bluedalahorse

[bluedalahorse]

Hey!! so... besides August representing (?) "the hanged man", what major arcana you think correspond to the other characters?

Hi hi!

Oh boy, I love tarot headcanons! I’ll share my general thoughts, though I have to say as someone who reads, who shows up as what would change depending on who I’m doing the reading for. Part of what I like about Tarot readings is that they create a triangular relationship between reader, cards, and querent/question, and every card has multiple shades of meaning. No two readings are quite the same, and I like that.

Generally speaking though, here’s how I’d see things playing out…

Wilhelm strikes me as The Fool. The Fool is a card with lots of coming-of-age protagonist energy; he’s at the edge of a cliff about to fall into something new. Or maybe he’s deliberately jumping into it. Wille can be thoughtful and impulsive in turn, but his impulsivity is usually what pushes the plot forward. We have Wille beginning his arc on an impulsive moment—getting into the fight at the club—and ending his arc on one when he goes running after the car.

Simon’s card would be Strength, traditionally symbolized by a gentle maiden holding back a lion, and generally representing the triumph of reason/compassion/moderation here over brute force. Simon is aware of his emotions and boundaries and—for the most part!—doesn’t let himself get swallowed up in toxic masculinity.

Sara and Felice both get nudged toward the Empress archetype at times, by other people, and each of them possesses different Empress-like traits. However, I am inclined to say that neither of them would feel fully comfortable in the Empress archetype.

I thought long and hard about Felice’s role arc the story, and I think the best Major Arcana card for her might be Judgement. Judgement deals with decisions, listening to your intuition and intellect, and truths coming to light. Early on in the series, Felice is surrounded by judgmental people, who are judgmental in the wrong way—her mother, her father, her friends. She finds herself struggling with their image of her, and feels like she’s not good enough, but early on she can’t put it into words. Over the course of the series, Felice gains wisdom about herself and the problems inherent to Hillerska’s system and is able to make decisions that are truer to herself. Her testimony to the school investigation team allows important things about Hillerska to come out. She is bringing about changes that are necessary. I was between Justice and Judgement for Felice, but ultimately settled on the latter.

Sara, meanwhile, feels like she might be the High Priestess. Her power lies in knowing and intuiting, and she’s one of the characters who often acts as a witness to the school’s secrets. She’s empathetic enough that she can understand the more “difficult” horses out there. While the socially obvious (but ultimately less genuine) thing to do in situations might be something that Sara misses or doesn’t quite grasp, she has an ability to cut through to the deeper emotions in a situation and name what people are inwardly struggling with. In a world like Hillerska, which is lacking in emotional honesty, the High Priestess’s energy can really shake things up.

I know I talked about August as The Hanged Man before, and I think that continues to be a space where he makes sense, I’d also argue that he spends a lot of his time in the mindset of The Chariot. The Chariot is all about momentum and attempts to control it, and an unhealthy excess of Chariot energy can look like “don’t stop don’t stop don’t stop if we stop we have to think about all our trauma so we won’t stop.” Which… August is very much in that place. Plus, there are horses on that card.

A few other thoughts: Hillerska and all the stuff surrounding it feels like it would tie in well to the energy of The Hierophant. A lot of the family trauma cycles would fall under The Devil. The monarchy stuff is The Devil with a dash of The Emperor thrown in there.

At some other point, I’m going to have to talk about Minor Arcana, because I love the Minor Arcana. Three of Cups seems like it would be such a meaningful card for this series, since a lot of the friendship interaction happens in trios. Simon-Rosh-Ayub let’s goooooo!

#young royals #tarot #asks #you can still send asks if you want to #I will be staggering the answers to go out over the week because i have a lot to do #But it’s fun to always have answers to work on

[bluedalahorse]

"we need more complex female characters" y'all couldn't even handle sara erikkson

#sara eriksson #looking at this chain of reblogs and finally feeling less alone #she is forever my blorbo and nothing can change that

[bluedalahorse]

Hi Blue! If you're still doing YR asks, here's one: do you have any thoughts on/hcs about how August, Vincent and Nils became friends?

(From August's letter, it's a bit unclear if he's listing things that already happened over his first year when he says "you've made some friends" or if he's hoping to achieve that in his next two years; I lean towards the former based on his reference to hanging with Erik and the third-years, but I would love to hear your thoughts whether our ideas of the timepoint align or not!)

Hi friend! I love this ask so much, thank you for sending it.

Apologies for this taking a while. I was letting all my thoughts cook together into a nice stew.

I don’t know if I have a definitive origin story for the August-Nils-Vincent friendship, but I also don’t know if it’s the sort of friendship that has a distinct origin story or a moment that can be pointed to as the moment they all became friends. Instead I can see a series of scenarios that bring them together in their first year. I also have some thoughts on the mindsets behind that and how dynamics in the group shift over time.

So the first thing I’m thinking about is the forced proximity of dorm life. We know based on how everyone responds to Wille’s single room that first years rarely get singles, so they all would have had roommates, and it’s possible two of them end up rooming together first year.

For the purposes of me picking something specific, let’s say August and Vincent are assigned to one another as roommates first year. Nils is the odd one out. He has a different roommate—an international student with a long distance girlfriend, and they’re always on the phone being incredibly lovey-dovey with one another without any care that Nils is trying to study one desk over. This Blatant Display Of Heterosexual Privilege annoys Nils, so he never really bonds with that roommate and starts spending all his time at August and Vincent’s across the hall, even sleeping over time to time.

Initially Nils sleeps on the floor in someone’s sleeping bag, because he’s pretty in the closet after initiation and Vincent’s joke of “sharing a bed isn’t gay if we’re lying in opposite directions” is well-meaning but… very unhelpful, to say the least. Eventually August and Vincent feel bad for Nils sleeping on the floor all the time, and August volunteers to swap so he’s sleeping on the floor and Nils is sleeping in his bed. He clumsily explains this by being like, “Erik has been telling me about his upcoming year of military service and maybe I’ll do that too because my father would have wanted me to, and in the military you have to sleep in uncomfortable conditions and on the ground and stuff so this is training.” And Nils and Vincent are like “o…kay then, weirdo” but they let August sleep on the floor. The next time Vincent adds himself to the rotation and sleeps on the floor, saying he’s not going to let August out-Sparta him and develop more abs than everyone else. And so they fall into a rhythm of rotating who gets a bed, and their double room becomes an unofficial triple. Nils still worries from time to time that the bed thing is gonna become weird though.

They notice a lot of things about one another during that time then but don’t really talk about it. Nils and Vincent notice that August really struggles with sleeping and occasional nightmares in the middle of the night, and will often sneak out to go for a run when it’s dark. When August starts to notice that they’re noticing, and they notice that he notices, they diffuse the tension by teasing him about having a secret girlfriend he’s sneaking off to at Manor House, and then a whole roster of secret girls, some of whom live in Bjärstad. Erik catches wind of this and the third year boys get in on the teasing too, and this is what starts to cement August’s reputation as a bit of a slutty bad boy. He’ll lean into that reputation more his second year, because he starts to internalize it more at that point and because the guys respond to him positively for it. But first year he’s in more of a fumbling “what are girls even???” state and is mostly managing a clumsy hookup here or there, while also being very earnest (off-puttingly earnest, even) about the idea that he has to find the girl who will help him run Årnäs someday. (I actually think the clash between what people say about August’s relationship reputation at Hillerska, versus how he actually behaves in a relationship, are something we’re meant to notice.)

Vincent, meanwhile, is really struggling with his studies and his recent ADHD diagnosis and his self-image around school. I imagine August and Nils are focused on getting good grades, and can probably study in the same room without annoying one another. (August is a bit more likely to pull an anxiety all-nighter, though—more on that in a bit.) Maybe he and Nils have a little bit of a friendly competition going about their test grades.

Vincent, however, really struggles. His meds help him up to a point—mostly so he isn’t bouncing around his classroom and chattering nonstop while the teacher tries to teach, which is how he went through his pre-Hillerska school years. Since he’s diagnosed relatively late for a boy, he’s way behind on developing study skills or habits that would help him succeed, and he’s afraid to use accommodations or strategies like notepad planners or the pomodoro method or similar. Nils and August sometimes try to help him out, and sometimes help him through unintentional body doubling for certain academic tasks. But sometimes they also get frustrated with him for distracting them while they work, or for constantly cracking jokes when they try to focus, and end up snapping at him. At that point Vincent will pull away and say he doesn’t care because his family can pay for what he needs in life, and being good at school is stupid. Inwardly he’s dealing with a lot of shame and negative self-image, which comes out as anger and snark. He’s especially jealous of August’s academic abilities—August and Nils get about the same grades, but Nils seems to be more calmly organized whereas August runs on a little more messy anxiety and Vincent thinks he should be doing worse at school than he is. (If that makes sense?)

Outside of dorm room life, they have shared activities first year. They all make the rowing team and take it pretty seriously. August takes it the most seriously, and spends too much time in the gym, leading Vincent and Nils to have some time to hang out when he’s not there. I imagine Forest Ridge has a seriously significant rowing victory their first year that August plays some role in, and that’s where the famous photo of August and Erik comes from. Maybe that’s what leads to third years finally adopting August a bit. Nils and Vincent are excited about the victory too, but they’re a little envious that August gets pulled into the third year circle whereas they don’t as much.

In addition to rowing, there’s also chess. August, Nils, and Vincent have a chess board in the common room they like to play with. The third years claim the nice chess boards, so they’re stuck with one that’s missing a few pieces. They’ll usually replace these missing pieces with coins (or at one point, an unopened condom.) Chess leads to a lot of subtextual drama between the three boys, because only two of them can play at a time, and the other one has to watch. It’s just, a bit of a platonic love triangle situation. August, due to the eternal curse that is rejection sensitivity, sometimes worries that Nils and Vincent prefer to play chess with just each other, and that they’re just tolerating him. One day he comes back after hanging out with the third years, they joke that he’s not allowed to play with them that night… so he never plays with them again. Nils and Vincent are honestly pretty baffled, but they never ask August about it because it’s weird to talk to the guys about emotions.

This kind of leads to my final idea… I think August would go through a lot of this stuff, not just chess, and assume he’s just being tolerated. I read him as having a pretty negative self-image, and he just doesn’t think of himself as likable at all. (Yes, he’s arrogant when we meet him, but that arrogance is so obviously a front and a defense mechanism.) He does like Vincent and Nils and think they’d be good friends, but he can’t possibly imagine that they like him as much as he likes them. And he takes little moments like the chess moment above as confirmation of that, and holds people at arms’ length. I think this is part of what’s behind what he says in the letter. I do think there were moments where August was overtly bullied and rejected. I also think there were moments where people were reaching out to him on good faith, and really did enjoy his company, and he couldn’t accept the truth of it because bullying and trauma make you more prone to rejection sensitivity, and you doubt that people really do like you.

I also like to imagine that there was a significant moment of August-Nils-Vincent fracturing that happened in between first and second year. August and Vincent were sort of beginning to get on one another’s nerves at that point, and they both secretly asked Nils to be their second year roommate, leaving Nils caught in the middle of them. Nils ultimately went with Vincent. (Secret reason: he was starting to feel some attraction to August at that time, which he got over sometime in second year but you know, he was having a Moment. Nils was not in the mood to put himself through an “oh my god they were roommates” type situation.) August’s rejection sensitivity brain went into overdrive at that point like, SEE NILS AND VINCENT LIKE ONE ANOTHER BETTER THAN THEY LIKE ME. He acted cold and closed off to them a lot of second year, even if they still all did stuff together. This is also about when August leaned a little bit more into the serial dating of multiple Hillerska girls, because at this point his brain has swallowed the toxic masculinity poison of “you don’t reach out to your bros for emotional support, only your wife.” And at that point he was looking for a wife, trying to earnestly convince girls he was Serious About Relationships while trying to play it off to the guys like he was a total player sleeping around and hooking up. One of the unfortunate girls who had to deal with August at this stage in his life was likely Unnamed Manor House Prefect, who he mentions briefly to Sara in 1.6. He’s like “oh yeah I’m close with her, I’ll talk to her about getting you a dorm room” and like. What a weird line. What happened? Did he write her an incredibly shitty Valentine’s ball poem? Did they date and did it go disastrously? Did she refuse to date him, but he ended up respecting her anyway, because her spreadsheet-making game was stronger than his when they organized a movie night for their dorms? Was there a weird fake dating situation that never panned out into real dating? Fanfics for all scenarios including Unnamed Manor House Prefect are due on my desk at the end of the weekend.

Anyway. Tangent! My point is that August was very very sad when Nils and Vincent decided to room together and leave him out, and he pulled away. And it wasn’t until season 3 that he started to realize they might actually like him for real, especially the part where they hug him after he’s sad school is closing. That didn’t erase every issue they’ve ever had, and they’ll obviously all have to work on friendship more and learn how to grow up and communicate honestly and such. But I do think it’s an interesting trio dynamic with a lot of excellent teenage messiness, and I love it.

#young royals #august horn #nils poltjerna #vincent af klintskog #as someone who grew up in a friendship trio i have strong feelings about friendship trios #I hope this reply answers your question!

[bluedalahorse]

This scene was so emotional to me. I can't imagine what those boys went through, especially Nils who is attracted to guys. It was beyond messed up and one of the most powerful men in the country participated. Erik and his cohort were third years, and they were just first years. And the way August and Nils are actually talking to each other for once, and it's about how they were afraid to speak up and how they promised to end that part of the initiation for future first years, heartbreaking. </3

#young royals #august horn #nils poltjerna #(that’s Nils’s last name according to AO3 right???) #one of my favorite s3 scenes #especially since malte and samuel crushed it with the acting #oops i ship them too now no regrets!

[bluedalahorse]

Headcanon before work: Wilhelm’s new name will always be “Wilhelm Boye” to me.

I know we all have our preferences and that one is mine.

#meanwhile in my tags he will always be #unprince wilhelm #because it brings me little amounts of joy and i love little amounts of joy

[bluedalahorse]

J/B/M

—I am wild over her.

Reference pic below, though I'm sure all the gay ppl on this site has seen it before:

#les miserables #oh heck yes triads

[bluedalahorse]

What would make August decide to reject the crown prince title?

Well, you know my brand! I actually think it’s possible for August to get to a place where he leaves behind the crown prince role. It’s a bit of a claw machine game, but isn’t that more fun to think about than letting him suffer forever? We love a challenge! We love growth! We like acknowledging the messiness of the character, and not always assuming the worst of every last thing he does! So let’s get into it.

I’m actually not going to talk about Sara much here. A lot of posts that talk about this crown prince situation mention how sad August is to have lost Sara, and while that’s true, I actually think there are other emotional undercurrents at work. Similarly to the way Wille is more than his relationship with Simon and has to leave the monarchy for his own self-actualization, August will leave for reasons that go beyond losing Sara.

I also want to open by agreeing with everything my esteemed colleague @heliza24 says about therapy and time and community in this post over here. What I’m going to say here is going to be long and rambly, but I think it will build on her talking points.

So let’s think about August holistically, in terms of his values. In order to get August out of the monarchy, the first step is understanding (excavating, even, because this shit works in layers) what draws him to it in the first place, and what his emotional needs are. I actually think it’s a common misconception that he’s into the whole thing for the power of it all. I actually think this is more about August’s need for belonging, particularly in terms of his wanting to be part of a family and the way he values traditions that bring people together. Monarchy runs on this idea of a sacred first family that sets the tone for the nation and leads them in following traditions. This ideal family is, in theory, the ultimate exemplar of what August desires in life. And yet the reality of the monarchy is far from the ideal. I think we sometimes assume August has a clear view of what monarchy is like, since he’s related to the royal family and all. But I also think his close proximity clouds his judgment. More details below…

The thing about being in the crown prince position is that at first it would set up opportunities for August to connect with family members, namely Kristina, which initially would meet a family-related need. August seems to hold Kristina in high regard. He’s looking forward to the possibility that she might visit during parents’ weekend in season 1, and he’s pretty afraid of facing her in season 2 when he’s called to the palace. Of course, that is about her position as queen as much as anything, but I can’t help but wondering if it’s also that Kristina was August’s father’s favorite cousin. And isn’t that a fruitful piece of information? There’s so much that can be done with that connection! For instance…

A lot of August’s trauma is rooted in grief. Some of that is complicated grief for Erik, which his reconciliation with Wille (and probably their shared sessions with Boris) has helped him start to feel and unravel. We haven’t really seen August fully grieve his father yet, but I imagine that if there were seasons 4 and 5, this would be the next step in his character arc. Grieving his father is crucial. In season 3, August has (clumsily, in front of Sara when he shouldn’t have said it, but the lines happened and I find them fascinating) just begun to idealize his father less—he says he misses his dad even though his dad was shitty, and that makes me go, okay, what else is behind that line? (A really amazing fanfic by @sflow-er is what.)

Meanwhile Kristina mentions that she and Carl Johan were really close until Carl Johan started to fall into addiction. Lots to peel back there, too! Like, what happened? What was the timeline of all this, and was it a big falling out or a slow breakdown in the relationship? Does Kristina feel any guilt related to August’s father’s suicide, like August himself does? We don’t know how she feels about Louise—is she sympathetic toward her for having to be married to a man who was potentially abusive? Or would Kristina have bought into Carl Johan’s potentially false narrative of Louise, and blamed Louise for her husband’s addiction and mental health crisis?

Whichever direction you take this, I think working with Kristina day to day would bring up opportunities for August to confront his sense of loss. Kristina probably has all kinds of stories about August’s dad, and how they got up to trouble together in their childhood and youth, and which now-deceased family members responded to their antics. August might be able to share a few stories about his dad as well. Sharing memories is an important part of the grieving process, for so many people, and I imagine at first August would feel connected to his father’s side of the family for the first time in a while, and there might be some good things that come of it.

On the other hand… those initial benefits might not last forever. And August would soon discover the fucked up aspects to that side of the family. It���s possible Kristina might try to help August mend his relationship with his mother, but in the scenario I mentioned above (Kristina buys into Carl Johan’s narrative of Louise and blames her for his death) I can see her trying to interfere when August and Louise try to repair their relationship. Wouldn’t that create some fun tension between August and Kristina? I do think August wants to repair his relationship with his mother. As mad as he is with her in season 1, we also see hints in seasons 2 and 3 that he doesn’t actually hate her and wants to feel connected to her. After graduation he goes to find her and Rickard in the graduation line where all the parents are holding photos. I could see a situation where August, a year or two after canon, decides he wants to patch things up with his mom, and keeps running into pushback from Kristina about it. Aren’t there so many ways that tension could escalate? Wouldn’t that be a fun thing to play with in fanfic?

And then there’s Wilhelm. The way I read their reconciliation, it felt like August would try to maintain a good relationship with Wilhelm in the future. What does that become if he ends up in a position where he’s always mediating between Kristina and Wilhelm now that their relationship has fractured? And then we know Kristina tried to turn Wilhelm into Replacement Erik, I can absolutely imagine a situation where she starts thinking of August as Replacement Wilhelm and behaving accordingly, and August grows to resent that. Ultimately I can see August siding with Wilhelm over Kristina in the end and they end up banding together.

All those paragraphs above basically just mean that like… I feel like being in the crown prince role might bring a lot to the surface for August, in terms of how he relates to his family. And once he sees what wounds being crown prince can’t heal, that’s going to shatter his idealism and make him question the monarchy as a representation of the family in general. And that’s an important step out the door.

Now, August also needs to see what alternatives to this “perfect ideal family model” are out there. He also needs to realize that family isn’t just about blood relatives. Which just means he needs honest friendships with people who don’t subscribe to that kind of patriarchal nonsense. I don’t mean August needs patient queer friends who will hold his hand and explain the concept of heterotemporality to him in a soft voice. I just mean that being around more people who break his mental schemas in that regard would be a good thing. Like how does his friendship with Nils develop now that Nils has come out? What if, I dunno, it turns out that Louise and Rickard are both bisexual and poly? And then of course there’s his continued relationship with Wilhelm, which I imagine he’d continue to invest in now that they’ve turned things around at the end of season 3.

Does that wrap up the family stuff for now? Probably. There’s a thousand more things I could talk about but we’ll put it aside for now.

I mentioned August valuing tradition in my opener, so I want to address that too. Surface August—aka the protective suit of armor August has constructed for himself in season 1—seems to value tradition for its own sake, and mostly defines inclusion for some as something that can only exist when there’s exclusion of others. These are all the broken things Surface August has been taught or (we now know) traumatized to believe, and they come out in his behavior, and it sucks.

At the same time, what happens over three seasons is that we see there’s this deeply buried version of August that’s struggling to get out, and in my opinion at least, that deeply buried August actually gives a shit about others feeling a sense of belonging. I feel like this part of August is influenced by his own experiences with isolation and loneliness, and we see glimmers of him from time to time. (Especially when it’s Vincent doing something exclusive and shitty, for whatever reason. See August standing up to Vincent when Vincent is shitty to Simon in 2.3.) I think for August, traditions and rituals and events are something he sees as being deeply important in creating a sense of belonging for people. And he’s not fully wrong. Traditions and events done right are how humans make sacred their bonds with one another… which is why you get a bunch of Wilmon wedding headcanons. Because we love traditions too, you know.

As much as August gets a reputation for being rigid, there are times when we’ve seen him budge from what’s expected of him and change up the rules. I think August is actually more willing to rewrite tradition than fandom gives him credit for. He’s got suggestions for the speech Jan-Olof wants him to recite verbatim. He tells Vincent to rethink the senior superlatives. And he’s one of the third years who makes a pact to remove the really homophobic part of the initiation. 

I say this not to give August undue credit—these are half-steps and there’s clearly more he can do, and some of these traditions should be eliminated, not modified. But I want to point out two things. First, that imperfect half-steps (and some pretty epic backslides) were part of Wilhelm’s journey too before he made his full break with the monarchy. Second, by season 3, we can see that August is actually capable of reflecting about traditions and considering ways they could be rewritten to create more of a sense of belonging for others. 

Again, this is imperfect, and we may want him to do more… and this is another place where he could potentially end up clashing with the royal court in time. One thing that I’ve thought about is that being a prefect at Hillerska is a little different—in theory if not in practice—than being the crown prince of Sweden. As a Hillerska prefect you’re just leading the elite and the few who get into your school, but as crown prince you really are supposed to be there for the nation as a whole (albeit in a “non-divisive” way) and I think August does actually recognize that distinction and would try to approach it differently than being prefect or rowing captain. Except he would continue to be a total overachiever.

Like, look. On some level August would be incredibly earnest about the idea of being the keeper of Sweden’s traditions, and earnestness is not the same as being a rubber stamp or a yes-man. The royal court may think they’ve finally got someone who will carry out whatever monarchical agenda they set without question but like… idk, do they? Do they really??? August is going to want say in the process, and August is going to have so many ideas about how to make traditions better/more awesome, and August is going to annoy the hell out of Jan-Olof and Farima. He is going to be so annoying! He is going to have slides presentations! He is going to crunch the data on how the royal family is getting bad press for their carbon footprint and come up with a plan for renewable fuel on the private jet so now they can totally show people they’re legit! Meanwhile he’s going to be annoyed when his ideas are getting blocked. And I find the slow build in conflict that would arise out of a situation like that pretty entertaining.

Okay, it’s time to wrap up. For real this time. (This would all be better in a fanfic than in an analysis post, really! I should write.) Ultimately I think August would be drawn into the monarchy because he’d see it as a way of living his values of family and tradition and hell, service to the nation and being part of something, but he’d grow frustrated and disillusioned when it didn’t, actually, allow him to do that or give him the space to do it. The answer to Rickard’s question—does the monarchy love you back?—is no. And I don’t know how long post-season-3 August is willing to put up with being unrequited like that. Maybe for a time, but not forever.

You may also wonder why I have faith that he’ll get here. And the simple answer is: after season 3, my faith in August is intertwined with my faith in Wilhelm. Wilhelm breaking with the monarchy at the end of season 3 (especially after some pretty intense backsliding moments.) shows me that it’s possible for August to do it too, someday. That is perhaps a post for another time. For now, let’s just look forward to all the opportunities for a fix-it fic.

#young royals #asks #august horn #august is a dumbass but he’s my dumbass #and i will take a seam ripper to the crown on his little crocheted frog so i can save his soul

[bluedalahorse]

everyone: what's your goal in life?

me: to write a story so soul snatching, so gut wrenching and so devastatingly beautiful that it leaves you crying at 3am when you have a 8am lecture/shift and it inspires people to write entire essays, to write entire fanfics, mood boards and playlists based on it.

[bluedalahorse]

Hello Blue!

I hope you're doing good 💜

Here's a question for you: Which one of Sara's scenes in season 3 did you like the most, and why?

Hi hi! I hope you are doing well as well.

Going to answer this one because I know the answer right off the top of my head and I can answer it in a paragraph or two. It’s the scene where Micke talks to Sara about shame, and how she doesn’t have to feel ashamed of things or become him even if she shares his neurodivergences. This resonated with me as someone who’s been recently diagnosed myself, and who has suspicions that my father is diagnosable as well. I think a lot about the things—both good and bad—that I inherited from my father. I think my dad has internalized a lot of ableism and mental health stigma that holds him back sometimes, and sometimes it makes our relationship complicated, but I also know he believes in me.

I also struggle a lot with shame as a feeling, and I was very much in a headspace of shame when season 3 premiered. So it felt a little bit like the show was giving me a pep talk in that moment.

The scene where Sara and her dad sing in the car was also pretty special to me. My dad and I used to sing together in front of the piano every night after dinner. I stopped when I was a teenager—I’m not sure why, and I may have blocked out the reason why. But seeing Sara and Micke sing together brought back that piece of my childhood.

I hope you had a scene you enjoyed as well!

#young royals #sara eriksson #asks

[bluedalahorse]

[bluedalahorse]

Do you think canon Sara and August will see each other again in the futur ?

Short answer: It’s not impossible! And it’s certainly great fanfic fodder.

Long answer: The question of “canon” Sara and August is what makes this question require a longer answer. The last we see of canon Sara and August is them broken up, and that’s the last we see of them as a pairing. At the same time, an important think about that scene is that Sara owns the part where she still has feelings. I don’t think that means Sara’s going to keep pining for decades, but I do think it means she’s not just girlbossing her way out of that relationship like she doesn’t care. She’s vulnerable and honest about the part of her that’s still in love. Her choosing her friends and Simon and herself has more meaning if she’s actually giving something up.

More importantly, though… I also don’t feel like I have to take all my orders from canon. And canon leaves these characters behind when they are young and their lives can still go any number of directions.

Now that canon is over, the characters belong to the fanfic writers. We are allowed to do what we want with them! Like, I saw some folks lamenting that Rosh/Stella didn’t become a real thing and Y’ALL IT STILL CAN. You can write a thing where Fredrika and Stella break up and adult journalist Stella is interviewing adult women’s national football team Rosh after they win the world cup, and Lisa will not smite you with a canon lightning bolt. She’ll probably kudo your fic with her secret AO3 account. WE ARE THE FANFIC WRITERS. NO GODS NO MASTERS.

Ahem.

A more interesting question for me is, what would need to happen next in Sara and August’s lives for them to one day have a Second Chance Romance? What are the fanfic ideas in my brain?

I don’t think they’re disappearing from one another’s lives entirely. Wille is still going to be interacting with his family members from time to time even if he isn’t Crown Prince, and that includes August. I myself read Wille and August’s reconciliation scene at the party as a new start for their relationship. Not one that forgets the past, but one that is able to move forward into the future. 

If Wille is going to keep interacting with family in some capacity or another, and Wille is going to stay with Simon and Simon is going to stay reconciled with his sister, then it is possible that Sara and August will occasionally still be crossing paths. Maybe not all the time, and maybe they work to keep their distance. Certainly they’ll date different people along the way and maybe they’ll be in situations where they end up meeting one another’s other partners at times. And they’ll both be growing up, you know? They’ll get to see sides of one another they don’t see as teenagers.

On August’s end, I do think if he wants to have any chance with Sara again, he has to make things right with Simon. But I think he’ll want to keep things right and continue to make them better with Wille (deep down what August really wants most is family, like more than he wants to be king, this is a hill I am prepared to die on) which would mean investing in trying to make things right with Simon. Not even for the sake of August’s relationship with Sara, but for the sake of August’s relationship with Wille. 

I know August wasn’t reconciling with Simon at the end of season 3, but I honestly think that a) making things right with Simon is going to take a lot of time, like years actually, and b) August had to start with Wilhelm and with their shared complicated grief over Erik, and that took a whole season. But believing in a universe where Simon and August can actually learn to get along with each other… idk. It’s kind of a cool idea. They have ambition and a sense of dedication in common, and it would be interesting to see them understand that. And I don’t think it’s completely implausible.

(In one of my imagined scenarios of August trying to be a better family member to Wille and Simon, Rosh’s wife—a wonderful OC character who I’ve named Agnes, who is a chill nerdy lady who owns a gaming store—arranges weekly DND campaigns for the three of them + maybe Ayub, and they all work through their stuff by leveling up their characters every week. Please believe in my DND universe with me, it’s incredible.)

Another thing I think would have to happen is August would have to leave the monarchy eventually. Which I think is totally possible too. I got another ask about that, so I’m going to save my thoughts for that post specifically.

Lastly, he needs stronger connections with other friends. Maybe that’s Nils and/or Vincent (both Nils and Vincent have interesting side plots in the future!fic I’m envisioning for August and Sara and the other mains) or maybe he makes brand new friendships he can lean on. That way Sara isn’t doing all the emotional labor ever for him.

On Sara’s list, I have less of a defined set of things I’d like to see, but I feel like growth and more life experience generally can’t hurt. I think it would be great if she’s dated some other people first, both casually and seriously so that she’s built up relationship experiences. And I think it would also help Sara to have some disabled/neurodivergent community, as that seems to be a thing she currently lacks in canon.

I think both of them need a significant amount of time apart (at least five years, but I’m thinking more like a decade) and also more therapy. All that said… neither Sara nor August need to be perfect for them to have a Get Back Together storyline. Otherwise there would be no story! They can be struggling with new grown up things.

Finally, I think it’s worth thinking about how much potential there is for both of them to change with time. When I think back on my teenage self 20 years ago… damn, teenage blue was selfish and sheltered and hadn’t done fuck all to confront her racial or socioeconomic privilege. She was taking out her internalized ableism on herself and other people all the time. It’s taken me a long time to grow up, and the path hasn’t always been linear.

The YR characters are so complex and dynamic that I think it does them a disservice to imagine futures where some of them are Only Ever Good and others of them are Only Ever Evil. I don’t think we have to envision a future where Sara and August get back together—like it’s not a mandate—but I don’t think there’s any mandate forcing us to imagine them apart forever, either.

And you know, after one has put in all that time on character growth… well. The reunion smut has the potential to be pretty hot. So there’s that, too.

#young royals #sargust #blue i am forever on my sargust bullshit dalahorse #I will have to get to my next two asks later but rest assured i am drafting for them #you can send more asks btw the inbox remains open! #asks

[bluedalahorse]

Hiii <3 Which Tarot cards represent August‘s past, present and future the best in your opinion? 💕

OH HECK YES A QUESTION THAT’S RIGHT IN MY WHEELHOUSE. (I did once write a fan poem inspired by August and the Hanged Man that holds up for season three, I think. You may have been the person who requested it?) You might get more answer than you bargained for. I apologize in advance.

So my initial thought was just to jokingly respond to your question like this:

Because August’s life is like that sometimes. I say this with a deep and abiding affection for his messy character in its messy, messy arc.

(And I couldn’t post about this anyway, because the danger of shitposting about August as a genuine fan of his character arc, is that there are genuine haters out there who will take your post 100% seriously and use it as ammunition against him. Which is a shame because loving this character should be at least 60% making fun of him.)

I thought about it in more depth, and now I have a more extended answer. I’m not usually someone who pulls tarot cards with a particular “spread” with a set number of cards in mind. In a sequel post (was going to do it here but I have to get ready for work now) I might name some extra cards I could see coming up and being associated with different ideas. Especially since my Past-Present-Future cards are all Major Arcana, and I like to get some minors into a reading, when I can.

PAST - THE EMPEROR

August was born into old school power structures, and the emperor is all about, well, that. We can see that August clings to rules as things that help him to feel safe. I imagine August’s childhood was all about birthright and order—here’s what your future is going to look like, here’s all the things you are going to do and if you do them right/perfect, everything will be fine. Structure can be helpful up to a point (and August does have talents for organization and leadership that could be channeled in better directions, in different circumstances, won’t someone please write this boy into different circumstances) but at times the emperor can become authoritarian, and feed the illusion that one can escape misfortunes if they control every aspect of one’s life. The sooner August lets go of this illusion, the better.

PRESENT - THE TOWER

But not “Oops! All Towers.” I feel strongly that when we’re watching the three seasons of Young Royals, we’re meeting August in one of the big Tower Moments of his life. The Tower is absolute catastrophe. Its collapse is unavoidable because the problem is the design flaws in the Tower’s foundations. Tower energy is terrifying, but if you learn how to face it, you can climb out of the rubble and start anew.

I think August’s Tower energy is less about the external world and where he “ends up” or what happens to him, as it is about his internal world and his understanding of himself. The August we see at the beginning of the series seems to believe that if he moves fast enough and works hard enough, he can outrun his own grief and trauma. He cannot. They will catch up to him eventually. I think the Tower-rubble that August is standing in at the end of season three is sort of like… his old sense of self? He’s realizing what he thought he wants isn’t actually what he wanted, and he’s realizing that the things he did to feel “in control” never really made him in control. He’s realizing his grief for Erik and his father and for Hillerska is a lot more complicated than he thought, also, but it’s still grief and he still needs to feel it.

FUTURE - THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE

So I’m not really an August doomer. I don’t believe he’s stuck forever in his own harmful deeds and that he’ll never leave the Emperor space or Tower space. I get why it’s narratively comfortable for some fans to see him as unchanging or doomed forever, but I feel like he’s actually in a really uncomfortable and interesting in-between space between “horrendous demon-person caught forever in a hell of his own making” and “totally self-actualized woke bae who can take responsibility for all his actions and do all the right things.” He’s… in a messy place, but it’s a different messy place than he started the series in, and that’s dynamic. That’s fun! I love it! (Also, I already wrote Tragically Doomed Forever August in Heart and Homeland, so I’ve kind of already let myself explore that option for him, heh. Bring on the new life challenges.)

Right, were we talking about Tarot? The Wheel of Fortune reminds us that things are always on the move, and that they’re always changing. Life is not permanent. This doesn’t mean what came before doesn’t matter or didn’t play a role in shaping a person, but it does mean that things will change whether one wants them to or not. If you like how things are going in your life, they’ll suck eventually, and if they suck now, they won’t suck forever. I’m less interested in whether August falling into the heir role counts as “poetic justice” or not and more just interested in the way it means more seismic changes in his life. There’s story there! There’s potential! There’s more learning! LET’S MAKE A FANFIC ABOUT IT WHERE HE ENDS UP CRYING ON THE FLOOR OF THE WASHINGTON DC SWEDISH EMBASSY BATHROOM. (A one-shot I am working on right now, as it happens. Well, there’s more to it than that, but it’s not even 6 AM yet and I am feeling a little punchy.)

Kind of building on what I said in my Past and Present analyses… I think season 1 August assumed there was a predictable structure to life, and that you can count on certain things being fixed. And I think by season 3, he realizes that… that’s just not true. I don’t know if he likes that revelation, but he also recognizes it as truth whether he likes it or not. And that does feel like the beginning of a new era for him. The Wheel of Fortune doesn’t care what you think, it just rolls the changes in.

Anyway, what did a great philosopher once say?

Oh, that’s right.

It’ll pass.

And that’s the wheel in a nutshell.

#young royals #august horn #asks #i just think there’s so much story we can get to with this boy

[bluedalahorse]

The litany against getting Mad Online

#new meta rule for myself: do not post meta if my only purpose is to win #becomes increasingly difficult to enforce #in the event that you wake up to a Major Plumbing Emergency #and when I dislike so many posts about REDACTED so much #well then soothing music and noise cancelling headphones it is then

[bluedalahorse]

Hello there! Could you share some post-s3 Sara & Felice friendship headcanons?

What a lovely ask! Glad to share some ideas that pop into my head:

Sara is the first person Felice comes out to as asexual. (Specifically gray ace.)

Whether Hillerska re-opens or not, Felice refuses to go back and ends up at a school in the city somewhere. She and Sara send one another post cards. Felice’s tend to be cutely decorated. Simon buys Sara fun pens she can use to write Felice, though she tends to write only in one color. She still doodles, though.

They’re actually pretty good at keeping up a distance friendship. At one point Sara’s working a job in either Malmö or Copenhagen, and she and Felice still stay in touch and have a weekly phone call time.

At the same time, once Sara moves back to Stockholm, she and Felice are… kind of living together for a time? This is based on a headcanon @heliza24 and I discussed together, but essentially, Felice’s parents have bought her a nice townhouse in Stockholm. Felice ends up sleeping at work a lot though because she’s so devoted to her restaurant. So she invites Sara to come live in her townhouse, because Sara needs a place to live, and Felice needs her townhouse to look lived in. They’re better at being roommates than they were at Hillerska.

Felice gives Sara advice for whatever her love life is doing for the moment based on her horoscope. The advice is inconsistent in how helpful it is, so it’s sort of a joke at this point.

Felice likes to drag Sara along on random road trips related to her cooking goals. Like she’ll hear that a particular farm has phenomenal rhubarb and she’ll convince Sara to drive her there. They have set playlists they’ll sing along the way.

Hope that’s a good start! What are some of your headcanons?

#young royals #sara eriksson #felice ehrencrona #asks

[bluedalahorse]

One thing that helps me calm down about intra-left-wing sniping and the reality that the big center-left coalition inevitably includes a lot of ridiculous nonsense, is to remember how ubiquitous seances were to progressive politics in the 19th century.  Like, e.g., Frederick Douglass had to go to so many seances. Many, many political strategy sessions around the country had to include feedback from the ghost of Moses who spoke to us via morse code.  

#SPIRITUALISTS!!!!!!! #holy fuck let’s talk about them #i do not think we talk about them nearly enough

[bluedalahorse]

Here’s a random Young Royals ask:

What career do you think Sara will have in the future? Or what do you think her dream job would be?

I hope your day is lovely and amazing!!

Thank you! I hope your day is lovely and amazing too.

This is a great ask, and one where you might get more than you asked for. In part because I’ve thought about it a lot. I have not only a dream job in mind for Sara, but also some nightmare jobs as well. (Don’t worry, it’s all related to fanfic plots living in my head, and I promise they end in a good place.)

Is it okay if I start with Sara’s nightmare job? This one sort of popped into my head as I was envisioning what a Second Chance Romance could look like between Sara and August, maybe a decade after canon where August has done a lot of work and made various restitutions to Simon and gotten much more of his shit together.

As for that story… I thought it might be interesting, as far as like, what generates a plot and character arc, to put Sara at a job that’s taking advantage of her compassion and desire for justice. In my experience it’s pretty common for younger people to end up in situations like that in their first jobs, and I think it’d be interesting if Sara was in a place where she won’t deal with that in a romantic partner anymore, but she hasn’t learned to recognize it in a work situation yet. (This is pretty common in growing up—you tackle one issue in one part of one’s life and it sneakily migrates to another part.) So she’s working this nightmare job for an autism charity I’ve sneakily called PuzzleChildren (it’s a reference, shout if you get it!) which is trying to rehabilitate its image after news breaks that they haven’t really hired any actually autistic people. Sara’s hired by them, and they sound sincere at first so she’s trying her best to make things work with her coworkers and bosses, but over time she just kind of realizes that this place is shit and has no intention of changing. And then she moves into a line of work that’s much more fulfilling for her.

And what might that be? Well, I’m still deciding, but there’s a few career paths where I can see Sara being particularly happy:

Some sort of career in Environmental or Disability Justice. I’m not exactly sure why. It’s just vibes. I do think Sara is a person who cares deeply about people and causes, and both of those are areas where I can see her learning more at university and just finding a place that makes sense for her.

Helping people, especially other neurodivergent people, using some kind of animal therapy. Doesn’t have to be horses! Or maybe Sara will train service dogs or something. It’s possible Sara’s affinity for horses could translate over to other animals, and she could find a career path in that general direction.

Graphic novelist or picture book writer. We see Sara drawing in one scene in season 1, and for that reason, she’s always been someone who likes to draw in my head. We also know she’s a keen observer of human behavior and could have some interesting insights if she ever decided to write a story. I can see her doing memoir graphic novels with a similar tone to like, stuff by Marjane Satrapi or Maggie Thrash. Of course if the monarchy’s still around they might want to sue her for her honesty. But they shouldn’t.

What do you think? I can see lots of possibilities for Sara in the future!

#young royals #sara eriksson #asks

[bluedalahorse]

I have to write a Statement about why I should be allowed to go abroad for my grad program, and then I’m going to work on that for a while before tackling a few lovely asks. (There’s still room for more, btw!)