#which. granted. i never played birthright.

[devotedlystrangewizard]

started sacred stones. watched franz dodge otherwise lethal attacks for 3 chapters straight. closed sacred stones

[blackjackkent]

Jaheira and Minsc Durge Conversation

So this is mostly a present for @springagainafter and @astreamofstars, but I'm pretty sure a lot of people probably don't know that if you managed to not get the Jaheira/Durge scene before getting Minsc, he shows up in the scene as well!

(I didn't get this myself, but found it while looking in the dialogue files after. :D )

So for those interested, here's how some info on how that scene plays out in that scenario.

(Strap in, folks; this is a long one. XD And the dialogue tree is very twisty, but I tried to make it as readable as possible.)

-----

Scene starts out as normal until the player's first dialogue choice:

JAHEIRA: Dark dreams? I think I can guess. Visions of blood on your hands. The blood in your veins, perhaps. For all the gifts Bhaal's children inherit - a peaceful night's sleep is not among them.

There are three different paths in the dialogue here; one of them is the path for Resist Durge, and the other two are Embrace.

The Resist Path

PLAYER: So the game is up at last. MINSC: No game. A serious matter, to rouse Boo from his beauty sleep. (Devnote: Minsc suddenly looms on the player's other side, surrounding them. He carries no weapon, but his hulking presence is threatening nonetheless.) OR PLAYER: How could you possibly know? MINSC: Boo remembers the scent of Bhaalspawn. Like rot on the tongue - meaning no offence. OR PLAYER: What are you doing, Jaheira? MINSC: She is worrying. Which worries me. Which worries Boo. Which ought to worry you. OR PLAYER: My rest was fine, until a looming druid came to pry. MINSC: We do not loom, friend. We tread soft and sure as hunting hamsters. OR (if player has already told Jaheira they're a Bhaalspawn) PLAYER: Is this the reward for my confession? A dagger in the night? MINSC: I think you are still dreaming if you see a dagger before you. She has a sword - two of them, in fact.

JAHEIRA: The dreams alone do not concern me. It is what waking deeds they might inspire. Are you truly your own master? What is it you feel, when father's dreams come calling?

PLAYER: My birthright, in all its vile glory. JAHEIRA: That birthright may well bring you to a bloody end. How many should I allow to go with you? OR PLAYER: Helpless. Like I can deny him nothing. JAHEIRA: Then would you call it mercy, if the next night I never let you wake? OR PLAYER: It's sickening. I never asked for this power, and hope to be rid of it. JAHEIRA: There is one certain way. I hold it in my hand. OR PLAYER: I don't owe you answers, especially not at sword-point. JAHEIRA: And what is it I owe? Should I allow some horror to be born anew, when I could end it here and now? OR PLAYER: Kill me then, coward. I dare you to try. JAHEIRA: Ever the Bhaalspawn's lot. To bring death, or wait for it to find them.

JAHEIRA: This is your father's true legacy. Not his children - but the fear they plant in us. The savagery it blossoms into. (Devnote: considering her blade)

MINSC: But you have reminded us that when evil calls, we might stop our ears with virtuous cotton. Hasn't she, Jaheira? (Devnote: Minsc walks to stand behind Jaheira. IF DOABLE - he clasps her shoulder, as if reminding her.)

JAHEIRA: In another time - with another of your kind - we found a better way. I would dearly like to find it again. (Devnote: Relaxing, Jaheira sighs and shethes her weapons. She steps back [to stand beside Minsc if he's present], giving the player room to stand.)

PLAYER: Tell me what I must do. [Jaheira +5, Minsc +5] MINSC: Well, you cannot understand Boo's wisdom. So I suppose we must listen to Jaheira instead. JAHEIRA: You would not be the first to turn the taint in your blood to your advantage. But there are barriers a Bhaalspawn must overcome, first. OR PLAYER: My path is mine alone to choose. MINSC: But not yours alone to walk. JAHEIRA: Whatever path you choose, I fear it will lead you to the same point. The same enemy. OR PLAYER: And if I embrace Father's power? Grant unto him my love? [Jaheira -2, Minsc -2] MINSC: It would be like swinging a sword by the wrong side. Painful - but it can be effective, too. JAHEIRA: You would not be the first to turn the taint in your blood to your advantage. But there are barriers a Bhaalspawn must overcome, first. OR PLAYER: Your past is not my future. MINSC: Leave the future for hathrans and hamsters to divine. We speak only of this moment. JAHEIRA: Whatever path you choose, I fear it will lead you to the same point. The same enemy. OR PLAYER: 'A better way?' It's too late. My cruel deeds cannot be undone. JAHEIRA: You are what you are, child of Bhaal. But that need not be all that you are. You would not be the first to turn the taint in your blood to your advantage. But there are barriers a Bhaalspawn must overcome, first.

JAHEIRA: Those of your kind. Orin - I am sure you already know that so long as she lives, she will never stop hunting you. It might be that you have to turn and face her - you cannot change that. All you can choose is how you meet her: as another bloodied child of Bhaal, or as yourself.

MINSC: And for this, you will need Boo. He has tasted Bhaalspawn flesh before - and he would not mind another bite.

JAHEIRA: For now, take what rest you can - we will watch over you this night.

PLAYER: To watch over me - or to protect against me? JAHEIRA: I suppose you'll have your answer when you wake in the morning. OR PLAYER: How do I know you won't kill me? MINSC: Are we so faithless? As you wish - while we watch over you, Boo shall be watching over us. JAHEIRA: What more could you need? OR PLAYER: Thank you. For everything. MINSC: Do not thank us, friend. It is not as if we didn't consider killing you instead. JAHEIRA: Sleep well. OR PLAYER: I won't sleep again. Tell me something of the old days, since they're on your mind. MINSC: STORIES! JAHEIRA: I don't think I have any-- MINSC: Have you ever fought with a talking sword? (Devnote: Butting in, blunt) JAHEIRA: Lilarcor. (Devnote: Camera begins to pull out and voices fade as they continue talking into the night.) MINSC: Yes! A mighty blade, but a mouthy one, too. I wonder what happened to it. JAHEIRA: I believe it went over a cliff-edge, buried in an ogre's backside. And it was still talking...

NARRATOR: No more dreams await you in sleep this night. Only the warm knowledge that, indeed - you are not alone.

Awwwww. My feelings. <3 I love them both so much. (Also LOL the bit about Lilarcor. Caden had that sword in someone's inventory for almost all of BG2 and it drove him (and me) stark raving mad. XD )

The Embrace Path

The opening of the scene is very different if the player accepted the slayer form. There are two different possible scenarios here - either Jaheira has not seen the player use the slayer form yet, or she has.

If she has not, you have a relatively calm but clearly suspicious discussion:

PLAYER: So the game is up at last. JAHEIRA: There is one last piece I've been toying with. A terrible and familiar power I've sensed around you for some time. And so I come to ask: what did it take for you to earn that Slayer-skin you hide so well? OR PLAYER: How could you possibly know? JAHEIRA: I've slept beside a Bhaalspawn before. I know the signs - the dreams, the urges... the power. And so I come to ask: what did it take for you to earn that Slayer-skin you hide so well? OR PLAYER: What are you doing, Jaheira? (OR) My rest was fine, until a looming druid came to pry. JAHEIRA: If I must lie awake, then so must you - only fair, considering that you are the reason. I've been sensing something, you see. A formless but familiar dread, which I have only now been able to put a name to. And so I come to ask: what did it take for you to earn that Slayer-skin you hide so well? OR (if player has already told Jaheira they're a Bhaalspawn) PLAYER: Is this the reward for my confession? A dagger in the night? JAHEIRA: You have not confessed it all, I think. There is something in the air tonight - the scent of a terrible and familiar power. And so I come to ask: what did it take for you to earn that Slayer-skin you hide so well?

If Jaheira HAS witnessed the Slayer form, the conversation is considerably more antagonistic:

PLAYER: So the game is up at last. JAHEIRA: Almost. There is but one piece left to play. OR PLAYER: How could you possibly know? JAHEIRA: I don't - not yet. OR PLAYER: What are you doing, Jaheira? JAHEIRA: Distracting you. OR PLAYER: My rest was fine, until a looming druid came to pry. JAHEIRA: Then we shall make this swift. OR (if player has already told Jaheira they're a Bhaalspawn) PLAYER: Is this the reward for my confession? A dagger in the night? JAHEIRA: You have not confessed it all, I think.

In this latter scenario, it turns out these short answers are just giving Minsc time to get into position to mindmeld with you via the worm:

NARRATOR: The ranger's thoughts flit through your own, searching, probing for something specific. Until he finds...

MINSC: ...No. (Devnote: Horror, denial.)

JAHEIRA: There we have our answer. But we might as well hear it from you. So - what did it take to earn that new Slayer-skin of yours?

Both Embrace scenarios reconverge at this point. Player has a number of possible responses based on their actions, but all lead to the same response from Minsc and Jaheira:

PLAYER: This power will save the world from the Absolute. The price doesn't matter. PLAYER: Innocent blood. As innocent as my own: I have no control over when my body kills. PLAYER: Bathing in my dearest friend's gore. PLAYER: Bathing in my lover's gore. PLAYER: Isobel was my doing... the rest of Last Light was an accident. PLAYER: I stole every little life in Last Light.

MINSC: You will answer for this, fiend. And it will be an answer of the screaming sort.

JAHEIRA: Wait. (Devnote: Holding hand up to Minsc, but never taking eyes off player.) You are twice-tainted, yes. But whatever you have done - you might yet serve the good. (Devnote: Relaxing, Jaheira sighs and shethes her weapons. She steps back [to stand beside Minsc if he's present], giving the player room to stand.)

MINSC: What? Evil cannot serve good, Jaheira. That is why it is evil.

JAHEIRA: You know better than that, Stone Lord. We found the good in you - and we found it in another Bhaalspawn, once before. Whatever its source, the Slayer form is a weapon like any other. And if you mean to master it, I know where you must go. To face the other of your kind - Orin. So long as the other lives, neither of you can claim your full power.

PLAYER: Don't patronise me. I can do without your guidance. JAHEIRA: It is not guidance I offer, but a leash. We will help you to control yourself - until you can free yourself of these urges, and use the Slayer form freely. The burden of your blood is yours to carry, but you need not carry it alone. OR PLAYER: And what will become of me, if I beat her? JAHEIRA: Show daddy dear that you alone choose your fate. You are a child of Bhaal - but that need not be all that you are. And when you stand against him, you will not stand alone. OR PLAYER: I intend to become Bhaal's Chosen. So bow, or die. [Jaheira -2, Minsc -2] JAHEIRA: I am truly bored of that phrase. Cast yourself into the dark if you wish. I mean to be there to pull you back - by the hand, or the scruff.

NARRATOR: A spike of rage, quickly muffled - Minsc's mind still lingers near your own, and he does not like what is coming to pass.

Player has three options here. First is one of two conciliatory conversations:

PLAYER: What if I slip out of control again? You will kill me? JAHEIRA: You will be protected. Even from yourself. For now, rest. Sleep escapes me, so I might as well take the watch. MINSC: As will I. Jaheira tells me a debt is owed - even if my heart and hamster do not understand it. NARRATOR: You rest with the knowledge that you are being watched over. Or indeed, guarded. OR PLAYER: Come on, let's go back to sleep. JAHEIRA: You first. I find that sleep escapes me, so I might as well take the watch. NARRATOR: You rest with the knowledge that you are being watched over. Or indeed, guarded.

Second is an intimidation check:

PLAYER: Or perhaps I will take you to my Father directly - as trophies. Roll (Charisma, Intimidation) vs 18 (0) (on Failure) JAHEIRA: No need for such dramatics. I will go with eyes wide open - and the hope that I know you a little better than you know yourself. [Jaheira -2, Minsc -2] For now, rest. Sleep escapes me, so I might as well take the watch. MINSC: As will I. Jaheira tells me a debt is owed - even if my heart and hamster do not understand it. NARRATOR: You rest with the knowledge that you are being watched over. Or indeed, guarded.

But third, and worst, is an [ILLITHID] option which leads, ultimately, to the same place as a success on that intimidation check:

PLAYER: Poke at Minsc's mind to stoke his rage. [Jaheira -10, Minsc -10] NARRATOR: A single prod is enough to send his fury into a twisted spiral, wrapping around you then storming over to Jaheira. MINSC: NO! (Devnote: Jerking his head furiously, mind-meld dissipating) Jaheira, she tried to make me... I almost... (Intimidation success also picks up here) NARRATOR: For a moment, the briefest, weakest moment, Jaheira appears as she truly is. Simply an old woman, uncertain and afraid. JAHEIRA: As you wish, then. We take our leave. I hope you have mastered yourself, when next we meet. If not, we will do what we must. GLO_Companion_Leave (Devnote: Jaheira backs away and leaves, Minsc trailing behind) MINSC: If there is still good in you - find it quickly, says Boo. Or the next time we meet, you will know my rage. GLO_Companion_Leave

FEEEEEEEEELS.

[catofoldstones]

I'm sorry but the post breaking down the Arya-Jeyne-North angle makes no sense. The Boltons are claiming Winterfell through the marriage to Arya aka Jeyne who is considered the Lady of Winterfell by her own birthright. They're not trying to claim Winterfell was given to them by the crown or no longer belongs to the Starks. Ramsay didn't even want to get married at Winterfell when Roose made the call to move the wedding location from Barrowton. He's claiming himself Lord of Winterfell the same way he claimed himself Lord of Hornwood through the forced marriage to Lady Donella and even Lady Dustin says him keeping his title is dependent on how he treats his wife. He needs the marriages to claim those titles, not the other way around. At no point in Dance is Jeyne ever considered Lady Bolton, she's always called Lady Arya. That's like arguing Sansa's marriage to Tyrion means the claim to Winterfell comes from Tyrion, not Sansa.

You can argue that Jeyne and Ramsay's marriage is invalid because both got married under false pretenses as the bride was pretending to be someone else, but that wouldn't negate Arya's position as Lady of Winterfell if she intends to claim the title. I think it's intentional on GRRM's part to make the question of Stark succession jumbled enough that all five of them can technically stake their claim whether through birth order, sex, legitimized degrees, might makes right and the power behind them, or simply having the claim bestowed on them before the others make themselves known.

Buckle up, it’s a long one.

I am going to go on a limb here and presume you didn’t read the whole post, did you? I literally said it a million and one times that Arya’s claim comes from her being a Stark. That is the entire point of my post.

The north believing that Jeyne is Arya (“Lady Aryq”) doesn’t make Arya Jeyne or the Lady of Winterfell by proxy. Y’all are literally running around in circles here, nothing makes sense. At one point you are claiming that Ramsay is claiming his authority through Arya because she already is the lady of Winterfell and on the other hand you’re saying that bringing Arya to the north and marrying her to Ramsay made her the Lady of Winterfell in the eyes of the Northern Lords and the readers. Make it make sense. Anyway, Lady is a title granted to all noblewomen of higher houses, a lot like how Miss/Mister worked in the 1800s to now (sort of). Arya would be Lady Arya of House Stark regardless of whether she is the heir to House Stark or not. The Lady Stark or the Lady of Winterfell will only be Catelyn Stark as it is a social position granted to the wife of the head of the House. If she had a sister-in-law, say Benjen didn’t go to the nights watch and got married, that woman would also be Lady Stark (or Lady her-maiden-name) but she would not be the Lady of Winterfell, are you getting me? The people here could be referring to Arya as ‘Lady’ because she’s a highborn girl and comes from the most noble house of the north. That makes her one of the people with the highest social standing; which I feel warrants the use of the word Lady, not to be confused with the feudal position.

I know you’re trying to play the whole Arya is the last of Starks and that is why she is the Lady of Winterfell and that is from where the Boltons are legitimising their claim to the north. But Arya is not the last of the Starks. She still has an older sister (that they know is alive when they decided on the marriage) and two brothers whose claim is superior to hers no matter how you argue. On top of that, the girl that is actually married to Ramsay is not even Arya. Arya is in Braavos training with the faceless men. Regardless, never once throughout the books, is she called the head of house stark or lady stark or the lady of Winterfell and have that be given as a reason as to why the North should fight for her. She is ‘Ned’s precious little girl’ and that is enough. Literally pulled Lady of Winterfell out of your ass.

“They’re not trying to claim the north was given to them by the crown or no longer belonging to the starks” is an insane statement to make when the royal decree is literally the only leg they have to stand on, and that they are now the unequivocal lords of Winterfell is literally exactly what they’re claiming. Bruh. Bobby B winning the crown by conquest is still valid but the Baratheons being distant cousins of the Targaryens helped. The Boltons need Stark blood to strengthen their claim not create a claim from a non-existent one, which is why they married “Arya” and which is also exactly why just any girl, and not Arya herself, worked. It is all for show.

Okay, scratch all of that. Let me make it simple. The Bolton’s claim to the north literally comes from being granted the north by royal decree. Marrying “Arya Stark” just gives the loyal northerners less reason to fight against Bolton rulership. So the Bolton derive their authority by literally being given the North by the crown after killing Robb Stark and hope to retain that claim in front of the northern lords by seemingly marrying “Arya Stark”. The former is legally and politically important. The latter is socially important. If the North wasn’t actually granted to the Boltons, Ramsay marrying Arya wouldn’t have done jack to their claim, sorry. Which leads me to the latter, having a political marriage between the Boltons and the Starks reduces the chances of a revolt by the “more loyal” northern lords. “Even Lady Dustin says him keeping his title depends on how he treats his wife”. Yes, so as to not anger the northern lords. If his claim was from the ladyship of his wife, then it wouldn’t have depended on how he treated her. Eg. Lady Hornwood. How are you proving my own point here.

Ramsay doesn’t derive his authority from his wife who is the Lady of Winterfell. He doesn’t even derive it from his wife. He married a “Stark” because it merely quells the rumbling of a revolt and makes the Boltons more palpatable as Wardens of the North. Moreover, if they were deriving the claim from Arya then Ramsay would be the Lord of Winterfell but he’s not, Roose is. If the Boltons really wanted to lay a claim to the north by marrying Arya, then they would have torn apart heaven and earth to find the real one and married the her, and that too to Roose, not Ramsay. But they can’t, because she inherently doesn’t hold that power. This also doesn’t mean that she is less of a Stark so don’t think I am trying to say that.

Do you think if hypothetically Lord Manderly married his son to Arya, would that automatically make him the liege lord of the north? Does marrying Lysa to Jon Arryn make Jon Arryn’s father the ruling lord of the Riverlands? Does it even make Jon the ruling lord of the riverlands? Even if Hoster and Edmure were dead, neither Jon Arryn nor his father would have no claim to the Riverlands. Where is this logic even coming from? It’s clearly not in universe. Your argument about Lady Hornwood holds no water because there was no royal decree that proclaimed him as the Lord of Hornwood. If there was, he wouldn’t need to marry Lady Hornwood herself, even any of her daughters to appease her subjects because her subjects are not noble houses with armies of their own. Hornwood is not the entirety of the North. The North is half the continent and therefore holds much more political sway. Hornwood is a small House. How are you even drawing parallels here? The Boltons won’t just hand wave away the royal fucking decree for no good reason especially when they stabbed and betrayed their own King for it. What made you even think of this???

Lastly, this is not GRRM trying to muddle the Stark succession. This is GRRM trying to show the reader that sometimes people with less social standing and power are abused simply because those higher than them can get away with it. He means to say that this is something that will not happen to someone from a bigger House. This was to highlight the inherently lopsided, power-imbalanced, oppressive system that is cruel to those it deems weak.

[the-other-art-blog]

Benophie wish list: Benedict and Anthony (PART 1)

It's no secret I have my criticisms about Anthony, one of them being his treatment of Benedict. I hope we see some exploration on this relationship, especially now that Johhny Bailey called Benedict "the beating heart of the family." 🥰🥰🥰

First off, I don't think it would be easy to be Anthony's younger brother. Let's be real, he was not an easy person to love until s3, even Kate struggled. And when you are in a system like the aristocracy, it's even worse. Anthony gets all the authority just for being born first, and Benedict is automatically undervalued as the spare.

I want to be fair to both of them because they both are good people. So, if at some point you feel I'm going too hard on Anthony, I promise I'll judge Benedict too here and in other posts.

I think Ben has been accumulating a lot of frustration regarding Anthony since they were children. One of my fav scenes in First Comes the Scandal (Rokesby series #4) illustrates this relationship since childhood.

Here is Anthony (7 years old) and Benedict (5 years old):

Before this scene, Anthony and Ben are described as "little terrors" by Edmund. Yes, they have fun together and were having fun before this incident, but Anthony does something to upset Benedict every now and then.

I wonder if this is how Ben got his black eye, mentioned in To Sir Phillip with Love:

My headcanon is they were practicing boxing and it got out of hand due to some brotherly teasing gone too far. Anthony threw a punch too hard and knocked Ben down by accident. I don't think Anthony meant it, but Benedict didn't move quickly enough. I wrote a little drabble about this:

And if we remember the fencing scene in s2, Anthony is a sore loser. Benedict says that whenever Anthony doesn't win, he accuses them of cheating. We can see how he reacts when Benedict bests him at fencing and it's not very mature, because he holds all the authority granted by birthright. An aristocrat like him is used to get everything he wants and he can't even deal with his brothers.

Thankfully, by the time the show began, Benedict was old enough to fight back in his own way. Some of Benedict's best moments in s2 are when he's teasing Anthony. That is one advantage of Benedict, he can tease all he wants because he's more likable (in the story), so he gets away with it. Who doesn't love this scene:

It must have been so satisfying for Benedict to see Kate winning the argument. He loves her for putting Anthony in his place.

Of course not everything is negative and this is not a post meant to trash Anthony. Benedict also has made plenty of mistakes in this relationship. For starters, he should have helped Anthony much more in estate management. He's just a couple for years younger and he must have been trained in management, just in case. Honestly, I cannot understand how an aristocrat fills his time. What was he doing? Yes, we all have lazy days, but years? of doing nothing but sleep around and attend parties? (more on this in my next post.)

Onto the positive. Anthony and Benedict are still very close despite their differences and frustrations because for 5 years they were the only children. That's a considerable age gap between them and the rest of the siblings.

The whole thing of the heir and the spare also plays into this relationship to stay as tight as it is. It falls upon them to continue their father's legacy by law (which is why Ben should have helped Anthony more). The scene before the duel tells the audience so much about this. Colin, Gregory, and the girls loved Edmund as much as Ben and Anthony, but they will never have the connection these two had with him. They knew him longer and got the chance to have more mature conversations with him.

So for good or for bad, they have to have each other backs. Yes, Anthony pushed Benedict during the fending match, but he also helped him get up.

I have divided this post in various parts cause there's so much to unpack with these brothers. So, next post will be about the Academy fiasco. If you thought this was too harsh on Anthony, wait for it. No matter how wrong it was what Anthony did, Ben is taking advantage of that to blame Anthony for his self doubt.

[muffinsandstardust]

an analysis on why i think the entities (knowledge and death hate foolish) as always with a dsmp lore-flavored lense.

tlrd: knowledge be like: "YOU HAVE SO MUCH POTENTIAL YET YOU WASTE IT!!" while death is like: "yeah he used to work form until he transferred to the rival company."

i think Knowledge beefs with foolish because he acts foolish. those who know him (including cellbit) KNOW foolish is actually insanely smart and clever, but foolish chooses not to act on it. he acts the fool, being the silly guy who turns off his brain and has everyone underestiamte him. foolish has a wealth of knowledge (even ignoring the 30k god lore) foolish collects knowledge easily because he plays all sides, and because everyone underestimates him, they tell him secrets. foolish probably knows the most about what's going on with the island behind the scenes and with the people because he's involved with everything. but he doesn't act on it. only when he's pushed does he act on the information he has and usually he doesn't even share what he knows. he never lies, but his half-truths leave a lot hidden. so I think the Knowledge entity sees beyond the act and hates him for it! most knowledge seekers on the island would KILL for half the things foolish is told and knows so easily but never shares. most would love to see foolish use his full brain and pick things apart. but he chooses not to. he'll continue acting the fool until he's forced to care. because foolish sees the value behind foolishness.

"Because everyone is a little foolish."

for Death i think this has more to do with foolish's species. foolish is a Totem of Undying, something by nature goes against death. it prevents people from dying and pulls them back together, healing them. granting them a temporary victory over death at the cost of another. so already there's attention there. then you add into the fact "I should be immortal!! IT'S MY BIRTHRIGHT!!" and "I mean being mortal? cringe." which I've always taken to mean foolish WAS immortal and is trying to gain his immortality back. which being an immortal at any point makes you against death, again by nature. being immortal is a very unnatural thing and defies the law that everything living is equalized by death. foolish isn't equal, on some level he is above most creatures because he is immune to death. and THEN if you'll indulge me there's his lore from the dsmp where foolish was A GOD OF DEATH! (not THE god A god) ((don't anyone come for me that he's a demigod foolish has never referred to himself as that and only been referred as that by others)). foolish was GOD who's domains were the sea and death, which I could do a whole analysis on how death and the ocean are linked and what that means for q!foolish. but but but the point is foolish was a god of death, he had (somewhat) control over who lived and who died. he was known as the Totem of Death because he killed and slaughtered relentlessly and death and madness followed him. but then SOMETHING happened that made foolish regret that life. so he changed, became a god of the undying with zombies and skeletons under his command and removed himself from the domain of Death. he no longer kills, he prevents kills. and isn't it so interesting now that we have totems of death on the qsmp and totems of undying prevent mortal wounds but totems of death save you after you've already bled out and succumbed to your wounds?

also anyone notice the voices foolish picked for the entities of Blood and Death? anyone notice the connections to dsmp with those voices? just me? ok.

[hresvelged]

— alliances, part II.

The way I wrote part one almost a year ago lol time flies. Part I still has stuff under her current purview! Replaying and reviewing lines both as a lord and as an antagonist in other routes really illustrates her other (and stronger) loyalties- That being the Empire itself, those who align themselves with it, and her classmates. So that is what I am going to dabble on here!

Adrestia: Adrestia is her homeland! She cares deeply about it but well recognizes its flaws. She will always fight under the Adrestian banner and nothing else. It's best known for being a monarchy with the emperor at its forefront. Adrestia also has strong military might. Edelgard's minor Crest of Seiros comes from Saint Seiros herself in due to the first emperor back in the day.

The empire has diverged from what is once was, though. While Fódlan is presently 3 separate factions, it was the empire that acted as Fódlan's first footing. The emperor position currently lacks power and is therefore just a figurehead in due to the Insurrection. Their relations with the church are not the same as other regions, either. Edelgard wants to change the power structure within Adrestia and even their surrounding territories. Her goal is to grant people power based on merit, not birthright. Being a member of the Hresvelg family also gives her access to information only the emperor knows.

Edelgard canonically starts her plans before she even enrolls at the academy, which acts both in her favor and against. She has more time to prepare nowadays, but also has more time to learn. She has more time to test the waters- To continue her silly little foreshadowing and occasional outright saying of it lol. Edelgard knows which noble houses participated in the Insurrection obviously and has seen personally what ways nobility runs corrupted, which is why she greatly wants to dismantle it and Fódlan's general uplifting of crests. Her interest in wanting to speak with Faerghan/Leicester nobles/people in general is purposeful because she wants their knowledge (and potential alliance-ship) for the future. She has never left Fódlan which is another reason why the academy enriches her. She can't travel to other places, but she can learn about it, which is also why she's interested in politics from other continents, too! Perhaps she can use their boons and banes for herself.

For as much as she does hold some info most people lack, she doesn't know everything. She hardly knows all of the Agarthan lore, their backstories, etc. The information she was told prior to enrolling at Garreg Mach was cherry picked and she is well aware of this fact.

People she's met at Garreg Mach: Bonds are a struggle for her. When Edelgard cares about someone, she means it. It's one of my favorite things about her- Just the way that, even on her path of reformations and unity, she wants to see her friends thrive. And as House Leader, she has an important role she hopes to play effectively. She wants them to view her as a strong leader (even if strict and doting at times) in order to encourage them to do their utmost. She will commend people who have a strong will. This is one of the first things she'll judge people on.

While these snippets are from 3 Hopes, I think the lines are important enough to at least show the way she still cares about her friends despite being on opposite sides of a battlefield and regards them as such, not dismissing the time spent together. She'll say stuff like:

(To Petra) It's been a while, Petra. You know it's not too late for you to come back to the Empire. What do you say? (To Dorothea) Then say no more and prepare to lose once again. I'll drag you back to the Empire myself.

She'd prefer to have them back on her side. Therefore, the same very much extends pre-skip. The longer she knows a muse, the more her convictions about them will be swayed one way or another. Her own is strong and she won't waver no matter what, though. Gaining different outlooks is something she needs, even if she is not always aware of it.

(From Ferdinand Hopes A support) I cannot begin to guess where that idea sprung from, but this is exactly why I need you beside me as we shape the future of Adrestia.

Her dynamic with Hubert is also very important to her (albeit different compared to some of the other bonds she has), but the TLDR of that is she's grateful for her retainer and is one of the few people she does trust. He knows her deepest secrets canonically and does work she is not capable of.

I am also pretty sure I've mused on this briefly, but I purposefully do not have her use the word 'friend' terribly often. It's not because she doesn't want friends lol much the opposite! She does! The feeling of having others she can rely on is greatly cherished to her, but it has to be a grown bond. After walking on constant eggshells, it's hard for her to just befriend anyone. Edelgard is not the best liar though so when she speaks those words of kindness, she means them. She cares for the people in her life and will uplift them/encourage them to do their best.

But she is aware that she walks a path of a lonely emperor. She's prepared her heart to be alone even if she doesn't wish it so. She can't win a fight on her own, nor could she even be a successful House Leader, without others.

The Hresvelg family: Edelgard is the only heir to the throne after her siblings all died from their experimentations. She was not raised specifically to be Emperor, but obviously she was still brought up as a literal princess and therefore is regal/a noble/has a retainer/etc. She always had a rather strict personality, though that is not in due to preparing for the throne. That's just who she is lol.

Her family and what happened to them is an extremely strong factor in perpetuating her resolve. Edelgard did believe in the goddess at one point. It was during her imprisonment specifically that made her lose this trust. Nobody was helping her and she felt very trapped until she ultimately emerged with two crests.

She also knows what happened to her father during the Insurrection of the Seven. He has become just a figurehead and the power is no longer really his. Edelgard holds no ill will towards him. Even in Engage, she muses about this as an emblem in her bond conversation with Madeline:

Edelgard: Mother passed away when I was very young. Father was kind… Too kind for an emperor.

She refers to him as 'too kind for an emperor' and I think she does care about him. I do believe he didn't spend hours and hours with her since he was busy with other stuff and I think she spent plenty of time with her Uncle, even including that he's the one that took her to Faerghus during the Insurrection for her protection (which is why the body snatching is extra Oof). She recalls little of her Mother but she's been told that she was a nice and good person and when she visits the Goddess Tower, she muses about how her parents met there. She even believes they were truly in love which touches her. In her 3H coronation scene though, she says:

Within your eyes, I saw true care. And upon your fists clenched tight with indignity, I saw the blood that dripped and fell. Even as I bled, I felt that you, too, must also be bleeding.

She was speaking from the heart. I have written other HC posts about her siblings before, but I think she was closer to the few younger ones and would definitely watch the older ones. They did not all possess the Crest of Seiros, either. I'd believe whomever the original Hresvelg heir was did have the crest, though. Three Hopes also gave the fun sentence that "there are hunting grounds near Enbarr that the Imperial family uses for outings" so I'm sure she once had fond memories with this activity, too.

She will always keep the promise she made to them. They are allies in heart and mind.

[richincolor]

There are many books coming out this month, and I thought it would be fun to highlights five of them with gorgeous covers that caught my attention. Have any of these caught your eye yet?

Damned if You Do by Alex Brown Page Street

Seven years ago, Cordelia Scott’s abusive father left without a word, and life has been normal ever since. The seventeen-year-old spends her days stage managing the school play (which is going great, if anyone asks), pining over her best friend, Veronica, and failing one too many pop quizzes. She’s never been sad that her father left, but she knows something is...missing. When her school guidance counselor, Fred, reveals during a session that he’s actually a demon, she learns that something is indeed missing: a piece of her actual soul. Why? She unwittingly made a deal with him to make her father disappear – then bargained to have the memory erased. To make matters worse, Fred is here to make another bargain: Help him with a “little” demonic problem, or she’s doomed to spend eternity in Hell with her father. The deal? Help Fred neutralize a rival demon, who means to do more harm in her hometown than your average demon deal. --Cover image and summary via Goodreads

The Dark Place by Britney S. Lewis Disney Hyperion

Seventeen-year-old Hylee Williams didn't ask to disappear. But she did disappear, and not only that, but when she vanished from our world, she materialized in a dark, twisted version of the night that changed her life forever: the night her older brother went missing. Just as Hylee realizes this moment could be the key to unraveling the truth about her brother, she's yanked away from the dark place back to our world. Craving a sense of normalcy, she goes to a party with her best friend--where she meets Eilam Roads. Tall, handsome, and undeniably, inexplicably familiar, Hylee can't help the pull she feels towards him. It's a classic teen girl-meets-boy situation, until it happens again. She disappears, right in front of him. Together, Hylee and Eilam investigate the truth about time, space, and reality, with Hylee increasingly convinced her time travel holds the key to saving her brother. But the more they learn, the more Hylee begins to see darkness lurking in her world--and in herself. -- Cover image and summary via Goodreads

Forged by Blood (The Tainted Blood Duology #1) by Ehigbor Okosun Harper Voyager

In the midst of a tyrannical regime and political invasion, Dèmi just wants to survive: to avoid the suspicion of the nonmagical Ajes who occupy her ancestral homeland of Ife; to escape the King’s brutal genocide of her people—the darker skinned, magic wielding Oluso; and to live peacefully with her secretive mother while learning to control the terrifying blood magic that is her birthright. But when Dèmi’s misplaced trust costs her mother’s life, survival gives way to vengeance. She bides her time until the devious Lord Ekwensi grants her the perfect opportunity—kidnap the Aje prince, Jonas, and bargain with his life to save the remaining Oluso. With the help of her reckless childhood friend Colin, Dèmi succeeds, but discovers that she and Jonas share more than deadly secrets; every moment tangles them further into a forbidden, unmistakable attraction, much to Colin’s—and Dèmi’s—distress. The kidnapping is now a joint mission: to return to the King, help get Lord Ekwensi on the council, and bolster the voice of the Oluso in a system designed to silence them. But the way is dangerous, Dèmi’s magic is growing yet uncertain, and it’s not clear if she can trust the two men at her side. A tale of rebellion and redemption, race and class, love and trust and betrayal, Forged by Blood is epic fantasy at its finest, from an enthusiastic, emerging voice. -- Cover image and summary via Goodreads

I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me by Jamison Shea Henry Holt and Co.

There will be blood. Ace of Spades meets House of Hollow in this villain origin story. Laure Mesny is a perfectionist with an axe to grind. Despite being constantly overlooked in the elite and cutthroat world of the Parisian ballet, she will do anything to prove that a Black girl can take center stage. To level the playing field, Laure ventures deep into the depths of the Catacombs and strikes a deal with a pulsating river of blood. The primordial power Laure gains promises influence and adoration, everything she’s dreamed of and worked toward. With retribution on her mind, she surpasses her bitter and privileged peers, leaving broken bodies behind her on her climb to stardom. But even as undeniable as she is, Laure is not the only monster around. And her vicious desires make her a perfect target for slaughter. As she descends into madness and the mystifying underworld beneath her, she is faced with the ultimate continue to break herself for scraps of validation or succumb to the darkness that wants her exactly as she is—monstrous heart and all. That is, if the god-killer doesn’t catch her first. From debut author Jamison Shea comes I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me , a slow-burn horror that lifts a veil on the institutions that profit on exclusion and the toll of giving everything to a world that will never love you back.

Her Radiant Curse by Elizabeth Lim Knopf Books for Young Readers

One sister must fall for the other to rise. Channi was not born a monster. But when her own father offers her in sacrifice to the Demon Witch, she is forever changed. Cursed with a serpent’s face, Channi is the exact opposite of her beautiful sister, Vanna—the only person in the village who looks at Channi and doesn’t see a monster. The only person she loves and trusts. Now seventeen, Vanna is to be married off in a vulgar contest that will enrich the coffers of the village leaders. Only Channi, who’s had to rely on her strength and cunning all these years, can defend her sister against the cruelest of the suitors. But in doing so, she becomes the target of his wrath—launching a grisly battle royale, a quest over land and sea, a romance between sworn enemies, and a choice that will strain Channi’s heart to its breaking point. Weaving together elements of The Selection and Ember in the Ashes with classic tales like Beauty and the Beast, Helen of Troy, and Asian folklore, Elizabeth Lim is at the absolute top of her game in this thrilling yet heart-wrenching fantasy that explores the dark side of beauty and the deepest bonds of sisterhood. -- Cover image and summary via Goodreads

[fayesdiary]

ohoho, 1, 21, 22, and 25 for the complaints ask game!

Peace was never an option🔪

Complaint ask game

1) The character everyone gets wrong

Camilla. No question. It's so bad even the devs get her wrong.

Although it's understandable when they take a character who has clearly defined positives and flaws as well as a reason for why she is the way she is, and turn her into miss fanservice by quite litterally constantly showing her boobs and ass to your face. Also the Cowmilla comment. (I will forever be salty about her Birthright cutscene. All the other siblings besides Sakura and Elise get cool cutscenes and she gets... that. Just to show off her private parts)

It's just- there is so much more to Camilla than meets the eye, so seeing most of the fanbase as well as the devs view her as nothing more than a sex symbol that may have incestous feelings for Corrin (granted, that one's more on the fandom), and it's just so disappointing and frustrating. Also I may be wrong but I remember people diagnosing her in the early days as in, a derogatory way. Because nothing like vilifying mental illness.

21) Part of canon you think is overhyped

*whispers*... Genealogy's writing.

Don't get me wrong, it has plenty going for it, but at the same time it sometimes won't stop bombarding you with so much exposition at once for things that aren't even necessary at the moment (less of an objective flaw, more of an "my ADHD ass will never remember everything you throw at me this way"), stuff that even gets to the optional dialogue, as usual most of the characters have very little dialogue unless you hit very specific conditions (and don't even get me started on the marriage mechanic), the game kinda peaks at Gen 1.

Not to mention Jugdral is definitely good as a world, yes... But unless you start factoring in outside material and Thracia, it's not as deep as some fans make it up to be. Which is not a problem for me but at the same time look, it ain't no Similarion.

Most of it could easily be fixed with a remake, I'll admit. Provided they don't fuck it up by, say, adding an avatar. (and if I do I will start killing)

22) Your favorite part of canon everyone else ignores

Valla. Or, well, more the idea of Valla than the actual execution, but I will still die on this hill that it could have been so good if the writers actually bothered doing something with it to make it an actual place that people used to live in.

25) Common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing

Wildly gestures at everything about Fates

Look, I really like Fates and it's far from a perfect game, but most of the criticism it gets it feels either in bad faith or from someone who hasn't played it for a long time or is just parroting something someone else said because Fates is the acceptable game to clown on.

And oh my god, it's been seven years, consantly whining about a game you didn't like is not constructive criticism, move on.

[thepurplewombat]

I read this addition and immediately fell asleep but that's good because apparently I do a lot of braining while asleep.

Anyway yeah! Let's talk about NHS and why he's perceived much more positively than JGY despite arguably doing very similar.

The thing is that while superficially they do appear to be occupying the same kind of role in the story, Nie Huisang is actually in a male role - the Useless Second Son. Which is actually a pretty common trope in fiction in general.

It's all in the type of power they have.

NHS' power is not tied to his position, it's tied to his person. When NMJ dies, NHS becomes Sect Leader in his place. If, on the other hand, NMJ had died while MY was still with the Nie, Meng Yao would have been at the mercy of NHS or whoever became sect leader. NHS (who is the only person in this fucking book whose name I will never write out, because I can never figure out how to spell it, I think there's a rogue 'a' in there somewhere? Anyway) has intrinsic power - granted by the sect's acceptance of his brother as Sect Leader and him as heir, but still much more secure than Meng Yao's, which is granted only by Nie Mingjue and can be (and is!) removed the moment he falls out of favor with the leader he is attached to.

NHS is free to disobey his brother and be generally useless because his power is tied to his person - ie who he is, which is Nie Mingjue's baby brother - not his position.

And this is again, a male type of power, historically speaking, compared to the power JGY wields. While a woman in pre-modern times would have had access to power through a man, and would lose that access if she lost favor or the man died, NHS, while superficially appearing in a similar position while NMJ is alive, is actually in the position of Heir, and ascends to power when his brother dies (I'd bet money that Useless Second Son is a role played by many second sons in history, too, because nobody wants someone both clever and ambitious in a position to take the throne when they die).

Now, why NHS is perceived more positively than JGY, I'm spitballing here but I'd guess it has to do with a: the fact that despite initial appearances he is actually in a masculine role, and b: he's a Useless Second Son, which also occupies a sort of liminal place.

He is allowed to accept protection from more powerful men because he's a little brother, and accepting protection from your elder brother or his friends is not the same thing as accepting protection in exchange for service from a man you have no connection to otherwise. So his occupying the same kind of position as JGY is overlooked because in a way he is seen as having more of a right to that protection and reflected status than Meng Yao does.

Also, second sons/heirs/foppish young men are not held to the same standards as women. They can use the kinds of tools women would traditionally use, as NHS does from beginning to end, but that's okay, because...well essentially because misogyny. When a man occupying a masculine role does it he's clever. When a woman, or a man in a feminine position does it, she's scheming.

It also has to do with the way he plays into and accepts his archetype and uses it to further his own ends, rather than rebelling against it as JGY does.

JGY's problem is ultimately that he doesn't want reflected power granted by whichever powerful man he has convinced to take him under his wing. He wants intrinsic power like what NHS, JZX, and arguably JC have, and which is ultimately his birthright as a son of JGS. In a just world, JGY would have been free to be a Useless Scheming Prettyboy just like NHS, but that's not the role he's cast into. If he'd been more accepting of the fact that he could only hold power through the benevolence of more powerful men - ie, NMJ, WRH, JGS and to be honest eventually Jin Ling (I know there's some debate as to whether JGY was Sect Leader Jin in his own right or acting as regent for Jin Ling, but my take is that he was a regent, so his power as Sect Leader Jin is dependent on Jin Ling's power as the heir to the sect, which again casts him into a feminine role because he is occupying a place that, had they lived, would have gone to JYL or Madam Jin, ie. The regent to an underage heir) he would most likely have lived longer. It's the Jafar problem - if Jafar had been satisfied with being the power behind the Sultan's throne, he would have been better off at the end of the story. But Jafar doesn't want to be behind the throne, he wants to be on it, so he oversteps and the narrative punishes him for it. If, on the other hand, he had been raised in the Jin sect as a second son, with that inherent power, he probably would have been satisfied being Jin Zixuan's right hand, because he would have felt secure in his position in a way that canon JGY never could, because canon JGY never got to have the...I originally typed power but I think privilege is a better word for what NHS and the theoretical JGY who was raised as Jin would have had. It's more than power, it's a feeling of being secure in the power you have.

(...and I think I just talked myself into hating Lan-furen as a concept, because JGY would absolutely hate being so dependent on LXC, and even if it started out as love it would probably end in blood. Dammit.)

But back to the theoretical JGY raised as second son - some people would probably go 'oh but he would pull a Scar and kill his brother' and I'm not seeing it? Because the thing is that Scar is not satisfied with his role, and kills Mufasa in order to gain power that he shouldn't have. In MDZS, JGY never kills in order to gain power he isn't entitled to. He kills the commander who was bullying him and taking credit for his ideas (stealing credit to which Meng Yao is entitled), he kills Wen Ruohan to get his father's acknowledgement (to which he is entitled as JGS' son), he kills NMJ partly on his father's orders and partly because if he doesn't, NMJ will kill him, and he kills JGS because he's learned that his father was always in a position to give both JGY and Meng Shi what they were entitled to (safety and security) , but decided not to. The brothel, he burns in revenge and the Tingshan He are killed on his father's orders. He does get JZX killed, but I'm fairly sure that he didn't intend that (novel canon specifically here btw, I think CQL JGY probably was hoping that JZX would kick it).

So no, I don't believe that a JGY raised as a second son - ie the same position of masculine power that NHS occupies - would scheme for power he isn't entitled to, because throughout the novel he is only scheming to get what he should have had already according to the rules of their society. A JGY raised as a second son to Jin Zixuan's heir apparent would have felt much more secure in the power he did wield, and most likely would have been quite similar to NHS - less useless, but not a threat to the hierarchy.

(otoh a JGY raised as a second son and secure in that position might actually have been happy as Lan-furen, because it is the place of second sons to be married off, and he still would have had the security of being a Second Son)

I think canon JGY and Madam Yu would have understood each other pretty well though, because although they use different methods, neither of them are satisfied with traditionally feminine power and grasp for their own personal power.

I'm sorry if this doesn't make a lot of sense btw, it's 7am here and I've been writing on this since I woke up at 5 😭.

It occurs to me that part of the reason why people in fandom react so badly to JGY killing NMJ is misogyny.

Because like, he poisons him. And poison is a woman's weapon because women are, or were, often without any other weapons.

But actually it also just occurred to me that JGY is cast throughout his past in a very traditionally feminine type of way? Like, not explicitly but if you look at the way that he is dependent on the powerful men around him - JGS, NMJ, WRH - to give him status and some ability to affect his fate within the limits of what they allow...that's a feminine role! That is the role of a woman in a patriarchal society - dependent, with her reputation constantly on the edge of ruin. And being physically weaker and not as good at cultivation as the people around him also plays into that because he doesn't have the same kind of options another man might have in a similar situation - he's not in a position to go and make his fortune because he doesn't have the kind of skills or strength he'd need. Like, if WWX got sick of the Jiangs, he could absolutely go and make a good living as a rogue cultivator, but JGY? He can't do that - his options are either give up on cultivation altogether, or gain power in whatever way he can. In his case, in a way that is most often used by women in this kind of setup - ie, becoming important to important men.

And that's always been painted as such a negative thing (because the patriarchy! And because women wanting agency over their lives, livelihoods, and bodies is a Sign of the End Times!) that in part, JGY would already be subconsciously tainted in fandom's eyes. Even if he never killed NMJ. Even if he never killed anyone at all, he'd still be sus because he's a: following a traditionally feminine route to power which b: has traditionally been disdained (at some point I will talk about how 'gold digger' is an insult when for large parts of human history a woman's only path to financial security did in fact lie in marrying well).

And it's also interesting just how much of JGY's story is about sex when as far as we know the man had sex exactly once. And that's a feminine thing too! Like, he's tainted by his mother's profession and his father's reputation in a way that his father never is. He ends up married to his sister, which is somehow painted as his fault even though JGS is clearly at fault, he's harassed by his brother...the way JGY's life is affected by sex he isn't even having, by the rumors of it and his origins, that's a very feminine situation to be in, you know?

(at this point I want to take a moment to clarify that when I say feminine I'm not calling him a woman, I'm saying he occupies a role in the story that is traditionally assigned to women, and lives a life more like that of a woman in a patriarchal society than a man)

But anyway, back to NMJ and his death. So we have a big strong man lashing out physically against someone weaker than them, and eventually the big strong man dies and it turns out it was poison. And gasp! It's horrible! It's horrible in a way that NMJ swinging his sword around and threatening JGY's life doesn't seem to be for a lot of people.

But why is it that JGY's poisoning of NMJ is regarded so much more negatively than NMJ's repeated attempts to kill him? Is it just because he succeeded? Or is it maybe because poison is a woman's weapon? It's sneaky and underhanded and not 'honorable' but like, what were his other options? Challenge him to a duel?

Anyway I think I had a point but then I got distracted, but here's some closing words.

Throughout his life, JGY is put into situations that are traditionally inflicted on women, dependent on powerful men for his survival, and uses traditionally feminine means to ensure his survival when the powerful men he's beholden to turn on him. Maybe we should take a good long look at why his actions are viewed as worse than what anyone else in the story does.

[brotherslayer]

I was going through the manhwa and it hit me that unlike Athy and Jennette's dresses, we never see anyone dissecting the meaning behind Claude or Anastacius's costume, even though they have much underlying symbolism to offer with all their varying colours and motifs. And these are the two most rich characters in terms of backstory and human relationships. Ur detailed dissection on Jennette's costumes are so good that I'm scarily tempted to tempt u to do this one. Will u do this one analysis🥺???

I don't know anything about the medals or the flowers on Claude's clothings since I'm don’t know flower language... But I can give my thoughts on some of his clothings.

Claude wears three types of clothings throughout the manhwa: 1. royal military uniforms 2. togas 3. victorian children clothings of the upper/middle class (play suits + sailor suits).

What is striking is that all three types of clothings he wore can be associated with freedom and oppression equally (1. military 2. ancient romans 3. royal navy).

Let's start with the first outfit he wore as a child: The sailor suit.

In 1846, the four-year-old Albert Edward, Prince of Wales was given a scaled-down version of an enlisted man’s sailor suit. It was almost certainly a carefully chosen decision calculated to make the public associate the monarchy which had declined in popularity with the most popular institution in Britain -The Royal Navy.

What do we know about the royal navy? Besides it’s role in British colonialism and the suppression of many Asian and African peoples, it helped to defeat a series of opponents for the most part countries goverened by authoritarian or dictatorial rulers (Philip II, Louis XIV, Napoleon, Kaiser Wilhelm II), in other words: tyrants.

Sailor suits which are associated with childishness and innocence stand in juxtaposition to it’s militaristic origin . It’s a reminder how young Claude was still pure and innocent, yet without being fully aware of it he was thrown into a battle for succession at such a young age, and expected to survive or die trying.

We could also dvelve into color theory a little bit: Brown is mostly associated with humility, plainness and poverty. It could be a reminder of his commoner origin. Perhaps it tells us that his mother didn’t have much money back then and Claude had to get dressed in clothes that didn’t gave away easily how often they got mended or got dirty, because his mother could only afford a few sets of clothing. This is only a speculation: perhaps the money meant for Claude was mostly used for the treatment of his mother’s sickness. (I can’t see the Emperor paying the treatment of a chronically ill lover. Unless he actually loved her).

We could also assume that Claude intentionally picked out plain brown clothing that would allow him to blend well with the environment. The flashback in chapter 73 shows us little Claude hiding behind the bushes from the palace guards. Considering his state of increased alertness, he seemed to be used to sense danger approaching and find ways to hide quickly and efficiently.

Ah before I forget too much brown can also create feelings of sadness, isolation and loneliness...alright, you get what I mean, I stop here. 

Now to Anastacius. While Claude’s attire is more lowkey about it’s violent origin: Anastacius’ is more upfront. He’s already aware of the situation he is in. He knows his little brother is more talented than him and feels threatened enough to consider the words of Caracks who tried to lure him away. Anastacius wears something resembling a mix of military uniform and a victorian play suit in blue and red.

Blue was also considered the most prestigious colour, and was granted to “royal” regiments.

I think Anastacius and Claude’s outfits were meant to show that they were at a crossroad in life. When Ana was still friendly with Claude he started out wearing play outfits and then as his relationship with Anastacius deteriorated, gradually started to wear normal suits and uniforms until he was wearing his ceremonial military uniform at the day he killed Ana.

The Obelia brother’s wearing a military uniform signifies that they are at war with someone. They are ready to spill blood. You can see it in The Lovely Princess, where when Athy meets Claude for the first time, instead of a toga he is wearing a military uniform and continues to do so almost until his death. We know that Diana was the one who introduced him to Siodonna’s fashion. With the memories of her gone, so was the peaceful presence in his life and he became a misanthrope. The memory spell had taken full affect and he was incapable to love or care for Athy in any way. Athy became his biggest torment, his enemy. Similarly our! Claude is only wearing a military uniform at official occations like Athy’s debutante ball, where he had to face the nobles which he resented so much. And even now, in the latest chapters he bothered to change his clothes with magic from a toga into a uniform when he reunited with his elder brother.

Whenever Anastacius and Claude are wearing a military uniform they are meeting someone hated (LP verse Claude met Athy, birthday baquet! Claude met the nobles (Roger), and now in chapter 109 he met his brother who had tried to kill him), they either want to demonstrate strenght (the uniform at Athy’s birthday baquet was more show) or they are ready to attack (the uniform in the recent chapters was more practical to move in).

However they are also stress on the fact that they belong to the royal family and are ought to be respected.

Ana wore almost constantly military uniforms, because he felt the need to show that he was the heir. Not only by birthright, but also in appearance. Only when he went undercover he switched his wardrobe to suits (still, in purple in the color of royality) and puffy shirts. You can see it when Anastacius entered the palace with Jennette. When Ana is fighting against Claude he is either wearing a royal blue (past) or a combination of red and black (present).

“ Black and red. In western culture, these are the two most sinister colors, as red typically conveys the meaning of blood or anger, and black is that of darkness or death. Being a very visually striking combination, they can also convey a sense of power. Together, they additionally give the impression of burning coal or wood, i.e. "fire and destruction".”

(TV Tropes: Red and Black and Evil All Over)

In his previous life he bought fire and destruction upon Obelia...like in Athy’s nightmare remember? So it’s is kind of a bad omen as well.

Anastacius uniform in black and red forms a strong contrast to Claude’s uniform, which is dyed in colors of purple and pure white. “The color purple is often associated with royalty, nobility, luxury, power, and ambition. Purple also represents meanings of wealth, extravagance, creativity, wisdom, dignity, grandeur, devotion, peace, pride, mystery, independence, and magic.”

My point is that Ana’s appearance reflect his state of mind. Being all the time at war with his brother. The paranoia to get overthrown.  The fear not to be enought. He insisted on wearing the ceremonial royal uniform, the crown and the coat, in royal colors, because he felt inferior towards Claude and it made him feel safer. If he thought his own skills as heir were lacking he sought to compensate with the way he presented himself in public (his inferiority complex might have contributed to his lavish livestyle and tendency to waste money). 

The only exception where Ana is not wearing a uniform is a scene during the time of Ana and Claude’s falling out. But he still emphasizes that he belongs to the Imperial family in another way: The brooch on his vest, has the same blue shade as the color of his eyes, which are a trademark sign that only the Imperial family possesses. In chapter 109, Claude and Athy chose to wear a similary colored brooch to show that they are the “true” heirs.

[driftward]

Title: Guard Characters: Karasawa Atraxae, Thancred Waters Rating: Teen Summary: Karasawa has a big sword and a big attitude, which is good, as she is about to have a big day Notes: Oh you thought it was over when FFXIVWrite2022 was over, but you cannot stop Karasawa Atraxae

Adventuring was, on the whole, a pretty good gig, Karasawa thought.

It let her travel around plenty. It made her friends, and the people of this realm seemed to be glad for her presence, which was interesting and different and well maybe that'd play out differently than it had in the past.

Which was a really long time ago, actually.

Interesting to think about.

Anyroad, she learned more about the local politics and peoples and foods and places and generally made herself useful.

The entire time, she kept Hydaelyn's words in her mind.

Guide she had said. That was yet beyond her.

Help, she had said. And Karasawa hoped she had been helping.

Guard, she had said.

And so Karasawa picked up her sword.

-*-

She watched from the overlook. A dusty outcropping above a lake of some sort, one of the few places where water pooled in this vast desert they called Thanalan. And in the middle of the lake was a large stone formation, rather like a mountain turned upside down, which shielded much of the lake from the intensity of the sun.

And in a crevasse leading to this watering hole was Owyne. A man who she had only just made the acquaintance of. A crown of some sort had been stolen on his watch. Apparently, this was important. And in his guilt, he sought to make amends, hoping to retrieve it by making a deal with those who had stolen it.

Karasawa was here to make sure he survived the encounter. If she was really lucky, she would make sure they regretted taking it in the first place, but Owyne didn't need to know that part.

As he parlayed with the bandits, Karasawa saw him look over his shoulder at her just once, warily. She gave him her best reassuring smile. That is to say, a big one, with too many teeth.

It wasn't for him, not really. She made sure to slide her gaze over to the assholes across from him.

She knew what she looked like. It had taken some work and some fiddling with her tools, but she had at last managed to figure out how to tap into some rather different magics than those she had learned at the thaumaturge's guild. Her creation magics, her birthright, still evaded her, but she knew theory, and she knew facts, and she knew how to tap into dark chaos.

And so she stood, implacable, on the overlook. She wore heavy metal armor, with bone-like decoration, and red scarring where it looked fit to threaten to tear itself apart into something more terrible. And leaning into the fact that she seemed rather larger than the average person in this age, she held a sword longer than she was tall. Right now its point was buried in the ground, and both her hands where on its hilt.

Guard, Hydaelyn may have said, but those who opposed her thought to embrace darkness.

Karasawa was going to give them darkness.

The bandit leader did not seem to notice her appearance, as he continued to browbeat Owyne, clearly believing himself to have the upper hand. Karasawa could hear the conversation, though she didn't understand much of it. References to places she'd never heard of and things she'd never known about.

"Create an undead army" came across clearly enough though. As did "doom of Sil'dah", wherever that was.

And "Grant you a quick death."

"There's too many, Karasawa! Run! Run while you still can! I ... I will do my duty," Owyne yelled up at her.

Guard, the memory of Hydaelyn said.

"Like HELLS," yelled Karasawa, as she tapped into the resonance. She may not have had her full powers, but still she had power, and her voice echoed across the water and around the land as she twisted her wrist and yanked her sword out of the ground.

A moment later, and she was airborne, gigantic two-hander in her hands, soaring above those who would do harm.

A moment after that she landed, landing in the water and stabbing her sword deep into the lakebed. With her came the power of a dark chaos, as fissures opened and dark spikes tore up towards the sky with faint blood red energy smoking off of them.

Her enemies were scattered, and she stood to her feet slowly, staring at their leader as she pulled her sword out of the ground once more. Water droplets turned red in the air as they drifted through the deep purple miasma that flowed around her. With one hand, she held the huge sword aloft, and pointed its tip at his throat.

"Yield," she demanded.

She heard voices behind her, and she spared a glance for them. She could see Papashan and the other Sultansworn coming to reinforce and backup Owyne, circling around him, guarding him.

Good.

The bandits regained their footing around her, but she just stood, her challenge made.

"Meddlesome fools! You know not whom you face! Hearken to me, denizen of the abyss! Slay these interlopers and feast upon their souls!" their leader yelled.

"I'm not making time for this shite," muttered Karasawa, and she strode forward a few heavy steps, before swinging her sword in a wide arc around her. Red followed in its wake, and a moment later she held a hand towards the sky and made a fist. The air itself opened up, rent asunder into blackness, and dark chaotic energies flowed through the rifts, flowing into and through the bandits.

They screamed and yelled and fell down as their bodies were wracked with pain. A black snake of energy pushed itself through the chest of the bandit leader, and he gasped, grabbing at his heart as he collapsed into the lake. He flailed as he went, splashing, coughing, spluttering.

"A voidsent!" someone yelled out.

"Bloody hell, again?" said Karasawa. Well, it was more of a yell. She was still channeling. She approached the space where the bandit leader had fallen, and she raised her sword over her head, and brought the flat of it down, hard, upon him.

He was still after that, and she glared around at the others. Some of them elected to stay down where they were in the water. Otherwise were running. Some were electing to try and sweep around her to head towards the Sultansworn and take their chances with them.

And then there was that damned voidsent their leader had summoned, another long-bodied sinewy thing, like the one that had attacked the Lady Lilira. It was flapping its little wings, and sweeping down to join the battle.

"We'll take care of these brigands!" yelled Papashan. "Handle the voidsent!"

"Right!" Karasawa yelled back. She let her sword rest in the water for a moment, still holding it by its hilt, as she held her hand out towards the voidsent and frowned, gritting her teeth, and focused.

She would keep them safe.

By any means possible.

She reached into the dark abyss of thaumaturgy. She knew the risks of doing so without the benefits of a focusing rod or her natural talents, but she had built up something different, even in the short span of this battle. A sphere of dark energy formed in the palm of her hand, and with a grunt, her arm recoiled as it flew away from her, black smoke pouring off of it. It threatened to tear her arm apart, but she held together, held herself together, and focused, aiming it, steering it, until the energy that had threatened to unmake her made its way into the voidsent.

And unmade it instead.

It fell out of the sky shrieking as she released the energies from her control and the chaotic energy unravelled its form. Karasawa wasted no time, following after it as it fell, and as it landed, she brought her sword up over her head, and then brought it down in a heavy overhand chop, using aether to power her form for follow-through.

The creature howled and vanished in a puff of purple energies, returning to wherever it had come from.

That, apparently, was enough for the bandits. They began to break and run, and the Sultansworn followed after them.

"After them!" yelled Papashan. "This group sought only to delay us - they still have the crown!"

Karasawa just frowned at where the voidsent had vanished, and hoisted her sword into its scabbard on her back. She turned as Owyne came to her, making sure to run by her before he followed after his fellows.

"You are a terror," he said, but he smiled. "...thank you. I need to go help them, but we'll speak again back at the city."

Karasawa nodded at him, and he ran off, following after his fellows, chasing the bandits into the deserts and canyons of Thanalan.

She didn't follow. She had done her job, and they didn't need her anymore. She looked down at the hand she had used to summon that last bolt of chaotic energy, and flexed it open and shut several times, before slowly opening it one last time, watching as muscle and tendon moved, glad to still have functionality in that hand.

"Well, that was fun," she said.

"The source of her strength becomes clear..." intoned a voice from nearby.

"Oy, now what?" said Karasawa, her hand returning to the hilt of her sword as she looked around for the source of the voice.

"You may have bested the golem, but you will not fare so well this day," the voice continued.

"Iunno who the bloody hell's talkin', but I'm gettin' pretty tired of people what are too fond of the sound of their own voice," said Karasawa. "That's my bloody shtick."

The voice began to chant. "O mournful voice of creation! Send unto me a creature of the abyss, my thrall to command, that I may smite mine enemies!"

She spotted him at last. How she hadn't seen him before she wasn't certain, as the arsehole apparently felt the need to float in the air not very far from her while he was running his mouth. It was a hooded man, similar to before.

With that damnable mask she found all too familiar on his face.

She pulled her sword off her back as a black portal opened nearby. Beyond it she could see purple mist and dark clouds, but of greater interest was the large creature that walked out of it. It looked like the two voidsent she had dispatched already in many respects. Body too thin, muscles sinewy, dark leathery skin. Horns. Big beady eyes. This one didn't have wings.

It did have two swords as big as the one she was carrying now, however.

"Aw, bloody hell," she said.

"Your very being imperils the plan. You cannot be suffered to live. Soon, you shall take your vile gifts to the grave! Mwahahaha! Writhe as the venom eats its way through your veins!" the man crowed.

"If I give you tokens, would you shut up? Is that a service you provide, shutting up?" yelled Karasawa back. She leapt to the side as the creature brought one of its two swords down upon her, and then she had to roll to avoid the other one.

It was fast. She held her hand out to it again, and cast the unmending spell once more. She felt more sure of it this time, less worried about it eating her, and it lanced into the creature's side, leaving a smoking hole where it landed. Unlike the littler voidsent, however, this one seemed tougher. It roared, unhappy, but definitely not down.

"Aw, you're pissed now, aint'cha," said Karasawa, shuffling backward. "Well, too bloody bad!" she yelled, and she pulled her sword back and charged forward, swinging in large arcs.

Unlike the bandits, the creature seemed to know what to do when faced with someone with a huge swiving sword. And unlike the bandits, it had two swords of its own. The two exchanged a few blows before it brought both of its swords around in a parallel strike, slamming into Karasawa and knocking her into one side of the central pillar that dominated the middle of the lake.

She coughed as she landed, and as she stood up, she spat up bloody. She grimaced, but she charged back in. The hooded man may have had it out for her, but who knew what he'd do with his pet once he'd finished her off.

She was not about to let that happen.

Well, if she was bad with the sword, she was better with the energy, and she held her hand to the sky once more, calling down dark beams of chaotic energy to lance into the creature. It roared and swung its swords at her, and this time she gathered the remnants of that energy to her, and wrapped them around her, forming a shield of dark magics.

The blades slammed into her once more, but this time, they didn't hurt so much.

"Oy, I think I'm getting the hang of this," she said.

And then she was flung to the ground as the hooded man decided to join in the fight, casting magics of his own. Black spheres slammed into her, each of them hurting like a solid metal-fisted punch against bare skin.

She fell into the lake, splashing, and rolled with the hits until she got back on her feet again.

"Swive me," she said, holding her hand out towards the robed man. She could fight him or she could fight his pet, but she going to have real trouble fighting them both, and she was going to have to focus on one and hope she could drop them before the other turned her into paste.

And then several small sharp throwing knives flew through the air, stabbing into the hooded man's side. He recoiled from the blows, and he let himself fall to the ground, no longer floating. He splashed as he landed in the lake, holding a hand to the wounds in his side, and he snarled.

"You certainly have a knack for getting into trouble!" said the source of the blades.

Thancred.

Oh, gods bless that man, he sure did have a way with timing.

"An unwelcome guest. No matter, all shall fall before me!" snarled the hooded man.

"I am getting real tired of both of you!" yelled Karasawa, deciding to release another bolt of energy at the man after all. He deserved it.

She turned her attention back to the gigantic voidsent, confident that Thancred could, if not defeat the other man, at least keep him occupied until she got around to it.

"Alright ugly," she said, and she swept her sword into the lake, kicking up a spray of water at it. It strode towards her, holding its sword above itself, reading to bring them down once more, but a purple miasma formed around Karasawa once more. The spray of water hovered in the air as it turned a deep red, and then with a gesture from Karasawa, each individual droplet turned into a miniature lance of blood, and she flung them all at the creature. Each one was small. Tiny, even. But each one that touched the creature unmade what it touched, a thousand tiny slices of unreality tearing away at the solidity of the creature.

It stumbled, and Karasawa was there, her sword slicing through the air, and her magic roaring in fissures from the earth.

It never stood a chance.

The masked man was still fighting Thancred, but he apparently had enough attention to spare to wail for his pet as Karasawa cut it down.

"Whence springs this preternatural might!? No mortal should possess such strength!" he yelled.

"Get bent!" yelled Karasawa back as she plunged her blade deep into the very core of the voidsent, finally harming it enough to disrupt it. Its form dissipated into thin aether as she pulled her sword back. She did not pause. She immediately charged over to help Thancred with the other man.

Thancred had been harrying him. Throwing knives, and whatever else he had been doing to keep it occupied, but that wasn't necessary now, as Karasawa waded across the lake and into his side with her sword. He howled, but now his attention was split. He could not ignore Karasawa. She was there, and her sword was large, and her magics threatened to tear him apart. And he could not focus on Thancred as a result, who continued to dance in and out of his reach, his blades finding flesh with each pass.

"Keep it up, Karasawa! We almost have him!" grunted Thancred.

"We've got him now," snarled Karasawa as she watched him stumble. She did not let him fall, grabbing him by his hood, and putting her sword into his middle.

"Unnngh... That the wisdom of the Paragons should be brought low...by mere mortals..." the man said, choking. He spat blood up, even as Karasawa kept her sword in him and slowly lowered his body to the ground.

His hands slowly tried to grab ahold of her blade. To do what, she was uncertain, but she would never find out, as his arms went limp at his sides, and his head bowed into his chest.

She held him there for a long moment, Thancred behind her. She could hear his breath, fast and heavy and deep. She frowned at the man stuck on the end of her blade, and she put her foot against his chest, and kicked his body off her sword and into the shallows of the lake.

She placed her sword on her back once more into her sheath, as she walked over to the man's corpses, and crouched in the water, reaching for the mask on his face and plucking it off. She held it in her hands, and frowned.

Behind her, Thancred was talking, but she paid him little mind as she looked at the mask she held in her hands, turning it over slowly.

She did not recognize whose filigree was on this mask in particular, and the design was a little unfamiliar. But she had an eye for devices and things, and this was a thing, and the lines were clearly close to correct.

This was an artifact derived from the masks of her time.

It could have belonged to a denizen of Etheirys, long after she had been gone.

This was the mask of her people.

She looked up into the sky, more questions than questions filling her mind.

[kingofkingdom-archive]

Your Wish Is My Command

Pairing: Maxwell Lord (WW84) X Fem!Reader

A/N: Thank you all so much for the love on my last story! I’m grateful for all the feedback and can’t wait to get back to anyone who’s replied or reblogged it or whateva. This one’s pretty different - Recovery was mainly plot with a bit of porn, this is... well, the opposite of that. ;) As always, heed the tags/warnings, and again there is no use of Y/N here.

Rating: Explicit (18+ only!)

Summary: You have a gift - a powerful, unique, dangerous gift, and King Maxwell wants to take full advantage.

You’ll let him.

Warnings: mostly smut, Maxwell being an absolute jackass (no redemption arc here folks), you encouraging and very much liking the jackassery, brief mention of abuse/trauma, greedy authoritarian behavior, kinda spoilers for ww84

Tags: semi-public sex, exhibitionism, royalty kink (?), unprotected sex, implied and/or inferred consent (i.e. not explicit but there), Maxwell’s POV (until very end), fingering, p-in-v sex, come marking

Word Count: 3.4k

"The messenger you requested, reporting back from the northern provinces, sire."

King Maxwell of the house Lord, sitting in the throne gifted to him by birthright, dismisses the servant with a wave of his hand. He's become quite irritated with the futility of his efforts concerning this matter, and therefore has little patience for further delay. The future of his lands, his wealth, his power, rests on the shoulders of these menial workers and the news they provide. It bears no repeating that should they continue to come up empty-handed, someone is going to lose their head.

He needs the girl, and then it will be sealed. He will crush all opposition and assert his dominance over the entire region, coast to coast.

The messenger, a boy no more than 15, scurries into the room. His hair is tousled under his cap, which he hastily removes in the presence of the king. He bows, deeply and with a flourish, before standing upright.

Max watches with disinterest, legs spread over the velvet seat and head resting on his fist. His rings dig into his temple.

"We believe we've found her, sire."

That grabs his attention. He sits forward, both hands gripping the arms of his throne.

"You believe you have? Have you or have you not?"

The boy swallows, growing pale. "We-we have, your majesty. It's just, uh, we-we can't p-p-prove it's her until she demonstrates the gift."

The king groans, rolling his eyes and rubbing a hand over his face. These people are impossible.

"Where is she, then? Have you at least brought her along?"

The boy nods frantically. "Yes, your majesty. She's been quartered in the guest wing, with two guards to watch her."

Immediately, Maxwell stands. Everyone in the room looks up at him, and he adjusts his sleeves. The boy is nearly trembling.

"Well, then take me to her," he orders, and the boy hesitates.

"Now!"

The messenger boy practically trips over his own feet in haste to correct his error. He sets a quick pace to the guest wing in order to account for the king's long strides, head bowed and arms stiff as he does so.

The room is located to the east of that which houses his throne, on the third floor, overlooking the orchards. Maxwell follows the boy, wooden-soled shoes echoing on the gleaming marble floors of his palace. Mirrors line each hallway, along with fine art ranging from rare vases to family portraits. 

Maxwell sees the door as soon as they turn a corner, identifiable by the armored men who stand at either side of it. The boy stops and gestures to the door with a shaking hand.

"Just in here, y-"

"I can see that," the king barks, ignoring the boy completely. "You are dismissed."

He hears footsteps retreat quickly down the hall as he checks his appearance in a mirror. Not a hair out of place, not a wrinkled seam in sight. The king sighs, smiling as he admires himself. He takes a moment before turning to the door, the door that hides behind it wealth and prosperity like nothing he's ever known.

The guards simply bow as he approaches them. Maxwell knocks twice on the door and pushes it open.

Inside there is a single room, with a bed and chest of drawers and a vanity. There is a balcony, with glass French doors, through which he can see the shape of a woman standing and looking out over the scenery. 

She leans one hip against the stone railing, and as Maxwell walks forward he can see that she holds a goblet of wine in one hand. Her dress flows in the light summer breeze, and her hair is decorated in intricate braids, ribbon laced throughout.

The girl does not see him, yet. He stands in the doorway, hands clasped behind his back, watching her.

"Is it true?" he asks, after he's looked his fill. 

The young woman starts, a gasp escaping her lips. She turns to look towards the voice she has heard and startles again, seeing the king himself staring quite intently at her.

"Your majesty," she breathes, a smile ghosting across her lips. She bows deeply and then looks up at him, eyes bright and playful.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, my dear. I've heard many... extraordinary things about you."

Maxwell is immediately taken with her. Not only is she quite beautiful, despite her pauper's clothing, but she is one of few who have not reacted to him with fear or malice. Most begin shaking when they see his face; she, however, seems quite happy to see him.

"Oh, sire, the pleasure is entirely mine," she responds, voice soft, like music to Max's ears. "What things could you have heard about someone as lowly as I?" Her words are humble, but he senses a hint of teasing in them - as though she knows exactly what he's heard, but just wants him to say it.

"You are rumored to possess a very unique skill, one that I am most interested in learning about." He plays along, because her elusiveness frustrates him much less when she's right in front of him.

The king is a very visual man. 

He steps forward, fully onto the balcony now. She backs up until her back hits the railing, smile never leaving her face, even as the king crowds into her.

"I possess many skills which I would be happy to demonstrate to you," she says, and Max does not miss the meaning she intends to convey in those words. His eyes darken, his blood running hot at the thought of the many things she could give him. The things he could take from her willingly, without the hassle of a fight.

"It is said that you grant wishes," he murmurs, looking down at her. Max finds he quite likes this view, her looking up to her king. "One must only touch you and state their wish, and it will be so."

The girl chuckles, and daringly takes a sip of her wine. Maxwell grins, before reaching a hand up and grabbing the wine from her grasp. He tosses the liquid out over the ground below and carelessly throws the goblet over the edge to follow its contents.

The girl does not bat an eye.

"What you have heard," she mutters, eyes slipping down to his lips and back up again, "is true."

The king runs his hand up her side, settling at her ribs just beside her breast, savoring the way she shivers at his touch. His fingers splay out over the bare skin of her back, warm and soft and hinting at more.

 He dips his head down so that his nose brushes against hers, mouths nearly touching.

"Is there a limit," he breathes, because he knows he must ask this, "to your generosity, my dear?"

The girl smiles, placing a hand on his bicep. Her small fingers feel divine against him, even there.

"No," she whispers back. 

Maxwell hums, stroking his thumb idly along her warm, soft skin. He needs to confirm that she's telling the truth, as tempting as it is to believe her outright. The way she's looking at him... she'd let him do anything to her. The thought is as enticing as it is dangerous. 

"I wish to find a raven's feather in my shirt pocket," he says, and then feels a slight breeze on the back of his neck.

The king reaches into his pocket, and his fingers brush against exactly the object he wished for. He pulls it out to show the girl. She smiles and runs a hand up to his shoulder, resting her wrist there. His loose linen shirt, which flutters lightly in the wind against his tanned skin, is perfect for a summer's day like this - and when he feels the warmth of her hand through it he thanks his past self for selecting it this morning.

"What a remarkable gift you have," he comments, and tucks the feather behind her ear.

An endearing blush rises to her cheeks, and though she ignores it, the king takes notice. "Thank you, your majesty."

At that moment, an idea forms in his mind. It's devious, downright lecherous and more the act of some tavern drunkard than a king, but she is sure to react well, if he's gauged her correctly. 

"You said there's no limit on the wishes you can grant a single person?"

"Yes, sire. I did."

A smirk forms on the king's face. "Then I wish, my dear, for you to be naked."

The wind around them picks up again and the girl gasps. In the blink of an eye, her plain, beige dress has disappeared, leaving nothing behind. She is a vision, bare and beautiful in the midday light like this.

Maxwell is immediately hard. Not only is there a gorgeous, naked woman before him, but his absolute, unlimited power has just been confirmed and lies at his fingertips. He is unstoppable now, now that he has her.

The girl's hands fly up to grasp at his shoulders as his own trace over her curves. Her hips, her waist, her thighs - one of which he brings up to hook around his own hip - all of it is open and shimmering before him. 

"They said - in my village, they said you are a monster," she says, though her words trail off into a moan as one of the king's hands finds her breast. He tugs at her nipple, squeezing and pulling at the supple flesh, drawing sweet sounds from her pink mouth.

"Is that so?"

She nods. "I would look at your portraits and - and think... I'd think, no... no man so handsome could be so evil."

The king laughs, dipping his head to lick at her neck. She tosses her head back, giving him full access to the elegant column of her throat. 

"And even... even if you are what they said... I don't - I don't care."

Maxwell groans just as she says it, biting a bruise into the junction between her shoulder and neck. He trails bites and kisses down her collarbones, leaving his marks across her unblemished skin.

"I am," he murmurs into her ear, smoothing a hand over her stomach so that his middle finger comes to glide over the thick hair that covers her mound. He dips it into her folds, rubbing softly at the wet, slippery flesh there until she moans, high-pitched and needy. He grins, licking his tongue into the shell of her ear.

"I am a monster, my dear," he whispers.  "Every vile thing they said about me is true. And... I wish to fill my personal vaults with triple the gold. I wish to increase my fleets tenfold, with loyal soldiers to match. I wish to never see you leave these palace grounds so long as I live."

The wind picks up considerably around them. The king presses a finger against her opening, hot and dripping for him, and slides it in. Her moans are heavenly, loud and unashamed as he violates her in the open, where anyone could look up and see them. Her cunt opens for his finger, the gold and precious jewels of his rings swallowed by her sweet embrace. Her hands grip at his neck while her leg draws him closer. He adds a second, and it enters just as easily.

The king begins to fuck her with his fingers, watching as the muscles in her stomach tense and her eyes go glassy with the feeling.

"I wish to never be challenged by anyone for the throne," he grunts out. The girl moans at his words, and he realizes that she likes it. Not just the way he's touching her, but that he's making his wishes as he does it. He grins at her, predatory, and cups her ass with the hand not currently knuckle-deep in her pussy. His fingers dig in, sharp and strong and unyielding, surely leaving bruises in their wake.

"You like granting my wishes, darling? You enjoy giving me power, worshipping your king?"

She nods, mouth half-open. "Yes, your majesty." Her voice is breathy, the sound of it nearly knocking him out with the way it draws blood from his brain to his cock.

Speaking of which.

Maxwell thrusts a third finger into her cunt, the stretch made easy by the slick leaking out of her profusely. She wails, hands scrabbling at his neck and shoulders and back and the collar of his shirt. 

"Take me out," he orders, and she pauses to look at him, confused. "Take me out of my trousers, my dear. Feel how hard I am for you."

She gasps and her hands fly down to the button at the crotch of his pants. Quickly she fumbles it open, and his hard member pushes up into her palms. The girl gives the king's dick a squeeze, and he grits his teeth, moaning.

"I wish to claim all of the lands in the south as my own. I wish to have loyal subjects in every village and town, that no one may ever defy me again. I wish to have any traitors killed without question."

The girl's moans have increased again as she rubs and caresses his cock. Her hands disappear for a moment as she leans back, licking a long stripe from her wrist to fingertips, and returns to her task. 

Maxwell groans, dropping his head forward to press his nose against her skin, breathing in. She smells faintly of lavender, a crop that grows abundantly in the north, sweet and fresh. His tongue darts out to lick away a drop of sweat that rolls down her collarbone. Her hands squeeze and pull at his cock, thumbing at the head and slit and dipping down to fondle his balls on every other stroke.

It feels positively exquisite, but he wants to put his dick to use elsewhere. Somewhere tighter, warmer, wetter. 

The king removes his fingers, drawing a whine from the girl. The noise of it is obscene in itself, squelching and sticky as her cunt tries to cling to his fingers and the jewels that adorn them. He chuckles, lifts his head to meet her gaze, and brings his fingers up to his mouth and licks away her essence. She watches, rapt, as he makes sure to get every inch of the three digits that were inside her. The sight of it makes her keen, high pitched noises spilling out of her lips and eyes watering with desperation and need for him.

The king laughs, the taste of her on his tongue. Someday, he swears, he'll taste this sweet nectar straight from the source.

Now is not the time.

He brings his spit-soaked hand down to his red, throbbing cock, giving it a few strokes. His other hand slips up to grasp her waist. The girl lifts her leg further, resting her heel against his ass, helping him to guide his length into her.

"What else do you wish for, my king?" she asks, just as the head of his cock notches at her opening. With a grunt, Max pushes in.

Her words, combined with the feeling of her pussy stretched around his dick, causes his vision to blur and images to flash in his mind of what's now possible with her gift at his disposal. He pushes in further, drawing another moan from deep within her throat.

"I wish... I wish..."

"Your wildest fantasies, my king..." she urges, grip tightening on his neck and shoulder. "Anything is possible. What do you -- oh!"

As her words soak into his skin, he pushes in further and further, until his balls are nestled squarely at her ass. She's pushing him to take, rather than to give, unlike so many who surround him. It breathes fire into his veins, this woman who's encouraging him to do all the selfish, power-hungry things he'd do anyway, all while he fucks into her like this.

The king draws out and pushes back in in one smooth motion, stealing the breath from her lungs. He presses his lips against hers as he speaks, as he sets a rough pace, fucking her into the stone railing.

"I wish to never fall ill or suffer injury in battle. I wish to have the unwavering allegiance of every foreign leader, and that they will defer to me in all international affairs. I wish for my reign to be the longest this nation has ever seen. I wish to live longer than any other man, and I wish to have you here at my disposal for the entirety of my long life. I wish to never succumb to old age."

By now, the wind is tossing her hair and whistling around them, but Maxwell does not care. He's thrusting into her roughly, recklessly now, and all he can hear are her sweet, delicious moans. Her pussy clenches his cock just so, and he sees nearly sees stars at the feeling. Her tits bounce as he fucks into her, her nudity on full display but only to be taken advantage of by him.

Maxwell adjusts his grip on her waist and thigh, maneuvering her around so that now he's taking her from behind. She leans forward on the railing, looking out over the palace grounds.

"Isn't it beautiful, darling?" he breathes, gripping her ass cheeks now, pumping in and out with increased fervor. "Looking out onto your lands, as far as the eye can see..."

She merely responds with moans, punched out of her with each thrust, and Maxwell feels her cunt throb in a way that tells him her orgasm is imminent. He reaches a hand around and searches for her clit, knowing he finds it when she shouts out. He rubs a finger against the sensitive, pulsing nub until she comes apart, writing and screaming on his cock.

Max feels his own climax approaching, and just before he tips over the edge, he withdraws his cock. Taking himself in hand, he strokes a few times and cums directly onto her ass and lower back, marking her up with his potent, royal seed.

Chest heaving, the king runs his hands through his own semen as it cools on the girl's backside. He rubs it into her skin like a masseuse might a fragrant oil.

Maxwell steps back, admiring his conquest. The girl is still leaning against the railing, head bowed and naked as the day she was born.

"I wish for you to be my queen."

The words are a surprise even to him, though he's not shocked at his own impulsivity; that is a trait of his that has followed him from childhood onward.

The girl turns to look at him.

"You have to be touching me for it to work, sire." She doesn't sound angry with him, which is a relief, though he'd never show it.

"I know, my dearest. I wish it, but I won't compel you."

At that she turns to face him fully. She's got that fucked-out look on her face, to be sure, but now there's something else in her eyes.

"Are you asking me to marry you, King Maxwell?" Her smile is sly, something befitting a woman of much higher status than herself. It makes his cock twitch in a valiant effort to get hard again.

"I suppose so."

"In that case, my answer is yes," she says, and pulls him in by his shirt collar for a searing kiss.

-

The next morning, you wake up sore in an unfamiliar bed.

You look around for a moment, taking in the luxurious decor and faint smell of roses, until you remember where you are. Who you are, now.

Your head rests not on a pillow - something much warmer than that. It rises and falls softly, and then you realize there's a weight around your waist that feels distinctly like an arm. Lifting your head just slightly, you see the king himself asleep above you, face soft and youthful in rest.

As you lay your head down on his chest to fall back asleep, you can't help but think of the people back in your village. The horrors you endured at their hands once they learned of your gift. The nightmares you still have because of what they did.

You think of how much they suffer under the rule of the king - of your husband - and you fall asleep with a smile on your face.

[harry-sussex]

I watched the documentary.

It was lovely to see everyone's stories about the Duke. Everything seemed so raw and unfiltered and genuine, which I really appreciate.

Beatrice is sweet as pie, and her voice is precious.

Eugenie's tribute after Philip died was my favorite and her stories were my favorite. I'm so happy that her grandfather got to meet little August Philip Hawke.

My favorite moments were hearing Prince Charles say the phrase "scratching your backside" and William's correction when he told the story of how the DoE awards kids told Philip to "jog off." Their genuine laughs legitimately made me laugh out loud.

Louise is the sweetest little thing ever and I'm so happy that she got to contribute to this.

Zara and her mother are identical twins.

I like hearing Camilla, Tim, and Sophie speaking about their connection with Philip. It's one thing to hear it from his blood but to hear it from people who married into his family was just so sweet.

I would have liked to have seen the grandchildren-in-law, but given that the BBC only had an hour, they were the most logical people to cut out.

I hate, hate, hate that Harry got "The Duke of Sussex" only while Andrew got "HRH The Duke of York." Harry's not allowed to use his HRH when promoting his own capital gains or whatever and that makes perfect sense after everything but come on, this is a documentary about his grandfather, HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, from whom he is descended, and through whom Harry was granted the HRH title that is and will always be his birthright. This wasn't some Spotify or Netflix documentary, it was a documentary specifically focused on the royal family that granted him that HRH from the moment he was born. This was not the time to play nitty-gritty with Harry's HRH, especially since it hasn't (and never will be) actually taken away from him. I don't want to see "HRH The Duke of Sussex has signed a multi-million dollar deal with Netflix," but I also don't want to see HRH The Duke of York getting his title in an official royal family documentary, given all that he's been accused of, while Harry has "The Duke of Sussex," like what he did warranted the unofficial stripping of his HRH, as if Andrew doesn't deserve worse. To me, Harry is as entitled as he ever will be to his HRH when he does something so personal to his birth family like this. It has nothing to do with roles, or who's working and who's not, nothing at all. He's an HRH and this was the time for him to get that distinction, same as literally everyone else who appeared in the documentary who has it. It's not like he's not an HRH, you know? He is and will always be in this context. Always.

I also noticed that Tim was looking through legitimate navy journals but Harry only had photocopies of the flight journals, and I can't figure out why.

I'm not surprised that she wasn't involved at all, but I would have liked to have seen HM. I get, and I respect it, but one clip or small phrase would have been nice, maybe at the very end. I get that maybe she didn't want to be involved now that he's gone and this is airing after his death, but it would have been nice, had this been produced for his 100th birthday as planned, if HM could have said something small on film in celebration of his life, in the way that much of the documentary was recorded. I get it, I completely get it - maybe they had that footage and elected not to air it now that he's gone - but I would have liked to have seen it. Her perspective on him is the most important and it's missing. Again, I get it, but it was missing.

[theseerasures]

For the meta thing, how about big sisters with absent mothers: Winter and Yang? Like, how they dealt with things differently and what a friendship between them would look like

anon i just want you to know that as soon as received this ask i barged into my girlfriend’s room to be like “is this you???” because this ask is so EXQUISITELY tailored to my personal interests that i was like “literally who else would cater to me like this” and it was not her, apparently!!! so thank you very much for this ask.

of course i have SO MANY thoughts about this topic that it took me a complete month to marshal them into something faintly coherent, if staggeringly long, so. i hope it’s worth the wait.

S(chnee)-side: how to lose brothers and alienate sisters

let’s start from some well-trodden ground: the season 5 character shorts, and their subsequent caricaturization via Chibi, which posit the Yang vs. Winter dichotomy as something like “Yang loves Ruby by diving into a monster’s mouth for her, and telling her she always has her back, and Winter does the same for Weiss by...siccing monsters on her, and telling her that she won’t always be around to save her from them.” much hay has already been made about the reasons why the two of them would act in the ways they did, so for the purposes of my own meta i’m going to skip over those, and concentrate on how content since season 5 has updated these conceptions.

and on Winter’s end of things, these conceptions have been updated by showing that she’s, uh.

...full of shit.

we’ve now had TWO instances of Winter going above and beyond to protect someone vulnerable. the first time was for Penny, with whom she has a sisterly bond, and the second time was for Ren, with whom she has...exchanged a few lines of dialogue. if she’s so ready and willing to hurl herself bodily into the path of an aggressor for someone who is basically a stranger, then why all the pageantry with Weiss about how she can’t (or won’t) save her? did she carve some kind of blood relative exemption into her saving people thing? does it only apply to people who wear a lot of green?¹

to properly address this question--and to bring in the Willow of it all--i think we should step back and ask: how does Winter actually feel about the Schnee name?

not Jacques’ name, mind. nor anything he did to besmirch it. Willow’s name, and Winter’s birthright.

because what has always been interesting to me is that while Weiss has talked about reclaiming or rehabilitating the Schnee name from their father’s meddling and still clearly wants to reconcile herself with it, even after being disinherited, Winter has only ever talked about distancing. it’s entirely possible that she had similar aspirations when she was around Weiss’ age and was just more thoroughly disabused of them, but my point stands: Winter shows a discomfort with the Schnee name overall in a way that Weiss has yet to. you don’t have to look any further than Winter’s combat style to see how this discomfort is telegraphed, as she barely uses any Dust, or Glyphs, and the one aspect of her Semblance that she does use and tout are Summons, which just so happens to be the part that emphasizes her own individual ability to conquer foes. something about the Schnee name feels irreconcilably tainted for Winter,² and while i’m sure a large part of it has to do with her father, who can make her explode into emotion confetti by just being in the same room as her for thirty seconds, a not-insignificant part can probably be chalked up to the fact that...

Willow Schnee was probably never all that good a mother.

granted: we’ve have exactly one scene (two if you count the 8.2 sneak peek) with her, so i’m fully ready to be called Boo Boo the Fool if we get a flashback and Willow was some kind of crusading super-mom prior to her descent into alcoholism, but. the idea that she hasn’t ALWAYS had to compromise herself and her children just to get by feels facile. this is not to victim blame, but to say that Willow is an imperfect person (in that she is. a person) placed into a horrific situation, which means that she could not always deal with the situation perfectly. it’s important to remember her agency--both before and after she became an alcoholic--but it’s just as important not to idealize it into something it’s not. Willow was by no means a co-abuser to her children, but she was probably always inconsistent, because living with your abuser for years on end does that to you. personally, i’ve always envisioned pre-alcoholism Willow as...well-meaning and much more perceptive and intelligent than people give her credit for, but beset with her own flaws that grew in proportion to her hurt and bitterness. she was capable of shielding her children from her husband’s worst excesses, and often did; but she was just as capable of retreating when she might have fought, of excusing Jacques’ actions to try to keep the peace, even of lashing out at those who shouldn’t have to handle her negative emotions.

her descent into alcoholism exacerbated these tendencies, but Willow has always been a complicated woman, and the idea that there was a prelapsarian time when Willow was an unmitigated good, before...idk, her Good battery ran out and she became Drunk Victim Non-Mom, is...well, it’s definitely something that a ten-year-old who had an ENORMOUSLY traumatic birthday would believe (and blame herself for), but Winter might disagree. i don’t think her view would be any more objective, if only because the day Winter Schnee has an un-myopic thought is the day i pass gracefully into the West, but her view is probably more complicated and less flattering, because Winter knew her mother more as a person, and that’s something we’re gonna talk about more with Yang and Ruby, later.

the point i want to make now, with Winter, is that her determined inconstancy, where she’ll readily jump into the jaws of a monster for her siblings in one breath and berate them and caution them against needing her in the next--that comes from her experience with Willow. the lesson she wants her siblings to learn is not just “the people who are supposed to love you are cruel, so get a helmet,” but “the people who are supposed to love you disappoint you, which is worse, so it’s better to not rely on them at all.”³ better for them to learn it from her than firsthand, but also--better for herself, because when she does disappoint them (and she did. she left.) at least she can take comfort in the fact that surely it doesn’t hurt as much; she warned them, after all.

in Winter’s mind, this kind of disappointment is an inevitability, so what’s paramount is to make sure that when it does happen her siblings are at least prepared for it. in the face of that the fact that she would actually risk life and limb to help them if they ever need it falls to the wayside; i don’t think it was a mindful decision that Winter consciously made--like, i don’t think she ever thought “i’m going to withhold the fact that i would die for them because that would contradict the whole social Darwinism thing i’m trying to drill into their heads,” because Winter’s just...not that kind of deliberate rational actor, in any arena. rather--and maybe even more damning--i think she just assumes that Weiss and Whitley already KNOW, that it’s a given for them the sacrifices she’d make for them in the same way it’s a given for her. but they don’t! because you have to say these things, and Winter has been force-feeding them the precise opposite.

ultimately all of these contradictory impulses stem from Winter’s deep-seated need for control--both of herself, and of the environments around her, and those in turn come from the fact that she was a) repeatedly wounded as a child and b) had to shoulder responsibilities far beyond her own ability as that same child, which...continues to this day. from this perspective, what matters is less keeping her siblings safe, and more her own ability to save them. she knows that’s imperfect, so she compensates by enforcing what worked for her onto them, and also by keeping them away from anything that could harm them, without their input. i never thought much of the contrast in environments for the character shorts--like of course Weiss would spar with Winter’s Summons at home like the untested shut-in she was--but what did take me aback was that in season 7, after Weiss has waltzed across an entire continent and been promoted to a full Huntress, Winter...still exclusively trains Weiss with her Summons up in Atlas, while Ruby and Yang are traipsing across Mantle killing ACTUAL Grimm. i have no doubt that this was for foreshadowing reasons, but still: it points to the fact that for all Winter loves Weiss and would fight giant monsters for her, there’s a part of her that...doesn’t trust Weiss, and wants to maintain control over her.⁴

this, i think, is part of the reason why Whitley treats her basically like an un-person: it’s not just that she left when he was too young and Jacques filled in all the gaps with lies and slander, it’s also that even when Winter was around the bigger age gap made it much easier for her to reconcile keeping him out of the loop, for his own good. she can’t ever be vulnerable around either of her siblings, but especially not Whitley, because he’s too young; he might let something slip when they’re around Jacques, and she shouldn’t be putting that kind of burden on him anyway. if he resents her when she’s just trying to protect him--except you said that you wouldn’t, Winter you absolute moron--then that’s his prerogative. it doesn’t change her own responsibilities. they can be miserable and Byronic in their own separate cubby holes and it’s fine.

(it’s not fine.)

R(ose)⁵-side: tonight, the role of Replacement Goldfish will be played by...everyone

let’s get one thing out of the way: Yang is a GOOD big sister, and some of the ways that she is good can be chalked up to the fact that she had a better home life, but only some. her character short ends with her promising Ruby that she’ll always have her back after spending the short proving it, and she has--until recently, and we’ll get to that--lived up to it. people get caught up on how much time Yang spends with Blake nowadays, but it’s important to remember that the entire impetus for Yang reuniting with anyone during the Mistral arc was about Ruby. so is the thing that separates a Yang from a Winter is that a Yang preaches what she practices, and isn’t firing a million zillion mixed signals at all times?

well--yeah, basically, but we’re gonna make a big thing out of it anyway.

what made Yang and Ruby different from the Schnees--even before the character shorts--was a sense of parity. in contrast to Winter insisting on maintaining a) the most unapproachable facade in the world, and b) a death-grip on every situation at all times, Yang was characterized from the outset as...chill (ironically). despite her Semblance being LITERALLY hotheadedness, Yang’s passionate energy never manifested in any real desire to take charge. the fact that she was fine (even happy!) with Ruby being bumped up to her year and then becoming leader speaks volumes to how much Yang trusts and respects Ruby’s judgement. rather than try to mask her flaws, she exudes this kind of...radiant fallibility and lets Ruby take care of her, or keep her in line. they complement each other: Yang takes care of more grounded concerns like individual fights and making friends, while Ruby--again, until recently--set more abstract goals and gave them moral direction.

a lot of this can be attributed to the smaller age gap, but i think it also comes from growing up as two motherless free-range children on an island--and the motherlessness is obviously a huge deal for both of them. when i started writing this i honestly thought i’d talk more about Raven, since she’s the mom who’s actually a character already, and her absence plays a huge role in how Yang deals with her abandonment issues in the present, but to be honest: the loss that cut the deepest for Ruby AND Yang is Summer, because Summer was actually around enough to be lost. despite the show frequently dividing custody of Team STRQ right down the middle between Ruby and Yang, where Ruby “gets” Summer and Qrow and Yang “gets” Tai and Raven, it’s the admixture of Rose and Branwen that makes the two of them who they are.⁶ Yang spent more time with Summer, but Ruby spends more time with Qrow, who is Yang’s blood uncle, so the dichotomy between nature and nurture is fascinatingly blurred.

i know this is an unpopular opinion, but i hope Summer really is dead, because the ways that her daughters interpellate their own identities from her absence drives so much of the story. that SUMMER was the first mother Yang lost--not Raven, because Yang didn’t even know about Raven until Summer died--is what shapes her relationship with Ruby, but also her relationship with Raven. what’s always simmering just below the surface of any Yang-Raven confrontation is that the person Yang actually wanted to find the whole time she was looking for Raven was Summer, because she wanted a mom, and a mom looked like Summer. Raven’s not stupid--it might be her one redeeming quality--so it’s likely that she’s always known and resented this. it’s not an accident that the moment Yang stopped looking for Raven for Raven and started looking for her for an easy conduit to her real family was the moment she actually found Raven.⁷ it was the first step to Yang outgrowing her old habits, of waiting for a mother to return--a classic “she needed a hero so that’s what she hurdy blah”

in a way that’s what she’s been doing this whole time. in contrast to Winter, who compensated for her mother’s flaws by ratifying them into universal law, Yang did the same by defying their supposed truth: people might leave her, but she won’t leave Ruby, and Ruby won’t leave her. it’s telling that whenever Yang leaves--even as a literal child--she always took Ruby with her, even if she planned on coming back. (it’s just as telling that when Winter left she didn’t.) she’ll always be there for Ruby, to give her the boost she needs to become the Summer they all want her to be, which means being a little of Summer herself--the part of Summer that baked cookies and slew monsters. and in return Ruby gave her...a sense of certainty, i think: that Ruby needs her and therefore won’t leave, but also that Ruby has the parts of Summer that Yang can’t muster herself--the grand heroic ideal, the moral certitude, etc.

...and now we’re finally gonna talk about the Schism, which i honestly think is the best thing that has happened to their relationship, development-wise. by the end of the Mistral arc Yang has arrived at a healthier perspective with respect to her relationships with everyone: now it’s not about indiscriminately giving herself away to people in the hopes that they might not leave her, but about choosing to give herself away to the people she loves and trusts. on one level this should not conflict with her relationship with Ruby at all, because Yang loves Ruby, but on another...the fact that Yang no longer feels obligated to perform unending support, to be the grounded complement, to fill in the parts of Summer that Ruby can’t--of COURSE that’s going to bring about conflict. because it turns out Yang never needed Ruby to give her direction or discipline. she’s now had time to think of the things she herself values, and those...don’t exactly match up with Ruby’s--or Summer’s.⁸ Yang, having known Summer as a mother, having been confronted repeatedly with the fallibility of mothers, is starting to outgrow Summer, and grow separately from Ruby.

but growing separately doesn’t have to mean growing apart, and i think Yang, at least, knows this. she clearly feels Some Kinda Way about their disagreement (and Blake’s implicit alignment with Ruby), but she’s also confident enough in her own beliefs by this point to commit to them. Yang’s taking charge instead of deferring to Ruby, and it turns out that...she’s actually not a bad leader herself, since she and Jaune have pretty much split a lot of those responsibilities. for her it’s not a question of losing faith or love in Ruby as a person, but about discovering what she herself fights for.

Ruby...sees it differently, because Ruby sees Summer differently. if Yang has always defined herself against Summer by deciding that she can NEVER fully be Summer, so she’ll make do with what she can, then Ruby’s always defined herself against Summer by marking Summer as the endpoint of her personal trajectory. what Ruby knows of Summer--that she was a person who enjoyed life and did not believe in original sin, that had a magical special destiny that was totally fine and awesome and didn’t drive her to her death, that she was a baker of cookies and slayer of monsters--is what Tai and Qrow--and Yang--told her about Summer, because Ruby was too young to remember the real Summer. so Summer for her is this abstract paragon to live up to, and no more. she can’t possibly exceed Summer, because the Summer Ruby knows encompasses literally all that is good.

when Yang tells Ruby “i’ve always got your back” in the short, a lot of it is about Yang, and the ways Yang needed to be there for other people so they’ll be there for her in return. but it’s also something Ruby really needed to hear, because Ruby needed the security and comfort of knowing that even if she screws up there are people around her who can help shoulder the burden. that security already took a serious hit after Yang lost her arm, but Ruby, kind and generous person that she is, was able to reconcile with that, because YANG HAD JUST LOST HER ARM. it would be ridiculous to expect Yang to have her back the way she used to, and besides--it was time she grew up, and growing up means becoming more like Summer, all of Summer, by herself.

and...she gets pretty far, is the thing, because Ruby IS a lot like Summer, and is incredible and amazing all by herself to boot, but the point is that no one should feel this much pressure to be All That Is Good, especially when you’re a teen. Ruby’s not ready to recognize that, partly because at this point so many people are looking to her for leadership, but also because being Summer’s heir is the only real link she has to her mom.⁹ so she hunkers down and does the best she can, in a situation that has far spiraled beyond anybody’s control...and then Yang tells her that it’s not working out, that this time it’s not that she can’t have Ruby’s back, but that she won’t. in Ruby’s mind, this could only mean one of two things: either Yang no longer believes what Ruby believes--what Summer believed, or...Yang no longer believes in Ruby, because she wasn’t good enough.

and well. it’s Ruby. it’s not hard to guess which reason she’s picking right now, especially since she pretty conspicuously refused to call the shots during the Amity heist.

but this is of course a false dichotomy. it’s not about which one of them is right, or even more right, and the show does a very good job with the framing to show that both of them have a point. similarly, what Ruby needs right now is neither confirmation that her long-held beliefs are objectively the best ones, nor that she is good enough to become Summer after all. no; what she needs instead is the knowledge that she’s allowed to fuck up, to deviate from what people have told her about Summer, to become what Summer never was. that’s something Yang can--and will--help her work out.

oh no this analogy is breaking apart: how they’d get along

...oi.

look, even beyond the fact that Winter doesn’t get along with ANYONE over much, i don’t think there’s any universe where she wouldn’t immediately rub Yang the wrong way. not only because Winter’d initially treat Ruby with the same cold tyranny that she (up until very recently) treats Weiss, but also because Yang’s partner is Blake, and--to say nothing of Atlas/Schnee-on-Faunus oppression--she was personally made collateral during the fallout with Blake’s abuser.¹⁰ i myself wouldn’t say that Winter abused Weiss, but to Yang’s protective and skewed view...

well, can you imagine Weiss trying to explain the way Winter ~~~trained her to the Bees? “oh, she sent a pack of Beowolves to hunt me! it was a meant-to-lose fight and when i started doing well she just moved the goalposts. one of her wolves almost ate me before i begged her to stop but it...probably...wouldn’t have...it was fine! my Aura didn’t dip THAT much. Winter’s the best!!” Yang’s hair would have been on fire after the first sentence, is all i’m saying. this coupled with the fact that Yang would very likely view Winter leaving Weiss and Whitley through the lens of Raven doing the same thing to her, and i think it would take a pretty long time for the two of them to see eye to eye on anything.

which is not to say that they have nowhere to go but antagonism, because at their cores Winter and Yang both have a) no hesitation whatsoever when it comes to protecting the people they care about and b) a tendency to define protection literally, often bodily. the difference is that Yang’s Semblance weaponizes these protective instincts for her, and she learned the limits of taking that too far. Winter...doesn’t, and hasn’t.¹¹ that COULD lead to some interesting conversations, but i don’t think Yang has quite the emotional clarity and generosity to reckon with that yet, and they’re not about to talk about it inside the Giant Whale.

a necessary part of Winter’s development is learning to respect the people around her instead of instantly categorizing them into boxes labeled “to fight” and “to protect and order around.” her friction with Yang could be an intriguing way to explore that; i have no doubt, for example, that Winter would have hurled herself between Elm and Yang just as readily as she had between Elm and Ren. similarly, i think if Winter ever were in the same room with both Raven and Yang she’d last about ten seconds before trying to rip Raven’s hair out with her teeth, because Raven is neglectful and casually demeaning in ways that are instantly recognizable to Winter (in the same way they were to Weiss).¹² the issue is that her doing any of these things for Yang--y’know, the same Yang who IMMEDIATELY gave Blake the cold shoulder when she tried to pull the whole “i’ll protect you” crap--is that she would only find it confusing and frustrating, and likely wouldn’t mince words expressing that.

Yang’s a big sister herself, and therefore knows all the big sister tricks, and Yang has a consistent pattern of not wanting to rely on other people, particularly people she sees as adults. so the best path toward a Winter and Yang friendship is probably not the head-on approach, but obliquely through someone else. that someone else can’t be Weiss, because Yang would be already hypervigilant about the way Winter treats Weiss--but it could be Ruby. even putting aside the fact that she is now one of the most important people in the world for BOTH her sisters, Ruby herself is very easy to love, and Winter loves very easily, despite herself. what they have in common--idealism and a martyr complex--would also engender some cool interactions, and Ruby would let Winter take care of her, if only to make Winter feel better.

i could see that being the impetus for Yang tentatively, grudgingly forming her own friendship with Winter, because there ARE things that Winter can give Yang, even if Yang can’t (or won’t) admit she wants them. it’s nice to try out being the kid sister, once in a while.

still, even if they get that far: i can’t imagine their relationship as anything friendlier than this.

¹ tbh neither would actually surprise me; what Winter does and doesn’t let herself do is only knowable to the Gods Who Have Forsaken This Land, and they’re certainly unknowable to Winter herself.

² maybe she knows that the whole “the Schnees were up-from-bootstraps-good-capitalists until that guy Jacques came along” thing is stupid!! i don’t care that he’s Santa Nicholas Schnee ain’t shit

³ this i think is why the current thing with Ironwood is such a bitter pill to swallow, because...she thought she’d been so careful. not in thinking that she’d chosen a man who couldn’t disappoint her, but in caring so deeply about him and investing so much of herself into him, despite the fact she’s only ever let herself call him “sir,” or “General.”

⁴ though i will say, to give Winter some credit: she actually accepts the fact that her sister is totally her own person now with a lot more aplomb than i’d expected, both in the “you stole an airship” scene and during all of Sparks. i wouldn’t be so generous as to read subtle treason into her disclosure of Ironwood’s Winter Maiden plans, but it does point to Winter’s desire for control being much more easily unlearned than that of her boss.

⁵ geddit? it’s a joke about handed-ness because now they both have the Hand Tremor

⁶ Tai is, as always and on purpose, the stabilizing agent. “appropriately underwhelming,” as Winter might put it, but absolutely essential.

⁷ of course then Raven had the gall to resent THAT too, because she’s the worst, and...see above, about Winter Schnee’s self-unknowing.

⁸ curiously, the values that Yang most espouses now--the importance of knowing what you’re getting into, protecting what is tangible, what is within your ability--are a) hard-won from years of taking care of Ruby and b) ones that she shares with Raven. the only difference is that Yang’s circle of protection extends far beyond Raven’s, which only includes herself.

⁹ weirdly enough the best person to talk to Ruby about this might be Raven, who has a very skewed perception of Summer herself (because Raven’s perception of EVERYONE is generally fucked up), but probably won’t hold back when talking about Summer’s flaws. Ruby won’t want to hear any of it, but i think she needs to.

¹⁰ i do think Blake and Winter would have some interesting conversations, if Blake ever...was generous enough to deal with *gestures at all of Winter.* it’s easier to compare Blake to Willow given the shared nature of their interpersonal abuse, but Winter on the other hand knows what it’s like to be hand-picked and groomed by a charismatic man with a singular vision who ended up wholly compromising that vision for the sake of their personal ego. that the White Fang are a good force perverted while the Atlesian Military is rotten to the core would...make the conversation more lively? it’s probably fine?

¹¹ “i’m Winter Schnee and i have maladaptive coping mechanisms that i am currently clinging to, as a maladaptive coping mechanism”

¹² though there...probably IS a world where Raven and Winter end up getting along after the initial skirmish, and it disturbs Yang and Qrow to no end

[milktoast-mcgee]

the boys and their royal arms

I’ve rambled about this a little bit before on twitter, but I decided to finally sit down and get these thoughts out about noct, his boys, and the royal arms they use!

tldr, the royal arms prompto, gladio, and ignis use during the armiger chain (in addition to the talismans they can get and the boons the kings’ sigils represent in comrades) illustrate key aspects of their characters. 

Introduction

Throughout Final Fantasy XV, Noctis and his retinue search for the Royal Arms, the weapons of the Kings of Yore. They're representative of Noct's birthright and his destiny as the True King. He and his companions, Prompto, Gladio, and Ignis, search for the weapons all over the world. As he adds them to his Armiger, not only does Noctis use the Royal Arms, but the boys wield them as well -- notably, in the Armiger Chain combination attack. Accumulating more of the glaives makes the chain last longer, and all four boys use every weapon in the collection together.

Beyond the battle mechanic, the Royal Arms each of them use carry a strong thematic element. Each glaive illustrates something about each young man -- their characters, their strengths, their weaknesses, their character arcs. This idea extends beyond just the Arms to the Kings themselves, present in their sigils in the Comrades expansion as well as the unique equippable talismans each boy receives.* These themes perfectly illustrate just how connected Prompto, Gladio, and Ignis are to Noctis -- they are fundamentally linked, inexorably bound together.

* (These are only present in the Royal Pack/Royal Edition. They are found in Insomnia in Chapter 14, either after completing all the Kingsglaive quests for Cor. I think. I don't remember... shhsdugif)

Prompto

"My whole life, all I ever wanted was friends... but no one ever wanted me back. So when I finally found people who did want me, I did everything I could to make them stay. And ever since then, I've lived my life in fear -- that one day, they'd find out who I really was, and they wouldn't want me anymore."

Prompto struggles greatly with self-doubt and rejection. He knows he's an outsider and feels that outsiderness to his core, even as a child. But in the face of that, he strives to play the mood maker -- he tries to hold the party together, keep the air light, and make people happy. He attempts to remain outgoing and cheerful, even when he's not, or nobody else is. Noctis and the others love him dearly, regardless of his origins, because he is who he is -- sweet, caring, talented, heartful, thoughtful Prompto. While he at once represents rejection and outsiderness, he also stands for unity and togetherness, and these elements are present in his connection to the Kings.

Prompto receives the talisman of the Clever. The talismans accentuate the boy's unique abilities, and Prompto's grants him increased critical hit rate and unlimited ammo for the SMG. Prompto's gunplay is incredible -- acrobatic, precise, and powerful. It's a far cry from how Prompto tends to feel about himself; he is skilled and capable, even if he doesn't believe he is. The Clever is the perfect mantle for him to carry to represent this.

Though Prompto doesn't use the Bow of the Clever in battle, the Clever fits him very well. The Clever is said to have been a king "versed in myriad arts both martial and intellectual." The Clever's weapon easily fits Prompto, but during the Armiger Chain, it's Noctis who uses it -- while Prompto wields the Sword of the Wise, which carries its own significance. 

Noct uses the Bow of the Clever, it fits Prompto as a weapon: it's the only glaive that's projectile, aside from the Star of the Rogue, which Prompto also uses. It fires spectral arrows to skewer foes all across the battlefield. In addition, in the Comrades expansion, the Clever's sigil allows the bearer to summon spectral arms at will. It replaces the use of spells to summon eight special armaments to wield at once. It's a form of battle very appropriate to Prompto, isn't it? 

The Clever is said to have been talented in many varied ways. The same could definitely be said of Prompto, whether he believes it or not. While a commoner, he keeps up with his royal companions in battle. When he knocks enemies off guard, he can deliver devastating blows to rival even magic. He can take photos in battle effortlessly -- something his companions love, except when Noct is being gnawed on by a daemon. But while Prompto sees himself as incapable, a burden to his team, he's well able to keep up with them, and strives to hold the group together. The mantle of the Clever fits him so well in this aspect.

But while Noct uses the Bow during the Chain, Prompto uses the Sword of the Wise. The Wise is the King who first erected the Wall and established the borders of the kingdom of Lucis. He was a notably mighty figure and protected the realm. His blade represents the foundation of the Kingdom, and Noct's birthright -- and while Noct uses the weapon that most fits Prompto, Prompto in turn uses the Sword of the Wise, a clear symbol of Noct's royal blood. He is more than capable and deserving to wield it, even briefly, despite how Prompto feels about himself.

Prompto also uses the Star of the Rogue. The Rogue was a figure reviled by the people. She "spurned the public eye and took to the shadows." It's a huge shuriken, and Prompto actually briefly wields it against the daemonified Rogue in the Citadel battle. The Rogue is a figure of royal power but rejection -- intensely shunned by the people, choosing to rule away from their eyes. She wears a mask in her armor; it doesn't appear to be a helmet or battle regalia, but rather a means of hiding her face, obscuring herself further. 

The queen is a figure of stealth and prowess, but will never quite belong to the public, to her people. Only when she is gone is she remembered fondly by history. Prompto definitely feels he doesn't belong, and likely that he never will. He's a lonely child from a lonely home. He knows he's from the enemy nation, branded by them. For years, he doesn't believe he deserves to be Noctis's friend, and pushes himself to be good enough to finally approach him. Even when he's assimilated into Noct's retinue, he feels he doesn't compare to the likes of them, and fears the day they all reject him... even though the idea is completely unthinkable to them.

This idea extends nicely to the third Royal Arm Prompto uses, the Scepter of the Pious. The Pious is described as a king who "ruled the realm according to divine law and worked hand in hand with the Oracle." It's a weapon that strikes with a blade of light. It enhances magic and is particularly strong against dark elements. The Scepter is a weapon to represent unity, togetherness. The King worked with the Oracle -- a nice parallel to Prompto's correspondence with Lunafreya, and how she gave him the courage to befriend Noctis -- to unite Lucis. It's a weapon that represents strength in teamwork, in united people, breaking down the walls that divide them to live as one.

Prompto's use of the Royal Arms illustrate his biggest fears and greatest strengths. He's an outsider, terrified of rejection. But he's a dedicated and loyal friend, devoted to helping them and keeping them happy. Despite the differences that could potentially drive them apart, Prompto is a vital part of Noct's retinue. Despite his wavering confidence, he is talented and incredibly skilled. He's unique and irreplaceable, and his closest friends know that. One day, Prompto will, too, and he and Noct can knock down the barriers between their people once and for all.

"I owe Noct everything, for standing by me always. And now... it’s my turn to stand by him.”

Gladio

"I swore a vow to do whatever it takes to protect you and the future of our world."

So, let's get this out of the way: Gladio suffers from a tragic lack of character development. While this can be another sad side effect of XV's troubled development **, we can attempt to spin it into something subtle and quiet, illustrating Gladio's softer side. His connection to the Royal Arms shows that not only does he want to be strong, he wants to protect those he cares about above all else. Gladio is ultimately very caring and deeply, truly loyal, even though he's as hard and heavy as blade steel sometimes.

** (Rumor has it, Clarus, Gladio's father, was going to betray the Crown, and Gladio would face deep inner conflict over it, having to choose between his father's ideals and Noctis's journey. Apparently the role was given instead to Drautos/Glauca in Kingsglaive, who has a much more prominent presence in the movie than Clarus. None of this is confirmed, though, and isn't present in any released canon materials... so who knows. It's worth mentioning because it speaks to maybe their taking out Gladio's planned character arc and forgetting to put anything back in its place...here’s the reddit post that compiles the theories pretty well, if you’re curious.)  

Gladio receives the Tall's talisman. When it's equipped, it accelerates the rate at which Gladio's valor gauge increases. His valor, in battle, best increases from uninterrupted combos and counterattacks, both appropriate given his nature as Shield, well-trained for battle but focused on defense. It's a simple boon that's incredibly valuable in battle, and battle is an inescapable aspect of Gladio's life. Along with the talisman, Gladio wields the Sword of the Tall. It's a broadsword, Gladio's preferred type of weapon. The Tall is said to have been "built like a mountain, towering over all others." It's a peculiar kind of sword with a chainsaw-like blade, which rips and tears mercilessly through enemies. For its incredible strength and vitality boost, it lowers elemental and magic defenses. This is matched by the Tall's sigil in the Comrades expansion, which greatly increases attack power at the cost of casting spells. The Tall's is a mantle of muscle, not mettle, but it's not the only King's presence Gladio carries.

Gladio also wields the Shield of the Just. His secondary preferred weapon is a shield, obviously focused on defense and counters. The Just is a queen of yore -- she and the Rogue are the only queens of Lucis present ingame. She is not given a name, but her armor has a massive silhouette, her presence immense. The Shield of the Just, as expected, offers Noctis huge defense. It greatly decreases attack to grant significant defenses, both physical and elemental. Its description describes the Just as a queen devoted to peace who was loved by all. Though her phantom visage is imposing, the Just is a strong, steadfast figure of peace, not violence. It's a strong contrast to the Sword of the Tall; if the Tall's is his blade, the Just's is his shield.

The Axe of the Conqueror is the third Royal Arm Gladio uses. While the Tall and the Just represent Gladio's strength and will to protect, the Conqueror represents willpower and moving forward. The Axe describes the Conqueror as a king who "performed great feats of arms, expanded his realm, and made his people prosper." This is all too appropriate for Gladio's role in Noctis's retinue, not just as his protector but his guide. When Noct can't move forward, Gladio pushes him. When he can't think, Gladio thinks for him. When things get difficult, Gladio helps Noctis grow and move on, whether he wants to or not. Gladio is a big brother, after all, and he wants only the best for those he cares about and wants them to succeed, just as the Conqueror did.

Gladio's use of the Royal Arms illustrates his boundless strength both in offense and defense. He carries a broadsword and shield and the needs of his companions. Gladio pushes forward. He is fiercely loyal and cares deeply for those around him, and pushes forward without hesitation, bringing those he must protect with him. Gladio wants to be strong, not only for the sake of power, but for the power to protect the ones he cares about. He cherishes the things he holds dear, and will protect them with all his being.

"You're right, I am afraid. ... Maybe I'm not really cut out for the job I'm expected to do. ... I may be all muscle and no mettle, but I'm gonna keep protecting Noct the only way I know how."

Ignis

"This world means nothing to me. Do with it as you wish. ... But I refuse to let Noct sacrifice his life to save ours. I won't let you take him away."

Ignis has served the Crown for nearly all his life. He's been Noct's companion the whole while -- his friend and brother, as designated by King Regis himself. Since he was a child, he's carried royal responsibility. He's composed, precise, and calculating, well-versed in all kinds of matters, political and not. He's a strategist, a royal advisor, and he keeps at Noct's side without hesitation. While he maintains a very cool, thoughtful demeanor, confronting problems with plans and logic, he has a relentless, reckless side. He is willing to resort to violence should the plan call for it, especially if the safety of Noctis and his companions is at stake. Ignis has a very smooth, calm surface with a deep, deep underlying intensity that rarely shows.

Ignis receives the Wanderer's talisman in the fallen Insomnia. When it's equipped, it boosts Ignis's Total Clarity gauge, heightening his senses and deepening his focus. In battle, Ignis uses strategic elemancy -- imbuing his daggers with fire, ice, and lightning -- and counterattacks. He doesn't utilize raw strength; instead, his battle prowess uses his strategic mind. Reaching Total Clarity allows him to unleash a particularly decisive blow. He is a fast, strategic, relentless attacker, perfectly carrying the mantle of the Wanderer. In addition, the Wanderer's sigil in Comrades carries an entirely supportive effect -- it casts Cheer on the party, heightening their abilities. It fits Ignis's penchant for strategy, supporting his comrades and planning instead of rushing into battle and relying on raw strength.

The Wanderer is said to have been "quick like the wind and went where no man had gone before." His swords "rain fury -- together they deliver thundering blows." The Swords of the Wanderer have three distinct forms, interlinked and not, to adjust to the needs of battle. The Wanderer was clearly a versatile, flexible fighter. He roamed the unknown and pressed on into strange territory without fear. "Wandering" implies a lack of a destination, focusing not on the end of the journey but shoving onward regardless.

It's too fitting that Regis tells a young Ignis something he will never forget: "One cannot lead by standing still. A King pushes onward always, accepting the consequences and never looking back."

When Ignis is blinded by his sacrifice and Noct disappears into the Crystal, the Wanderer mantle fits him even more. The light has disappeared from his world, both literally and metaphorically. He can no longer see -- greatly debilitating his extensive prowess -- and his life's purpose, being at Noctis's side, is left to the lurch. He investigates the royal tombs and the ruins of old civilizations to the best of his ability. He pushes on alone, not to prove anything to his friends but to himself. He refuses to burden anyone, even though the boys would never think that of him. He's left without a destination, without purpose, but pushes onward, always. He finds the ability to fight again, delves deep into the history of Eos, and holds onto the hope that one day Noctis will return. And, soon enough, he does, only for the prophecy to snatch him away once and for all.

Ignis also wields the Katana of the Warrior, which couldn't be more fitting for him, especially given his relationship with Noct. The glaive is even found in Fondina Castino in Cartanica, the boys' first stop after the catastrophe in Altissia. Ignis is blind, hating himself for every stumble, hating how Gladio and Noct fight while Prompto tries to stop them. After the retinue finds the Katana, Ignis finds his resolve and tells his companions he will continue, and if he can't keep up, he will not hinder them. He will gladly fall behind if it means they can push on together. "I would remain with you all," he says, "to the very end."

The Warrior's glaive bears a tragic description: "A king was changed forever when his beloved queen was taken from him prematurely. This was his katana." The weapon strikes swiftly, calculatedly, cutting down foes “in a single heartbeat." It carries magical defense but is especially weak to dark elements. The Warrior's mantle couples well with Ignis's losses throughout the story -- he loses his home, his sight, the light of the world, and his most beloved companion. Even then, he pushes on. He carries his sorrows and pushes onward, regardless, knowing full well the pain of losing everything that matters, and what else there is to lose.

The third Royal Arm Ignis wields is the Mace of the Fierce. The Fierce was said to be "gentle before his people but an ogre on the battlefield," dealing massive, crippling blows with his glaive. This weapon in particular illustrates the side of Ignis he keeps carefully hidden. For all his composure, his careful planning and strategic mind, he can be reckless, ruthless, and violent. When planning to infiltrate an Empire base, for instance, he's not above torturing someone to get information he needs. When he needs to get something done, he will get it done. When it comes to Noct's safety, he will do whatever it takes. He will gladly throw away his own safety, his sight, and his life to save him. This duality is nicely represented by the Fierce's glaive -- nice and composed, but cold and relentless when the situation calls for it.

Beneath his calm, placid surface, Ignis is a blazing fire. He's intensely driven, fiercely loyal, and wholly devoted to Noctis as he has been his whole life. He will throw everything away without question, even himself, if it means saving the ones he cares about. He is thoughtful and strong, careful and precise, but has a tendency to be ruthless, reckless, and destructive -- forgoing his own wellbeing to reach his ends. In the wake of tragedy, he pushes on, holding onto unwavering hope, unyielding devotion, unable to ever let go.

"Even if it costs my own life to save him... I will pay that price!"

All for the True King

The remaining four Royal Arms are used by Noct in the Armiger Chain. They, too, carry significance in his wielding them -- especially in the combination attack, symbolizing the unity of him and those he cares about. Noctis wields the Blade of the Mystic, the Bow of the Clever, the Trident of the Oracle, and the Sword of the Father during the Armiger Chain. The Blade of the Mystic stands for the Founder King. The Bow of the Clever is a weapon especially fit for Prompto, who then wields the Sword of the Wise, one of the fundamental figures of Lucian history. The Trident of the Oracle belongs to Luna, and the Sword of the Father belongs to none other than King Regis.

Noct's use of the Royal arms in the chain complements those his boys use, further symbolizing the unity and togetherness between them and the people -- and the whole world -- they care about. The Kings' stories are present in the Prince's friends, showing just how deeply connected they are to Noctis. There's no doubt Noct loves his boys dearly, and their thematic connections to the Kings and their weapons only illustrate how much they care about each other. They travel together, ride together, and rule together with the blessings of Kings past. Even in the wake of trial and tragedy, they remain inseparable, inexorably bound together, standing tall in the face of the dawn.

tldr AND DARLING DARLINGGGG STANDDDD MY MEEEE

screenshots from ardynizunya on twitter and the final fantasy fan wiki -- please let me know if you need credit for any of these! ;o;/

[une-nuit-pour-se-souvenir]

random thoughts on jon connington’s chapters

The last time I read this was over four years and  I had a different take on Aegon, so I was curious to see on what changed with a second read.

----

The Lost Lord  ~ ADWD

Sansa and Aegon

Alayne II (Sansa II) ~ AFFC

When Robert dies, Harry the Heir becomes Lord Harrold, Defender of the Vale and Lord of the Eyrie. Jon Arryn's bannermen will never love me, nor our silly, shaking Robert, but they will love their Young Falcon . . . and when they come together for his wedding, and you come out with your long auburn hair, clad in a maiden's cloak of white and grey with a direwolf emblazoned on the back . . . why, every knight in the Vale will pledge his sword to win you back your birthright."

The Lost Lord ~ ADWD

"We have gone to great lengths to keep Prince Aegon hidden all these years," Lemore reminded him. "The time will come for him to wash his hair and declare himself, I know, but that time is not now. Not to a camp of sellswords." (...)

"The plan was to reveal Prince Aegon only when we reached Queen Daenerys," Lemore was saying." (...)

The prince wore sword and dagger, black boots polished to a high sheen, a black cloak lined with blood-red silk. With his hair washed and cut and freshly dyed a deep, dark blue, his eyes looked blue as well. At his throat he wore three huge square-cut rubies on a chain of black iron, a gift from Magister Illyrio. Red and black. Dragon colors. That was good. "You look a proper prince," he told the boy. (...)

Sansa and Aegon are supposed to reveal themselves by washing the dye out of their hair and wearing their house colours, in an event that involves a wedding with someone that will facilitate claiming their birthright.

However, Aegon said “fuck that bitch Danerys” and getting married, revealed himself somewhat (to the Golden Company higher-ups only) wearing his house colours and went back to Westeros to reclaim his birthright on his own, unware that his cousin from his mother’s side is coming to him to offer aid in the war.. Aegon washing his hair of the blue dye and doning his armour will only happen wieh he sets foot in Westeros.

Likewise, we can draw a parallel scenario for Sansa and considering the “Sansa is grey girl who flees from a marriage” it all fits, Like Aegon, Sansa syas “fuck that bitch blonde Bobby B Harry and getting married, like Aegon she wears a grey cloak, and like Aegon she’ll be meeting her cousin and eventually claim her birthright.

I somehow doubt Sansa will be getting an army that soon, but in the show she got the Wildlings (via Jon, who can be seen as “sellsword” type of warriors) and the Vale army. In the books, there’s the mountain clans both in the Vale (loyal to Tyrion, whom she’s married to) and the north mountain clans (those that protected Bran because he is Ned’s son and joined Stannis also because of Ned and his daughter).

Another thing of note is Aegon ended up cutting his hair but dyed blue once more, so this may be true for Sansa as well. She may cut it shorter (a parallel to her sister Arya as well) but keep dying it for awhile still. Such, she may reach the Wall and meet Jon as a brunette (a parallel to Jeyne Poole as well as  Alys Karstark).  ETA: Likewise Aegon only revealing himself by washing his hair and doning his armour when he invades Westeros (his birthright), Sansa may only wash her hair and done her armour when the northern campaign starts.

Regardless, This is a smart choice because...

Cersei IV ~ ADWD

The queen bristled. "I most certainly have not forgotten that little she-wolf." She refused to say the girl's name. "I ought to have shown her to the black cells as the daughter of a traitor, but instead I made her part of mine own household. She shared my hearth and hall, played with my own children. I fed her, dressed her, tried to make her a little less ignorant about the world, and how did she repay me for my kindness? She helped murder my son. When we find the Imp, we will find the Lady Sansa too. She is not dead . . . but before I am done with her, I promise you, she will be singing to the Stranger, begging for his kiss."

The Lost Lord ~ ADWD

"His because they're bought and paid for. Ten thousand armed strangers, plus hangers-on and camp followers. All it takes is one to bring us all to ruin. If Hugor's head was worth a lord's honors, how much will Cersei Lannister pay for the rightful heir to the Iron Throne? You do not know these men, my lord. It has been a dozen years since you last rode with the Golden Company, and your old friend is dead."

Cersei’s attention on Aegon is also a parallel to Cersei’s attention to Sansa, interestingly enough Tyrion is mentioned in both instances. Cersei’s attention on Sansa also come attached with the “singing the Stranger for a kiss”, which is interesting because if “Sansa is the Grey Girl” theory holds to, the guy she’s running to for protection is in fact.... dead or close to (the Stranger is their god and in the show... the episode was aplty named, the Book of the Stranger).

The bells tolled for all of us that day. For Aerys and his queen, for Elia of Dorne and her little daughter, for every true man and honest woman in the Seven Kingdoms. And for my silver prince. (...)

He had grown fond of Lemore, but that did not mean he required her approval. Her task had been to instruct the prince in the doctrines of the Faith, and she had done that. No amount of prayer would put him on the Iron Throne, however. That was Griff's task. He had failed Prince Rhaegar once. He would not fail his son. 

Let me live long enough to see the boy sit the Iron Throne, and Varys will pay for that slight and so much more. Then we'll see who's soon forgotten.

I grant that the obsession that Jon Connington has for Rhaegar Targaryen is milder and more honourable, compared to the obsession Littlefinger has for Catelyn Tully, but the fact is this is yet another parallel between Sansa and Aegon. They both have mentors with an unhealthy obsession with one of their parents and hate the other, which they project onto the kids. Last, but not least, both mentors are passing off as parents of the children while they remain disguised under a false indentiy.

However, as Sansa will have to run from Littlefinger’s toxic shadow, I suspect Aegon will do much the same. I have suspicions. Sansa escaped Littlefinger because of Jon, as he took the role of protection. No matter how people see the ship, the fact is Jon is a lot like Ned V2 (at least, that’s how Littlefinger will see it and he hated the man) but the truth is Jon is Ned’s nephew and Sansa’s cousin from his mother’s side.

Likewise, Aegon is about to meet Arianne Martell, who’s the niece of his mother Elia Martell, which makes them cousins from his mother’s side. Elia Martell, whom Jon Connington... hates, often speculated in fact that he was in love with Rhaegar Targaryen himself. The symmetry of all this, not only the mentor’s obsession with the children but also the love / hate hey have for their parents.

Connington’s wish to see Aegon crowned and the giant chip he has on his shoulder for not being recognised. For the former, I have not found any reference to Littlefinger wanting to sit the Iron Throne in the books, but this was basically his goal in the show. To be king with Sansa by his side. For the latter, well that’s the drive of his character, he’s a social climber seeking recognition.

Sansa VII ~ ASOS

I will tell my aunt that I don't want to marry Robert. Not even the High Septon himself could declare a woman married if she refused to say the vows. She wasn't a beggar, no matter what her aunt said. She was thirteen, a woman flowered and wed, the heir to Winterfell.

The Lost Lord ~ ADWD

"Why should I go running to my aunt  [implied marriage] as if I were a beggar? My claim is better than her own. Let her come to me … in Westeros." 

Eh. Same energy. They are not beggars and they know their birthright, they will not be forced to marry someone they don’t want to to facilitate it.

----

TL;DR: I think these concurrence between Sansa and Aegon suggest that Aegon is real, but also glimpse into their characters beyond their toxic mentors and their ascencion to power. It will be interesting to watch their common points in future events, even if by the fact that they’re different genders and that makes PLENTY of difference in ASOIAF.

Jon and Aegon

Jon II ~ ASOS

A few tents were still standing on the far side of the camp, and it was there they found Mance Rayder. Beneath his slashed cloak of black wool and red silk he wore black ringmail and shaggy fur breeches, and on his head was a great bronze-and-iron helm with raven wings at either temple. Jarl was with him, and Harma the Dogshead; Styr as well, and Varamyr Sixskins with his wolves and his shadowcat.

The Lost Lord ~ ADWD

The prince wore sword and dagger, black boots polished to a high sheen, a black cloak lined with blood-red silk. With his hair washed and cut and freshly dyed a deep, dark blue, his eyes looked blue as well. At his throat he wore three huge square-cut rubies on a chain of black iron, a gift from Magister Illyrio. Red and black. Dragon colors. That was good. "You look a proper prince," he told the boy. (...)

I personally ignored Aegon because I started with the show and didn’t know he was a (living) character until I read the books. I wasn’t even all that convinced he’d be particularly important. So I always looked at Jon’s interactions with Mance (associated with black + red) as "preparation” for Jon’s internactions with Daniella.

Hoewver, that changed when show!Cersei took over some of book!Aegon role: sitting on the Iron Throne, the Golden Company, and loved over Daniella in the last to final episode. It seems to me now that Mance can also (at the very least if not all) be seen as “preparation” for Jon’s interactions Aegon. As said, Mance  dresss in a black and red cloak which associates him with Targs, the cloak being “copied” by Aegon. Mance united the notorious “give no fucks about authority) wildlings under one idea (run from the Others), while Aegon united a sellsword compay (sellswords are untrustworthty).

Moreover, it’s my conviction that Jon and Aegon are probably going to war against each other for a time (this is illustrated by what I believe are their respective dragons and a natural consequence if Aegon sits in King’s Landing while the Starks declare Northern Indepdencen), until they sommehow make peace (in case of Mance and Jon it was because of the Others, but for Jon and Aegon it could be their fire counterart, Danerys).

TL;DR: I think these vague connections between Mance and Aegon are rather interesting and may be “preparation” for Jon and Aegon’s intereactons will involve war AND peace. Interestingly, Connington’s next chapter feaures battle.