#white London

[holland-vosijk-antari]

wonder how many people in red london would have white or grey london heritage? surely people made some Connections back when there was open travel between londons? besides, all it takes is one particularly slutty antari a hundred or so years ago laying pipe in more than one london to make quite a bunch of descendents.

[chron0ph0bia]

the way holland and the white londoners refer to red london as "the cruel one"

[ravencromwell]

some scattered disability and White London thoughts:

Schwab missed a hundred thousand opportunities for disability rep; this is a bleak, apocalyptic landscape where one of the prevalent currencies is blood, and both children and adults are frequently attacked for their power.

Sign language. Look. Most magicians need to speak to focus their power, though Schwab makes clear it's more a way to keep up concentration than a necessity (take Lila's tiger, tiger, burning bright. So I wanna see that taken to its logical conclusion: tongues removed because many. many people think they! are the source of power, or at least where immense magic will nest.

Therefore: A thriving culture of sign language, where everyone is at least semi-fluent.

Holland, watching Talya's hands trace the old stories in gorgeous, fluid arcs with her hands as her face takes on a million expressions. Later, finishing them beneath the blankets, fingers tracing words intohis skin in the dark.

Holland stands out as much because his Antariness has allowed him to avoid disability as for the power itself.

Way the fuck more prosthetics particularly prosthetic hands considering how so many people carve element-control runes directly on their skin. Take away your hands, and some enemies would think they could take away your ability to fight.

Lethally sharp hooks for hands, with the runes carved directly into the metal and the most ruthless fighters absolutely willing ready and able to gouge out your eyes with their prosthetics.

Consequently: prosthetic care. Eventually, you have to take your hand/hands off; moisturize the stumps etc. Who you choose to be that vulnerable with says a thousand things about your character. (and the moments when you don't particularly *choose* it but you need to anyway because you've had it on too long and the skin is blistering; infection in Makt would be deadly.

The irritations of amputations. I know from some other characters I've researched for: things like washing your hair with only one functioning hand: an absolute bitch.

Anemia. In AGOS, part of what Ojka says Osaron's powers does is "warm her blood". Everyone in that city must be A. constantly cold; and not cold like a coat can fix. Cold from poor circulation and generally "weak" blood. People who have an affinity with bone magic (Athos, Vortalis, Holland himself) would have a significant advantage because everyone else is moving just slightly sluggishly, always dragging at the weight of exhaustion. It's part of what would make Talya's dancing so fucking _impressive, that she moves like that even despite the headaches, dizziness, etc.

Holland as Antari: essentially a fucking human heated blanket to anyone who isn't afraid to be so close to y'know the extremely dangerous magician.

God, there's so. so much more, but my brain is swiss cheese. But I at least wanted to start the ball rolling, because I feel like this's a corner of fandom that's just _bursting with possibilities.

[crookedcrowclub]

the way adsom begins with “kell wore a very peculiar coat” and acol ends with “kell wore a coat that billowed in the wind” oh i’m gonna need a minute 😭

[onaloyveonce]

Holland Vosijk

[badassbutterfly1987]

New headcanon for White London:

It's normal for children to have long hair regardless of gender. Cutting it short for the first time is treated as a rite of passage. On a community-level, it means you're on your way to adulthood and marking you as their peer. That short hair being a sign of independence, of no longer relying only on others.

It's different once they reach adulthood. Keeping it short or choosing to grow it longer having varying meanings.

[danielgrant]

Creepy London 🤍

[pinkcupboardwitch]

@muffinworry @ravencromwell @dr-dendritic-trees

we should talk more about cities that are vampires. cities that are cold and wet and sink into your bones and stay there. cities that are hungry and want to live. dead cities that dont know they're dead and suck the life force of their people to maintain the delusion. cities with harbors that are actually mouths; one-way entries. cities that are devastatingly lonely and see consumption as love

[undr]

J. A. Hampton. London. 1947

[goryhorroor]

“horror movies were reborn in the 1930s. sound revolutionized cinema across the board and had a huge impact on the horror genre— and not just in the form of dialogue. sound effects added an extra dimension to terror, from creaking doors to echoing footsteps to the rumbling of castle thunder. music cues built suspense or signaled the presence of a threat. as screen storytelling moved away from symbolism towards realism, the dreamlike wraiths of silent cinema were replaced by monsters that grunted, groaned and howled.”

[wh0-is-lily]

Sharon Tate in a Halston hat for Harper’s Bazaar Photographed by Neal Barr, 1967

[holland-vosijk-antari]

I've been thinking about how white london probably has different kinds of physical affection to red and grey, I can't imagine hugging being common among people who are casual friends like it is in a lot of places here (I'm talking from the pov of someone from an area not too far away from real london so i get that this isnt the case everywhere lol) hugging requires a certain trust that the person you are hugging is doing anything nefarious with their hands - like stabbing you in the back for instance... so i like to think that in white london where trust is about as thin on the ground as magic, hugging is a massive declaration of trust in which you may as well tell the other you love them.

on an additional note it makes me wonder about what affections would be commonplace, would a kiss on the cheek be a more common greeting to someone you care for? would people give a short bow as a greeting towards an acquaintance? (both things very common in many places in this world too so not exactly strange?) or are people simply all-or-nothing with their affections, giving all their affection to one or two people who have their absolute trust and not showing any at all otherwise?

when it comes to greeting a stranger i was taught in my martial arts classes to introduce myself with both hands visible and to shake hands with both of my hands as a sign of respect within the culture so i wonder if that kind of action would be common in makt - dont hide your hands when trying to gain someones trust or they will think you are hiding something...

[robotpussy]

apparently riots are have been planned to take place in London this Wednesday. I needed people to stop saying "they can't try that in London 🙄" like 3 years ago. they ALWAYS do shit like this in London. why do people think because a area is diverse, bigots won't attempt their shit in those places? I hate it when people are shocked there bigoted hate crimes can happen in London that doesn't mean shit!!

[ravencromwell]

Current Shades Of Magic question haunting me: was Maxim Maresh working a deal with the Danes to make something comparable to an Inheritor for Rhy? (And by "working", I mean: he thought he was being real savvy while the Danes lied through their teeth for years and kept the credulous arnesian king on a fish-hook while they figured out how to rip a hole through time and space.)We know Tieren flatly refused to help him make one, and that Makt is highly skilled in binding magic. And Maxim's entire White London dynamic, especially in Darker Shade, never made a bit of fucking sense to me. Take, as exhibit 1: "Holland delivered a letter yesterday," explained the king. "But couldn't stay to collect the response. I told him I would send it back with you. Kell frowned. "All is well, I hope," he said carefully. He rarely knew the contents of the royal messages he carried, but he could usually glean the tone—the correspondences with Grey London had devolved to mere formality, the cities having little in common, while the dialogue with White was constant and involved and left a furrow in the king's brow." In scrupulous fairness, Schwab does give us an explanation for the involved nature of the letters, saying that the Red Crown was haunted by its decision to seal the doors between Red and White; that they wanted to provide magical advice as a kind of recompense and reparations. But we're also provided a very plausible explanation for how Vitari helps Lila move through the worlds, which gets very undermined by Lila as Antari. And living in the midst of the most nakedly imperial power of our modern age, I'm incredulous at best and scoffingly dubious at worst. With some very! rare exceptions, large, prosperous countries give small struggling ones shit either to look good, or because they want something out of the exchange.

Was it being _haunted that made Maxim Maresh send twelve-year-old Kell into the middle of a very violent country? Or was it _knowing by that time that Rhy most likely wouldn't be manifesting any magic. Kell says to Vortalis that this will be the beginning of "re-opening relations". Which makes sense, seeing as Antari are a dying breed, and Arnes hasn't had one for a while and Makt for even longer. It's not Maxim's bad parenting in sending Kell to White so young that has my antennae raising, but the bad diplomacy. Maxim's Kell flaw, after all, is that he sees him more as a political and propaganda tool than a person. And he's letting him go to Makt at twelve? When Kell could die, and a large reason Faro and Vesk are in line right then is because they believe Kell is integral to Arnes strength. I don't believe Maxim Maresh, who had the political cool to immediately think of how Faro and Vesk would react and demand secrecy about Rhy's near-death in Conjuring while everyone else is in knots of grief and he must be pushing down his own feelings with herculean effort decided to resume communications to salve his conscience. It just doesn't fit with the rest of who he is as king.

But, as several people wonder when Tieren chastises Maxim over the Inheritor: what wouldn't a father do for his son? Put his other son in jeopardy, if he thought he could make an attractive enough offer to get a (probably) ruthless king of a ruthless people to make him something? It would certainly line up with what he does throughout the series.

Finally: Maxim is adamant that "The Danes will pay" before he learns they're dead. Except seriously? How, Maxim? You planning to send the Antari who they already used as a pawn back as a one man army? Because no one else is going through.

Maxim Maresh, for all his faults, is too good a soldier to send Kell into that battle. So, either he's just blowing off steam and the threat has no teeth, or the threat has vicious teeth. Because the Crown has been sending the Danes advice: maybe instructions on relatively—to Arnesian thinking—small elemental magics like minor water redirection that have become integral to Makt's irrigation under the Danes, or something else entirely. There are a million little ways the Crown could've been helping; the question is _why. Why, in Darker, did Maxim, a a busy man, concoct a thick response within a day and send his best weapon into a violent place _after _dark when it could have waited till morning. Feels to me like a man hurriedly running after something the Danes are always "close to finishing" and that he wants, very, very much.

[eroticlamb]

People on King’s Road, London, 1971 ♡ Photographed by John Hendy

[xxnelli]

So I guess all the rumors are true,

You know I love a London boy... ✨️

(featuring biblically accurate firstprince)