pricklysplendours

[pricklysplendours]

I find it genuinely fascinating how there is a HUGE crossover/influence of music taste that I share with my parents, and then... the fact that they loathe musical theatre songs with an absolute passion.

Look me straight in the eyes and tell me your current music taste isn’t what your father played in the car when you were a kid.

[pricklysplendours]

the five hottest things a fictional man can be are 1. highly intelligent 2. terminally ill 3. emotionally unavailable 4. full of trauma and regrets 5. lying about their identity

[pricklysplendours]

"save to onedrive" lol no

[pricklysplendours]

how to explain to mutuals that while yes you can have my discord, and i wanna hang out! my response time is anywhere between 3-7 business days

[pricklysplendours]

The North Sea, by Patrick von Kalckreuth

[pricklysplendours]

Carl Frederik Sørensen (Danish, 1818–1879), "Danish Ships in Rough Seas" (details), 1877

[pricklysplendours]

One of my favourite little things in the House of Niccolo series is, how shockingly intimate it is for a man to see a respectable woman's hair unbound, uncovered. Like, wedding night levels of intimacy, and I'm a sucker for it. Something so innocuous to us, but such a Huge Deal in the 15th century.

(Also a shout-out to the way the audiobook narrator (John Banks) says the word "Demoiselle" in Claes' voice, it makes me weak.) (in fact, his entire reading elevates the whole experience of HoN immensely, in my opinion)

[pricklysplendours]

[pricklysplendours]

It's utterly magnetic when a character's rage is quiet and precise. When they don't scream and throw things but they just b r e a t h e and very very calmly aim their fury like an arrow shooting inexorably towards the target of their wrath. It captures my attention, I lean in close, I wait for the hit. It never disappoints.

[pricklysplendours]

Read an interesting (if repetitive, and with many interpretations I didn't agree with) little book called The Enigma of Francis Crawford.

Outraged that, with an entire chapter dedicated to games in the Lymond Chronicles, there was NO MENTION of this absolute gem of an occasion from Queens Play:

sob

[pricklysplendours]

"The heat he’d been fighting off rose within him, outdoing that of the stream from above, and the passionspren fell more powerfully. It seemed that whether or not she had time to spare, they were going to find it."

Not shown: peeping tom Pattern and cheering section armourspren. 😂 Full version (less steam, more steamy) on my Patreon Discord!

Painted in Procreate with my watercolour brushes.

[pricklysplendours]

i made this instead of doing the things ive been "forgetting" to do

[pricklysplendours]

whenever you feel bad about a typo I want you to remember this story

in 1631 the official royal printers Robert Barker and Martin Lucas messed up a printing of the King James Bible

errors included messing up the 7th commandment so that it read "Thou shalt commit adultery" and writing Deuteronomy 5:24 as "Behold, the Lord our God hath shewed us his glory and his great-ass"

this misprint became known as the Wicked Bible, they were fined 300 pounds and lost the right to be printers

so your typo in the group chat doesn't have people talking about God's great ass 400 years later.

[pricklysplendours]

Which one is closest to yours? Mine is like 6ish-7ish.

[pricklysplendours]

do you ever just … picture a whole scene, a whole fanfiction in your head, you know how to place every single word of the english dictionary that you need (or your language dictionary), you know how to structure your sentences, you know just what your characters are going to say to each other and then… and then you just open microsoft word.

[pricklysplendours]

Sybilla... (Checkmate spoilers beware)

I'm just having a little moment of feeling for Sybilla, and the life she had to endure with Gavin.

Her Francis (1st baron) died four years after coming back to her. Lymond says he remembers the funeral, at three years old. I'm just thinking... Gavin for sure was not going to be sorry he'd died. Sybilla must have felt such crushing grief, and endured it absolutely alone - the only one who'd know what it meant to her was Gavin, and... well, one can imagine how sympathetic he'd be about that.

I guess I can see, from that, another layer to the attachment she felt to Lymond - a small, affectionate child, growing in the image of the man she loved, and a 'safe' outlet for her love and the grief she was processing. And little wonder that Gavin loathed that bond, and Lymond, so much.

Hard as it can sometimes be to feel sympathy for Sybilla after everything that comes to light in Checkmate, his loss and aftermath - and the nearing twenty years remaining of Gavin's life - must have been unbelievably hard for her.

[pricklysplendours]

FILMS WATCHED IN 2025: 12. The Prince of Egypt (1998)