#discourse of the three kingdoms

[discourseofthethreekingdoms]

Han Deep Dive

Our Han Deep Dive Episode is now out, to complete season 2. @sunfin3k, @dongzhou3kingdoms, @zgongjin and @fuyonggu reunite to talk about the problems the Later Han had been wrestling with for some time and which left it vulnerable by the time we come to it in the novel. Power, finances, struggles at court, concerns abroad and, thanks to Gongjin's studies in archaeology, the impact of changing climate.

Jude's first time editing so any feedback on how he can improve is welcome. ⁠Transcript⁠

Timings:

Problems at Court: 01:37

Climate Change: 28:53

Foreign Affairs: 43:29

Last Years of Peace: 56:48

Goodbye: 67:37

Artwork by Zhaolie

Music is Sao Meo Orchestral Mix by Doug Maxwell/Zac Zinger

[bowbowis]

Of Duscur and Ishval

WARNING: (Spoilers for Fullmetal Alchemist and Fire Emblem: Three Houses ahead!) I can't help but compare how the Duscur Genocide is handled in Azure Moon to how the Ishvalan War was handled in Fullmetal Alchemist. Both started with a false flag attack by a conspiracy that led to the white Faerghans/Amestrians nearly wiping out the brown Duscur/Ishvalans but how it gets presented is very different. In Azure Moon, the genocide is almost entirely glossed over in favor of focusing on how the Faerghan prince Dimitri is hurt by his family and friends dying in the initial false flag, which he knows Duscur had no hand in it, and his subsequent misaimed vengeance against Edelgard. Once he gives up his quest for vengeance Dimitri just decides to put the events of Duscur behind him. He settles for simply working to revitalize the region and decides he doesn't need to know the truth. Letting the perpetrators of both the false flag and the genocide go free. With the Ishvalan war the tragedy is always framed as the unjust slaughter of the Ishvalans. Colonel Mustang was an Amestrian soldier during the war and has spent the time since positioning himself to become Amestris's next Führer so he can not only work to revitalize Ishval but also to have the perpetrators, including himself, prosecuted for war crimes.

[raxistaicho]

TotK anti-Edelgard troll anon

Spoilers for TotK... I think? I'm not really interested in it myself so I'm passing on it.

(Also Xenoblade Chronicles 1 and Triangle Strategy spoilers)

Wow it's almost like two different games from two totally different franchises can have different themes.

Or how in LoZ the godesses are consistently portrayed as benevolent and dragons as wise and (generally) good servants of the goddesses while in Fire Emblem dragons are prone to self-destructive foolish arrogance and a stubborn desire to cling to their power long after they should've given it up, and dragons who call themselves gods (Duma, Mila, Loptous, Grima, Anankos) are consistently portrayed as a big ol' red flag flapping in the breeze.

But you know, Xenoblade Chronicles had the protagonist fight and kill a god so all the people would be free to choose their own paths, and Triangle Strategy had a false religion worshiping a goddess the head priest knew didn't exist as the true villain of the affairs of the story, so those two shit on SS instead.

So there, I have two games to your one, checkmate, atheist >:)

[laulink]

Something that I don't often see in the "was Edelgard's war necessary" discourse is the interdependence between the Church and the nobility. The question is always framed such as "are Edelgard's reforms worth starting a war over" or "is the net result of the war positive or negative" or "did she need to invade the Kingdom and Alliance to do her thing or was she just a cold-hearted, power-hungry tyrant" and the arguments given for or against either side of the conflict very rarely includes this simple fact :

No reform is possible in Fodlan because the Church and nobility feed off of each other.

It doesn't matter whether or not the specific reforms Edelgard wants to implement deserve thousands of people to die for them (if such a thing is even objectively quantifiable) ; it doesn't matter what the "net result" of the war is (if you can even make an objective measure on that) ; it doesn't matter whether or not having the Kingdom and Alliance under her authority was necessary to make the reforms she wanted ; absolutely no reform, whatsoever, in any territory, could have been achieved and lasted with the Church still standing. Why ?

Because the Church and the nobility enforce each other's "divine right to rule" and neither wants to lose their power.

Rhea wants to keep Fodlan in stasis until she brings Sothis back. She's done that for a thousand years and will keep doing it for as long as she needs to. How did she do it ? By making the powerful (the Crest-bearing descendants of the Ten Elites) dependant on her. She made their strength (their Crest) dependant on properly following and supporting her Church, instilling in Fodlan's societies the belief that a family won't produce Crest-bearing heirs any longer if they oppose the Goddess. The Crests are therefore both a mark of the Goddess' favour, granting nobles their "divine right to rule", and a pair of shackles binding them to the Church. If the Church falls and the commoners don't believe in the Goddess any longer, they also won't believe in the nobles' divine right to rule anymore and will rebel against the caste system. Therefore, the nobles need to enforce belief in the Goddess by showing how devoted they are, as Ferdinand and Lorenz explain is their noble duty to guide the commoners on the path of the faithful, and by giving the Church money to keep its influence and prestige ; otherwise, the nobility itself will be at risk.

But the reverse is, therefore, also true : if the nobility were to fall or stop supporting the Church (the one Rhea leads, mind you), it would lose power, influence and the money necessary to maintain its presence throughout the continent. The Church needs to make sure that the nobility system either stays the same or at least still relies on the belief in the Goddess. Any reform that abolishes the nobility, title inheritance or Crest supremacy is bound to be an absolute nightmare for the Church. Sounds familiar ?

Three Hopes touches onto this by showing us Rhea's attempts at killing the Bishop of the newly restored Southern Church. She doesn't try to get him killed because Edelgard was the one to choose him, she tries to kill him because this Southern Church represents a threat for the Central Church she leads, and she doesn't accept that.

How is the Southern Church a threat ? Two possible, non-exclusive ways :

The Southern Church's teachings are in opposition to the Central Church's teachings : we don't know exactly what those teachings are, but if the Southern Church's teachings imply that the Central Church's ones are fake, it would put their legitimacy into question. Which brings us to the second point :

The Southern Church is trying to become more prominent than the Central one : the Southern Church was dismantled about 200 years before the start of the game for being "dissident" and is now being revived with Edelgard's support. It doesn't even matter what it teaches the people : it fills a gap in the Imperial citizens' lives. By doing so, and by being morally, publicly and financially supported by the new Emperor, it earns the support of the faithful of the Empire and takes it away from the Central Church, in part at least.

So, because Rhea doesn't accept power being taken away from her, she attacks and tries to kill the "rebellion" in the egg, the same way she did with the "dissidents" of the Western Church in Houses, where she sent her students to execute and capture the priests, then executed the survivors without a trial. Sending an assassin against a bishop is clearly not something she would hesitate to do.

But, in this example, the Church was the one "under attack". You might wonder how Rhea would have reacted if Edelgard hadn't restored the Southern Church or started the war and had simply reformed the Empire without bothering anyone else, right ? Well, the answer is : basically the same thing.

What we know of Edelgard's reforms is that they are meant to end the caste system, let anyone reach a position of power, oust the people who are not competent enough to handle them and deny the very idea that birth determines someone's right to rule over a region or a whole nation. Those are all ideas that the Central Church has spent the last millenia denying and fighting against so the nobles would stay dependant on them ; if Edelgard's reforms were to be implemented, and moreso if they were to be successful, therefore proving that Crests and the ability to rule are not related, the Central Church's teachings would be proved wrong and the people of Fodlan, Kingdom and Alliance included, would rebel and stop supporting the Church and nobility. Rhea would lose her power and Fodlan would evolve, one way or another, outside of her control. She would do anything to avoid that, including sending her knights to support the rebellious nobles (like the ones we see in Hopes) who are bound to fight against Edelgard's tyranny to preserve peace and order in Fodlan, even if it means fighting against the Imperial army until they can march on Enbarr and behead the mad tyrant... which is roughly what happens in SS where the Black Eagles form a rebellion and ally with the Church's forces to fight against Edelgard and ultimately defeat her in order to keep the status quo. Yes, they fought this war because they thought Edelgard was in the wrong and needed to be stopped, but the result is the exact same.

(if you want to get into real world parallels, the Catholic Church was in much the same position of power as the Central Church for a good millenia (the xenophobia and the way it wormed itself into being central in every government by saying the King ruled out of God's will and had to be a good Christian if they wanted to keep their throne is especially similar), but then Martin Luther called it out on its corruption and started the Protestant Church (Southern Church, in Fodlan's case), leading to a long religious and physical conflict where the Catholic Church tried to eradicate the dissidents, with fire among other things)

So, what do we deduce from all this ? Three things :

The Church and nobility feed off of each other to maintain their own power ; if one were to disappear or stop working the way it did in the past, the other would collapse.

Rhea is more than ready to do what it takes to preserve her power and influence over Fodlan because it allows her to keep it in stasis and she believes that is what she should do until her mother comes back from the dead.

Edelgard's reforms would put a dent in Rhea's power, war or no war, which would result in Rhea trying to get her killed so she could put a good, obedient noble on the throne in order to restore the Central Church's power and maintain the nobility's standing in the Empire/Fodlan.

So, in conclusion : no significant change to the system can be made and kept in place for more than a few years, a decade at most, without national level of armed conflict at the very least because the Church and nobility will ally and fight tooth and nail to preserve their power. Taking apart the nobility cannot be done without destroying the Central Church at the same time, for one will always try to save/bring back the other to justify its own power. If Edelgard hadn't started the war, Rhea would have ; if Edelgard hadn't invaded and conquered the Kingdom and Alliance, their nobility would have attacked her in order to avoid her reforms giving ideas to their own population, or the population would have rebelled and started a bloody civil war in order to win their freedom, which would have likely caused more casualties, especially civil ones and children, than a fight between two actual armies.

There would have been war anyway. There would have been thousands of deaths anyway. Edelgard did what she did in order to gain the advantage by attacking first, improve her odds and shape the conflict in a way that would cause the least civilian casualties. We can still debate whether or not she was right or wrong, whether or not there was a better way to achieve her goals and save more lives, but the fact remains that while she did start the war, if she had not, someone else would have in order to stop her reforms. There was no peaceful way to change the whole system. As always, when you want to take power away from a group of people, you have to fight for it, and they will fight back.

[hellsite-detective]

Could you find this post? I found the screenshot on the Tasting History server

is this a post case which i see before me, the request upon my desk? come, let me clutch thee...

but alas, this post proved simple for me to track down. as simple as plunging thy blade deep within the heart of any monarch. i set upon my duty, to seek out my own prize from the Don, Thane of Google. they sat there upon their usual throne, indulging in revelry that bore them riches greater than any average man could hope to achieve. like the mighty Birnam Wood approaching Dunsinane Hill, i approached the Thane. they bore down on me with inauspicious gaze, and thus i felt a tinge of fear for the interaction to come...

"Sit, Lady Detective." they said in reverberant voice which resounded throughout the chamber. upon my brow sweat formed, giving way to the consternation within me.

my Thane, i come bearing a request. i search for a post regarding the Scottish Play in relation to the Kingdom of Tumblr. may i be honored with your aid?

the Thane glared at me with expression dissolute. with a wave of their hand, a fool did enter carrying a small box of oaken construct. inside was thy post which i had sought. their majesty gifted most graciously this parchment. i bowed with deep gratitude and took my leave. such was the point in which i was approached by three Wëird Sisters, but alas, a tale for another time...

i deliver upon you thy request of this parchment! i believed this case would have been solved hereafter, as tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in its petty pace. but none of woman born could keep me from this case. i bring thy desired conclusion. i bid thee farewell, and a good morrow.

Post Case: Concluded

Flourish. All exit.

[transparencyboo]

For the last two weeks or so I've been playing the Mega Drive dungeon crawler Shining in the Darkness. I've recently been going through all the various action-RPGs the system had to offer and kinda found myself lusting for more, so I expanded the scope.

Shining in the Darkness had one of those cover arts I vividly remember seeing in game stores during the 90s, I understood already back then that whatever this was would be too complicated for my feeble preschool brain, but it had a shiny glossy allure that still beckoned to me with promises of daring adventures and grand battles. Questions lingered in my head: Who is that evil bastard zapping sparks at Cavin from the Gummi Bears? Why has the king entrusted the safety of his kingdom to a meagre boy and his two misfit friends?

Well, it turns out that big bad guy is called Dark Sol, the bane of all game difficulty discourse, and the reason the king has enlisted three poor kids is because there is no one else to rely on after your daddy went missing. Everyone else just sorta gives up along the way.

My initial conclusion of this game was to commend my young self for the striking assessment, my five year old self would never get anywhere in this game between the English text, abstracted navigation and number crunching battle mechanics. Shining in the Darkness is a bona fide classic dungeon gauntlet endurance simulator, where you traverse vanishing point block tunnels and encounter enemies. I've played one or two games like this before, like the original Phantasy Star, but this time a new desire struck me. I wanted to draw maps. Maybe I'm just getting older and more patient, leading me to wilfully ignore easily available resources online.

By my recollection, this is the first time I've dedicated myself to playing a game like this. Usually I just resort to my sense of direction, which I've gathered seems to at least be above average, since anytime I go anywhere with anyone I always end up playing shepherd so they don't get lost. Worst case scenario I'll just fall back to mapping efforts by online heroes from years past. For Shining in the Darkness I persisted blindly about halfway through until I admitted to myself charting a map of the labyrinthine caves would be a lot easier. Luckily, the game allows you to spend 1 MP to see a chunk of where you've walked, meaning I could get neatly organized segments to copy by hand.

Perhaps my biggest takeaway from this endeavour was how much of the game experience was expressed through this map project. I spent just as much time slaying beasts as I did counting tiles and filling them out with my pencil. It became a natural counterbalance that provided vital pacing to the game mechanics. Walking, fighting, charting. In turn, through the principle of learning by doing, I gained a more intimate familiarity with the environments by just replicating them out on a sheet of paper. I found that while the map helped, I actually didn't need it much for backtracking because my drawings had helped me remember the layouts of the corridors anyway.

I guess the lesson learned is that while old design sensibilities may appear to be arcane and cumbersome when easier solutions exists, the obfuscation is part of the fun. The game hands me an intentionally hard to navigate world, shows me that it's fully capable of displaying maps of it, but still asks me to provide that dimension myself. Through doing this, I discover that drawing maps is both surprisingly enjoyable and cognitively stimulating. I realize that had I downloaded some pre-packaged maps online and used as my bible, Shining in the Darkness would've been a vastly different experience, one of monotonous meandering through endless fights while confidently striding along the known path.

Perhaps that's why the game was called Shining and the Darkness in Japan, it doesn't flow as well as the western title, but at the same time it poetically reflects this act of discovery. I am Shining, the game provides the Darkness, we work together, we must unify to become whole.

As for Dark Sol, he turned into a big monster boy and was vanquished by a spunky cartographer child and her two cohorts. The unknown has been made known and the kingdom is once more saved.

/Kiki

[bramble-scramble]

In which I dare to rant about Paper Mario

So there's this discourse going around twitter right now about Paper Mario being an AU and Paper Mario not being the "real" Mario and if ANY of the PM games happened in "the real Mario world" or have parallels, do the characters exist outside of the Paper World, etc etc

And all I can think is like, damn, how unfortunate is it that Intelligent Systems deciding to use a charming and timeless art style back on the N64 led to this. The idea to use 2D sprites on 3D backgrounds to create a storybook feel eventually spiraled into the series' ENTIRE IDENTITY. Gameplay does not unite the whole Paper Mario series, depth of story does not, shared characters do not, only the art style and the idea of 2D vs 3D.

And it's a shame because the first PM was a lovely fairy tale that clearly followed in the footsteps of SMRPG as an extrapolation of what the Mushroom Kingdom could be, and how Mario's world works. It was also my first Mario RPG and had tremendous influence on me. Friendly Koopas and Goombas, the Star Spirits, wishes. It was called Mario Story in Japan and the paper aspect mattered nothing to the actual narrative. And then TTYD got a little cheekier with the paper abilities (with them being a fourth-wall-wobbling joke tacked on to what was clearly supposed to still be a Mario Story). And then SPM, much as I love it, bases its entire hook around 2D/3D in a way that's hard to reconcile with Mario's "normal" existence. And by Sticker Star they just said screw it, reboot it, everyone is 100% aware they are made of paper and that's like the series' whole deal now. And it has stayed there ever since.

For the last three games, you can say maybe there's a "real" Bobby out there or a "real" Captain T. Ode but it's impossible for their plots to take place in a world divorced from the craft universe unless we substitute in a lot of body horror and viscera (and even then, what of the Things? Etc). And that's ok for these games, they work within their own context and can be fun for what they are. But it's now got people thinking the first three games fold into this same AU. And you can blame Paper Jam for this but the PM series did it to itself. PJ just clearly spelled out the dual reality that Sticker Star and its follow-ups obviously necessitated. And now the whole series has retroactively been wrapped up into this Paper Universe.

Look, I know "Mario lore" doesn't actually matter, and most RPG characters never show up again even in their own series, and as long as you enjoy each game in a vacuum that's what matters. But it's frustrating that we've reached a point where PM characters have to be the odd ones out who may or may not "actually exist" or have actually met the "real Mario". Mallow is definitely real, Cackletta is definitely real but Chuck Quizmo- WHOA SLAM THE BRAKES, IDK ABOUT THAT ONE CHIEF. Thankfully most people don't give a shit about this drudgery and it won't stop people from drawing Vivian and Geno interacting, because it's just fun and good.

But my point is, I don't think the people working on the first PM (and TTYD) really could have foreseen the series evolving into what it is today, and it's unfair to wipe out their lovely narratives and relegate them to some kind of side universe not worthy of The Real Super Mario(tm) [especially because, taken in sum total of characters and vignettes, TTYD is the greatest Mario narrative there has ever been IMO]. SPM, so strange in both its style and its entire concept, is in some kind of weird limbo where I don't even really care what people think of it anymore, just let me enjoy my game that makes me cry every time in peace lmao

I can't think of another example of a series where an arbitrary stylistic gimmick (not a gameplay or story gimmick but a STYLISTIC gimmick) consumes it and becomes its entire thematic identity. Can you? It's Flanderization on the scale of a franchise, not just a character. Closest is perhaps the Yoshi series, where Yoshi's Island had a childlike crayon look to stand out on the SNES and fit the theme of Baby Mario, which got expanded to Yoshi's Story being a storybook and now we have craft themed Yoshi games. But it's still not entirely the same thing because the gameplay has remained somewhat consistent, if getting rather easier.

Anyway peace and love I just want Johnny Jones and Cortez to hang out

[voca-edits]

Read this before requesting!

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[khtrinityftw]

There has been discourse elsewhere about Organization XIII and why the series beyond's retconning of them actually having hearts the whole time was because they were depicted too human, with too much emotion. To which I have a very blunt question to ask....

What the hell were the games you were playing?

Organization XIII quite frequently expose themselves as without feeling. And when it comes to the seemingly emotional demeanors of several members, the series Ultimania from 2014 actually gave away what the original intent behind that was on the Xemnas bio page:

"His tone and gestures are a bit theatrical".

Organization XIII are ACTORS.

Like all actors, they can draw upon memories or the rudimentary understanding of human emotion to channel it even if it's not what they're truly feeling. Xigbar could thus think "I remember being a douche as a human so I'll draw upon those memories to act that way!" Vexen could think "I remember being obsessively passionate about science as a human so I'll draw upon those memories to act that way!" Demyx could think "I remember being a wimp as a human so I'll draw upon those memories to act that way!" Luxord could think "I remember being a game-loving gentleman as a human so I'll draw upon those memories to act that way!" And Larxene could think "I remember being a sadistic bitch as a human so I'll draw upon those memories to act that way!" Much of this is a desperate attempt to recapture some true measure of feeling. Acting upon memories, doing the things they loved to do as humans....they hope that if they keep doing that, it'll bear some emotional fruit. Of course, the other members don't try nearly as hard, feigning emotion only when the situation they're in calls for it. Sometimes the results aren't pleasant, like with Zexion who is so used to not putting in effort acting out emotions that when finally pushed to it comes off as more mentally deranged than anything, like he's a robot that's short-circuiting.

Now, despite this, I have to mention that there are three exceptions to this where the Organization members truly do feel things.

One is in regards to Kingdom Hearts, which on two different occasions bring out true emotions. The first is with Saix, who under its light goes into a legitimate rage due to his nature as a high-class Berserker Nobody. And the second is of course with Xemnas when he fuses with it, calling upon the emotions of anger, hatred and envy to empower him, as they're the only emotions he can remember.

Two is when Nobodies actually attempt to get close to those who have hearts...and "those who have hearts" includes Roxas and Namine, who due to the special nature of their birth do, in fact, have hearts, at the cost of having memories of their human lives. As seen with Axel, getting close to Roxas' heart and then Sora's in turn made him begin to actually feel genuine emotions stirring within him.

This of course led to the inner conflict where his nature as an unfeeling, self-interested Nobody clashed with the true feelings of friendship he now had toward Roxas which we saw play out in KH2.

Third and finally, their deaths. Because a Nobody fades away means that their hearts are about to regain their bodies and souls, this connection with their hearts enables them to feel true emotion at the moment of their passing. Rage, anguish, fear, remorse, grief...such feelings are there, for real, in their last few seconds of existence.

.....Except for Xigbar. He just kept up the douche act to the end.

[burr-ell]

💖and 💞 for three houses on the ask meme!!!!

💖: What is your biggest unpopular opinion about the series?

This is related to that post I reblogged from you, but I think a lot of the worst discourse about this game stems from the fact that it started a huge newbie boom who either inadvertently or willfully did not understand that some of the issues they had with the setting or characters or themes simply were not relevant to what the game was actually trying to do. I do agree that the turbokingdom ending is dumb and feels especially forced on Azure Moon (like, Claude just gives Dimitri the Leicester Alliance because the game said he has to); I understand where people are coming from in not wanting their avatar to be so bound to the church; I get why people wanted to believe that a "world for humanity" would be a better one.

But a) all of that kind of ignores a lot of the actual text of the game anyway, and b) every single entry in this series is about being in an army that fights for good kingdoms and good dragons against evil empires and cults and bad dragons. One of the thematic premises of Fire Emblem is that if you are given a position of power, whether you asked for it or not, it is your duty to use it wisely and for the benefit of the people. If you're looking for something to validate a specific kind of lefty politics, which is perfectly okay to want, this simply isn't the game for you. And honestly, this applies to people who want that and people who have turned a more critical eye to the game in the wake of the absolute madness of the fandom—I've seen people praising 3H and people criticizing it for things it wasn't trying to do in the first place. If you're playing another entry in the "benevolent rulers are good" games, you're gonna have to be a monarchist for a few hours.

💕: What is an unpopular ship that you like?

Leonie/Lorenz! I love their support chain and their various task dialogues about understanding and respecting one another and how they help each other grow; I love that the parallels of them as mounted units, one a commoner and one a noble (you could write a dopeass Leorenz fic with horse girl motifs); I love how their relationship is borne out of a real genuine friendship you can see grow and change onscreen; I love how their ending is so good for both of them and turns them into the gnc power couple of all time. They're amazing and one of my favorite ships in the game 💜🧡

unpopular opinions asks

[discourseofthethreekingdoms]

Han Deep Dive Trailer

On Friday will be the closing episode of season 2, discussing the Han's decline with @sunfin3k, @dongzhou3kingdoms, @zgongjin and @fuyonggu reunited. Clips from eunuch discussions, military expenses and inconsistency, climate change, late reform while we discuss much more in the episode itself. So come join us for Friday's discussion. https://youtu.be/JGe1ZZAJjCs

Artwork by Zhaolie

Music is Sao Meo Orchestral Mix by Doug Maxwell/Zac Zinger

[racefortheironthrone]

I imagine the real answer is "it works how the plot needs it to work," but can we infer anything about structure of Westeros' raven communication system and how it would work? Does every castle have a raven for every other castle, or are there nodes/relays, lords only maintain stocks for castles they expect to communicate with? Are ravens like homing pigeons where they only travel one way? If so, does that mean there's this extensive network of raven traders moving throughout the Seven Kingdoms to keep the lords stocked?

The raven post system is a fascinating topic, and one I've written a bit about.

To answer your questions:

Does every castle have a raven for every other castle?

It seems unlikely that every castle has a raven for every other castle - there are a lot of castles in Westeros (196, just counting the named ones) and any given lord probably doesn't need to communicate with most of them, which would make maintaining ravens who can't be used for any other purpose pointless. My expectation is that a lord would have/want at the very least:

ravens for their liege lord and the Lord Paramount (depending on whether they're a principal house or a vassal house, this could be one or two ravens) and probably a raven for King's Landing - in order to communicate with their higher-ups in the feudal hierarchy. Similarly, they'd have ravens for their vassal houses, if they had them, in order to communicate with those lower down in the feudal hierarchy.

ravens for their neighbors, the principal houses of their kingdom, and their relatives and in-laws - for day-to-day communications and to participate in the political and cultural world of their peers.

a raven for the Citadel - this one is probably more for the maester than the lord, but they probably need to be able to communicate with the Citadel in order to keep up with scholarly discourse, to request specialized resources and personnel, and to communicate about important issues like epidemics or the seasons or the like.

Are there nodes and relays?

On the one hand, this would massively improve the efficacy and efficiency of the raven post system, by allowing castles that don't have ravens trained to fly to a particular castle to send one to a nearby castle or a more important castle that has a wider communications network (and thus is more likely to have a raven for that specific castle) and have them pass on the message.

On the other hand, nodes and relays bring up the inescapable problem of message security. No matter how ironclad the maester's oath of neutrality might be, there would always be the fear that the intermediary castle had opened and read the message. Now, we know from the example of Catelyn and Lysa Tully that some Westerosi nobility create cyphers and codes to encrypt their communications, but it doesn't seem to be very common.

So if there are nodes and relays, I think it would only be for messages that were either encrypted or for less vital messages that the writer didn't mind other people possibly knowing about.

Do Ravens Only Travel One Way?

Here, I think the text is a little ambiguous. Surprisingly, the first mention of this basic question about the system comes in a preview Winds of Winter chapter:

"Both." Stannis snapped the word out. "A maester's raven flies to one place, and one place only. Is that correct?" The maester mopped sweat from his brow with his sleeve. "N-not entirely, Your Grace. Most, yes. Some few can be taught to fly between two castles. Such birds are greatly prized. And once in a very great while, we find a raven who can learn the names of three or four or five castles, and fly to each upon command. Birds as clever as that come along only once in a hundred years."

Now, the plain reading of "some few can be taught to fly between two castles" is that most ravens are one-way, and that only "some few" can do a round-trip. On the other hand, that's not how it works for ravens who can do 3 to 5 castles, so maybe the maester means flying to two castles and home?

The reason why I'm skeptical about the plain reading is that this would seem to make the raven network substantially worse (and by extension the maesters surprisingly dim) than the historical system of carrier pigeons. Putting a pigeon's food in one place and their home in another to activate the homing instinct and allow for round-trip communication is pretty basic as experimentation goes, so you think that someone would have thought of it after several thousand years.

If ravens truly are one-way rather than round-trip, then yes, you'd have to have a ground-based transportation network of men on horseback or wagon whose job it would be to return the ravens to their castle of origin, and given the distances involved in Westerosi communication, that would seem to reduce the system's efficacy tremendously.

[joys-of-everyday]

MXTX's women part 2

Let's do ✨discourse™✨part 2

This is a follow up to this post where the only conclusions I came to were vibes based... mainly because my opinions here are generally vibes based (except svsss - I am pretty firm on my view of svsss, but that's a separate post). I think there are strong arguments either way, and tbh I have nothing against vibes based conclusions, but for fun, I'm going to take a position and argue for it.

disclaimer: 1) this post is not my opinion. 2) nonetheless, this post is entirely unironic. I think these are compelling arguments.

Position 1: MDZS and TGCF are sexist.

To recap, I posed (dramatically, in bold face) that the most important question to ask are: What is the intent? How is that intent received? This can be summed up as: What is the message you take away?

Obviously, you can fight me here, but I'll expand. Firstly, the question doesn't fundamentally come down to what the work contains, even though this is important. Every statement on the lines of 'x is sexist because it contains y' has a counterexample. Is the Handmaid's Tale sexist because it contains men in power and women treated as objects? Well op, this is a dumb example, you might say, and you would be right. The message of the Handmaid's Tale is clearly different from, say, MDZS and everything it contains is a support of that message - that a woman's reproductive freedom is her right. And I would go, ah ha, yes. Intent. (You can still disagree with me lol. This came out of a conversation literally a week ago.)

But also note, the author's actual intent is secondary. It's a useful framing to understand what the message is, but due to e.g. unconscious bias, or internalised sexism, the message gained by the reader/audience can be entirely independent of the intent of the author. For example, (one of my all time favourite c-dramas) the Secret of the Three Kingdoms I think is trying to be empowering for women, has lots of cool female characters, but the ultimate message can be summarised as 'men plough, women weave'... which is :/

Another subtlety to point out is that trends and popular tropes/archetypes tell a very different story when looked at overall. 'Woman in the refrigerator' and 'bury your gays' isn't a problem about individual works (although it often is mixed into other problems), but it's prevalence and dominance spreads harmful messages. A work which is great on it's own can actually be contributing to a wider problem, thus making it a problem.

MDZS: Women as accessory

It's not that difficult to argue that MDZS has an exceptional cast of women. I have no intention of arguing that MDZS's women aren't well developed, because enough people have come up with compelling counterarguments and they aren't hard to find. I think MDZS's portrayal of sexism is both exceptionally nuanced and not something you see much of. I love the way MDZS uses and breaks down tropes. I would argue (have argued) that the way MXTX puts sexism into her works is (at least partly) very much deliberate, and not with the intent of being sexist.

But remember, death of the author: author's original intentions don't matter in the face of what can be read from the text.

Notable in MDZS is 1) the lack of female characters who aren't defined by their relation to a major male character 2) women in the refrigerator.

1) Jiang Yanli is Wei Wuxian's older sister. Yu Ziyuan is Wei Wuxian's adopted mother. Wang Lingjiao is Wen Chao's girlfriend. Madam Jin, Meng Shi, Qin Su. Now, there are notable exceptions. Wen Qing is Wen Ning's sister, but her character is substantial even without that. Luo Qingyang (mianmian). Sisi (arguably). But there are overwhelmingly more male characters, and perhaps more importantly, hardly any male characters defined by their relation to a female character. There are a few. Madam Mo and her husband. Jin Zixuan as Jiang Yanli's husband (arguably). This isn't an exhaustive list but you get the idea.

2) Well, firstly, most of them die. Yu Ziyuan ends up in an unhappy marriage and dies as her sect burns down. Jiang Yanli loses a husband and then sacrifices herself for her brother. Wang Lingjiao gets offed by Wei Wuxian. Qin Su is killed by her husband. Mo Xuanyu's mother and Madam Jin just die of 'heartbreak' for what? Plot convenience? More egregiously, all of these deaths are there to either a) plot reasons or b) to add to the development of a male character. This is precisely the 'women in the refrigerator' trope, but multiplied a million times.

The only female character who got her happy ending was Mianmian... who lives a simple life with her family in the middle of nowhere. And it's great that in being brave and pursuing the right thing, she found happiness for herself, but this being the only example is um...

Well, the message feels suspiciously like women exist only for men. Men are the protagonists of their stories. Women are accessories. Sounds pretty sus. Maybe this is all due to the sexism of the world, but the message is then that the only way for women to succeed is to leave the system altogether, which is a nuanced thing but not true and somewhat unhelpful as a message.

Now, arguably, MXTX is leaning into tropes in order to be critical of them. Her female characters are full of tropes, and subversions of tropes - they could act as a critique of female characters in BL (in the way the female characters in SVSSS are critique of female characters in harem). There are a few pointers to this - Mianmian standing up to sexism, or the depth and nuance of Yu Ziyuan finding power+influence through her marriage of Jiang Fengmian. But the point stands is that isn't the message most people take away, because of the way MDZS is framed. MDZS just works as a xianxia action/romance. It isn't a parody (or at least, you don't need to read it as one to follow it). It isn't explicitly critical of how the women end up, nor is the narrative centered around the experiences of women. It is very easy to take away the surface level messages, which I think many people end up doing.

Whatever MXTX intended to say with her female characters, arguably MDZS already adds to an existing problem in how media portrays women. Media plays a huge role in how we see ourselves and other people, and unideal representation of women can lead to unconscious biases and stereotypes which are harmful. This being the case, one could argue that any media that fails to either fix the issue or address the issue sufficiently is problematic. On this vein, MDZS falls short.

TGCF: women as secondary

While TGCF improves on the front of women in power doing well, and more explicitly calling out the sexism of the world, it fails at a different front: the lack of women within the core plot.

The structure of TGCF is very different to MDZS, in that it contains a lot of what I would call 'side quests'. This is not a bad thing (this is sort of the whole point of things like (old) Star Trek or Doctor Who). But the core story of TGCF is (arguably) 1) Xie Lian's two ascensions and in between 2) Meeting Hua Cheng at various points 3) Tonglu mountain. And within this core story, there isn't a single female character necessary for the plot.

Ling Wen, Xuan Ji, Banyue, Shi Qingxuan, Yushi Huang... are all exceptional female (and non-binary) characters in their own right, but the story doesn't require them. They could be swapped out quite easily with other characters, unlike e.g. main pair, Feng Xin, Mu Qing, Jun Wu... (Note this isn't about how often they appear, or how developed they are. Lang Ying (the old one) doesn't appear a lot, but is essential to the plot.) (Yushi Huang and Ling Wen are kind of required, but equally for like... quest and item giving purposes which is not really the same.)

It's almost like there is no female person in Xie Lian's life who is essential to his personhood. And the message might inadvertently be that women are part of side quests - they aren't necessary.

This is, in part, a Xie Lian problem. The narration is tied closely to Xie Lian's pov (but isn't third person limited, interestingly), and we get delights like this:

Aside from the fact that Xuan Ji went mad whenever she ran into Pei Ming, she was otherwise much more detail-oriented and cautious than Qi Rong - she was a woman, after all.

(btw, be exceptionally suspicious of statements like 'women are more detail-oriented and cautious'. They are often wrong, or with heavy caveats.)

This is not on it's own a bad thing - e.g. compare with Shen Qingqiu's narration in SVSSS. But it is arguably a bad thing if you pair it with the fact that Xie Lian is 1) presented as much more likable than Shen Qingqiu 2) is not as obviously bias. He comes across as a trustable character, and so we are less likely to question his biases... so we run into the same problem as in MDZS: we aren't led to question the surface level messages, so the message we take away is an unhelpful one.

I feel like the way around this is (somewhat paradoxically) to reintroduce female characters whose lives (from narrator pov) revolve around the protagonist. (e.g. get in an Jiang Yanli) (The 800 year time skip means they either need to 1) become gods, 2) become ghosts 3) die, all of which have their own potential problems but that's for the author to figure out :p) Making Xie Lian less sexist would be slightly unrealistic but not at all out of character. Having Xie Lian's biases explicitly called out and this be a big thing is another way to go. Or both.

To conclude

Both points fall down to something along these lines: although both MDZS and TGCF make attempts at commentary on the struggles of women, because this narrative is not at the forefront of the story they inadvertently give across only half the message, which is worse than no message at all. 'There are tropes within the genre which treat women badly and this is bad' becomes 'women are like what these tropes say they are like'. 'Women aren't given opportunities so end up worse off' becomes 'women end up worse off'.

Maybe something in between MDZS to TGCF would be an improvement, but also, if the focus on male characters meant these narratives were difficult to execute within a reasonable word count, it might have been better to just skip sexism altogether. (sci fi is usually where this is attempted seriously, but fantasy definitely has scope for imagining better societies.) (This is all much easier said than done btw. Part of a fan's job is to stand on the sidelines and complain, right? 😂)

[raxistaicho]

Faerghus’s Imperialism

The anti-Edelgard crowd loves to castigate Edelgard for imperialistic acts against the Kingdom and the Alliance, and yet I hear only crickets concerning Faerghus’s own imperialistic romps, led by our two golden boys Lambert and Rodrigue, no less.

Sreng was once the name of an enormous peninsula to the north of Fódlan. Today, only the northern half has kept the moniker, while the southern half now falls under the dominion of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus. Several warlike clans call this great wasteland their home. Certain areas of this region are comprised of rocky desert.

That man I walked past earlier... That wasn't Lord Rodrigue, was it? House Fraldarius is a powerful noble family, linked to the founding of Faerghus. Lord Rodrigue, its current leader, is a magnificent warrior. He's known as the Shield of Faerghus. A dozen or so years ago, during the northern campaign in Sreng, he performed splendidly as the king's right hand.

What Faerghus did was a land grab, end of. They’re not trying to improve the lives of the people of Sreng like Edelgard is for Fodlan, they just want the Srengese gone and made to scratch a living off the northern wastes.

House Gautier crying they need to do eugenics to keep using the Lance of Ruin rings hollow when they’re just trying to hold the fruits of a land grab.

And then we have Duscur, and... yeah.

[dankengine2005]

Predictions for the Starlight Express 2024 Revival

At the time of me writing this (27/03/2024) the cast for the 2024 revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Starlight Express has just been revealed, and along with it much discussion and discourse within the Starlight Express community about what the new production will be like, including what songs will remain or have changed, and if any characters have been cut or replaced. So therefore, I have decided to present my predictions as to what the new production will be like, drawing on what we already know and what could be the case, especially since 1984 the way railways in the UK work have changed a lot, so the new production will have to reflect some of these changes, along with changes in what is appropriate or politically correct in modern day Britain.

Keep in mind these are my opinions and predictions and you are welcome to have different ones. Also this is only my predictions and my speculation, so do not take this as official, because it isn’t. For all I know the show could be completely different to what I’m describing. TAKE THESE PREDICTIONS WITH A PINCH OF SALT.

So without further ado, let's get into my predictions. We'll start with the characters, starting with the engines.

In terms of confirmed engine characters we have the main returning ones of Rusty, Greaseball, Electra and Momma. Greaseball seemingly has been gender-swapped, as he is being played by actress Al Knott in her professional debut, with Catherine Cornwall and Jessica Vaux as covers. I find this change actually really interesting, and it kinda fits with Rusty being male and Electra being non-binary, so there is now a varied representation of gender in the main cast of engines. It's also really refreshing to see a female antagonist like Greaseball, who isn't a villain because of any trauma or something like that, she's just a bad guy for bad guy's sake! I'm also glad Momma is making her way to the UK. Momma in Germany is such a fun character regardless of any actress playing her, and I cannot wait to see her in this new version.

Now let's talk about the other supporting engines. We currently have three new characters confirmed for this new show, these being Golden Eagle, Grey Wolf, Blue Horizon and Orange Flash. While at the moment we do not know what these characters will be, I predict these will be new engine characters, possibly as replacements for some of, if not all the National engines (e.g. Turnov, Brexit, Manga, etc) Why do I think this? Because of how the nationals are really rolling stereotypes. While this is less so nowadays, it cannot be denied that there are some elements of the Nationals that likely would not fly in modern Britain. Brexit for example will likely not be included, as public support for Brexit has only gotten less and less, especially because of the way the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom screwed up handling the pandemic, Andrew Lloyd Webber himself even withdrawing his support for the party in 2021. So I reckon an engine representing Brexit likely would not go down well. Turnov even more so, given the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the ongoing war between the two countries. So I reckon that these new engines will be used to replace not just these two, but that all the National engines will be replaced, as that avoids any controversy. Golden Eagle, Grey Wolf and Orange Flash seem more like general names given to trains regardless of countries, so therefore avoiding controversy.

The coaches that have been announced are Pearl, Dinah, Belle and Tassita, who was introduced in the 2017 London Workshop but was never added to the cast in Bochum, her role being given to Carrie. Similar to Greaseball, Tassita's gender has also been changed, making her the first male coach in all of Starlight Express history. Tassita has confirmed to be being played by Renz Cardenas, with Pablo Gomez Jones and Charles Butcher as covers. Again, this is really interesting, and I'm super excited to see how they use Tassita. Something that would be really cool would be if Tassita was representing a transmasc carriage, which makes the message of I Am Me, about being on the same level as the engines, have a deeper meaning in his case. Furthermore, a new character called "Porter" has been confirmed. Initially I thought this could be a new freight character, however a railway porter's job was historically to help passengers on passenger trains, so this makes me think this new character could have something to do with the new passenger train.

Electra's components have mostly been confirmed to be returning, with Killerwatt, Wrench, Volta and Joule, so there isn't too much to say there. I reckon Electra and their components will pretty much be a copy and paste of their current use in Bochum, which I think works well.

Now we come to the freight train. I've saved this one to last in the character section, because I think this is what I have the most to say about. My first prediction is quite a big one, but I think it makes sense given the context of the modern world:

The Rockies will be replaced with new characters.

We already have two new freights confirmed with Lumber and Oil Slick. My bet is that Lumber is going to be a lumber wagon or log car, and Oil Slick will be an oil tanker car, and maybe Porter at a stretch, depending on if they'll be a part of the passenger or freight train. Regardless, I think the Rockies are going to be replaced. This is because the Rockies are boxcars, which on both British Railways and in America are no longer being used, or at least not as much as before. This is because the nature of how real freight trains work has changed since the 1980s. Nowadays instead of individual wagons freight and goods trains are now more often comprised of intermodial containers, as these can easily be transferred from a ship to a train and then a lorry without having to remove the goods from the container. Therefore, it's likely most more modern British audiences who aren't really interested in real railways or trains won't know what a boxcar is, so therefore replacing them with characters which are more clearly based on more general wagons, for example a tanker wagon or log wagon makes more sense.

Flat-Top I literally have no idea about. I don't see any reason why he wouldn't be in the revival, as there isn't really much that can go wrong with him, but I'm still not really sure with him. I feel similar towards Dustin. I don't see why he wouldn't be in the show, especially since hopper wagons used for carrying minerals and bulk commodities like stone or sand are still incredibly common, and are a common sight, so I don't really see any reason why they wouldn't be in the show. I do have one idea that could be the case: The Hip Hoppers return to replace the Rockies, and Lumber and Oil Slick replace Flat-Top and Dustin. That way they still have hopper characters while also adding new updated characters. Oil Slick could possibly be a new villain. They could cause oil slicks on the line and crash other engines.

CB/Caboose I have no idea about, but I fear he won't be in the show. Similar to the Rockies, modern British audiences will likely have no idea what a caboose or a brakevan is because they will never have seen one before, as brake vans aren't used anymore in the UK or America, so why keep a wagon no one knows much about in the show, unless they do something clever and make him cause accidents because he's outdated, I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Now for the songs. I reckon most of the songs will remain the same, however we don't really know about songs focused on or performed by certain characters. Freight is very likely going to be modified or changed or replaced with a new song to introduce the new characters. The Rap will likely have a new version, and songs like Wide Smile or Right Place, Right Time seem to be hanging in the balance because of what may or may not happen with the new characters.

It's very evident already that this Starlight Express will be nothing like the previous versions, and we shouldn't expect it to be a copy and paste of Bochum. This will be extremely different, so get ready.

DankEngine2005

[mikathemonster]

Hello! I saw your 'pick a prompt' post, and if its not to late i'd like to request Number 3 from the situation prompt with Kili

Have a good day and make sure to stay hydrated!

"signing my life away"

author's note: OH MY GOD I'M SO GLAD SOMEONE FINALLY REQUESTED THIS ONE IT'S MY FAVORITE!!! I've been dying to write something for this prompt in particular, so I'm so glad you requested it <3 (definitely wrote this while having covid so I made reader get sick so I could relate to something lol) maybe i’ll even write a second part to this? idk yet

Pairing: Kíli / Gender-Neutral Human Reader

Word Count: 3,246

summary: being a scribe-for-hire is easy. a scribe for a dwarven prince? not so much, especially when he drives you insane.

content warnings: illness (it’s a cold), kinda enemies to lovers??, regular Kíli shenanigans

DO NOT REPOST OR COPY. MINORS/AGELESS BLOGS DO NOT INTERACT.

Two weeks. Two whole weeks and you already wanted to quit your job as a scribe-for-hire. But of course, the grand kingdom of Erebor had other plans for you in mind. Other plans that seemed to come in the form of two equally-annoying princes.

Of course, they hadn’t bothered you much when you had first arrived at the Lonely Mountain. No, for your first week had proven quite fruitful and lovely, with most of your work coming from the commissions of young dwarrowdams who wished to court their fancies with letters proclaiming their love. It was something you easily found yourself enjoying, being a romantic yourself. It was also through these commissions that word spread like wildfire of your services. And that fire had seemed to blaze even brighter to the two dwarven princes of Erebor.

Fíli and Kíli, you had come to know, were quick to approach you after only being in Erebor for a week and a half. For the price of following them around at will and answering any scribe-worthy commission they could think of for the next month, they had offered to completely furnish and compensate your life while living in the dwarven kingdom. And how could you have said no to such an offer? You had barely come with enough wealth for yourself!

But soon you were finding yourself to have made a grave mistake. On days when Fíli wasn’t busy on diplomatic matters, he’d summon you for his daily walks where he’d muse about writing rude letters between his friends. At first, you thought the idea was amusing, albeit strange. You questioned his judgement, but nevertheless followed through with his requests, writing letters to people such as Dwalin, Bofur and Nori. At first, it didn’t seem to come to fruition of anything. But you were quickly proven wrong when suddenly you found yourself caught in the throng of a huge fight between such people who had come to Thorin for advice while he and Fíli had been lost in conversation. You had only one mental note from that day forward: never anger a dwarf. It seemed that Fíli, though mindful and royal as he was, had a propensity for wild discourse.

And his brother? Goodness me, he was even worse! Kíli, the youngest dwarven prince of Erebor, was a henchman of chaos himself. At times, it even reminded you of your own youth, though you could not recall being nearly as wild as this. His requests were similar to Fíli’s, but decidedly targeted his whiles to a more heightened scale. Rather than reducing himself to rude letters, he had commissioned you to write scandalous rumor articles that all surrounded a rather dangerous man to make an enemy out of: Thorin Oakenshield, King Under the Mountain. At first, you had refused; how could you do such a thing to the one person who could surely banish you from the entire kingdom? But reminding you quickly of your deal, Kíli had been quite insistent, and so you had no choice. And by the gods, you wished you hadn’t; Thorin couldn’t escape whispers and laughter in the halls for three entire days, much to your help! You were lucky he didn’t know who had written such things.

And thus came the conclusion to your first two weeks in Erebor. Only two weeks in, and you were already getting worried of how this new job of yours would reflect on your reputation, especially if you continued to entertain the endeavors of these two princes.

The next week grew to be a slight bit easier, but only when it came to Fíli, who found himself much too busy with princely matters than to find himself using you as an instrument for his grand pranks. You had hoped that through his busy schedule, you could avoid Kíli, but the youngest prince had quite the tenacity for hunting you down. Indeed, it seemed he couldn’t fathom the idea of leaving you alone, for your latest days had been spent with him following you around as he aimlessly threw about silly little ideas for equally insane writings. The same thing was occurring today as well, as you found yourself trying to meander out of the forges and to the library for some peace and quiet.

“Oh, and just think of what mess we could make of Bombur!” He grinned like a cat, and you thought him to be a child. “He’s so easy to rile up, he is. I bet we could even get Bofur in on it.”

“We?” You said, your voice dry. “Please do not make the mistake of binding me together with you. I’m merely doing a job that you paid me to do.”

“Aye, and what a wonderful job that is,” he said smiling, practically beaming at you as you bobbed and weaved through the various working stations of the ironsmiths. “I must start recommending you to others. Or perhaps I won’t, and keep you all to myself.”

You raised a brow at his comment, finding yourself irked. “I didn’t come here to stage pranks, I’ll have you know. I wish to be taken more seriously than simple games.”

“Games?” He mused, laughing. “Does the meaning of the word ‘fun’ escape you?”

This time you turned completely, stopping in your tracks to face him as the heat of the forge grew on your face. You were getting annoyed. It seemed Kíli could see this, and it seemed to only fuel his teasing. “I’m serious,” you said. “When I first arrived, I was writing wonderful love letters. Love letters! All you ever make me write are rude, childish things.”

“Love letters?” He said, his teasing expression dropping for a moment as curiosity replaced it.

“Yes, love letters!” You said. “And I was excited to establish my name on them! But now, I worry that all I’ll be known for are your stupid pranks.”

“Well, tell me more of these letters,” he said. “So that I may get to know your penmanship better.”

You scoffed, walking away. You were getting tired of this man who seemed to adore making fun of you. “Oh please, you don’t actually mean to entertain this conversation. For the last three days, all you’ve done is rile me up with these wild requests of yours! I won’t risk you sullying my name any longer, Kíli.”

“Sullying your name?” He said, chasing after you and out of the forges as you made a beeline for the libraries. “How have I done such a thing?”

You groaned into the air, turning quickly on your heel to seethe at him. Too quickly, mind you, as he clumsily fell right into you, leaving you both to tumble to the floor with a panicked gasp. You expected your head to meet the cold and hard marble of the floor, but found yourself surprised when it met Kíli’s hand, protecting you from the stone. For a moment, mostly out of shock from the moment, you looked at him to find him scanning your face for any sign of pain.

“Are you hurt?” He said, and soon you realized just the predicament you were in. His eyes were worried immensely, and for a second you almost forgot yourself. Almost.

“This is exactly what I mean,” you said with frustration. “First your brother makes me forge letters, then you have me writing scandals, and now we’re both lying on the floor on top of each other! What would someone think, should they see us?”

Seeing you were healthy enough to argue, he sighed, standing up and dusting himself off. “What a lucky dwarf?” He mused, offering his hand to help you up. You refused it, getting up and continuing your trek to the library. “Aw, come on, Y/N!” He called after you. “It was merely a jest!”

“Stop following me!” You said. “I don’t want to see you, and I would rather you leave than force me to resort to cheap tricks to get you to do so!”

“Cheap tricks?” He scoffed. “Of what kind?”

“You think you’re the only one who can think of witty writings? Well, think again,” you boasted. “Just think of the unsavory things I could write about you!” It seemed your threat did well to stop him in his tracks, for soon you stopped hearing his footsteps trailing from behind.

That was a week ago. One week since you blew up at a dwarven prince, one week since you had done any work as a scribe, and one week since the guilt of your attitude began to gnaw at your insides. You knew you had been too harsh; you should’ve just kindly rejected their offer, there had been no need for yelling. But then again, Kíli and his brother could’ve helped a great deal more if they had been more understanding. But how could they have been, anyways? You were a stranger to Erebor, they barely knew you! It seemed it was nobody’s current fault but your own, and the guilt of knowing that was becoming a bit too much.

You had originally planned on apologizing the day after it had happened, but had quickly found yourself sick with a cold; you summed it up to being some sort of penance. In that week, neither of the two dwarven princes had summoned you or requested your presence. A good thing, probably, as you needed the rest to recover, but you worried that it was your previous actions that had led to the halt of communication. Most unfortunate of all was your lack of friends in this new city; in all your time so far, you had been so busy with the princes (especially Kíli) that you hadn’t had much time for putting yourself out there. As a result, there was no one to check on your condition, leaving you to cough and sneeze and blow your nose alone in the silence of your home.

Hours passed by as you drew yourself a bath, weakly tried to clean your bed, and slept away to help your body recover. You weren’t even sure what time it was when you awoke from your nap, but a thin layer of sweat covered you as you tried to move some of the sheets off of you. You felt feverish, as if your body was on fire and ice all at the same time. You were so busy trying to keep yourself warm but not overheated that you hadn’t even heard the soft pounds on the door as you shivered into the bedsheets.

“Y/N?” A distant voice called, but you didn’t have the energy to answer; your voice felt hoarse, like sand. You barely even registered that you had heard it, chalking it up to sleep claiming you once again. And you were happy to give in, desperate even, as you knew your body needed rest.

Soon, your door opened, and a figure approached your side, their soft brown eyebrows furrowing in concern. It looked like Kíli, but there was no way it could be him. He hadn’t summoned you all week, what could’ve changed now? “Y/N,” he said, and you once again figured it to be a dream. “Oh Mahal, no wonder I couldn’t find you. Wait right here.”

He quickly left just as he had appeared, but when he returned, he was armed with a pitcher of water and a cloth. He soaked the cloth before placing it on your forehead, and soon you found it even harder to stay awake. “I’m fine,” you tried to croak out, feeling guilty for whatever poor soul was taking care of you.

“Nonsense, you’re burning up,” he said, refusing to leave your side. “Have you had anything to drink?”

“It’s just a cold,” you tried to explain, worried that you were becoming a burden to whoever this wonderful helper was. Still in your feverish state, you weren’t convinced it was Kíli, thinking him to be a figment of a dream. But the dream-helper wouldn’t relent, quickly pouring a glass of water as they tried to help you sit up in bed.

“Here, this will help,” he said, putting a pillow behind your head and lower back to support you as you now layed in bed on an incline. It certainly felt more comfortable to breathe, but the fever still prevailed and took over your mind. He brought a glass to your lips, and you gingerly opened your mouth as he poured some water into your mouth. It brought a sense of relief as you swallowed it down your throat, cooling you for but a moment. He continued this process of feeding you water until you had downed a third of the cup, which seemed enough to satisfy him as he set the cup down. “How long have you been sick?”

It was now that you were starting to figure that this wasn’t any dream; Kíli, son of Dís, master of your frustration, was taking care of you in your home. “A few days,” you said, your brow furrowing for a second as a cough escaped you. You wanted to ask him why he was here, why he was taking care of you, but words seemed like such a steep hill to climb when it came to your mountain of thoughts right now. Not to mention the fact that sleep was desperately trying to lay claim over your mind, as your eyes kept feeling heavier and heavier. Kíli spoke something else, possibly a question, but you couldn’t tell as you closed your eyes, letting sleep take over your body, the inky blackness calling you from the cooling relief of the cloth on your forehead.

When you next awoke, your room was just as black as your vision had been while you were sleeping; someone had put out the candles, and Kíli was nowhere to be found or seen. Even the cooling rag on your forehead was gone. For a moment, you wondered if him being there had been the dream itself, as some sort of fever-induced lucid dream. You felt your fever was no longer, your body much more at ease. Had it really all been a fever dream? You sat up in bed, feeling much better already as you squinted your eyes to try and peer about your dark room, but the absence of anyone did little to sway your mind. Perhaps it really had all been a dream, then…

But soft knocks on your door challenged that thought as you blinked away the last remnants of sleep. “Mm, come in,” you answered, running a hand through your hair as the door opened, letting a few slivers of light pool into the room. A worried Kíli entered your room, a candlestick  in one of his hands as he shut the door behind him. He came by your bedside as you sat up to meet him, questions still brewing in your head from before. But for now, you bit your tongue, curious as to whether or not he’d answer them himself first.

“How are you feeling?” He said, his eyes scanning your face intensely. You almost felt naked under his gaze, like he was looking into you from afar.

You cleared your throat, letting out a small cough. To this, he was quick to fetch you a glass of water. “Much better now,” you said. “I think my fever has passed, finally.” Gingerly, you took the glass, sipping from it with a skeptical heart.

“That’s good,” he said, nodding. “I’m glad to see you up again, I was worried you’d stay bedridden.”

“And why is that?” You asked, raising a brow. You still weren’t sure what to make of him suddenly taking care of you. He too seemed caught off guard by your question, but it seemed to be more from an obvious standpoint.

“I hadn’t seen you for a week, Y/N,” he said. “Fíli hadn’t heard anything from you. We were both worried something had happened.”

“Like what?” You asked.

He sighed, sitting on the side of your bed now, and you shifted to give him some room, sipping your water to get some fluids in your body. “When we last spoke, you had wished not to see me. You had said I was sullying your name… I was worried that you were right, and that someone had gotten to you from the letters.”

Now it was your turn to be caught off guard. “Are you serious?” You tried to hold back a snort. “Did you think me to be kidnapped? From writing rumors about your uncle being shorter than he says?” You couldn’t hold it back anymore, letting out a laugh. Who knew the wild prince was softer than he seemed.

Kíli’s ears turned red at your questions, now realizing he had jumped to conclusions. “Well, if it was anyone’s fault then it would be yours for putting such ideas in my head. Why would you call them silly if you were so angry about them then?”

You slowly started to settle back down. “They weren’t ideas, you know,” you said. “I meant what I said about refusing to write your ‘silly’ requests anymore. I won’t do it.”

“And I won’t make you, nor will Fíli,” he nodded. “Besides, Thorin keeps him busy enough these days.”

“So why did you stay?” You asked.

“What do you mean?” He said.

“So you thought I was kidnapped,” you said. “And you came to my home and found me sick. But instead of leaving, why did you care for me?”

He grew flustered again, deflecting the question. “Would you have preferred I leave you to rot in bed?”

“I was already doing that on my own, thank you.” You said. “But I wouldn’t think you’d offer to help so easily after our argument.”

“I wanted to apologize,” he admitted. “I felt guilty and wanted to see you back to health. A life for a lie.”

“It’s a life for a life,” you corrected. “And that’s not how the saying is used.”

“Fine, I’ll admit it. I was worried for you.” He looked away, running a hand through his hair before meeting your gaze again. “I didn’t want you to get worse.”

“I see,” you said, taking a breath. You bit the inside of your cheek, knowing you’d have to swallow your pride and admit what you didn’t want to. But you were bigger than your pettiness, at least in this moment you were. You reached your hand out to place it over his, which seemed to startle the poor dwarf as he looked at you with a wondrous gaze.

“Thank you for taking care of me,” you said. “And I’m sorry for what I said earlier. I shouldn’t have been so harsh, and I didn’t mean it when I said I’d write awful things about you.”

Now it was his turn to chuckle. “I’m surprised you hadn’t done so already,” he said.

“Well, I’ve been a little preoccupied,” you sighed. “But I’m serious about no longer writing pranks. I want to be taken more seriously, I deserve some respect.”

“You deserve much more than that, Y/N,” he said, and it made you lose your breath for a moment. Since when did his words steal your breath? “And I too would like to apologize. I won’t force you to write anything you don’t like any longer, so long as we remain friends.”

“Friends,” you smiled. “Yes, I’d like that.”