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

the-dot asked: hi!! i absolutely adore your Blue Sword headcanons (why doesn't it have a bigger fandom. why.) and i cried a little when i read the last ones. if i may ask, do you have any headcanons about the children?

(i sent that before i meant to weeps, sorry, feel free to ignore this one if you want) also, luthe is probably their weird uncle who loves them all and tells wild stories that no one quite believes. (i hope you’re having a good day!)

Ummm, let’s see, headcanons about the kidlets.  I’m not going to do the headcanon meme because I’m mostly making these up, but I hope these are good!

Tor Mathin

• Tor is a lot of things–first sola, horseman, a good tactician, a promising young king–but a swordsman is not among them.  He’s passable, technically very good, but he lacks joy.  Tor is the first person in his family in the gods only know how long to prefer spears, and dredges up an old design for a Damarian saddle that allows him to strap the poles to his horse’s side for easy access.
• Tor takes after his namesakes–both of them, actually, although naturally Tor’s dry humor and stoic sufferance of small children didn’t make history nearly as much as his Just-ness.  But what I’m saying here is that, basically, Tor has a very droll sense of humor and is an incredibly excellent big brother who claims dibsies on his youngest sister on the spot and routinely allows himself to be dragged into trouble with her.  Mathin is delighted.

Aerin Amelia

• Obviously, Aerin Amelia is the next carrier of Gonturan.  One of them, at least.  She is a talented stateswoman and the beloved first sol of her people, and her mother teaches her swordplay, and Aerin associates it with laughing and joy and the beat of sunlight on her cheeks.  She beats the crap out of her brother frequently and Tor puts up with it because he’s a good sport.  
• She likes to dress up like her godmother–Amelia dotes on her, and for Aerin’s sixteenth birthday the girl shows up in crimson and blue, a dress Amelia sewed for her over the winter, somewhere between a Hill robe and a layered Homeland dress, with pearls woven into her bright red hair.
• Aerin and Senay’s baby sister Rilly fall in love and get married and Senay and Harry are both pleased beyond belief.  Aerin, much like her namesake, is Tall, and Rilly is kind of Tiny all her life, they’re adorable.

Jack

• Jack is a fucking kelar powerhouse.  All his siblings are, they take after the old kings, but Jack in particular is juiced.  His talents run toward rock and stone, and when his kelar wakes he almost shakes down a wing of the citadel.  He and Harry ride out into the Hills and she sets up a camp in a little valley where she once learned how to fight, and they just sort of wait out the worst of it.  She kisses his hair and rubs his back and it’s a terrible few weeks, as he tries to get control, but it’s an oddly warm memory, later.
• To that effect, Luthe likes Jack very much, he reminds Luthe of the Aerin easily as much as his sister, and although Jack is far from being a full mage, Luthe teaches him a few tricks.  One that Jack particularly loves, because of the way it makes his sisters yell at him in mock aggravation, includes turning little posy rings of pimchie flowers into golden birds that sing before flying away into nothingness.  Luthe observes Jack’s talent for this particular parlor trick and very scrupulously does not burst out laughing.

Hari

• The youngest child of Harry and Corlath is two things above all else: an incredibly skilled rider and the fucking family prankster.  Tor adores her from the minute she’s born, a wrathful little thing with jet black hair and tiny clenched fists, and he makes a fantastic babysitter, and she gets on her first horse at two years old because she talked Tor into letting her ride his stallion.  It was a terrifying experience for Tor as well as all the sofor who witnessed their teeny baby sol shrieking with delight as she clung to the horse’s mane like a burr.  It was also the moment that Tor realized his baby sister could probably ask him to hand over the kingship and he might actually do it.
• Hari and Aerin trade custody of Gonturan, sometimes, more just for variety than anything else.  Aerin usually carries it because Aerin actually likes swords, whereas Hari likes to fight with a pair of knives.  This is considered something of a sneak-thief’s weapon, in Damar, but Hari is very stubborn and Harry isn’t exactly a strong candidate for telling any of her children “No, you can’t, Because Tradition” and Corlath is too thrilled with his life to take a hard line on something so unimportant.  So it’s mostly Hari’s tutors kind of moaning through their teeth as she learns to throw knives and Hari young woman is that your brother’s best tunic you’re using for target practice.  
• Yes, it absolutely is Jack’s best tunic, because Hari, in the fashion of younger siblings everywhere, is, after all, something of a sneak-thief, and she stole it to see how long it would take him to notice.  
• It has been three weeks and while Aerin and Tor have both noticed, Jack shows no sign of picking up on it.

Anonymous asked: do you think that during the scene where harry and corlath sit at the fountain he was like holy shit holy shit holy shit she's holding my hand holy shit and then later was like sheheldmyhandsheheldmyhandsheHELDmyHAND and one of the riders (probably mathin) was like im gonna tell this story at your wedding

Well, as we all know, the exact order of people who realized that Harry and Corlath were in love* was:

1. The Riders
   
2. The hafor
3. Bystanders at the laprun trials
4. Sungold
5. Corlath, probably immediately after she took his mask at the trials
6. Gonturan
7. The City hafor
8. Random City folk
9. Various Damarian soldiers, including Senay and Terim at different times
10. Luthe/Aerin
11. Jack Dedham
12. Random Outlanders following mad Harry into battle
13. Kentarre and her archers
14. Richard Crewe, probably because Jack tells him
15. Small animals on the side of the path
16. Passing birds
17. Thurra probably????
18. MAUR THE BLACK DRAGON, DEAD THESE MANY CENTURIES
19. PEOPLE IN SUNSHINE, WHO AREN’T EVEN IN THE SAME UNIVERSE
20. Harry

*Narknon is not included because, as it has no bearing on her life besides the improvement of her porridge quality, she maintains catlike, disdainful disinterest

So what I’m saying is: yes, yes he does.  And at their wedding Mathin, in his capacity as Harry’s stand-in entire family, presents her as the Daughter of the Riders and tells the entire assembled city about how it took a fight, a mutiny, a war, a miracle, and a near-death experience for Harry to see what was right in front of her nose, and in the meantime their noble king was blushing like a teenager after so much as touching her hand.

littlestartopaz:

goodluckdetective:

wlwvoltron:

angst where character dies: bad

angst where character almost dies but is saved by their s/o and hurt/comfort ensues: god’s gift to the world

I raise you this:

Angst where everyone thinks a character is dead but then they turned out to be alive the entire time and are reunited

@words-writ-in-starlight

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.)

flvffs asked: top six female characters (if this is still running??)

Oooo-hooo-hooo, it’s been a goddamn WHILE since I went into my inbox, yeah, I have a lot of stuff to catch up on.  But yes!  This is still going!  This is the top six meme, for those of you who (justifiably) have forgotten since a month ago.

Also, this ask if just goddamn MEAN.  How???  Am I supposed to pick????

By cheating ruthlessly, that’s how.

Books

• Jamethiel Priest’s-bane, of the Kencyrath Chronicles, because she’s fierce as fuck and rides a rathorn into battle and is probably going to end the world.  Literally what else could you WANT in a character.

• Harimad-sol AKA Harry Crewe and Lady Aerin Dragon-killer, and I’m cheating MORE by putting them in the same category because they’re from the same series.  They are my beloved childhood friends and heroes, okay, the Blue Sword and the Hero and the Crown are goddamn glorious.

• RACHEL.  Because GODDAMN ANIMORPHS.  I’m not going to say more because I’m writing an epic rant about every book as I reread it.  Also Cassie gets honorary mention because GODDAMN CASSIE.

• Hermione Granger.  C’mon, y’all, I’m part of the Harry Potter generation and I’m a Gryffindor, Hermione is basically mandatory for this list.

• Kitsune Yukiko from Stormdancer, my L O V E.  Someone come cry with me.

• Um!  Um!  I only have one more, um!  THERE ARE TOO MANY.  Fuck it, Galadriel.  And Arwen.  They’re tied for LOTR lady-love.  With Eowyn as a close second.

Movies/TV

• IMPERATOR FURIOSA, ‘nuff said.

• The Honorable Miss Phryne Fisher, because I’m literally watching Miss Fisher right now and remembering that I adore this show and have the worst crush on Phryne.  Also her lesbian doctor friend is awesome.

• Buffy Goddamn Summers.  

• Echo from Dollhouse.  “I’m not broken.”  And honorary mention to Dolores from Westworld.  “I imagined a narrative where I wasn’t the victim.”  God, stories about empty bodies being filled up with souls are my SHIT.

• Rey.  And General Leia Organa.

• MAKO MOTHERFUCKIN’ JAEGER-DRIVIN’ KAIJU-STOMPIN’ MORI

Comics

• Rogue.  I like shitkicker comics Rogue a lot more than movie Rogue, not gonna lie to you.

• Natasha Goddamn Romanoff.  

• Wonder Woman.  Because she’s fucking Wonder Woman.

• Kitty Pryde.  I feel that she has been grievously wronged by the movies and I’ve taken it very personally.

• Ororo fucking Monroe, god, Storm is everything to me, she’s a goddess.

• Jean Grey.  I know a lot of people think Jean is…I don’t know, boring or something?  But I just.  I love her a lot, I got started on the comics rather than the original movies, and Sophie Turner CRUSHED IT in Apocalypse.
  

leaper182:

gehayi:

alisfranklin:

ceescedasticity:

wrangletangle:

rashaka:

reblog if you’ve ever written a fanfic just to spite the existence of another fanfic somebody else wrote

Funny story. Robin McKinley once wrote an entire book like that. Her novel was The Blue Sword, and it was in response to the horror that is The Sheik by Edith Hull (trigger warnings for rape, stockholm syndrome, and virulent racism). McKinley stated that it took her about 6 months to draft The Blue Sword, which was at that point the fastest she had ever written a novel.

Don’t ever let anyone tell you that fury can’t sustain you through a giant artistic fuck you.

I have heard that “Lord of the Flies” was written in response to a book with some English public school boys getting stranded and having just a jolly very civilized time. I feel much better about that book knowing it’s supposed to be not a indictment of human nature but a commentary on English public school boys.

That book was The Coral Island, FWIW. It’s basically about rich English boys getting stranded on an island and having a jolly good time while fending off cannibalism and rape from “savages”. William Golding read the book repeatedly as a boy, but disagreed with it as an adult, and apparently stated that the Lord of the Flies grew out of the “rotted compost” of his memories of the text.

The other things The Coral Island inspired were Peter Pan and Treasure Island, which just goes to show sometimes the fanfic outlives the original.

The Cat in the Hat was written because the director of the education division at Houghton Mifflin challenged Dr. Seuss to come up with a story children would actually want to read using some of the same basic words used in Fun with Dick and Jane.

The His Dark Materials trilogy was written as a Take That to the Chronicles of Narnia.

I think one of my first slash fics was written because I’d read something so incredibly ooc that I, at 16, felt like I could write a better story.

17 years later, I’m still going. :D

(via skymurdock)

Request from @littlestartopaz​ for Harry/Corlath from the Blue Sword on the music meme.   I got Bleeding Out by Imagine Dragons, so…yeah…that happened.  ALL RIGHT HERE WE MOTHERFUCKING GO, goddamn but I love these books.

Corlath had known what it was to be king since his father’s death when he was a young man, only just eighteen.  He had known he would fight a war for even longer, since before his kelar came to him—maybe he’d known it forever, maybe it was what his mother sang to him at his birth and whispered to him when he was wakeful at night.  The first time he tasted the Meeldtar, it snatched him away from himself and brought him visions of Thurra and his fierce white stallion, streaked with blood and battle rage.  When he came back, he dropped the leather pouch as if his hands were suddenly as weak as a sickly child’s, and he wept for the terror that was not his and the battle he had seen, and his father had soothed him with a gentle hand and quiet voice.

It was not until he was on the field before the Bledfi Gap, his soldiers holding well against the mere trickle of Northerners coming through, and he felt the prickle of his kelar stirring, that he understood that old vision.  It was not his battle, no—but it was his terror.

Keep reading

sroloc--elbisivni asked: Ok I was the anon who asked about the Hero and the Crown and I picked it up on your recommendation and just finished reading and D A M N

DARLING WELCOME TO THE FAMILY, I’M SO PROUD TO HAVE BEEN YOUR SPONSOR IN READING THIS BOOK.  I MYSELF AM CURRENTLY REREADING IT AND I JUST LOVE IT SO MUCH.  D A M N.

Please forgive me for using this as an opportunity to pitch some of my other favorite Robin McKinley books, I CAN’T HELP MYSELF.  Don’t feel obliged to read them all, but they’re great, so if you’re ever strapped for a good book, they’re excellent defaults.

• Obviously you should read The Blue Sword, because Harry (the main character) is a badass and Corlath (Aerin and Tor’s many-times-great-grandson, the king of Damar) is a delight and Tsornin (the horse) is amazing.  AND GONTURAN MAKES A TRIUMPHAL RETURN TO THE BATTLEFIELD, AND LUTHE HAS A BIT, AND AERIN GETS A COUPLE CAMEOS.  Basically: read it.

• If you liked Aerin’s sense of humor and Talat the equine sass master, I recommend Dragonhaven, which is…fairly self-explanitory, but the basics are that the modern world is exactly the same except that instead of Yellowstone, we have Stonehill Dragon Preserve, and the main character (Jake) accidentally adopts a dragonlet.  Jake is perpetually hovering between cranky and wry and Lois is precious.

• If you liked the dreamy feeling of Aerin’s stint with Luthe in the stone hall and the weird magic of kelar, I recommend Chalice, which is weird dreamy magic start to finish.  The main character (Marisol) is part of a network of magic users who keep and care for their demense (like a…fief?) and she works magic through honey and the new Master (whose arrival makes the whole situation go straight to Hell, it’s not his fault, I love him) is about 80% literal fire.

• If you liked the weird magic of kelar and were sitting there thinking “You know what this needs?  Modern technology and some dimensional fuckery” I recommend Shadows, which is…well, weird magic, modern(ish) technology, and dimensional fuckery, 10/10 would experience again.

• If you liked Maur being terrifying and Aerin being tough even when it was awful for her, I recommend Sunshine, which is my number one favorite vampire novel ever, and in which even the nice vampires are pretty fucking terrifying.  The main character (Sunshine) lives in a world that’s basically our world plus demons and vampires and something called the Voodoo Wars that wiped out a good percentage of humanity.  She gets kidnapped by vampires and chained up with their other prisoner, who is also a vampire, and she is a brass bound bitch.  I adore her.  Also the vampire she gets chained up with is great, and the magic in Sunshine is just GORGEOUS.

• If you like retellings of fairy tales generally, I recommend Beauty, which is Beauty and the Beast and has a horse named Greatheart and roses and is basically awesome.  Spindle’s End is also good, but I like Beauty and the Beast better than Sleeping Beauty so.

• If you like to FUCKING SUFFER, I recommend the FUCK out of Pegasus, which is AMAZING and BEAUTIFUL and MAGIC-RIDDEN and ABOUT FUCKING PEGASI, but which is also only the first half of a story and it ends on a heartbreaking cliffhanger, so DON’T SAY I DIDN’T WARN YOU.  The next book’s been ‘in the works’ for SO FUCKING LONG, god, someone needs to read this so I have someone to wail with.  @twistedangelsays: I’m coming for you, bitch.

• If you like McKinley’s style and want an epic saga in a similar style, I cannot recommend ANYTHING MORE WHOLEHEARTEDLY than the Kencyrath series by PC Hodgell.  THe link will take you to my epic-length book rec/tirade.  I just.  I love those books.

OKAY FRIEND I WILL LEAVE YOU ALONE NOW.  BUT IF YOU EVER NEED A BOOK REC HIT ME THE FUCK UP.

A set of facts from this post, on request from @littlestartopaz​.  “Kid Death, Soul Eater. Also Harry, from The Blue Sword”

Death the Kid

• Canon: Kid’s hair stripes apparently go all the way around his head once he’s a full-blown shinigami, and that’s adorable to me for some reason.
  
• Headcanon: I tend to imagine that Kid had a rough time adjusting to ‘normal’ people.  Like, the other meisters were reticent with him because of…who he is and who he’s related to, and he comes at everything with a very arrogant perspective, especially early on, so I tend to think that he has a horribly rough time learning to make friends.  Like, Patty and Liz were probably his first close friends.  I’m pretty committed to that.
• Heartcanon: Oooohhh, I dunno, I was pretty pleased with stuff.  I feel like Kid actually has a devious side under that wide-eyed anxious exterior, would’a liked to have that pan out more fully.
• Soulcanon: Kid becomes a shinigami and replaces Death and has a few conversations with various people who protest that it’s just not traditional for the Grim Reaper to dual wield pistols.  They make lengthy and detailed arguments against his actions, there are sources, there is, on one memorable occasion, a PowerPoint.  And Kid nods and ‘hmm’s and he continues to dual wield pistols.  I don’t fucking care how it happens, he makes Patty and Liz immortal somehow.
• Crotchcanon: I actually have no idea.  Because every time I sit down and try to think about Kid and sex, I inevitably end up wondering about the logistics of sex with a shinigami.  Like.  How does that shit even pan out?  Do you need to worry about condoms, or are death gods naturally infertile?  Or in control of that sort of thing?  Does Death have a body under that robe?  Do the weird black shadow-tentacle things come into play?  HOW DOES THIS WORK.  So, as you can see, I have never made enough headway on this train of thought to have an opinion.

Harry (Angharad, Harimad-sol)

• Canon: Harry Crewe is canonically good with any and all (non-demon) animals.  Giant ill-tempered warhorse?  Sure.  Loner hunting cat?  No problem.  Harry Crewe is also a stone-cold badass, and all of you should read The Blue Sword and appreciate her.
  
• Headcanon: Harry definitely causes small-to-middling disasters as she learns to use her massively powerful kelar for things other than bringing down mountain ranges.  And as handy as that ability to fucking wreck an opponent is, it’s a little hard on Corlath’s City, and they all look on with a sort of benignly exasperated affection.  Kelar tends to cause problems, but even Corlath never 'fixed’ a stone door and accidentally melded it with the frame.
• Heartcanon: Damarian weddings have some kind of family-of-the-bride aspect and Mathin gives Harry away, or whatever the equivalent is, as the Daughter of the Riders.  He cries a little and she cries a little and no one ever says anything about it.  Also, Corlath very very quietly slaps Mathin with some kind of title, whatever he can get away with, as the father of their new Queen.  Mathin isn’t informed of this for almost an entire year.
• Soulcanon: Aerin and Harry meet.  In the flesh.  At some point.  I don’t give a fuck who argues with me on this.  And 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.)
• Crotchcanon: Okay but we can all agree that there was definitely some desperate, maneuvered-around-wounds, I-can’t-believe-you’re-alive-and-here sex in Corlath’s tent after that reunion scene, right?  And once everyone was recovered and back in the City, there was definitely a day where Harry was just like “Update: I moved all your meetings and acquired snacks” and they just literally spent an entire day having sex in the blue stone garden.  I can’t be alone in that assessment.