#also always ALaWHEO

[groenendaelfic]

my third reaction to the final Young Royals episode:

oh good, wilmon's wild summer before reality comes to bite them in the ass is the perfect setting for the crack treated seriously Troll crossover/sequel I've been wanting to write since forever.

It'll be glorious.

[groenendaelfic]

While planning ALaWHEO I spent a lot of time thinking about how the Swedish royal family is celebrated and what that meant for Wilhelm growing up. Now with Erik Day I was reminded of this once again and thought to share some of my as always very lengthy and convoluted thoughts.

Irl Sweden celebrates the king's, the queen's and the crown princess' birthdays and name days as official flag flying days along with a number of events of varying magnitude. Military parades, awards, concerts, golf tournaments and the like. For special anniversaries those are even bigger and can span multiple days.

Irl the Swedish royal family is quite large. Growing up, the cp's younger siblings had both each other, as well as a slew of first cousins, most but not all of them quite a bit older, but still. There were always a lot of royals around. The current royal house has nine members, with only three being celebrated that way and the rest of the royal family being much larger.

I have little good to say about the monarchy as an institution and nothing which couldn't be just as well if not better done without it, but I am quite sure that the irl cp's second child is well loved and not made to feel like a spare, but being raised in the fold of the royal family in the knowledge that he is a member of the royal house just like his uncle and aunt, and not worth less than his older sister.

Young Royals' royal house is quite different. We don't know much about Wilhelm's grandfather and grandmother, but from what we see Kristina is well established in her role as queen so I dare guess that Wilhelm's grandfather died when Wilhelm was quite young and his grandmother probably as well if not sooner.

So at best the royal house had six members when Wilhelm was young, with no immediate other family members, but for the vast majority of his life, if not all of it, it was only four. The queen, her consort, the crown prince and Wilhelm.

So three people to be celebrated and a spare.

Maybe sometimes young Wilhelm was glad he didn't have to spend part of his birthday or name day watching military parades and doing walkabouts, and maybe he didn't want events and awards and places named after him, but Erik got all of that. And not just twice a year.

He also got all the attention (unless Wilhelm caused trouble), both the good and the bad kind, from the public and their parents, and the expectations of Erik were higher, but Wilhelm was always and forever reminded that he is less, that everyone in the family/house matters more than him, and it was only him, no other siblings or cousins or aunts and uncles. I'm honestly amazed Wilhelm didn't cause a lot more (and worse!) trouble than he did before he was sent to Hillerska.

August is a second cousin, he doesn't count in any of that. He knew it, too, hence his surprise when the royal court tells him he could be (trained as) a (potential) successor.

Kristina and Ludvig aren't the most warmhearted of parents. They probably neither explained or prepared Wilhelm for any of this properly, nor do I see them throwing Wilhelm a heartfelt private birthday party fit for a child or making sure to show him that he is just as loved and cherished as Erik is.

So Wilhelm spent most of his life watching his parents and brother be celebrated by (as far as he could tell) all of Sweden, while he was the spare who was an afterthought at best, only noticed when he broke the rules, with no one else sharing his position on the sidelines.

That would fuck anyone up, no matter how they might otherwise feel about the constant public attention, but especially a child.

Then Erik dies. We don't know when anyone's birthday is, but we do know their name days thanks to the official list from the Swedish Academy. (Kristina July 24, Ludvig Oct 2, Erik May 18) None of them fall in the s1 and 2 timeline (maaaaybe Ludvig at the very beginning?).

Wilhelm's is on April 6, I'm sure we would have heard had Wilhelm (or Simon!) had a birthday, so that will be the first time in Wilhelm's life when there will be official public celebrations of this kind for him. Or rather The Crown Prince who now happens to be Wilhelm. And it will be The Crown Prince and not Crown Prince Wilhelm more often than not. The Crown Prince who used to be Erik, because Erik had to die for Wilhelm to be of any use or worth officially celebrating.

Throughout YR Wilhelm has started coming into his own, but I doubt he doesn't still first think of Erik whenever he hears the words The Crown Prince, especially when he's not directly being addressed.

I'd guess (although that's all it is, a guess) that at least the Erik Award for Sportsperson of the Year will not be renamed. It probably would have been had Erik not died so young and tragically, but I'd like to think they'd keep the name in his honor and create a new one in Wilhelm's name.

Everything else though? Concert, tournaments, races, random smaller events all over the country? Name and date change. There might be memorial concerts etc for Erik, but those will be something different entirely, something new. Wilhelm is replacing Erik, in everything, and Kristina and the royal court are pragmatic if anything.

In Erik Day I made the specific choice for everyone to move on, almost immediately, at least outwardly so. I'm sure Kristina and Ludvig still grieve, but they do so in private. I might be wrong, but I don't see them making grand gestures or having many memorial events.

I'm sure people are sad Erik died and think it's tragic, sympathy for the royal family will have risen in the aftermath of his death, but Erik was no Diana, and I'm quite sure most people spared his death little thought post funeral. So there's a new cp, so what? It changes little for the average Swede, and certainly not years later. They will have forgotten the date of Erik's birthday or name day, and only remember if reminded. (especially in an AU where Wilmon only meet years later)

[groenendaelfic]

Regarding the Fate of As Long as We Have Each Other

Dear Anons,

First let me say that I absolutely love your wonderful messages and compliments. They give me life and I treasure them and few things cheer me up more than a nice word or two about my fics and knowing I'm not just typing into the void.

I'll keep trying my best to answer asks if they include questions or bring up interesting points others might be interested in as well (in fact there are quite a few I have been putting off answering because I want to do it properly and that'll probably take an hour or two each, but I haven't forgotten about them!) and you can always message me with other stuff so I don't have to answer publicly (although admittedly it sometimes takes a while for me to reply because irl and anxiety), and I don't want to sound ungrateful, but please,

PLEASE stop sending me melodramatic asks regarding the fate of As Long as We Have Each Other. I get that you are impatient, but they aren't helpful and I got eight of them over the past ten days.

Don't get me wrong, a 'btw I still love that fic, will there be an update anytime soon?' is totally okay and appreciated, those are not the kind of asks I'm talking about.

Now I'm not sure if it's one anon or multiple ones, but my answer hasn't changed so let me copy/paste it from a previous post:

I have decided to finish A Pack of Two first,

Not because I love it more, but because it'll be a MUCH 'shorter' fic than ALaWHEO and I simply cannot keep switching between feral!Wille pov and official boyfriend!Simon pov, especially because both have a very narrow pov and are only aware of like a third of what's going on, and it's driving me bananas.

So yes, As Long as We Have Each Other is going on a short break, but I will definitely get back to it once APoT is done because I'm as enthusiastic about the story as I was on day one, maybe even more so.

ALaWHEO is my favorite fic across all of my fandoms and my baby, but I simply cannot write both it and APoT at the same time. I thought I could or else I wouldn't have started APoT, but I can't and so I had to make a choice.

If it helps, both my notes doc and my outline for ALaWHEO have grown significantly over the past seven weeks and it will definitely end up being over 400k, but only AFTER APoT is done.

Also in all my 23 years of being in fandom (in fact my fandom anniversary will be in 4 days! wtf is time even?) I have only ever given up on posting one fic that made it over 20k and that was because the fandom was an absolutely toxic dumpster fire and not because I lost interest, and even that fic I one day plan to go back to and post in its entirety once the fandom has shrunken considerably and all the 'I might not speak the language or have ever been to the country, but I've read a fan translation with footnotes and a few background posts and so now I totally know the time period and topic you've written your thesis on better than you' people have lost interest. So I promise ALaWHEO will get finished. I'm a completionist. I have all Civ6 steam achievements and believe me that was not fun. The only reason ALaWHEO will not be finished is if I am suddenly for whatever reason unable to write anymore (aka dead or gravely ill).

Anyway. Sorry for the rant. I don't want to call anyone out or seem unappreciative, but my anxiety can only handle so many versions of 'have you completely abandoned ALaWHEO? do you hate it? do you hate me personally for once stating that I didn't like abo fic? I don't know how my poor heart will be able to cope if you give up on ALaWHEO forever and ever but my hope lives on' (no that was not as much of an exaggeration as you might think)

So please stop or I'll disable anon asks, which I'd hate to do because I love hearing everyone's thoughts and comments and also it'd be unfair to everyone else who has been so absolutely lovely, motivating, encouraging and most of all inspiring.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk. (are those still a thing?)