Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

Anonymous asked: what is your thesis about that youre blogging about baron von steuben and america's first pantsless party with flaming shots???? and tagging your history information???????? inquiring minds need to know!!!

Ha, okay, sorry buddy, the thesis I just finished was about the history of battlefield medicine, and you can find both my thesis updates and stuff about medical history under the tag ‘only mostly dead’!  The pantless party thing is unrelated, I’m just a fucking nerd about the American Revolution and am practically brimming over with inane facts about the time period.  

On a related note, no one ever asks me for historical era Hamilton fic but my historical era Hamilton fic is, A, MY FAVORITE THING, and, B, obsessively researched.

littlestartopaz asked: Harry, Corlath, and Mathin! For the headcanon meme!

Topaz, coming through with the obscure fandoms!  For this ask meme, and Harry, Corlath, and Mathin are from The Blue Sword.

A: what I think realistically

I have said this before, but you can pry the headcanon from my cold dead hands.  The Damarians have some tradition in which the family of the bride (and normally the husband, but Corlath is the last of his family and it’s terrible) gives her away at the wedding.  Mathin stands in as Harry’s father, a parent from the Hills, and gives her away as the Daughter of the Riders after riding roughshod over Richard’s protestations.  Mathin cries a little and Harry cries a little and Corlath cries a little and no one ever says anything about it except in songs and stories where the devotion of them all is hailed as Serious Business.

Corlath very quietly slaps Mathin with a small title, whatever he can get away with, as the father of the new Queen.  It takes Mathin a full year to notice.

Alsooooo, Corlath can draw, although paper is expensive and therefore rare in the Hills.  He goes to the trouble of getting himself paper and charcoals during the winter rains for something to do with his hands and draws pretty much only Harry, Harry on Sungold, Harry bringing down the mountains, Harry laughing at dinner, Harry smiling at him stretched out on their bed.  Harry thinks it’s adorable.

B: what I think is fucking hilarious

I think we’ve discussed this but THE RIDERS HAVE TO GET BORED DURING THE WINTER RAINS.  

Y’all.  My dudes.  Hear me out here: the Riders playing pranks on each other.  Normally, the way these things shake out is “everyone is afraid of Corlath not because he’s the king but because he’s frankly terrifying between his tactical training and his kelar, but they’re more terrified of Mathin because Mathin is the ultimate Prank Lord.”  And then Harry shows up and radically changes the balance of affairs.

Because listen.  Harry has a bit of a learning curve to catch up with, so they go easy on her at first.  But then she lays a trap for Mathin after a little bit of idle conversation with Corlath and she gets him good.  Mathin, for three days, is dyed bright red with the concoction Harry managed to mix up.  And it’s war.  After a week and a half, Corlath and Harry make a truce of necessity–no pranks allowed in their own chambers–but otherwise Harry is an ally of whoever charms her most at the time.  The fact that the servants in the City all adore Harry means that she becomes the unquestioned champion by the end of her first winter.  Corlath doesn’t take it personally, honestly he’s kind of thrilled that she kicked his ass so handily–tbh Corlath is eternally that Will Smith picture when it comes to Harry, even when they’re fighting.

C: what is heart-crushing and awful but fun to inflict on friends

Corlath is the last of his family.  His mother always had a fragile constitution, and died of a plague sweeping through the City.  His father died not long afterward–officially in battle, but everyone agreed that is was from a broken heart.  He just couldn’t face the world without her.  Corlath rose to power quite young, even by the reckoning of the long-lived Hill Kings, and quite alone.  The Riders were all he had left, and for all that they tried to be enough, it made the City ache to see their joyous child prince grow into a serious warrior king.  Corlath still smiled, of course, but not as easily, and his bright laughter was hard-earned–it wasn’t that Corlath was depressed, it was that he was controlled, and stiffly so, at all times.

It’s hard to have close friends, let alone anything near family, when you can’t be sure of meeting anyone’s eyes.  Both Corlath’s parents had kelar, and he envies them for that security–he, who carries more kelar than anyone in living memory, is always aware of how much damage he can do.  He drove a servant mad, once, by accident when he was a young boy, and cried for two days until his mother managed to restore most of the man’s mind.  Corlath has had few friends and fewer lovers, as a result.

Beyond all that Harry does to endear herself to the Riders, the thing that truly wins them over is that they haven’t seen so much emotion–anger and joy and frustration and everything in between–on their king’s face in long years.

D:  what would never work with canon but the canon is shit so I believe it anyway

First of all, canon is not shit and you can fight me.

But seriously, I’ve said this before too but I’m so serious about it, Harry meets Aerin in the flesh at some point.  And also Aerin visits Harry in her dreams and at first Harry’s very deferential and nervous, but she lightens up over time, and Aerin gives her advice on being a queen and being a legend and being a mother.  (At some point, when Harry is just exhausted of everything and frustrated with everyone and ready to ride off into the desert just to get away, Aerin turns up and tells a story about a very vain girl named Galanna who got her eyelashes shaved off and could have been rolled out a window, she was sleeping so heavily.  Harry laughs herself sick in the dream and wakes up smiling for the first time in weeks.)

thanatoswrath asked: Minerva McGonagall

Lol. I feel bad. I mean Minerva McGonagall for the prompt thing of yours. Sorry for not clarifying

I got you, my buddy.  HBIC Minerva McGonagall, coming right up.

A: what I think realistically

McGonagall is widely hailed as The One That Got Away through every Auror’s department in the world, in much the same way that Dumbledore is hailed as The One That Got Away regarding the Minister of Magic.  Stories get around to the tune of “wow, did you hear, Minerva McGonagall took a dozen Stunners straight to the chest and they think she’s going to recover fully” and “wow, did you hear, Minerva McGonagall animated every statue in Hogwarts” and “wow, did you hear, Minerva McGonagall tortured a Death Eater in Ravenclaw Tower.”  (This last is not true, and McGonagall puffs up in a combination of fierce pride and genuine offense whenever she hears it.  How dare you but also my House, goddamnit, he belongs in MY House.)  And the older Aurors are like “Goddamn right, she’s Minerva Fucking McGonagall, she could have run this place if she didn’t like teaching so much.” 

B: what I think is fucking hilarious

It was definitely Minerva McGonagall’s idea to, A, make James Potter Head Boy, and, B, drown the Dursleys in letters.

The thing about James Potter is that he wasn’t a prefect.  Remus was a prefect.  Remus, however, was also reliably flat on his back the two days around the full moon, and Somewhat Indisposed that one night a month, and so someone had to cover his duties.  The first time McGonagall found James doing Remus’ patrol (and look suspiciously exhausted about it too) she almost gave him detention for life.  But…  

“One chance, Mister Potter,” she says stiffly.  “If I hear you’ve been abusing this, I’ll take it straight to the Headmaster.”

“You got it Minn–I mean, um, yes, Professor.”  James offers her a smile that makes the circles under his eyes stand out.  McGonagall does some mental math–the full moon was last night, what does James have to look so tired about?  With Remus out of commission, they’re hardly getting up to elaborate shenanigans without him.

James Potter, for three nights a month, is beyond reproach.  Impeccable, in fact.  McGonagall half recommends him because she thinks he’s genuinely improving with the weight of responsibility and half because…come on, she just has to.  She has to.  No one is more horrified than James Potter himself when he gets the letter.

The thing about the Dursleys…they’re terrible and Minerva dislikes them supremely and she COULD go herself but she suspects that it won’t get them any further.  So she enchants two dozen quills to write identical copies of Harry’s letter and comes up with every terrible idea she can to make their lives miserable.  Because fuck them, that’s why.

C: what is heart-crushing and awful but fun to inflict on friends awful just awful I’m sorry

McGonagall has a list of students that she never meant to start keeping.  It started years ago, by accident, when she opened the Daily Prophet and saw a name on the front page–little Jacob Hanover, a Muggleborn fourth year who was murdered in the street when the Death Eaters first started to rise.  He was a sweet boy, with a wicked sense of humor and an eye for Charms that was downright ingenious.  He had tried to defend himself, a Gryffindor at the end even though his House had been something of a quiet mystery, but it hadn’t helped.  The list is long, grows by the day, but then…oh, then it stops, with four names inscribed at the bottom on the same date–James Potter, Lily Evans Potter, Peter Pettigrew, and Sirius Black.  

(The boy she remembers, the boy who had three times been given detention for calling her ‘Minnie’ to her face, the boy who had once sent every Black in Slytherin an identical Howler full of insults, the boy who had laughed at his best friend’s wedding and danced the bride around in circles until they were both dizzy–he’s dead, she decides the second she gets the news.  He’s dead, and he died when he betrayed his friends.  She has no idea that the boy wishes the same thing, with all his heart.)  

The book containing the list leaves the corner of her desk where she’s kept it all this time, and she puts it on a bookshelf with every intent of never opening it again.  The war is over and she will not lose more students to that monster’s mania.  Minerva McGonagall will not raise another generation of children to march into battle.

Thirteen years later, she opens a book from her bookshelf and very sternly does not cry as she adds another name.  Cedric Diggory.  Flipping through the remaining pages, Minerva has a terrible premonition–there will be a lot more names before this is done.  

Alternatively: Minerva McGonagall attends Lily and James’ funeral.  The child reaching into the coffins, calling in confused distress for Mama and Daddy is bad enough, but she has never seen anything more heartbreaking than Remus Lupin, standing alone in the front row and clutching blindly at the photograph in his hands–the whole lot of them, the Marauders and Lily, at the wedding all those years ago.  They’re smiling in the picture.  Remus, three of his best friends murdered at the behest of the fourth, looks like he’ll never smile again.  That’s what breaks Minerva, finally, and sets her sobbing into her hands.

Eleven years later, Harry Potter looks her in the eye (he looks so much like his parents) and says that he and Ron miss Hermione, so much, please, they just want to see her, even if she can’t hear them.  Even if she’s Petrified.  

McGonagall knows when she’s being played, she does, but right then…pale and desperate and a little griefstricken, Harry doesn’t look like James, or Lily, or even wild and proud Sirius.  He looks like Remus, looking for friends who are far outside his reach.  She lets him and Ron go.

D:  what would never work with canon but the canon is shit so I believe it anyway

MCGONAGALL HAS A WIFE, SHE’S CHARMING, CANON CAN SUCK A DICK.

Anonymous asked: *gasp* i logged on to find more of the aios au this is //wonderful// thank you

THANK YOU VERY MUCH I CAN’T BELIEVE PEOPLE ARE STILL READING THAT AFTER MY SIX MONTHS OF LIVING AT THE BOTTOM OF A HOLE.

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE INTERESTED

bell15obsessions asked: Buffy Summers for the ask meme

MY LOVE BUFFY SUMMERS.  For this ask meme.  Also, buckle up for fucking Buffy/Angel hour, folks, I don’t truck with Buffy/Spike.

A:  what I think realistically

Buffy’s classmates…listen.  They’re not as oblivious as the adult population, because…obviously they’re not, they’re the rising generation of kids who go to school with the Slayer, even the most obtuse of them will pick something up eventually.  They don’t really know, either, and more to the point they don’t altogether want to know.  But they can kind of…tell.  

No one challenges Buffy.  Ever.  Buffy is a hunter of hunters, a killer of killers.  Even though they don’t know, something deep down in the mind of even the densest high school student looks at her and quails in fear, looks at her and says strength and danger and protection and fear all at once in a mad jumble.

Willow and Xander go from being regularly shoved around to not even touched.  People still talk shit for a while, sure, but by their senior year, the entirety of Sunnydale High would rather be shanked with a pencil and die quick than go toe-to-toe with Buffy Summers.

And God have mercy on you if you lay a finger on her little sister, because Buffy won’t.

B:  what I think is fucking hilarious

Early during that rocky first few months, Giles foolishly told Buffy that she should dress more practically.  Out of sheer spite, she went slaying in stiletto heels and club dresses for two weeks until Giles had to reluctantly eat his words.

Angel was planning to come talk to her, but listen.  He’s only human.  Sort of.  He has limits.  Buffy kicking back on a mausoleum in a little black dress with blonde hair loose over her shoulders and six-inch heels while she juggles holy water vials with the careless ease of someone with total confidence in her skills–that’s his limit.  He’s calling it right now.  He leaves, feeling mildly shellshocked.

C: what is heart-crushing and awful but fun to inflict on friends

SWEET GIRL, Death sighs, sliding through the motionless candle flames of the cave.  The Slayer is weeping into her hands, horrible ripping sounds as she stands with the water of the pool lapping at her feet.  She is dressed all in white, and so is Death, and they could be twins.  The Slayer is still afraid of Death, this time.  IT IS NOT YOUR TIME YET.

“Thank you,” the Slayer sobs, and Death rests a bone-pale hand on her shoulder to press her back into the body in the pool.

***

The next time, it’s been a few years, and the Slayer–the Slayer, Death always thinks of her, even though there have been two, one gone through Death’s own hands and the other very close now, since last time–isn’t afraid of Death anymore.  They are friends, well-known and often met.  Almost twins.  She’s not dressed in white, she’s dressed in her own blood and vindication and black, and she’s sitting on the foot of a hospital bed.

DEAREST, Death croons, sitting down next to her and stroking her hair with a hand while she lets her fingers hover just above the hand of the body in the bed.

“I can’t die,” the Slayer says, looking at the unhealthily white skin of the body in the bed.  Even the golden hair looks washed out.  “The Ascension is tomorrow and I have to be there.  And–and he’ll never forgive himself.”

I HAVE MET LIAM, Death says, somewhat disapproving.  HE WAS RATHER QUESTIONABLE.

The Slayer almost smiles, but tears break over her lashes instead.  “I’ve heard.”

Death allows, HE HAS IMPROVED TREMENDOUSLY.

“I won’t die here,” the Slayer says, iron-clad.  “You can’t take me.”

Death laughs.  ALMOST I BELIEVE YOU COULD STOP ME, DEAR GIRL.  BUT IT IS NOT YOUR TIME YET.  And Death presses her back into the body, and the Slayer clutches gratefully at Death’s wrist before she goes.

***

It is longer, before the next time, and this time the Slayer does not resist, throws herself weeping into Death’s arms and lets herself be held close to the thin body under the white cloth, and buries her tears in Death’s neck.

DEAREST CHILD, Death whispers, YOU HAVE FOUGHT FOR SO LONG.  COME WITH ME, AND YOU CAN REST.

***

Death has never considered mutiny before, but seeing the Slayer torn back into life almost brings it to mind.

***

They meet again, and again, and the Slayer smiles when she sees Death and they talk like old friends, like family long parted.

“How is Tara?  How is Jenny?  Tell me about Cordy, is she doing all right?  Did you see my mother, is she okay?  How is your work?  Is it my time?”  The Slayer asks her questions like there’s nothing to fear, and Death tries to keep a mental list, tries to check up on all her loved ones so that the Slayer can be assured of their wellbeing.  The Slayer’s list of loved ones is long.  Death hates to have to tell her, when the soul of Liam has passed through Death’s hands again, and always makes sure to let her know when it is restored.

LOVE, Death says quietly, every time, at the end of their talk, DO YOU WANT TO REST?

“No rest for the wicked, didn’t you hear?”  This is always the only time that the Slayer’s eyes glisten, her lips tremble.  “I still have so much to do.”

LET THE OTHERS DO IT, DEARHEART.

“Maybe next time,” the Slayer says, looking away, as ever, to hide the tears threatening to slide down her cheeks.  “Maybe next time I’ll rest.”

Death takes her face in bone-pale hands and kisses her forehead, a benediction.  They are almost twins.  YOU ARE THE BRAVEST OF YOUR KIND, SWEET GIRL.  And Death presses the Slayer back into her body.

D: what would never work with canon but the canon is shit so I believe it anyway

Honestly, AU where Angel/Cordelia doesn’t get shoehorned in and there’s no super uncomfortable Spike/Buffy plot and we get 100x more active pining.  Deliver!  My!  Mutual!  Pining!  Thanks!

In slightly more seriousness, though, (not that I’m not TOTALLY serious about that mutual pining thanks) you know how there’s that one time where Buffy accidentally demonstrates to a room full of morons that she can toss a dude over her shoulder like a paperweight?  In my heart of hearts, Buffy is shyly approached the next day by a girl who’s regularly harassed by jackasses and Buffy accidentally becomes the mentor to a bunch of random girls for how To Beat Up A Creepy Dude 101.  At work, Buffy walks other girls back to their cars on the regular, and she’s sort of surprised by how many of the people who try to mess with them are just…creepy dudes, nothing supernatural, because…like…very few people are suicidal enough to try shit with Buffy and her standard for comparison is like 99% vampires and 1% miscellaneous other.

Unrelatedly she and Angel are soulmates and they probably have a weird psychic pseudo-sire bond because of the bite on her neck and at some point a vampire asks her about it and she’s like “Well, I saved a master vampire from dying.”

VERY relatedly to the above, Angel is an actual master vampire and gossip is faster than wildfire and word Gets Around that the Slayer (because, much to Faith’s bitterness, Buffy is always the Slayer), one time saved Fucking Angelus from death.  The entire supernatural underworld simultaneously explodes with elaborate conspiracy theories, chief among them that the Slayer is actually a vampire.  Buffy hears about this after a really long day and the vampire who lets it slip is very confused when the Slayer sits down on the ground and laughs until she cries.  Not confused for long, though.  She stakes him before he can be confused for too long.

Anonymous asked: Can you do John Wick for that headcanon post you reblogged?

You’re darn right I can do John Wick!  For THIS meme!

A: what I think realistically

John didn’t get into trouble as a kid.  John was a well-behaved student, known for being intelligent and quiet and unremarkable.  John never got into fights and no one ever questioned where he got bruises, because no one ever noticed.  When John left high school, he joined the military and did a four year tour with very little action.  And then he fell off the fucking map.  He still has living family.  They believe he’s dead.

B: what I think is fucking hilarious

John definitely calls in, like, life debts to get people to watch his dog while Shit’s Going Down.

“I need a favor.”

“John,” the smiling English assassin says, “after that time in Bulgaria you know you only need to ask.”

“I need you to watch my dog.”

There’s a long pause, but the assassin’s smile doesn’t crack.  “Does he have a name?”

“…no.”

“Okay.”  John is a weird dude, even as assassins go.  The English assassin rolls with it like a champ.

C: what is heart-crushing and awful but fun to inflict on friends

For the record, I don’t have any friends who have seen John Wick except for the people who have asked me about it on here.  

That being said: John hasn’t been to visit his wife’s grave since he buried her.  At first it was because he physically couldn’t make himself do it.  Those first weeks were such a grey haze of…weight, more than anything else–even the air seemed too heavy to breathe–that he couldn’t leave the house.  Even with Daisy, it was all he could do to get up and take care of her.  Going to the cemetery…no way.

And then once Daisy was dead…John was busy.  John was fighting.  John was killing.  John had a purpose and damned if he was going to turn away from it.  

He was planning to go see his wife’s tombstone the morning after he got home.  Instead his house gets blown up and he loses everything of hers that he still owned.

D: what would never work in canon but the canon is shit so I believe it anyway

You’ll never tell me that John’s wife wasn’t a world-class thief.  Like, she is to the thief world what John is to the assassin world.  They called her the Wraith, and her Interpol file is almost as thick as his, but instead of being a trail of mercilessly efficient kills it’s a laundry list of precious paintings and jewels and artifacts stolen from uncrackable safes and impenetrable museums.

They met while she was stealing a Picasso from one of John’s targets.  A classic story: girl meets boy, boy murders target, girl takes painting, girl breaks into boy’s safehouse with champagne.  “To celebrate our mutual successes,” she says, and John is gone.

Instead of making a deal with the Devil, she stole the most cherished statue owned by a leading member of her own High Council, and ransomed her freedom back with it.  She would have been free for all her natural life–and, John supposes, she was.

It’s just they both expected her natural life to be a lot longer, is all.

Anonymous asked: I told my dad that I'm nonbinary and now he won't stop saying shit like"I raised you better than this"and"where's my little girl gone"and"you were supposed to be the normal child" (i was adopted because my parents wanted a successful child and my sister has asbergers and my brother has a reading disability and a stutter) and he keeps making comments about God when he has been divorced twice and I dont even believe and I don't know what to do and this has been going on for months and I'm so tired

Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.  I wish there was something I could do to fix the situation for you–there’s nothing more insidious than people who are supposed to care unconditionally telling you that you’re guilty of the crime of existing.  It sits in your heart and eats at you, like something living, more than any other cruelty I’m familiar with.  Combined with the idea that you’re supposed to be in some way ‘better’ than the people around you–more intelligent, more socially adept, more well-spoken, more normal, whatever–it’s toxic like nothing else.  I know that it probably feels like everything you do and everything you are is a personal failing of your willpower and your strength, right now, and I want you to take me seriously when I say it is not.  

It’s not.  You are not failing the test of being human because of your looks, because of your gender, because of who you love or what you enjoy, because of what you do or don’t believe.  No matter what kind of abuse the people who claim to care about you heap on your shoulders, they are wrong about this.  Your brother and your sister aren’t failures because their brains are wired up differently than the ‘norm’, and you’re not a failure because you’re nonbinary, or because of the way you present.

And because I know a thing or two about being the family failure while also being touted as the family genius, let me add: you’re not responsible for why your parents adopted you.  You aren’t beholden to their idea of a ‘successful’ child, and nor are you selfish or monstrous because your parents were arrogant enough to write your siblings off.  You are, ultimately, far more the person you choose to be than the person your parents make you, and your parents cannot force you to become like them.

And it’s hard to remember these things.  I’m not going to lie to you.  You said you were tired–oh, sweetheart, this globe-sprawling clan of people who have come out of terrible families, we’re all tired.  But we’re none of us failures because we’re tired.  We’re none of us weak, or broken, or monsters because we’re tired.  We’re alive, and goddamn, some days that is good enough.

It’s taken me years to settle on this, and trust me, there are a ton of days where I still struggle with it, but here is my one piece of advice I can offer you–and a weak and paltry thing it is, in the face of a situation like yours, but it’s all I have for you, my dear one.  The world is not an exam.  No one can give you a pass or a failure on this, no matter who you are or what you do or how your brain works or whatever.  You are succeeding by the mere fact of being alive.

Anonymous asked: i am here to ask about these legion john wick feelings. your timer begins now. do not disappoint.

Listen, I know they’re making a third one to close the trilogy and I’m pumped as fuck for it but that being said I’m going to be spectacularly disappointed if it doesn’t end with John as the manager of the Continental.

I have a lot of disjointed half-thoughts about this, but it basically sums up as: BUT THAT’S HOW STORIES WORK.  John breaks the ONLY LAW in the underworld when he kills someone on Continental ground, he renders himself an outlaw among this community of outlaws, and like.  Outlaws and kings are members of the same category, those who are not bound by the rules, IDK man I didn’t take a class about homo sacer but my roommate did and I absorbed a lot of it by exposure?  @lathori be proud of me.  Basically what I’m saying here is please make it a thing that, in the process of being a badass and saving his own life, John reveals that Manager Wednesday (I think his name is actually Winston but my feelings about American Gods have intersected with my feelings about John Wick and therefore he is Manager Wednesday, an inveterate con artist and liar who low-key has supernatural abilities and enjoys the Absolute Belief that his people have in his authority and power) is forging Krugerrands or whatever and takes over.  OR, arguably even better, Manager Wednesday either dies (good! kill everyone John cares about, I want to see him suffer, Keanu Reeves does a good Suffer) or just…retires.  Like, the only way to retire is if you just disappear and the only way to just disappear is if you have the power to make it happen.  

Or, arguably THE BEST, Manager Wednesday owes John an old favor for saving his life and just kind of promotes him.  I am JUST SAYING that it would be a really quality twist to have the end of the movie be a brief conversation between John and Manager Wednesday about how much John sacrificed to Get Out and how much he’s right back where he started, and then Manager Wednesday leaves and John watches him go and sighs and starts to stand…and stops.  There’s a Continental key card left on the table, with a single gold Krugerrand on top of it.  John takes it to the front desk and asks which room it gets him into, and he’s simply told “top floor”, and he takes the elevator up, battered and exhausted but alive and he’s going to find one more answer before he sleeps for a million years.  The elevator doors open and John (plus his dog, kept safe by friends who Did This For John when he asked) walks to the only door in the antechamber, and opens it with the key card.  It’s Manager Wednesday’s penthouse suite, impeccably made up and cleared out of all personal possessions, and there’s a piece of stationary laid on the pillow under another Krugerrand.

John, the note says, no one ever really talks about what makes a manager, so I’ll tell you.  We’re the ones who can manage, no matter what goes wrong.  

I’ve cleared it with the others.  Welcome to your new life.

Anonymous asked: so uh this is gonna sound like a loaded question but i'm genuinely curious: how are you okay w the incest in borgias?

Um…you’re correct, that is a loaded question, and ultimately my answer boils down to ‘because I’m confident in my own ability to tell right from wrong in the real world’ but sure, we can do this.

First of all, I don’t have any personal issues centered around incest, which, like, I tend to think is the important part of this?  Obviously, if you’re uncomfortable with a relationship in a piece of media, please choose to take care of yourself and not engage with it.  Ex: I have the show Rick & Morty comprehensively blacklisted because I can’t deal with it.  I don’t have any of those issues with the Borgias so…thus, I watch it.

Second of all, it’s history.  Like, okay, I know this is a pretty fragile argument, but it’s pretty much accepted historical fact that there were some…interesting familial dynamics happening with the Borgia family, as with many of the powerful families in Italy at the time.  And I generally believe that if you’re doing a messy part of history, you need to deal with the fact that it was messy.  

Third of all, I just care a lot more about whether a fictional relationship is interesting than whether it’s the picture of mental health and moral purity.  Like, I’m sorry, I just do.  The Purity Olympics that this blue hellsite likes to get into exhaust me, I have unfollowed people for it when I got too tired of watching the discourse scroll down my dash.  I care infinitely more about how interesting and complicated the relationship and the emotions are.  Even the ships that are genuinely pretty good and harmless, I generally care about them in terms of complications.  Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley is my jam, but I would be WAY less interested if they weren’t both child generals in a war they were born into and victims of possession and traumatized and scared and courageous and forced to fight separately in order to win.  The very first thing I said about Diana/Steve Trevor was “why are we even here if he’s not torturing himself with guilt for staining the purest soul he’s ever known with war”.  I’ve always been someone who loves stories for their messiness, because it makes the characters and their relationships more interesting.  And by far the most interesting available permutation of Cesare Borgia and Lucrezia Borgia’s relationship is the one in the show, where they’re so bent and misshapen by the pressures and demands of their father’s nation-spanning chess game that the only way they really know how to love is with each other.

Fourth and finally, this is the kind of complicated morally graphite stuff I grew up on.  The five other people on the internet who’ve read the Kencyrath know what I’m talking about, but more than that, this is always the kind of story I’ve loved.  For all else that it is, Harry Potter is a story about a profoundly traumatized kid and the grim reality that sometimes there is no one else to fight except for you.  The Hero and the Crown is a story about how sometimes being good at something won’t change the fact that you’re not good at the right thing and you might have to beat that into people.  Jesus Christ, Animorphs brings up the question of whether or not it’s morally okay to commit a war crime.  A lot.  The characters commit war crimes.  A LOT.

Basically, I’m an adult with the ability to make my own decisions about right and wrong who enjoys grim and messy relationships because honestly life is grim and messy.  If you yourself, anon, are not comfortable with the incest in the Borgias, then you are more than welcome to not engage with it.

Anonymous asked: okay, favourite city in alleirat and what the street food is like there

Oh my god, let me talk to you about my very favorite Alleirat city: Dase, the city of stone, called by her own people and all those with sense the jewel of the east.

Perched on the easternmost coast of the Alleirai continent, Dase (pronounced dah-SEH) is the biggest city in terms of population if not physical size, and presides over the finest harbor in the world (the southern coast, with their sprawling river delta, politely begs to differ, but look, they’re wrong, okay, good talk).  Beyond her size, Dase’s claim to fame is her towering four-hundred-foot coastal cliffs, and the semispherical harbor the ancient citizenry excavated straight into the stone wall with a combination of magic, explosives, and sheer determination.  The harbor is massive, able to comfortably house even the tallest ship without scraping the mast along the ceiling and protect quite a number of vessels in the event of a storm.  The city itself was originally built almost entirely out of the excess stone removed from the harbor, and as further expansions have been executed under the eye of the city stone workers, the buildings have been expanded since then with the same material, either taken from expansions to the harbor or knocked off another part of the cliff.  Dase mostly gets expanded up rather than out, since it’s approximately a half-circle facing against the cliffs on one side and there’s a city wall hemming it in along the curve, but it’s still sizable, about three miles in radius.  It’s also the place where Crispin and Brenneth grew up and lived until things went badly–Brenneth used to own a smithy on the blacksmith’s row that’s still standing, and her old sword is mounted in the audience chamber of the gothkenla (like a city hall crossed with a citadel, literally ‘city center’).

Because I have no impulse control, here’s a brief excerpt of Brenneth and Crispin returning: 

“Welcome back to Dase, the jewel of the East,” Crispin said, switching fluidly back to Alleirai and raising his bound hands as if presenting me a gift.  I turned, and looked, and all my exasperation with Crispin drained away to be replaced by the sun-warm, dizzy ecstasy of being back.

Dase was less beautiful and more striking—all its beauty was in strong lines and hard angles, like the cliffs it commanded. It was tall, about three or four stories on average, and built almost entirely out of the hard silver-grey stone of the cliffs, with wide windows cut into the walls and the sun turning it into a labyrinth of brilliant light and impenetrably dark shadows.  The air smelled of salt at the cliff face, but the city wind itself could change on a dime, bringing the scent of the farmlands from the inland fields.   From our angle were the places where Kal Dase—Dase Below, the subcity of tunnels—could be accessed were invisible, but we could see where the stone was ragged enough to be scaled to the eaves of the roof level. Shadows moved, quick as starlings, overhead, thieves about their business in Lai Dase, Dase Above.  

…From above, the city would look like a ragged half-circle, butting right up against the edge of the cliffs with an absolute disregard for the potential drop on the other side.  At what would be the center of the circle, if it were complete, was the gothkenla, the city center—the citadel building where the gothed lived, received audiences, passed judgement, and completed all their other duties.  City-side of the kenla was a sprawl of empty space that spread all the way to the cliff, serving as the central marketplace and, occasionally, execution grounds.  The ten major streets radiated out from the city square, a nest of alleyways interconnecting them, and led all the way to the city limits. Every sector had its own markets, its own hierarchies and systems—the city in miniature, divided up by class.  The path to the cage, sardonically marked Drop Alley with a wooden sign, butted up against one of the major throughways, the one that ran immediately cliff-side. Unless they had moved everything around rather a lot, which I imagined would be a challenge, the kenla was about an hour walk from where we stood, depending on foot traffic.  

But so, as you might imagine, food in Dase tends toward fish for meat and depends on her protectorate lands for kestho (the main grain grown in Alleirat, a very hardy, adaptable plant that produces dense breads that taste sort of like…rye?) and other farm products.  The ten city sectors often have smaller markets to service day-to-day needs, with the large market outside the gothkenla being a once-or-twice-a-week thing for more variety, but that’s, like, raw cooking material.  

Since street food is generally stuff that can be acquired and cooked with a minimum of effort and expense on the vendor’s part, I’m guessing that smoked meats (maybe venison/other wild-hunted meats in seasons where they’re plentiful and therefore cheaper, chicken/beef if a vendor could get a good deal, most commonly fish) play a big part.  I’m kind of thinking of a kabob-like situation, with chunks of smoked meat served on a skewer with whatever suitable vegetables are in season.  Spices and seasoning would be easy, it’s a trade city and you can make spices last a long time if you know what you’re doing, so please assume that all of these are very flavorful.  

Straight-up fruit vendors are also a pretty common thing, especially in the richer parts of the city where the fruit is nicer and possibly imported (maybe from the west where apples do better, or the south where everything does great, or even the Outrigger Islands where more tropical stuff can be found).  Fruit vendors also do phenomenally well in the hostel district where there are always sailors who miss real fresh stuff and are willing to shell out of their wages accordingly.  Like, the fruit vendors in the hostel district charge more than they maybe ethically should but the sailors don’t care enough to try to change it.  

Oh, and bread stuff, that should fill out the basics.  Since kestho grain doesn’t easily grind down into really fine flour and tends to be very dense, fluffy pastries aren’t really a thing like they are here, but miniature loaves of bread (like, the size of two fists) with various things baked into them are a hit.  You can go with meat/veggies for savory or (often dried) fruits for sweet–they’re often baked as an easily transported ration, too, although not so elaborately.  Kestho loaves with meat and hot Island spices do a booming business on the training grounds and as a traveling ration for the city guard, because they’re quick and easy to eat with protein and carbs for energy and a good kick.  That specific combination is actually called a soldier’s meal, because they were the original kestho loaf cooked by soldiers during the ancient pre-unification wars.

I wrote this on a bus with no dinner in sight and now I’m ravenous and I could murder a soldier’s meal with like some strawberries after, Jesus this was a bad idea.