Just read the whole 'how Andreil pans out' ask and all I'm saying is that I love the idea of Andrew Courting Abram and Abram just absolutely misses that it's what is happening. Part of it is just a cultural difference, Evermore and Palmetto have different courting cultures perhaps?
Another part is that Andrew really does not act all THAT different. He's giving Abram gifts but like Andrew is always giving Abram stuff? It's not new? Yeah they had dinner together but that's just like what they......do?
Another another part is just Abram not even considering himself as someone worthy to be with Prince Andrew like that. He wasn't worthy before and after Evermore and everything I could imagine he feels even less like a person let alone a person who deserves Andrew's positive regard.
IDK I just love the idea of Abram at some point like 6 months into Andrew trying to court him seeing that behavior somewhere else, being told that's how nobility in Palmetto court others, and going to Andrew like "Have you, perchance, been trying to court me?"
Andrew setting his glass aside and looking up from where he's seated, "For 6 moons Abram, glad you've finally noticed." - @jtl-fics
jtl I. Wish. You could have seen my face as I read this, this is so hilarious and heartbreaking and lovely all in one and I’m in LOVE okay i love this so much. And we can totally make it work ahhhhh
Like yes! Yeah! Andrew’s already a gift giver, it’s just what he does as far as Abram’s concerned, and they spend so much time together that dinner isn’t strange those are perfect points. Like to the court it’s starting to become obvious - maybe in the kinds of gifts Andrew gives, or some other small things that are new, yes, but Abram has always taken these things in stride and usually his lack of judgement when Andrew tries new things or changes in little ways is a huge relief but not this time Abram PLEASE
Finally Andrew just bites the bullet and goes for a gesture that’s way more out of character and harder to mistake, which might look something like this (and thank you @leedee013 for tags about them giving each other flowers that I LOVED):
And Abram can’t really form his thoughts into words because like you said; he doesn’t think he should be allowed something like that, there’s no way he’s ever EVER going to assume that Andrew is trying to confess or clue him in to a courting like this, even if it’s in his head now
But then Lady Reynolds sees Abram later heading back to the castle/wherever he stays carrying this bouquet of carnations (fascination), narcissus (honesty/truth) and acacia (hidden love) (let’s not look too closely into these flower meanings lol, i picked the first ones I found and I’ll field all further questions with ‘artistic liberty’ 🫶) and they’re pretty close friends by now so she’s immediately like “oh my GODS Abram who gave that to you”
And Abram quietly says “the prince”
And Allison’s won like three separate bets between various other people of the court and she’s elated
But maybe she takes pity on him when she realizes exactly how clueless Abram is, so she does her best to explain everything and finally, Abram begins to allow the possibility that maybe Andrew is doing all this on purpose. But he would really rather like to be certain.
And of course I had to draw your little exchange but I did it from memory so apologies for the changes in dialogue but I love it:
ANYWAY from there, when it’s cleared up, it’s just them being dumb and sweet and grasping at straws for how to be in love and natural about it (because they’re both very private people and a good number of average/expected acts of courtship aren’t necessarily in their wheelhouse) 😭🥹 and not to add yet more hurt/comfort but Andrew is so so determined to figure out a way to assure and reassure Abram that he knows what he’s doing, yes Abram is worth it, yes he’s doing these things because he wants to. If he didn’t want to he wouldn’t be doing it in the first place. And I’ll bring it back around by using my previously mentioned artistic liberty to say that yes Prince Andrew loves having his hands held/kissed (just by Abram naturally) and Abram figures this out and absolutely uses it against him. They love each other your honor
Okay anyway thank you for the ask, I’m SO lucky to have such brilliant people in my inbox 🥰
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Danny 'I don't do weird' Pink frustrates me as a character, because I'm honestly not sure whether he was supposed to have an arc or not.
His primary role is as a foil for Clara's arc and, in aid of that, as a mirror to the Doctor. A solider with survivor's guilt and a man of action who can't stand by when people need help etc., in some ways he and the Doctor have a lot in common, but he's also a very grounded and circumspect personality versus the Doctor's being fantastical and adventurous. Danny isn't curious and doesn't want to pursue new things or experiences, instead he wants to be fully present with and grateful for what he already has. The Doctor is incorrigibly curious and always interested in new things.
Danny is someone who desires nothing more than an ordinary life, and looks for beauty and satisfaction in the normal things and people around him. He wants his world to be small and quiet, he values the mundane things others might take for granted. He's normal, patient, dependable, simple, honest, etc. His reaction to trauma hasn't been to disavow the things which lead him to that event, or to seek out stimulation to avoid thinking about it, it's to be thoughtful and cautious and somewhat rigid so he can always apply the mindset and skills he retained from before he was traumatised.
He's very firm and unbending in his worldview and in his self-image. He doesn't seem to ever reassess people once he's decided what he thinks of them. He's not unreasonable or unwilling to compromise, he is in fact maybe too reasonable, but he is implastic. He's extremely even-tempered except for around his identity as a soldier, which he's prickly about, but still pretty quick to let it go as long as he's not being deliberately antagonised.
So anyway Danny represents this other path, and this opposite response to the horror of war and making a catastrophic mistake, but he never learns, he never grows and he and Clara are never much on the same wavelength about anything. He's supposed to be stability, the things she 'should' want, the 'person she's supposed to like', the safe choice, the presentable life which Clara feels like she has to have. He's orderly and ordinary and that's what she wants from him. She has to control her image, her future, and her options.
And their simple relationship, once it exists, functions well as the contrast to her complicated and tumultuous relationship with the Doctor while the companion power dynamic is being dismantled and rebuilt so they can be emotional equals. But like, the set up is confusingly executed.
Listen- they have zero chemistry, they have nothing to talk about and have to resort to talking about work, every conversation goes instantly off the rails, they rub each other the wrong way, there is never any reason for them to keep reconciling and trying again to connect. Like. You are not hitting it off! and keep offending each other bc you're not compatible! Quit!!
Clara is forcing it, that makes complete sense with what she's going through, she's trying to take control of her life and her emotions, trying to prove to herself she's not pining for the Doctor and at the mercy of his whims for her life to be full and complete. She doesn't want to need him or to be dependant on him. She doesn't want to be the heartbroken sadsack whom he abandoned at Christmas or who will take whatever scraps he'll throw her. She wants to control his position in her life and control how she feels about him. Hence her assigning him a specific day and confining their adventures on her own terms. She's trying to keep the Doctor compartmentalised. Having an Appropriate Human Relationship means she's successfully put the Doctor in his box (lol) and neutralised the chaotic power of her feelings for him. I mean, obviously not, but that's what she tells herself.
But what is Danny doing? Why does he keep pursuing this when it's so clearly not a good match?
Again in Listen, and much more so The Caretaker, Danny illustrates that he does not know who Clara is, he's wildly wrong about her and what she's like, and he's very high handed about it as well. He's convinced that the Doctor is taking advantage of her, that the Doctor is domineering in their relationship, that she is not a person who wants to be put into challenging or dangerous positions, that the Doctor is pushing her to takes risks and become a leader where that's not her nature. None of this is true. Clara was always a decisive, assertive, strongly driven person who seeks out new experiences and naturally assumes a leadership role any time that's necessary; she relishes being challenged and facing the unknown. Her blow up with the Doctor wasn't about him 'pushing her too far', it was about him failing to support her when she needed him and condescending to her as a human rather than treating her with the intimacy and equity their bond and history together demands. It's personal and it's about their emotional relationship. It's not about making hard choices, it's about having to make hard choices without her partner being honest with and emotionally available to her.
Clara was always an adventurous person, willing to be spontaneous as long as it's on her terms, and excited by the prospect of authority and responsibility. The danger and challenge isn't an unfortunate side effect or a risk she has to take to see amazing sights, it's part of the appeal. She lied to Danny by omission when she said she went off in the box to 'see wonders', not just because the real reason is that she's in love with Doctor, but also because she doesn't just want to be a tourist. She wants to get involved and save people, she wants things to sometimes go pear shaped. She enjoys and craves that part of it too.
Danny is also wildly wrong about the Doctor, but this is understandable and would be fine except that he's never corrected? He never learns better? What's the point?
In Death in Heaven Danny goes out still wrong about the Doctor, still condemning him cruelly and unfairly while knowing nothing about him. He had a point with his original rant, there was actual insight there, but it's buried in assumptions and bitterness and then Danny keeps tripling down on the assumption. The one which doesn't understand that the very thing he's shitting on the Doctor for (being willing to lead and make hard choices which must be made in order to save people) is something the Doctor has in common with Clara. And always has. The Doctor didn't change her or push her into that, that's who she's always been.
What is the point of Danny calling him a blood-soaked general and mocking him, calling him an officer as a pejorative again, and again because the Doctor is trying to save the planet. Like, memory check, that's what Danny is mad about. The Doctor doing everything in his power to save literal billions of lives. Doing it for no reason, out of altruism. Doing it while always trying very hard not to fight or kill anyone.
I don't understand how we're meant to find Danny sympathetic in that moment, because he comes off like a complete dickhead. And it's all the more frustrating because in the intervening episodes Danny has been eminently reasonable. As I've discussed before, we're exhaustively shown that Danny is 100% okay with what Clara claims is going on, that he doesn't want to get in the way of her friendship with the Doctor, that if it really were only the relationship she's pretending it is, there would be no conflict. He's the one who encourages her to make up with him after Kill the Moon! He tells her to go on travelling and it's fine!
Even when he discovers she's been lying to him and cavorting with the Doctor behind his back (again despite him telling her it was fine!), he's calm and repeats for the millionth time that all he wants from her is honesty. The truth. Which is the one thing she can't give him because Clara knows their relationship is built on the lie. The truth is, as Moffatt said, that Danny never stood a chance. There is a conflict between the two relationships and she's always going to choose the Doctor.
And that does come out, she gives the whole speech to Danny, not knowing it's him, finally being honest. And he seems unsurprised by it, which makes sense because on some level he definitely always knew ('do you love him?' 'no' 'really sick of the lies'), but then nothing comes of it. Clara just soldiers on and he allows her to pretend. He goes off on the Doctor, but not in a way he actually deserves at all, and just sweeps her confession under the carpet. Letting her get away with it again. True to form, I guess! he always did. But shouldn't we make progress?
And it's like... I hate that he dies on that note. It feels like he dies in denial. I guess you could argue it contributes to his decision to not come back, but that feels like a disservice to the character. Saving the kid is important to Danny, it allows him to atone but he didn't need to change or grow to accomplish that and it doesn't provide closure to his actual role in the narrative, which was as Clara's foil. Clara is off the hook, free to go on lying to herself about their relationship. It's not addressed in Last Christmas, either, it's only hinted at.
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Okay, a few years back I made this graphic to explain the Great Cycle. Now that I've mulled over DD2 for a few days, I'm updating it. Some of the same assumptions as before remain: The Dragonforged fought the dragon, his weapon broke, he tried punching it (lmao), but he did survive without killing the dragon, possibly there was a second Bargain offered in the face of his determination. So you don't have to kill your dragon to survive it. Also still assuming that different classes become different types of drakes because I just like that detail, even though we see nothing to confirm it in DD2 (except maybe for the wyrms in the post-game, I hope that's what those are, just a bit redesigned).
But this time, I'm making some NEW assumptions: A Great Dragon can be manifested directly by the Seneschal's will (I'm guessing this is why our DD2 dragon doesn't have a name, I suspect this dragon was created after Rothais defeated his - he didn't become a dragon OR Seneschal so it had to come from somewhere). The challenge a Seneschal poses to the Arisen can be anything; Savan gave us the opening of the Everfall and unleashed a ton of powerful monsters upon the world; but Pathfinder gave us what the world would look like without a Seneschal to oversee things. My assumption is that the Colossal Dragon that appears out of that final red pillar of light IS the Pathfinder (possibly using his will to force order back upon the world) and when we kill it, our Arisen becomes Seneschal (because Pathfinder says he won't be there to see the new world that's forming). So the challenge can be anything, not just the Everfall. I'm curious what happens to our pawn after that fight, though. And it's a much better Seneschal fight than the one against Savan, sorry Savan.
I'm also assuming that (given we see the Pathfinder rewind time and rewrite the world) the Seneschal can simply will the world into a state of being that suits them. This includes wiping memories of events. Though I like to imagine that our Arisen-turned-Seneschal didn't wipe memories of themselves or of the apocalypse-world. There was an entire plotline going through this game with Rothais and Phaesus where mortals are trying to get rid of the Seneschal and so it makes sense that they need to remember what would happen without the Seneschal's presence.
Anyway, thanks. I'll probably have more thoughts later, but this is the part that gets me most. I like to know how things work so I wanted to sort the Cycle out.
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