ladyminaofcamelot

[ladyminaofcamelot]

Explain a book plot badly, "The Crown Conspiracy" edition: It's "The Lion King" but Timon and Pumba are the main characters.

[ladyminaofcamelot]

The whole "gods don't bleed" thing that happens in media sometimes is so funny to me because if you talk to any Christian they will tell you that one of God's most prominent traits. Is bleeding.

[ladyminaofcamelot]

Hosea, Andrew Peterson // Tongues and Teeth, The Crane Wives // Gomer's Song, Michael Card // Tongues and Teeth, The Crane Wives // Hosea, Andrew Peterson // Flowers, from Hadestown // Blood for Blood, Sarah Sparks // Eustace Scrubb, Sarah Sparks // Hosea, Andrew Peterson // Mercy Came Running, Phillips, Craig, and Dean // Gomer's Song, Megan Brown // Blood for Blood, Sarah Sparks // Gomer's Song, Megan Brown // Wedding Day, Casting Crowns // Mystery of Mercy, Andrew Peterson // Wedding Day, Casting Crowns // Mystery of Mercy, Andrew Peterson // Mercy Came Running, Phillips, Craig, and Dean // Song of Solomon, Sara Groves // Wedding Day, Casting Crowns // Hosea, Andrew Peterson // Song of Solomon, Sara Groves

I re-read The Princess, The King, and The Troubadour , by LadyAndreth, today, and kept mentally rifling through songs and sentiments afterwards. I suppose this amateur quote quilt is the result.

[ladyminaofcamelot]

I love this!!! In the begining I thought we were starting at the middle of the story where Beauty returns to Beast, but then the twist when it was the dad! And I love how matter of fact the dad is, and then that bit at the end where he calls the beast a nice boy is so funny and so fitting to the rest of the tale. It's very cheerful and lilting and comedic. Especially the descriptions of Beast as a cat! That was incredibly vivid and a stroke of genius. Such a fun read!

A Father's Heart: A Beauty and the Beast Retelling

For the Four Loves Fairy Tale Challenge at @inklings-challenge

Let me tell you, I sure confused that Beast when I returned. Have you ever seen a cat pounce on its own tail? That was the look of confusion the Beast had when he saw me in his palace. Only this cat was enormous—standing seven feet tall on his hind legs—black as soot, with claws this long, and a mouth full of teeth like butcher knives.

"Where is your daughter?" he asked me. Yes, that's what he sounded like—all deep and raspy, like he was growling and purring beneath his words.

"At home," I said.

"You did not bring her?"

“You told me,” I told him, "that I could return to be devoured or send her to take my place. I returned.”

"She did not wish to save you?"

“I never told her. Do you think I could lay that kind of burden upon my own daughter? What sort of father do you take me for?”

He had taken me for a cowardly one, I guess, because it took me a long time to convince him that my daughters were all safely at home, and I didn't plan to fetch any of them. He didn't seem to know what to do with me after that. He wasn't as bloodthirsty as I'd have expected someone with that many teeth to be.

"You will be my guest," he said at last—and he didn't seem too glad about saying it. No doubt he'd have preferred a pretty young girl as a houseguest to a weathered old sailor. But he gave me run of the place—I could help myself to anything, go anywhere I pleased. I didn't understand it. He'd been ready to kill me for a rose, and now he was giving me everything in the house?

I wasn't about to complain, though, so I set about to enjoy the place. The Beast encouraged me to enjoy the luxuries of the palace, but I've always been a working man—I didn't fancy living the life of an idle aristocrat. Before the week was out, I was working in the gardens—the place was overgrown like you wouldn't believe. When I wanted a rest, I'd explore the castle, and boy, was there plenty to see. He had rooms upon rooms of treasures—paintings, silks, wines, musical instruments, even an entire room full of exotic birds! I'd made my living selling such things, and my head swam at the sight of it—a tenth of it would have been worth more than all the riches I could have transported in ten lifetimes.

I didn't make my fortune by having dull wits, and I didn't lose it for lack of courage, so it wasn't long before I began to piece together the truth of this place and confronted the Beast with it.

"How long have you been cursed, your highness?" I asked him one evening at supper.

That great big cat was so shocked he knocked a wine bottle off the table. "Who says I am cursed?"

"Blazes, man, I'm not blind! This palace is worth more than most of the kingdoms of the world put together. If there was a king out there this rich, you can bet every merchant in the world would know of him. He'd have destroyed the world's economy. Fairy magic's the only way you get a horde like this, but you, sir, are no fairy."

Now the Beast seemed intrigued. "How do you know that?"

"A fairy would never have let me live—if he promised to kill me, he'd have killed me. No mercy among their kind. Only a human could have changed his mind like that—for which I'm very grateful, by the way."

"You're welcome," he said, seeming dazed.

I went on, "You're definitely more than a dumb beast; you walk and talk and dress like a man, so it stands to reason you were a man once—that furry coat of yours is just some fairy shell. Same way all these riches are probably just dirt and ashes once you take away the magic. Which means you must have run afoul of a fairy sometime in your past, who decided to curse you with an animal body and then trap you in a palace full of false riches."

I looked at the furnishings, the food, the Beast's clothes—everything spoke of royalty. "Fairies always meddle with royals, so you must have been a prince. The seventh son of the king of Gher went missing just before I went on my last voyage, so I'd wager that he is you. Am I right?"

The Beast goggled. "I…can't say."

"Which means I'm right. No fairy worth his salt would let you say you were cursed. Which means all I have to do is figure out how to break it. Those fairies always give you a way out—the more improbable the better."

I came around to his side of the table so I could walk around him and examine him from all angles. "You were disappointed when I came—you wanted one of my daughters, not me. When I did come, you didn't seem too keen on killling me���which makes me think it was an empty threat, trying to convince me to send my daughter instead. Which means she must be the way to break the curse. What can she do that I can't? Easy—true love. No fairy would think a girl could love a hulking monster like you, so that would be their impossible way to break the curse. You needed, what—true love? Marriage?"

"I can't say," the Beast said, but I knew by his face that I'd hit upon the right answer.

"That makes things simple. You let me out once before. Let me go home again and fetch one of my girls, tell her there's a prince waiting for her, and bring her back to join you in wedded bliss."

He seemed genuinely horrified by that. "I…can't say."

"Oh, of course. It won't count if she knows you're a prince. Well, I'll leave that part out. Tell her that the Beast who spared my life is in need of more company. With a bit of time and a bit of encouragement from her old dad, we'll have you back in human form by Christmas."

He thought it was worth a try, and something he could arrange with the conditions of his curse. So I went home to my children, convinced my sons not to follow me to slay the Beast, and made the castle sound intriguing enough that all three of my girls agreed to join me. I thought that maybe Hope would be the one to break the curse—she's always been the boldest of my girls—but it turned out that my quiet, gentle Beauty brought out the soft side of the Beast. It was the cutest thing you ever saw, the way they'd sit together reading in the rose gardens, that great big cat as shy as a schoolboy with her.

It wasn't three weeks before the Beast worked up the courage to propose—and my Beauty accepted without hesitation. Then there was blinding light and earthquakes, and when the dust cleared, the palace was gone. We were standing in a clearing in the woods—and a black-haired prince stood where the black-haired Beast had once been.

He's an excellent boy—I'll be proud to call him a son. He doesn't mind at all that his bride's the daughter of a failed merchant or that she once worked on a farm. We'll all be moving to his palace across the sea to live as honored members of the family.

Which is why we're moving out on such short notice—his highness doesn't want to be away from his kingdom any longer than he has to. I'm sure you'll find someone else to take the old place off your hands.

No, you don't have to believe me, but it's much better if you do. You'll look much less like a fool once it comes out that it's all true.

[ladyminaofcamelot]

I loved this! The development of the characters was so good and interesting and I loved Aurelia's hobby of the chickens and how it subtly established that she liked birds and that maybe the king's nickname wasn't ENTIRELY derogatory even from the start and I loved loved loved how the king was just as quick with his wit and how he was gruff without being unkind. It really stuck to the original spirit of the story too, and I think made the metaphor and parallels to real life even more evident and resonating. Amazing loved every word of it.

Done with my @inklings-challenge Four Loves Fairy Tale Challenge! I retold King Thrushbeard/King Hawksbeak (we had an old collection growing up where it was Hawksbeak). I had a lot of fun and I was able to write it really fast, which is not typical of me, but it is also around 10,000 words, which is typical of me (brevity might be the soul of wit, but it is not the soul of me).

Anyway, please enjoy Bittersweet!

[ladyminaofcamelot]

medieval knight raising the visor on his helm just so you can see him rolling his eyes

[ladyminaofcamelot]

one of the most satisfying moments in the book ngl

[ladyminaofcamelot]

*texting*

Crispin: Answer your phone

Lugg: Give me a minute I can’t find my phone

Crispin: Understood

*five minutes later*

Crispin: why are you like this

[ladyminaofcamelot]

Thought of this during a convo with a friend like a week ago and couldn't get it out of my head, so I made it.

[ladyminaofcamelot]

For this year's April Fools I give you a retelling of our good ol' Uncle Jack's tale, The Magician's Nephew in memes for amusment. Because you may have heard of Narnia memes, but have you ever seen Narnia in memes?

Betcha not.

Anyways, have a pleasant day and enjoy this little garbage meme compilation, thank you.

[ladyminaofcamelot]

i’m thinking a lot about - him - gawaine - lately. i mean hes always on the brain. but i’m thinking a lot about how you put your blood sweat and tears into proving you’re the best knight.. you earned the title of heir to the throne. you bleed for camelot, for lance, for arthur, for honour, for righteousness. you have a cruel streak that rears its ugly head when you fight. your insatiable need for violence haunts you, but you’re trying. you’re truly trying to be good, and kind, and selfless…and then one day your closest comrade, a person you trusted more than anyone else in the world kills your baby brothers. and everything falls. every bit of work you did to be gentle and tender and loving and selfless goes out of the window because your baby brothers are dead. your whole world has crashed down on you. you’ve tried for so long to see the good in people and the one person you loved so deeply, the one person you wanted to be good for, kills your siblings and everything you built together comes crashing down. how do you come back from that? how do you ever live with yourself again? with the knowledge that you tried so hard to reach perfection and none of it was ever worth it?

[ladyminaofcamelot]

I love me my force of nature Arista and the fortune telling entrupenuer Gwen and "I believe the word you're looking for is Empress" Modina and "I'm a Pickering" Lenare. Like all of these powerful Riyria women are wonderful, but the one I think I really love and relate to most is Amelia. My girl is just in a situation and making the best of it. She's barely ever even held a knife to cut meat but she's singlehandedly saving the world by being kind. By loving. By going about her life and just struggling to keep her head and her friends' above water. She's the plain, simple, everyday girl, and the world would have ended without her and her silly little stories about her regular childhood. She's no one special, but she's the one who helps all the forces of nature keep going just by being a good person, and it's for that very reason she is so important to me.

[ladyminaofcamelot]

[ladyminaofcamelot]

Listen, I'm not the kind of person who thinks every book should be a movie/TV show and I am in fact leery of my favorite books being adapted for the screen, HOWEVER if there is ever a Riyria TV show made (and it somehow magically manages to be somewhat decent), I absolutely need a recap episode a la the ember island players where the whole cast somehow ends up at the same performance of the crown conspiracy (or the imperial propaganda version, I'm not picky) because seeing everyone's reactions real time would be too good to pass up.

[ladyminaofcamelot]

[ladyminaofcamelot]

"Pain and suffering exist, therefore if God exists he must be cruel." Okay, but have you ever seen a sunrise where gold and roses blush over the cheeks of the clouds? Have you ever held a sleeping baby and felt it's fluttering little heartbeat in your own chest? Have you ever delighted in a cat's purrs caused by your own hands or come home to a dog that is simply exploding with excitement to see you? Have you seen flowers looking like they could sing as they bob their heads in time with the percussion of the wind? Have you watched the vast grey ocean roll in like an enormous writhing muscle, or stood on the peaks of the mountains where everything looks smaller and bigger at once and reached out your hands to the blue sky and thrown back your head and laughed? Have you been amidst the press and swell of humanity and watched one tiny act of kindness that shot the same exhilaration of the mountain tops straight to your brain? Have you run, chased other children, competed in clumsy somersaults and cartwheels? Have you made snow angels, struck up a conversation with a stranger, given someone else a scarf or a blanket or coat because it was cold, splashed them with water and started a playful fight because it was warm, sat in front of a crackling fire, or waded in giggling streams while waterfalls roared a full bellied laugh? Look me in the eye and tell me the God who made all that could possibly be cruel. Look me in the eye and tell me all that beauty means nothing to you, that somehow the suffering can overcome it. My beauty is as much proof as your suffering. And maybe, just maybe, we have suffering and pain because we have a God who loved us enough to give us something worth fighting for, something lovely enough to be painful to lose. And maybe the pain is worth it to get to have those things even for just a little while, to get to see them in their full, generous, stunning glory. Tears are not evil, but they are not all that exists, and we must not drown in them.

[ladyminaofcamelot]

Nimbus out here knowing FULL WELL the patriarch is already damned like