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was just chatting about this with a friend—i think f'lar and robinton should have fought with knives

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been a minute since i posted here…here’s an old wip excerpt

back when i first read these books i wanted more than anything to see a) some interiority in the dragon characters and b) a nuanced exploration of the bond between rider and dragon. i’d like to poke around with both of those in this piece about lessa and ramoth (assuming that i finish it)

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one of the most infuriating things about the plot of masterharper—and there are plenty—is that it revises the institutionalized sexism of the harper hall that menolly contends with in her story to "oh women just don't want to be harpers...we've been trying to find women to sing in our choirs but they're just so happy doing domestic chores that they don't want to..."

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Behold! The Pernese fashion mega-post! I wanted a visual representation of what The Dragonlovers Guide had to say about Pernese clothing, and thought that the other Pern folks on here might also be interested, so here it is!

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(This got VERY long and accidentally morphed into a fic. The fic starts with Fax's massacre of Lessa's family and her resulting trauma, and also touches on not-quite-real-world climate anxiety, so caution reading.)

I've thought a few times about how I would rewrite Dragonflight if I were going to, how I'd streamline the plot (merge Fax and Meron, to start) and tweak characterization (F'lar can act basically the same if he's, like, 17 instead of 20-something).

But the fundamental crack at the heart of Dragonflight which I've never been able to resolve is Lessa. Because there are two things which are fundamental truths to Lessa.

The first truth is this: she is Lessa of Ruatha. She is the only survivor of a massacre, the last rightful heir to the kingdom, and she raised herself on those truths. She is, literally, a secret princess disguising herself with filth in order to hide from danger as a kitchen servant. But that's misleading, because those fairytale princesses she shares the shape of just want to escape abuse and live in peace. Lessa is actually the lost prince of a conquered land, come home to slay the tyrant that murdered her father and retake her rightful place as king Lady Holder.

The second truth is this: Lessa of Ruatha must abandon Ruatha, in order to become Lessa of Ramoth, of Benden, of Pern, and save the world.

And she can't know why she needs to go, or that she'll save the world in doing so, because if she knew what she was going to do we wouldn't have a full plot of Lessa figuring out time travel and that she needs to bring the Weyrs forward. You can make it a bit better by letting Lessa actually know what a Weyrwoman is, rather than thinking she's probably going to be F'lar's mistress, but she still has no reason to abandon Ruatha, especially not in favor of Fax's son.

I think, to fix it, Jaxom can't be Fax's son.

Lessa was the youngest of a large family. She had several older brothers and sisters; say around eight kids, average 2.5 turns between them, and even if Lessa was only four when Fax arrived, the oldest would have been around eighteen. But I will, for this purpose, say Lessa was ten, and the oldest were in their twenties.

A family that large, with a few kids grown or nearly so, whose hereditary job involves diplomacy, won't all be at home most of the time. They'll be out checking on important industries, visiting allies, sent to a Hall like the noble girls that will someday give Menolly so much trouble, or sent for fostering like those girls' boyfriends. Given the alliance-building use of fostering and Fax's having already taken over several Holds before Ruath Hold, it would be the obvious thing for Lessa's father to have sent one of his teenage sons to Fax for fostering.

Lessa doesn't think about that. She's ten, and she has just watched her entire family be slaughtered. She is hiding in the watch-wher's den, in shock and terrified. She does not think of it until a few days later, when one of Fax's men drags in a mangled body with hair the same color as her brother's, dumps it beside the rest, and declares the job complete.

Lessa's body is there too, of course, or else there surely would have been a search thorough enough to find her. There was a search, but before Lessa they found a servant's daughter of about the right age and description with a face a touch more Ruathan-typical than Lessa's own, and so the search ended.

Lessa is terrified that Fax or his men might realize their mistake. But no one in Ruatha is much inclined to tell Fax or his men anything they might not want to hear. And Lessa, without knowing it, is the most powerful telepath Pern has seen in generations. Even without intention, her desperation to remain undetected is enough to exert pressure on the minds around her.

No one identifies the servant girl. No one looks in the watch-wher's den. No noise that comes from the den sounds like a human child. No one wonders why, in the evenings, someone feels the need to leave human-suitable food near the watch-wher's den, or where it vanishes to before morning.

When Lessa finally emerges, no one wonders where this new servant girl came from. No one questions her soft hands or fancy speech or condescending attitude. They snap at her for being unskilled, and give her the hardest, simplest work, and think no more of it.

It takes weeks, months, for Lessa's shock and horror to settle enough to allow fury to emerge in more than flashes. It takes years for her to work out any plan more specific than survive, and make him pay. It also takes years, though perhaps not quite as many, for her to notice the pressure she can exert on other people without their notice, and to learn to do it intentionally.

By the time Lessa is twenty, Ruatha develops a reputation for being cursed. What grows there grows poorly. What few crafters remain seem to lose their skill. And there are the accidents: rockfalls, impossible fires, drunken fights that turn deadly, all manner of things which can kill, and often do. The more highly-placed a man is (or a woman, though few women can be described in such terms in Fax's Holds) the more accidents seem to find him.

There is weight in the air of Ruatha: the weight of grief, of hatred, of fury, of pain. A constant pricking on the back of the neck; the scent of blood perpetually half-imagined. Healers advise those with poor hearts to avoid Ruatha if possible, or if a visit is necessary, to leave quickly: something there makes the heart race and strain, and given time, a weak one will fail.

But that's not going to stop F'lar!

F'lar is 17, superior, young enough that he has never yet failed, and frantic with terror in his own way. Even a teenage bronzerider outranks all people but more senior bronzeriders (though that is every bronzerider, in this case), and F'lar wears both his power and his arrogance like a gaudy cape: he sneers, he orders, he demands, he pushes, and those who are preoccupied with anger and frustration about his attitude--which is nearly everyone he meets--rarely wonder why he demands the things he does, why he is so obnoxious as to stop and ask drudges idle questions about the weather and the upkeep of the Hold.

The truth is, F'lar is arrogant. His father was wiser, but his father is dead, and so F'lar is the smartest man in the world, and never wrong. He considers any behavior other than giving him what he wants to be obstructionism, all people to be his inferiors, and inferior people behaving in obstructionist ways to be the worst possible transgression. As such, he dislikes nearly everyone he meets, and enjoys needling, insulting, and upsetting them. His status makes retaliation impossible.

The truth is also this: F'lar sees the apocalypse coming, and he does not know how to stop it. He has read about how threadfall will consume the planet, and with it all of Pern's people. He knows how many dragons are needed to guard the planet, and how small a fraction of that number currently live. He has watched the Red Star grow nearer, and he has listened to every adult dismiss him with the insistence that it's not that bad, there's nothing to fear, there is no danger coming, and so nothing should be done.

F'lar's father died, and left to him the duty of saving the world. F'lar has never failed before, and he clings to that fact with the same desperation that Lessa clings to Ruatha, and all its recent history.

F'lar is searching for candidates, for the future Weyrwoman and future riders, but he is also searching for allies and scouring every Hold he passes through for its prevailing attitudes and common knowledge. Do the crafters' sons know the Ballad of Moreta? Do the farmers have enough children to weed the fields as thoroughly as they ought? You there, drudge--what do you think of this grass among the paving stones?

He is not pleased by the answers.

F'nor is older, but he calls himself sixteen. He follows F'lar loyally, as a younger brother ought, as a wingsecond must. He goes where F'lar points and does what F'lar asks, and no one questions his motives: as a loyal wingsecond and little brother, he is motivated only by obedience. No one questions, either, when he finds the free time to put on a charming smile and chat with the girls near his age. Did many of the herdbeasts have twins this spring? How has the fishing been; more storms than usual again this turn? That outbreak of illness he heard of in the next Hold over, have the healers gotten it under control yet?

It is true that F'nor is loyal to his father's favored son, and follows F'lar's orders without complaint. That does not make his obedience thoughtless, nor does it mean he lacks his own initiative.

And so they wind through Fax's holds. Here and there, they pick up people as they go: some on Fax's orders, some on F'lar's. Sometimes there is disagreement, in which case F'lar's preference wins, but sometimes things align perfectly, as with a couple they overtook on the road to Ruatha: young man and pregnant wife, with an old runnerbeast and their life packed into a cart. If F'lar insists the young man is a strong candidate (enough that an exception may be made for his age), and wishes to take him to the Weyr, the couple will have to leave all their belongings behind in Ruatha. Fax is hardly inclined to refuse.

The young couple, of course, join the party for their own reasons.

Fax and F'lar do not think of this. F'nor does, and speaks to the couple with smiles and offers to reason with F'lar on their behalf should they find that they hate life in the Weyr. He concludes that they had no plans, that a future in the Weyr is as good as any, and that the common people are rarely inclined to argue with men such as F'lar.

And so the party reaches Ruatha, last of all Fax's Holds, as Fax had hoped that F'lar would find what he was looking for elsewhere and leave before the visit become necessary. Fax keeps his guards close: meat shields in case of accidents.

The visit goes much the same as in canon. Oh, it differs in the details, in the people present and the conversations they have, but Ruatha is still a place of bad food and worse feelings. Fax is tense, irritable, angry, and F'lar loves to needle.

But some details are critical. Gemma, who breaks an argument despite her best efforts by going into labor, is the wife of the young couple. As she is not Fax's wife, this pauses the argument, but does not resolve it, and under the pressure of Lessa's will, it soon resumes.

But F'lar is a dragonrider. For years, he has lived with Mnementh as a presence and pressure on his mind; he is well used to acting only on his own will, and not on the stray thoughts of others. And so it is not him that breaks and initiates a duel. Nor is it Fax, who is less resistant to Lessa's will but deeply fearful of this malevolent place, and unwilling to leave the circle of his guards over insults that F'lar has been provoking him with this entire trip.

It is the young man who steps forward, shaking with his own and Lessa's will, and announces himself as Lokan, a surviving son of the late Ruathan Lord, and the rightful ruler of Ruath Hold.

It is, of course, Lessa that allows her brother to win. Fax is a powerful, experienced figher, and Lokan cannot match him.

But Lessa is there. She drags pebbles under Fax's heel, clouds his mind, and slows his reactions. In the end Lokan is wounded, but Fax is dead, and Ruath Hold belongs once more to Ruathan blood.

F'lar is reluctant to let his star candidate go, but if F'lar were to deny Lokan's claim to Ruatha, Lokan would have to be executed. Besides, Fax was no use to F'lar, and the lord holders that replace him might be, and so F'lar declares the Weyr's recognition of Lokan as the rightful Lord Holder of Ruatha. Fax's men are sent away with minimal bloodshed, though perhaps a few accidents.

Lessa reveals herself to her brother, and Gemma survives the birth of her and Lokan's son. Perhaps he is named Jaxom; perhaps his parents name him instead after Lessa, or Lokan's murdered father, or Gemma's father saved Lokan's life years ago.

F'lar seeks out Lessa, to her complete disinterest. But Lokan, while in hiding, was in a completely different sort of hiding than she was. He was warned and spirited away by minor holders, allies of their father. In addition to being much older than Lessa when their family was killed, he still had access to harpers and lessons while in hiding, and he understands politics. He encourages Lessa to go to the Weyr, as a Weyrwoman would wield political power and be able to back Ruatha's recovery in a way no other ally could.

It is a brief day, perhaps two, of relief and joy, before Lokan's wounds develop an infection. Less than a week after reclaiming his Hold, he dies.

His son is only days old, but still the rightful heir, and Lessa will never want to interfere. Lady Gemma becomes regent. As she expected and trained to be Lady of Ruatha while it recovered, she is well prepared despite her grief.

Lessa, victorious and devastated and reeling, follows her brother's wishes to the Weyr, and the promise of power that she can use to protect her nephew and sister-in-law.

She will, of course, find the power to do much more than that.

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Benden Weyr

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Seeing as F’lar seems pretty angry with F’lon for “getting himself killed in that stupid duel” I would think he would have some pretty conflicting feelings about dueling in general. I’ve always thought F’lon’s death seemed tinged with suicide, especially because what dragonrider, especially a weyrleader, would be that quick to risk themself when they had a responsibility to their dragon and their weyr? (Yes I’m aware that masterharper goes into how he dies and suggests that Fax deliberately contrived to have him die, but honestly I pay very little attention to masterharper and F’lar wouldn’t have known any of that anyways) It’s repeatedly mentioned that riders won’t suicide when their dragons are alive, like when D’ram is mourning Fanna, so that coming from F’lon would add a lot of interest to the situation.

Taking all that into account, it would make sense for F’lar to have a lot of feelings about his duel with Fax. F’lar, so assured in his ability to be patient and bide his time, is compelled by an outside force to do something he would never otherwise do. He’s not just furious with Lessa because she made a dragonrider fight while on search, or because she controlled his mind, it’s also because for a moment he thought he was going to die just as stupidly as his father.

I also think this is a thing that F’lar could genuinely fear about Lessa. Early on in flight, when she does things like try to control the wingleaders in council meetings, he’s furious, but it would make more sense if he was actually afraid. He’s seen her power, it’s hurt him, and he doesn’t know what she’s going to do with it. Partly it makes a lot of sense to me if at the beginning he’s just as mistrustful of her as she is of him.

Plus this adds some more interest to F’lar’s character, because honestly? He doesn’t have much going on. AND in a pern where Fax and Meron are combined so that he doesn’t die right away, F’lar could come to terms with all of this in a later confrontation a with Meron, possibly including him learning that Meron had a hand in F’lon’s death.

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that is a great idea i am rotating it in my brain... makes perfect sense to me

to be honest the weyrs are not in any way more normal about being lgbt than holds or crafthalls, thry just have different ways of being weird. like the weyrs only begrudgingly accept (male) homosexuality because their misogyny is overpowering it in terms of gender parity in impressions. and even then it becomes very much about penetrator/penetrated dichotomies which funnily enough gets translated directly to the class system. on the gender end i imagine there is more leeway due to the work needed to support dragons directly covering both traditionally masculine and feminine roles. by that i mean there seems to mostly be women in the lower caverns, who by necessity must take on "male" labour roles, but there must be aged out male candidates and those who come to weyrs for asylum on both sides as well, who have a similar situation. in this scenario there is still... not a whole lot of room for being trans but certainly much more than your average hold, and room for gender nonconformity (as long as you arent a dragonrider. lol.) as well

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there are several crafts that accept women readily, but as a whole political leadership and crafts seem to be mostly for men, especially by the ninth pass. in weyrs, smithing to maintain the mechanical systems that keep the weyr habitable, any artisan work that can be accomplished without trading(im thinking pre ninth pass isolationism here) would need to get done. taking care of the livestock would count as well i think, like taking them into the pastures and caring for them til they get eaten.

though, thinking about it i do find it interesting that "womens work" seems to be more clearly defined than things that are Just for men in the books. might be a symptom of misogyny where men will not quote unquote lower themselves to doing household management, but the line for women taking on masculine labor roles when necessary is fuzzier. which in weyrs is kind of inherently overthrown by greenriders existing

to be honest the weyrs are not in any way more normal about being lgbt than holds or crafthalls, thry just have different ways of being weird. like the weyrs only begrudgingly accept (male) homosexuality because their misogyny is overpowering it in terms of gender parity in impressions. and even then it becomes very much about penetrator/penetrated dichotomies which funnily enough gets translated directly to the class system. on the gender end i imagine there is more leeway due to the work needed to support dragons directly covering both traditionally masculine and feminine roles. by that i mean there seems to mostly be women in the lower caverns, who by necessity must take on "male" labour roles, but there must be aged out male candidates and those who come to weyrs for asylum on both sides as well, who have a similar situation. in this scenario there is still... not a whole lot of room for being trans but certainly much more than your average hold, and room for gender nonconformity (as long as you arent a dragonrider. lol.) as well

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to be honest the weyrs are not in any way more normal about being lgbt than holds or crafthalls, thry just have different ways of being weird. like the weyrs only begrudgingly accept (male) homosexuality because their misogyny is overpowering it in terms of gender parity in impressions. and even then it becomes very much about penetrator/penetrated dichotomies which funnily enough gets translated directly to the class system. on the gender end i imagine there is more leeway due to the work needed to support dragons directly covering both traditionally masculine and feminine roles. by that i mean there seems to mostly be women in the lower caverns, who by necessity must take on "male" labour roles, but there must be aged out male candidates and those who come to weyrs for asylum on both sides as well, who have a similar situation. in this scenario there is still... not a whole lot of room for being trans but certainly much more than your average hold, and room for gender nonconformity (as long as you arent a dragonrider. lol.) as well

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i think that menolly is a trans girl despite pern society outside weyrs clearly being Weird about lgbt people so i imagine that she just decided to live as a girl one day and because her parents have like 8 kids and everyone is very busy neither they or the other holders noticed ever. like (yanus voice) wait was our youngest kid a girl. i cant remember. (mavi voice) well she is doing all the girl things right now so i guess she is.

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Pern color sketches 2019

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my favorite genre is “i loved it so much and i would not recommend it to anyone” ❤️

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I am slowly continuing to develop the concepts for Menolly illustrations. It will be my diplom project and i couldn't be happier :3

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Brekke or Mirrim in the depression

felt like drawing both (smiles)

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every conceivable relationship on pern is weird and fucked in some way exvept for mirrim and menolly. this isnot necessarily a bad thing but the only human beings on the planet with a fully normal romance are those two

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brb rewriting pern as a series of slice of life novellas centered on a totally normal farmer in some hold too small to be mentioned in the canon. she was sent there as a ward and her holding is known for its pigment production, specifically green. they like to use it to paint their houses.

her name is anne