#Not even madoc

[thejudeduarte]

I've seen a bunch of people marketing tcp as a misunderstood villain gets the girl kinda book and like, did anyone actually view cardan as the villain? I never did even in tcp when I didn't like him much he was never ever the villain just some bratty Fae prince.

[chaiichait]

Jude in TCP was something else. Imagine poisoning yourself on the daily, still doing physically challenging missions while balancing the mental load of being bullied and harboring a secret life, sleep depriving yourself and STILL attending daily family dinners and classes.

[clockworkbee]

Karma is when Madoc even thought of chaining Jude the moment he got the chance, only to be chained himself as soon as he lost.

[fuckmelifesucks]

Was rereading tcp and came to the scene where Jude sees her mother and Madoc in the Lake of Masks and her mother says 'Look! A human girl.'

I was wondering, what if the human girl Eva saw in the Lake was actually Jude, her own daughter, just like how Jude saw her mother, given that there is no specific time period or range from which the reflections should come.

[faeriebabee]

madoc when jude, taryn, or oak experience any kind of problem:

[literarylibraryliterally]

I love the Cruel Prince/Folk of the Air series so so so so so much, there IS SO MUCH ABOUT IT !! But one thing I continually keep thinking about which tears me apart is Madoc and Jude’s relationship. Tiktok keeps showing me art of them and it hurts me every single damn time.

He literally killed her parents but took her and her sisters in, and he was the *only* thing in the new world she had besides her sisters. The way she bonded with him in learning to be brutal, fighting.

This is a pivot haha but it makes me think of what Jamie Lee Curtis’ character says in Knives Out about her dad. Something along the lines of “to keep up with him or gain his attention, you (she) had to come up with your own language with him”.

How so many daughters have to find something that bonds them with their dad. How my own sister did everything she could to gain praise from my dad.

Jude needed Madoc. That’s all she had. Despite HIM being the reason her life was destroyed. Him being the reason she has to live in this world, be bullied and abused everyday, to fight and fight for her place and be constantly in a state of survival mode.

Knowing of his betrayal. Of the King. Of later, her. But still holding onto that.

It makes me think about how so frequently despite what our parents do to us we still, some part of us, wants their acceptance and love.

[sweetvillainjude]

My roman empire is when Jude pretended to be Taryn in order to testify and how she fooled even her foster father and mother that she was her twin, but Cardan knew from the MOMENT he saw her that it was Jude. He had no doubts, no illusions, not for one second. He just immediately knew it was her.

Jude, you can’t really think I don’t know it’s you. I knew you from the moment you walked into the brugh.

[honourablejester]

Watching the Sandman Calliope story, and maybe this is just everyone’s brains being different, but why the fuck do you need inspiration for ideas? Ideas are a dime a dozen! Read two books and watch a nature documentary and there’s at least 15 ideas in there. I just … If we’re talking a premise, a one sentence concept, ‘in the year 5000 there are werewolves on Mars’ or what have you, they are limitless. You don’t need a Greek goddess for that, just go for a walk and read some fiction that weekend.

I can see needing a muse for motivation. For the skill and energy and time and will to turn that premise into an actual story, to make the words flow and the phrases turn good. But the premise, the idea? Do you live in a box? Go outside for a while and read some other stories.

Like, is this just me being weird? Am I blessed by a good relationship to the muses and just think that’s standard? But everything Madoc says in that second presentation, when Dream’s already inflicted inspiration on him, that’s bang on. Ideas are everywhere. Stories are everywhere. Now, taking them and turning them into a printable manuscript that you could then actually show to people, that’s a different, hah, story, but if you just need stories to tell yourself at night to get yourself over the hump into sleep, or daydreams, or a premise to get you started …

I honestly have no idea how someone could run out? Writer’s block, I get, but that’s not having no stories to me, it’s having all my stories feel clumsy or irritating, or just no motivation to put any of them on paper/screen. Like, are my ideas good? Maybe not. But there sure are a lot of them.

I don’t know, maybe this is just my brain, but holy god Richard Madoc seems pathetic to me. I mean, he’s definitely supposed to be pathetic, but like even more so. You can’t even come up with an opening premise? Why do you want to be a writer if you have no stories to tell?

Not that there’d be any good reason to keep a Muse captive, and we’re not going to go into everything else that shows him for an absolute scumbag here. But just taking what he said, that he needs ideas. If it had been the motivation/fluency/translation-into-format problem, I’d at least sympathise a little bit. He still should have just hired a ghost writer like a normal person and just dropped his blurb/outline off with them, but at least he’d have done some of the work. But just. ‘I need her. If I didn’t have her, I wouldn’t be able to write, I wouldn’t have ideas.’ I am one with Dream’s face when those words came out of his mouth. An idea is the basic unit of storytelling. You can’t even reach step one?

I don’t know why this makes me so irrationally angry. But you can pick up ideas on a street corner. Just steal them like a normal hack! Ask 10 people in coffee shops what type of books they’d like to read and shake the results until a basic plot falls out. Read 10 short stories, pick your favourite elements of each of them, and throw them in a blender. Find an online concept generator, there’s loads of them!

And I get it, not every idea you come across is going to be one that you yourself can work with. But I’m just … If you can’t even come up with that much, did you make any effort at all?

And honestly. Saying this to the Lord of Dreams. The personification of the global subconscious. The personification of storytelling. No wonder Dream just downloaded an avalanche of concept fragments into his brain until he went mad. You want ideas? There are 20 million of them. Pick one and let us all get on with our lives, you pathetic sack of shit.

Wow. I’m just. Richard Madoc makes me angry? On a moral level, yes, absolutely, but also just on put some fucking effort in level. An idea? Just read. For fuck’s sake.

Sorry. I have a screaming headache today, and this man just annoys me. The amount of harm caused for the most pathetic reason. I cannot.

[eerna]

Omg I didn't think you would respond so quickly. Thank you! As a follow up, Jude was taken by the Undersea, right? Locke knew this would take place since the Ghost (who he was controlling) was involved in the kidnapping. I assume Locke and Nicasia (along with her mother) worked together to make this happen. This was way before Jude threatened him. So do you think Locke helped plan Jude's kidnapping as a way to get a reaction out of both Cardan and Taryn? Could it also be because Jude wasn't down for Locke's games which we see at the end of TCP when Locke tried to give a flimsy apology and make amends (I assume he wanted to continue his "story" with Jude)

P.S. This is my last question. I just love reading meta lol. I'm always trying to understand them better.

P.P.S. I think you're very good and skilled at analyzing characters' relationships. It's why I'm here lol. Also, I love your artwork <3

You timed it well for my morning tumblr scroll! And aaawwww thanks, glad you enjoy it~ Drawing and being opinionated are def two of my fav things to do, always happy to talk more about stuff I like!

Ok for this topic I am not the right person to ask because I subconsciously ignore it ever happened. Here's the thing about the Ghost. He's one of the shakiest parts of the series to me because there isn't much foreshadowing or a clear setup for any of his twists, so it feels like HB just throws him into the mix whenever she needs to stir something up out of the blue. And boy does his QoN reveal stir something up out of the blue, because suddenly Locke is no longer just a shit-stirrer antagonist (like Asha, Valerian, and Taryn) but an actual scheming power-grabbing one (like Madoc, Orlagh, and Balekin). Sorry HB, but if Locke REALLY helped plan the kidnapping, why the hell was he playing horror movies with Jude the night before??? What was he gonna do, axe her down in the middle of the woods hoping she wouldn't die or be too badly hurt when his plans hinged on her being alive and capable of visiting the Tower of Forgetting the next day???? And yeah, what does he get out of conspiring with the Undersea??? It's not like he can brag about his role in this situation, but in every other one of his schemes he NEEDS people to know what he did and how cool and important he is. It makes way more sense to me that he was bummed Jude rejected him and didn't allow him to bully her or Cardan anymore, so he decided to maim/kill her on impulse as his stag night activity, and he gave Taryn the earrings as a message to Jude to stay out of his marriage (and to brag). And so Locke's QoN betrayal seems to be written into the book because the Ghost needed a reason that would redeem him for the crazy stuff he did in TWK.

So yeah sorry that this answer is none of the "why" and all of the "why not".

[sevenspoonfulsofsugar]

the details of the calliope part of the bonus episode are my favorite part, because despite what the vast majority of mainstream media seems to believe, you don't actually need to explicitly show this type of violence at every given opportunity

first, the single scratch on madoc's face - he's committed the same act of violence against her that erasmus fry did for nearly a century, taken inspiration by force for the first time (calliope never stopped fighting, no matter how long it’s been, this isn’t right and it never will be)

and then his nose, whole in one scene and broken in the next - he's got the success and fame that he was desperate for, but it's still not enough (will it ever be enough, will he ever be satisfied, where does it end), and calliope is still fighting tooth and nail

[naughtnixnothing]

no one: absolutely no one: jude duarte: i think he was flirting with me. i don’t even remember deciding to hit him.

[personinthepalace]

Behind the scenes of Arthur Darvill in The Sandman

From Louise Hooper’s (director) instagram

[outoftimewriting]

i think the calliope comic/episode is meant to make us think morpheus still likes calliope, still loves her. he has a hard time letting her go. he is a better person, too.

and i do think he still loves and cares for her, don't get me wrong.

still i keep thinking that he really, really loves hob, bc he never did once smile, not even at her proximity, he just supressed everything like the emotionally stumped person he is.

calliope was like "i understand you little twink, thank u bye" and i stan her for it.

(i kno it's a very sensitive episode full of emotions and that he didn't smile bc it was a VERY sensitive situation however i said what i said)

[blessedchaosgod]

no but i will never get over Jude being a fucking spy and not figuring out that Cardan might just genuinely have feelings for her? Like i know he confessed and everything in the first book but in the second book when Cardan makes the worst deals with Orlagh to get Jude back she's like "Why would he do that? He must have a wicked plan or something. Why didn't he leave me to die at the bottom of the ocean? Is he mad?" I was like NO BITCH HE CARES ABOUT YOU TAEK A HINT

[skullywullypully]

Valerian was so stupid. Why would try to kill the High King's General's adopted daughter??

If Jude didn't killed, Madoc certainly would.

[cruelprincae]

to be frank with you, this is the most bull thing I've ever read in my entire life.