me and I’m ridiculously attached to all the characters. Also, Nevva Winter is one of my all-time faves and deserves a primary position on my villain couch. 

19.   Most disliked popular books:

YEAH LET’S BRING THE SALT:

1. A Separate Peace - John Knowles

It’s often hailed as a queer classic, but I don’t get the hype. It’s got absolutely atrocious pacing that interferes with any important character or relationship development that could have been done.

 2. Possession - A. S. Byatt

Why do people like this one?? It’s very critically acclaimed - it won the Booker prize and frequently appears on “best of” lists, but it aside from ambitious metafictional structuring it fell pretty short for me. Despite being subtitled “a romance”, there’s little actual feeling. I couldn’t care about the historical couple, the modern-day couple was just composed of tired gender clichés (the dead-end male academic who’s Unfulfilled in his current relationship, the frosty woman who’s emotionally closed off because she was Hurt By a Man in the Past), and parts of the book seemed weirdly disdainful of queer criticism, often expressed through the mockery of a character who hedged very close to the predatory lesbian stereotype. Nooooope. 

3. ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING BY RUPI KAUR AND SIMILAR POETS. BURN IT DOWN

4. Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn

I do not see Amy Dunne as some kind of twisted escapist fantasy. She just terrifies me. 

5. Appointment in Samarra - John O’Hara

It’s not exactly “popular” right now, but it is considered an American classic and I had it on my list for literal years, so finally reading it was such a let-down. Like a lot of American literature, it suffers from an overload of allegory that doesn’t allow for any actual character work.