#also @kenna same girl same

[sideblogdotjpeg]

my stupidest idea ever. duck team shaolin soccer au

#i just think. sol would make a good mighty steel leg #albin could be ironhead.... in the way hes a pathetic failgirl #instead of drugs the enemy team is just alexandrite-d #fuck i forgor their name is literally team evil #callie is the tai chi girl. calder is the coach guy #do u see my stupidbad vision #and kenna is the . bus driver #but also they have the same throughline of people who cld b cool and powerful if they werent stuck in their sad minimum wage jobs #other than that its fully stupid #okay. bye everyoen

[lizzybeth1986]

Hana and Madeleine: When You Reward Your Favourite Bully with One of Her Victims

Series - TRR's Alternative LIs: The "Romances" That Didn't Happen

Previous - Maxwell and Penelope: When You Like the Side Character So Much, You Gift Her A Shiny New LI

A/N1: Apologies, again, for the length of this. There was so much damn retconning to wade through that it felt like a rollercoaster to write. There is also not going to be a lot of Hana in this, as I needed to unravel so many inconsistencies in Madeleine's writing. I also didn't want this to become a repeat of my essay series on Hana (which you can read here).

CW: Descriptions of bullying and intimidation, as well as dismissiveness of the same both in canon and from fandom. A mention of the 'infertility' plotline written for Hana in TRH1. Mentions of parental abuse and neglect.

In every other essay in this series, it's been important for me to analyse the potential of the pairings TRR went for. No matter how badly PB handled them later on, one could find promise in the possibilities of these pairings, and if written well they could result in a sweet, happy ending for the LIs we didn't marry. With a better sense of balance from the writers and less vitriol and double standards (in some cases) from the fandom, they could have worked.

Not so for this pairing.

In the case of Hana and Madeleine,it would have been far far better if this pairing had never happened at all. The problem wasn't just in the development; the roots of such a pairing itself were rotten.

(White) Female Antagonists

Before I delve into the characters involved in this pairing, it's important we take another deep dive into a narrative practice we often see with PB. Their blatant favouring of specifically white female antagonists.

Now, it's not as if white men in antagonistic roles don't get favourable writing from their teams and adulation from sections of the fandom (one has to only look at some of the posts Gaius Augustine of BB, Caleb of Hero, and Kane of TE got - just to name a few). But we also often see fans of such white women decry the (very little compared to their black counterparts) condemnation that their faves get for their actions in comparison to both antagonistic and romanceable white men. Such readers often neglect to acknowledge exactly how much the narrative bends over backwards to accomodate them, in a way that they never have done for even mildly hostile/wary black and brown women. And often this is with ample support and encouragement within the fandom itself.

One cannot even pretend this is a recent development. The early books had their fair share of white-woman-adulation and you can see some of the patterns that would solidify in PB discourse already take shape in their early books.

One excellent example of this is TCaTF. Compare the treatment that white women like Helene Leventis, Hex and Zenobia Nevrakis are given, to what Rowan Thorn - a black woman - gets. Helene is allowed to escape never to return, or join Kenna, despite being the woman who killed her mentor and close friend Gabriel. Hex is well known in the series for her sadistic torture devices and for destroying an extremely prosperous kingdom. Yet, she is captured - alive - and there are two options that allow her a bit more mercy, and only one that recommends the harshest of punishments. Rowan in the meantime only betrays Kenna if the latter is an absolute tyrant to her, and letting her go if she betrays her is touted as a failure. Her loyalty doesn't ensure she will live like Diavolos' does - you can in fact leave her to die if you don't have enough diamonds/prestige points.

The Freshman was an improvement on this: even if Becca Davenport started out as a classic college mean girl, her redemption arc involved her needing to work to regain trust with the group and her best friend Madison, regardless of the MC's fondness of her. Her housemates immediately set her straight when she lashes out at them at the beginning of TS, and Becca has to plan for almost a-book-and-a-half to get her friendship with Madison back to normal again.

Sadly, this is something that rarely ever happened again. Discrepancies in character treatment became more and more obvious as the years passed. Books where black and brown women behaved even mildly unimpressed or catty with the MC, showed them either suffering grievous fates or written out of the narrative (eg. Scarlett not even getting a proper future in the VoS bonus scene) or being mistrusted and misunderstood constantly by the MC and their friends (Aurora). Books where white women could cause grievous harm depicted them being let off without so much as a slap on the wrist (eg. Aunt Mallory of RoE being rewarded with a happy life, a man and reconciliation with the niece she tried to kill and the daughter she emotionally abused).

(Screenshots from SavageLordBarlow's YouTube channel)

Perhaps the worst and most obvious case to date was that of Vanessa Blackwood of MoTY, who called a young child "guttersnipe" within minutes of encountering her, outed a lesbian teacher, encouraged her son's bullying, provided legal counsel to the MC's ex husband just to see the woman suffer, and engineered a plot to frame the MC for theft so she could lose her job. Once Vanessa had crossed her limits, PB ensured they laid on the sympathy narrative thick, having her show sad faces when the MC scolded her in a paywall scene, punishing only her brown lackey (both the white people involved - Vanessa and Guy - are never named when Tallulah is exposed, even though she literally stole jewellery and framed the MC for them). In the series finale, Vanessa was rewarded with a cushy diamond scene where the MC can choose (in what is the understatement of the century) to call her "classist and a little bit racist" - all she is given at the end of the book is an extremely softball form of criticism.

Compare this to Xanthe of ACOR, who had far less power, who was repeatedly slut shamed by the MC and others for doing her job, and whose end was met in a "comical" scene that implied she'd been sold into sexual slavery while two black members of her scholae gloated over her plight (in a manner so uncharacteristic of them that even players who didn't necessarily like Xanthe were shocked. I would highly recommend you read @cassiopeiacorvus' excellent essay on her, "Xanthe: Courtesan, Rival, Pawn").

In an essay I'd written years ago, I'd noted the following:

"Check out who the narrative rewards you for treating well, as opposed to who will be made to support you either way.

You're allowed to show basic decency to a black or brown woman. But you're expected to show kindness, understanding and empathy to a white woman, and richly rewarded if you do. In some cases you will also face consequences if you don't. (Fandom - take note of the difference, and be sure not to forget it)."

Madeleine Amaranath is probably one of the best examples of this - with blatant retcons, unfounded adulation and obvious pandering lasting over five books.

Rules of Engagement

When we look at the full cast of TRR, we find at least six characters who are callbacks to its sister series, Rules of Engagement. Leo, Constantine, Regina, Bastien, Madeleine and Rashad (the last one was an addition from TRR2 onwards). Part of TRR's appeal as a series was its ability to reference the earlier one through these characters, but this time from the PoV of Leo's younger brother instead.

Madeleine appeared in only 2 chapters in RoE. She was Leo's fiancée, in an arranged match that not only their parents but their citizens expected, unfazed by the "commoners" Leo brought to his bed and secure in the knowledge that no matter who he slept with she would eventually become his Queen. Leo dashes these expectations, however, by abdicating his claim to the throne - whether the RoE MC chooses him or not.

At this point - when TRR was barely even a concept - Leo was a clear fan favourite. Players liked the idea of romancing a rogue prince from a fictional European country; it meant they could revel in the luxury of touching royalty, while being away from all the hard, unsavoury parts. The Madeleine angle provided them with a rival to fight off, and at the time that was all that mattered.

Was Leo's behaviour in RoE, towards both the RoE MC and Madeleine, dishonest? Definitely, but not many seemed to care much at the time and it hardly created a dent in his fanbase (most of the criticisms against him and his cheating ways and irresponsibility would emerge later - when the Leo stans became Drake stans, and it was more convenient to badmouth Liam's family).

Jeffrey Herdman, a Junior Game Writer with Pixelberry for over 7 years, was a part of both the RoE and TRR teams, and proudly admitted in the TRR2 pre-release interview, to being the one in charge of writing Madeleine:

Q: Very funny. (Just so we're clear, Jeffrey is joking. Sort of.) Out of curiosity, who's your favorite character to write in The Royal Romance?

Jeffrey: Madeleine. It's fun to write someone who's constantly trying to spin a situation to their benefit, and making power plays along the way. I've actually been writing for Madeleine since her appearance in Rules of Engagement: Book 2, so we're practically besties.

Excerpt from The Royal Romance: Book 2 Interview

(If we were to compare this adulation of the character from Jeffrey, to the person who wrote Hana - head writer Jennifer Young, you'd find a surprising difference. In this very interview Jennifer talks about enjoying the process of writing Hana, but pointed to Drake as her favourite LI - "In my personal game, my love interest is definitely Drake, and I totally make Kara write him just so I can read his scenes and enjoy the romance. =)".

Perhaps if Jennifer had spent less time fawning over Drake, and more time doing Hana's story justice, that LI wouldn't be stuck in a situation where the team constantly erased her experiences and history to benefit their favourites)

When you look at Jeffrey's open admiration of Madeleine, and trace her fairly choppy and largely incoherent narrative journey through the books...a lot of things begin to make sense.

TRR1 - Would a TRR1 Madeleine Have Been A Better Fit for Hana?

When you look at the first book, you can tell that the possibility of any of the other alternative pairings besides Liam and Olivia wasn't really entertained. There is no buildup at all for Maxwell x Penelope, Drake x Kiara - and not even a single direct interaction between fellow competitors Hana and Madeleine. In fact, TRR2 often had to cover up for the lack of interaction in certain cases by making the alternative LI come up with justifications for why they weren't approaching the LI before.

There is maybe one implied interaction between Hana and Madeleine, that I don't think even the writers paid much attention to at the time. In the pie baking scene in Applewood, Hana is assigned to Madeleine's team if the MC doesn't take her along. Whichever group Hana is in, she is in charge of the pie design.

In the diamond scene, she takes the MC's suggestions and gives her advice on the amount of apples required for the filling. Given that she gives credit to the MC (in front of Queen Regina) in this option, and doesn't not do the same for Madeleine, it is likely that she was allowed to decorate for the other team, but not with much input from the captain.

This pie has a rose design, which is beautiful but lacks the intricacy and the challenge of the Cordonian Royal Seal, which the MC can suggest in the diamond scene. It's possible that by default, Madeleine handled the baking herself (since Penelope couldn't even boil water and in fact is so distracted she unwittingly helps sabotage the pie), and Hana was assigned strictly decoration duties. But even these possibilities rely on conjecture and guesswork, with no real dialogue or interaction shown.

There are no other scenes where the two women talk or do anything together. Hana may be present in one or two scenes where Madeleine is speaking (such as the dining scene in Ch 17 where Madeleine tells the court ladies about the upcoming Engagement Tour), but the two never directly engage with each other. It's more likely that (like Maxwell and Penelope, or Drake and Kiara), the writers may have thought of Hana and Madeleine only in the second or third book - more likely the third, but there are possible hints in TRR2 if you squint.

Hana is an interesting anomaly among the cast of TRR. She is both Cordonian and foreigner; the ways of the Cordonian court are, in equal parts, both familiar and confusing to her. This serves as an double-edged advantage to the MC - Hana is both skilled and knowledgeable enough to ease her into the culture, and isolated and vulnerable enough for the MC to step up as a hero on occasion. We also find out in Lythikos (TRR1 Ch 7) that she was so deep in the closet that she couldn't fully articulate her struggle to love the romantic English noble who wanted to marry her, in the presence of the woman she was slowly beginning to love. Within the competition itself, Hana is shown having a hard time finding people who will associate with her, often shown left out of events and her yacht party abandoned during the Regatta. The broken engagement could have a hand in making her appear to be struggling in the competition, but tbh Olivia is the only one who brings it up. Overall, she does well in the competition, but gets little credit for the same.

Madeleine is the polar opposite of this. Even though the ladies of the court initially view her with a mixture of pity and respect (due to her broken engagement with Leo, and her position as a Countess and winner of the previous season), their views on Madeleine once she enters the competition range from anger (Olivia), to speculation (Kiara and Penelope), to indifference and later suspicion (the MC).

Madeleine comes into the social season with several advantages: her pedigree and her years of experience at court. Both Bertrand and the MC note that Madeleine hails from a "powerful family" and "is immersed in the intrigues and maneuverings of courtly life", and therefore the MC is cautioned by Applewood to pay more attention to her than to Olivia. If the MC fails to win court favour, both Penelope and Kiara show allegiance to Madeleine. Where Hana is shown to be vulnerable despite her skills, charm and intelligence, Madeleine is meant to be viewed with respect even by her peers - and expected not to return that respect to others unless they're the king and queen.

I often view the Madeleine of Book 1 (and early TRR2), and the Madeleine of the latter half of Book 2, as two separate people (more on that in the next section). Early Madeleine was depicted as a clear threat. While she does nothing too out-of-pocket during the competition, her threats to the MC once she is (optionally) the favourite frontrunner, her singular focus on only the king and queen (and largely ignoring the Prince), and inability to respectfully lose, ensure that the reader registers her as a figure of danger early on. The first time she (optionally) faces an obvious loss and sees the MC crowned as Apple Queen, Madeleine tells her to "savour these moments. You may never hear the phrase again".

Her very extreme attempts to belatedly win Liam's favour after ignoring him the entire season (we later find out that she barged into his sleeping quarters the previous night and suggested the arrangement that Liam speaks about in TRR2), earns her speculative looks from the MC and wariness from Liam himself. Given that the outcome was so different in TRR2 but the buildup to said outcome was so rushed and chaotic, there is a 70/30 chance that Madeleine's buildup in Book 1 was meant to highlight her as someone with the capability to harm the MC, rather than just as a red herring. At the very most, Book 1 would highlight her as powerful, with the intention that Book 2 would follow through with showing her as a cog in a very vicious machine.

But because Madeleine's actions in TRR1 don't result in any direct harm, it's honestly hard to envision her as dangerous beyond the subtle threats (that people could brush off as basic rivalry) and rank classism.

Would Hana's pairing with the Madeleine of TRR1 have worked? It's equally hard to say. If we take only Book 1 into account, and ignore the very real possibility of a threat that Madeleine represents, there's a sliver of a chance that such a pairing could work...if Madeleine works on herself. At this point she hasn't manifested as a direct threat to Hana in a way that, say, Olivia has - and all the MC has at this point are theories and speculation. You'd have to probably change half of Madeleine's characterization, but it could be workable if the foundation for such a pairing was mutual respect from the start.

Still, when you take into consideration that Madeleine being involved in the plot against the MC was a very legitimate possibility, it's hard to see any opening for this pairing. Even Penelope - whose coddling from the narrative knew no limits - was no longer entertained as a potential alternative romance for an LI the moment her role in the plot was uncovered. If any harm was done to the MC, and Madeleine was found to be behind it, there is no way Hana would even be allowed to entertain the thought of her as an alternative LI at all.

You see - hurting Hana is no big deal. But hurting the MC and still getting an LI to show interest in you? Now that would be beyond the pale!

Madeleine: A Red Herring...Or A Villain Retconned?

As I have mentioned earlier, there is one writer - who has seniority in the company because of his many years there, who has always been in charge of Madeleine's writing, and who has always loved writing her. On close inspection one can say for certain that Jeffrey Herdman had a fair bit of sway in the team itself, especially from the fact that one of his weirdest writing suggestions - the MC's supposed obsession with hats - was retained in the books as a gag for a very, very long time (TRF finale livestream interview). When you take both Jeffrey's sway in the team, and the writing of Madeleine in TRR2 and 3 (and beyond), one can make several educated guesses about what Madeleine was built up to be, and how that changed midway.

Plenty of fan posts written in the gap between TRR1's finale and TRR2's release, took for granted that Madeleine would have some role to play in the plot against the MC. While one may assume this was due to "jealousy" from players or "hate for a bitchy character", there were enough signs in TRR1 and 2 that this was the route the narrative was initially planning to take with her.

The MC does voice suspicions of Madeleine in the first book - mostly after Madeleine herself voices threats to the MC during the Apple Queen ceremony. Madeleine also looks apprehensive at the (optional) public support Liam shows towards the MC at the Beaumont estate, and even shows him a suspiciously huge amount of attention at the Coronation. The MC even confronts Madeleine during the Coronation festivities when she gets a note threatening her to withdraw from the competition, believing it was sent by the latter. But beyond this, Madeleine's own words in TRR1 often sound ominous and laced with subtle threats. Still - going by just TRR1's evidence, Madeleine could still work as a good red herring, since she's not exactly crossed a clear line with anyone yet.

TRR2 seems to go in one direction when it comes to Madeleine's arc, then makes a sharp pivot in the opposite direction post Chs 7 and 8. The first half of the book has both the MC and Liam regard her with doubt and suspicion, especially when the MC learns that Madeleine had come to Liam's rooms the night before the Coronation, and insisted he continue the relationship with the MC on the sly while making her the queen. The book presents several contrasts between Madeleine and the MC, presenting their possible ruling styles and envisioning how each woman would fare as a future queen.

In a diamond scene in TRR2 Ch 4, Liam asks the MC how she would handle a plate of curry chicken falling on someone - an incident that has already occurred in some playthroughs to Madeleine (who got recognizably frustrated and called the whole episode "a disaster"). In contrast, the MC can claim she would either defuse the situation with humour or help clear the mess - both of which establish that unlike Madeleine the MC knows how to adapt to different situations, and prefers to find a solution rather than take her frustrations out on everyone else. Liam points out the differences between the two women as the MC "having perspective... every gaffe isn't a disaster".

Multiple scenes in the story focus on Madeleine's rigidity, her inability to adapt, her hunger for power, her belief that becoming queen gives her a free pass to be a tyrant, her hubris that allows her to outright harm some of her ladies in waiting and believe she will never face consequences, and her overall lack of real impact during her own engagement tour (only if the MC fails miserably does the Italian statesman Francesco even mention Madeleine). A lot of this buildup indicates that she won't be as effective a queen as other characters claim she will be.

Her overall behaviour in the first half of TRR2 seems to highlight overconfidence, and a willingness to overstep every possible boundary in the belief that nothing will now prevent her from getting what she wants ("the best part about being Queen is that I don't have to explain myself to anyone. Including you."). Even though she isn't queen yet, both Madeleine and everyone around her behave as if she has already been crowned! That kind of overconfidence - especially from someone who should know better than anyone that winning the competition doesn't necessarily mean she'll be crowned - makes more sense when she is aware that there are powerful people (like the former king and her aunt, the former queen) to back her.

There is also the fact that Penelope's involvement in the plot never got any proper buildup. There is just one scene, in TRR2 Ch 6, where she speaks about feeling uncomfortable at parties and balls, and how much she hates crowds. The reveal of her being the culprit is in Ch 7; the reveal of her social anxiety is in Ch 8. Before this, you have zero indicators of her being involved in this level of deception - even though her history of "social anxiety" should have ideally made that kind of subterfuge difficult, and she should have been able to leave a few tells, signalling her guilt. It is very clear on rereads that Penelope's involvement in the plot was a last-minute narrative decision.

But perhaps the strongest evidence that TRR2 was originally meant to establish Madeleine as part of the plot against the MC, is a line from the very first scene of the book. When a confused MC asks Bertrand how it's possible for Liam to break his engagement, Bertrand mentions a constitutional provision:

"The king is able to change his selection in specific cases for the good of the nation". The MC being proven as framed and unfairly disgraced achieves very little in this context, because the focus is clearly on the king's final choice. This means that the engagement cannot be voided on the basis of the MC being innocent, but on the basis of Madeleine being unfit for the role.

What happens to this "constitutional clause" once Penelope is declared the culprit among the court ladies rather than Madeleine? It disappears completely. If she was really meant to be a red herring from the start, the team would never have added this line in the first place. Nor would they have left the "buildup" for Penelope's anxiety till Ch 6, just one chapter before her reveal. If Madeleine was really meant to be a mere red herring from the start, there would have been more than just one crumb presented for that trail.

It is highly possible that the team had plans for Madeleine to be involved in the plot, or in something shady enough to justify breaking the engagement. It is just as highly possible that Jeffrey, the writer in charge of her character, allowed his favouritism for that character to dictate his writing of her, and convinced the team to change the trajectory of the story to benefit her.

Hana and Madeleine - The First Half of TRR2

Most of the interactions between Hana and Madeleine in TRR2 are overshadowed by one incident in Ch 7 - the one most popularly known as "the chocolate incident". Madeleine was already not too popular as a character when this scene came out, but her admission that she wanted to break Hana crossed enough of a line that a number of players would bring it up as a reason for why they couldn't ever like her, no matter how often she was retconned in canon.

A common misconception made about the "chocolate incident" from Madeleine lovers and haters alike, is that it's viewed as a singular episode rather than as an escalation in an ongoing pattern of threats that Madeleine was already making to Hana.

Viewing it as an isolated incident is precisely what allowed both Madeleine stans, and the canon narrative itself, to severely downplay what Madeleine did, and what she openly declared she would continue doing to Hana. Therefore, it is essential to look into Hana and Madeleine's interactions before Ch 7, as well as the context behind Hana's return to court and the very real and grave threat that Madeleine represents to Hana specifically.

To do this, we must first look into how Hana's return to court (after her parents forced her to leave post Coronation) is depicted. There are two versions of this story - Madeleine's version...and the truth.

Madeleine's Version: "If it wasn't for me, she'd still be on the other side of the world. I've heard dogs remember those who feed them. I hope you'll keep this in mind and remember that dear Hana is here by my personal invitation". This is a half-truth at best and ironically, this is the version Hana sticks to. She is never allowed to tell us differently.

The truth, as said by Liam to Hana post Coronation: "I am the King of Cordonia. I'm sure Lady Madeleine knows that if she wants to keep our engagement, she'll have to give me something. Perhaps I can convince her to make you part of her court". Hana never gets to tell us this. That honour is given to Drake!

Even after the MC (optionally) gets to know this truth, she never talks to Hana about it, and Hana is never allowed to veer from Madeleine's narrative even in private. In the process, Madeleine gets to use her half-truth as a form of blackmail - threatening Hana at least twice to send her back to China if she paces even one toe out of Madeleine's arbitrary line.

In TRR2 Ch 4, Madeleine is shown antagonizing her entire court (ordering Penelope to get lemonade and comparing her to dogs, telling Kiara to exoticize herself by not speaking in English [which itself has colonial/Orientalist connotations]). But none is more ominous and disturbing than her subtle threat to Hana before introducing her to the two suitors:

Being sent back to her parents is a terrifying prospect for Hana...for two reasons. For one, Hana is committed to being there for the MC, to contributing to her investigation (and she does! Massively. Perhaps more than anyone else in the group). For another, she is just beginning to realize what a damaging environment her parents' house is, and she also knows they are already growing suspicious that she hasn't found another suitor yet. By the end of this conversation, Hana is visibly distraught... to the point of needing moral support (something she rarely asks for herself).

Remember - this is an arbitrary rule Madeleine comes up with, that applies only to Hana. In the same conversation, neither Kiara nor Penelope are placed under this kind of pressure. Though Penelope claims in Ch 6 that her parents won't allow her to come home if she doesn't get a suitor, Madeleine doesn't levy any other threats of this nature on her (she harms Penelope in other ways).

Madeleine is aware that Liam was the one responsible for Hana's return. It is implied that she is also aware that neither Liam nor Hana can say this in public. By this coin, she'd know that she shouldn't be the one who can take a call on sending Hana back - Liam is. Yet she issues this sort of a threat, and worse still...is allowed to get away with it through Hana and the MC's silence, both in private and in public.

Unlike the MC and Olivia, the other three ladies of the court are present in official positions to the future Queen, and are expected to publicly pledge loyalty to her. The narrative of TRR2 alone seems to give the King's fiancèe powers and influences similar to an actual Queen Consort's. And Hana, Kiara and Penelope aren't just random "court members" - they are Madeleine's ladies-in-waiting. They cannot even speak to certain people unless she approves of it (Ch 1), she orders them around with the disrespect that many in that nobility reserve for their servants (Penelope in Ch 4), she publicly humiliates and insults them if they make a single mistake (eg. Penelope not getting a metallic dress in time for the bachelorette), and she can get away with causing them grievous harm (Hana). There is no actual point to any of this behaviour - it achieves nothing and (by the narrative parameters of the third book) is actually foolish, because Madeleine's actions could cost the royal family their relationship with the Great Houses. Neither the MC nor Liam (the actual monarch), would be allowed by the narrative later to abuse their power the way Madeleine can, in a position that isn't even hers yet!

It is easy to view Madeleine's interactions with Hana and Penelope especially, as just some regular mean-girls shit, with all the excuses, justifications and crocodile tears that the fandom can shower on said white/white-passing mean girls. Canon itself encourages this reading when they use the word "hazing" to describe what Madeleine put Hana through. But when we speak of Madeleine's behaviour in her engagement tour that way, we miss a very important aspect of her dynamic with these two women. They are no longer competitors or mere allies. They are not just people she knows in court.

They are not Madeleine's equals. They are her employees. She is directly in a position of immense, unquestioned and unchecked power over them. Publicly, she has the authority to invite them into her court, and to throw them out of their jobs. It is from that lens, that we must view her behaviour, especially in Ch 7.

The "Chocolate Incident" and Its Aftermath

Another reason to believe Jeffrey's favouritism for Madeleine allowed for an actual change in the story, is the way this above scene - and the ones preceding it - were handled immediately in both the immediate and long-term aftermath.

Often dubbed "the chocolate incident", this scene takes place in Italy (the first stop of the engagement tour) during Madeleine's bachelorette. For anyone who has forgotten the incident, Madeleine's ladies-in-waiting are supposed to organize different fun activities for her bachelorette, and the MC uses each event as both a PR exercise and an opportunity to check the credit cards of the ladies.

The final activity is Hana's, an intricately-planned chocolate fondue party complete with chocolate-themed games and treats. If one reads too much between the lines, one could maybe notice the tiniest sliver of a romantic hint in Hana's conversation with the MC over her confusing an actual bachelorette party with the show The Bachelorette (It is just as possible tho - if not more - that this is a comic aside pointing to Hana's lack of exposure to modern media).

However, things take a turn for the worst at this juncture. Madeleine heavily berates Hana for not knowing that she is "allergic to chocolate", accusing her of an attempt to murder and even threatening to remove her from her position in court. This leaves Hana so distraught that she ruins her own dress in the process, and is damn near inconsolable. The MC can - if she chooses - comfort Hana along with their friends. At the end of the night, a heavily drunk Madeleine gleefully admits she lied about the allergy and gloats about wanting to keep hurting Hana till she breaks, because she "wants to have a little fun".

She claims, when asked why, that it's because "everyone wants something, but the nice ones like Hana don't even have the decency to act like it". Which sounds like the sort of sick logic that fandom often happily accepts from their favourite white antagonists, where they can project whatever sob story they want to make such a reasoning palatable. Such attempts ignore the fact that Madeleine is torturing someone for supposed "duplicity" when she is herself well-known for being insincere.

Later, when it was convenient for the fandom to hate on Hana, she would be either blamed for the torture Madeleine put her through (because she was "weak" or "too nice", or that she was "spineless and deserved this treatment". I even saw posts that claimed it "wasn't that bad" (in the case of one particularly memorable instance, a Madeleine stan went so far as to say, agreeing with a post expressing a fondness for Madeleine: "...before anyone mentions the chocolate prank: Did Hana die, tho?"). Some also tried to reason that it was fair for Madeleine to target Hana, either to showcase her "wiles" or because of her sad sad childhood.

As I pointed out earlier, every single one of these takes tend to downplay Madeleine's bullying/abuse so that it sounds more like a schoolyard squabble that happened only once, rather than a person in power consistently placing their employee's job under threat, with the stated intention of harming them mentally and emotionally on a regular basis, until they experienced a breakdown. The center of this conflict isn't about different people with different approaches. Nor is it about court maneuvering or wiles because honestly, nothing worthwhile was achieved through Madeleine's abuse, and she had no purpose for doing those things beyond deriving a sick pleasure from other people's suffering.

It isn't about nice vs tough, nor ambitious vs generous, nor "naive" vs "jaded". It is about a gross power imbalance. An imbalance that results in the exploitation of the more vulnerable party...which is later brushed aside by the one who claims to be the latter's "friend" like it means nothing.

Structure wise, one can see striking similarities between this chapter, and TRR1's Ch 7, where the MC can view Olivia in a new light in the first half of the chapter, but be disturbed by her vindictive nature by the end of it. Here too, the MC comes into the investigation of the credit cards fully expecting to see Madeleine as the culprit. Over the course of the evening she finds Madeleine treating her ladies-in-waiting badly, but also calling out the press for targeting only the MC but staying silent on Tariq's involvement (ironically, Madeleine herself didn't exactly believe the MC if she tells her she was set up). She is also shocked when she realises Madeleine isn't the culprit at the club. Still, the court is given a rude shock when Hana is accused of putting Madeleine's life in danger.

Clearly the aim of such a chapter was to make the MC soften a little towards Madeleine, while still keeping some of the antagonistic tension. However, the more direct impact of Madeleine's huge ego trip on Hana made the harm far more visible than Olivia's jibes towards a woman who was far away...plus the scenes that followed in the former sequence centered Drake, far more than the ones in the latter that involved comforting Hana.

Madeleine's bullying also clashes - quite conveniently - with the reveal of Penelope's betrayal, so that the latter overshadows what Hana went through altogether.

It is important to note at this point that the MC is the only person not directly tied in an alliance to Madeleine (besides Olivia and Maxwell, who are then missing at the fashion show backstage scene in Paris) who knows Madeleine's intentions towards Hana. She is the only person present at the event in Paris, who knows that Madeleine intended to continue harassing her until she broke. Hana herself is never made fully aware of this, and if she is left in a vulnerable, dangerous position while on her mission to support the MC's investigation - then the fault lies to a large extent with the MC for keeping silent, rather than protecting her friend from someone who fully intended to hurt her.

I say this because in France (Ch 8), the MC's exposing of Madeleine is by choice, rather than default (this essay has a full breakdown of said scene). Moreover, the option where the MC can "expose" her will result in Madeleine lying about the act being an "official hazing" she does for all her ladies-in-waiting. Not only does the MC neglect to contest Madeleine's claims (or even tell Hana the full truth in secret), she also parrots Madeleine's lie in a conversation with Adeleide in NY, as if it were the truth (Ch 14).

Remember how I mentioned Jeffrey - the writer who was in charge of Madeleine's scenes and sang her praises in TRR2's pre-release interview? His influence here is obvious in the way the narrative sharply pivots away from Madeleine's characterization so far, to engage in a full-blown pity party.

The abuses of her power (towards Hana and Penelope in particular) stop. The parallels that canon makes between Madeleine and the MC as future Queens, stop. No reference, ever, is made of her actions before Ch 8.

For over seven chapters, Madeleine largely fades into the background - sometimes there will be scenes where she is present, but without any dialogue or actions. Sometimes she may make a catty move like getting the MC to pick up her wedding ring, but from a safe distance. Because she doesn't openly antagonize anyone or show up much in Chs 9-15, the sense of distance could allow some to soften in their memories of her. Especially when the only strong reminders of Madeleine in these chapters come from Adeleide, her mother.

Adeleide is an important cog in the machinery that resulted in the retconning of Madeleine's character in TRR2. Without her, Patriotic!Madeleine wouldn't have become canon. Adeleide sets the stage for this extremely inaccurate reading of her, with complaints on two occasions about how Madeleine is "putting too much pressure on herself" and working too hard. Which contradicts her very real actions in Applewood and Italy, where she regularly antagonized her entire court and where she doesn't get much notable approval from foreign dignitaries (Signor Francesco) unless the MC is that bad.

The narrative, at this point, expects us to view her with sympathy, as someone who could have been "an excellent queen" (Adeleide's words, not mine). The stage is clearly set so that we pity her when Liam calls off the engagement and she loses this position, that we can see her loss as "unfair". It ensures that there is an overflow of sympathy for Madeleine's plight, especially since she had already lost her chance to become Queen once before with Leo. By this point, many readers had actually forgotten the "chocolate incident" altogether, and were more than willing to view Madeleine as a patriot who wasn't given her due. A description that, ironically, more accurately fits Hana.

Is Hana Really Just A Nice Girl who Never Fights Back?

As I mentioned before, Hana's "niceness" and "weakness" were sometimes presented in fandom as justifications/reasons for Madeleine's bullying of her, often in an attempt to shift blame or make it sound like Madeleine's stated "reasons" (in TRR2 Ch 7) to hurt her were legitimate. Almost as if to say that Hana was targeted because she presents herself as an easy target.

To be clear, I don't subscribe to such a train of thought myself. Different people react to bullies and abusers in different ways - and not being able to push back aggressively in tense situations doesn't make anyone a lesser person. In fact, canon itself doesn't mind providing a "weaker" person protection against someone like Madeleine...as long as that person is Penelope. So we cannot even claim that Hana's "weakness" is why Madeleine targets her, or why the MC shouldn't have to protect Hana better.

Canon also doesn't help much in this respect, especially with their preferences for the meaner white women. In fact the narrative doesn't even allow Hana the chance to speak up in private against Madeleine's half-truths about her return, and she is made to easily accept Madeleine's "hazing" excuse. Let's not even get into how she speaks about Madeleine in TRR3. Additionally, no one in Hana's own friend group provides adequate protection or support - they stay silent where it counts.

But is Hana really that incapable of fighting for herself? According to the finale of TRR1, no.

Even though the scene is hidden behind a paywall, Hana's pushback against Olivia's treatment of her during the social season is strong, decisive and done entirely on her own initiative, with no prompting or involvement from the MC. She is honest about the ways in which Olivia has hurt her, but also makes it clear that Olivia's opinions and vitriol no longer matter - effectively reclaiming her own power in the process.

Such a scene is a clear indicator that Hana is capable of pushing back, and isn't afraid to speak truth to power - as early as TRR1. While one could say that as a diamond scene, it is possible that it can't be fully shown as canon - there are ways the writers know how to incorporate such things. Often, they have managed to write in similar scenes or the same information into free scenes later on (eg. the selling of Liam's bachelor party photos, which wasn't even that important to the story of TRR2). Hana could have had a free pushback scene with Olivia if the writers really wanted to give her one.

That aside, it's safe to say that there is a precedent for Hana being able to fight back before TRR2, and canon could have found ways to ensure that she could safely do so with Madeleine too. Or at least have more protection and care from her friend group, if her position as lady-in-waiting prevented her from speaking out. Penelope got to demand protection later on, after all - and she wasn't even our friend.

We must also take into account the positions of power that Madeleine, Olivia and later even the MC hold. Madeleine is a countess in line to become queen in TRR2. Olivia is a duchess, and the MC herself is given this honour in Book 2. Hana - despite her skills, knowledge and charm - never gets lands, nor a title unless she marries the MC. Hana's experience in Cordonia isn't just about "other women" being mean to her with the MC being "not like other girls" - all three of the above women are in positions of power over her, and even the nicest of them uses her more often than she helps.

TRR2 doesn't exactly build Hana and Madeleine as a pair. In hindsight one can read romantic hints into Madeleine's mocking usage of the word "darling" around Hana, Hana's attempt to replicate The Bachelorette for Madeleine's bachelorette party, and read parallels into both their toxic family histories (particularly Hana with her mother and Madeleine with her father). But there is no actual romantic content there that one could find with the other three pairs, which leads me to believe that Hana and Madeleine was only taken seriously as a romantic prospect in TRR3.

How did Madeleine become the final romantic choice for Hana, and no one else? Because the relationship was never made Hana's benefit - it was for Madeleine's. Given all the evidence laid out about TRR1!Madeleine, TRR2!Madeleine and including hints that she may have actually been written as the villain at some point, it's more likely that Madeleine's main writer ensured some changes in the writing of his favourite character midway into the story, resulting in her staying longer in court and several retcons that painted her as a tragic heroine and completely erased any actions that contradicted such a narrative.

This specific narrative also seems to draw upon a narrative trope that is seen sometimes in certain stories featuring queer couples - the Armoured Closted Gay. It is employed often enough, mostly to show the pervasiveness and immense pressure heteronormativity can have on some queer people - that sometimes, they hate themselves for not adhering to the norm and therefore project that self-hatred onto people like them. PB had done a similar kind of story in TF and ILITW - with Zig and an aggressive teammate Manny (but with discussions on sexual harassment and about being closeted) and with Lily Oritz and her crush Britney. Unlike Zig's and Lily's cases though, this sort of narrative hardly centers on Hana.

Hana is hardly treated as a person in her own right in this narrative. She is treated as a "consolation prize" for Madeleine's "good behaviour" and "hard work". Which is still a really, really hard story to sell when one of the characters states outright that they'd abuse their power over the other till she breaks.

So how does PB get back from that kind of cruelty, and convert it into an actual romance?

Madeleine in TRR3 - The Royal Retcon

(In order: MC complimenting Madeleine to Godfrey (Ch 3), response to Madeleine's "send my regards to Hana (Ch 9), Madeleine asking for a dance (Ch 16), Optional response about memories of Madeleine's bachelorette in Hana's Vegas diamond scene (Ch 16))

By gaslighting an entire fandom, of course.

TRR3 requires us at the very start to do two things - to recruit Madeleine into replacing Justin as our press secretary, and to convince her family to join the Unity Tour so that Cordonia knows its nobility stands with the Crown. Until this point, we've only had hints of Madeleine's so-called "patriotism", mostly from Adeleide. TRR3 Ch 3 goes full force on this reading: having Madeleine claim (in the most positive option) that all her efforts to become queen was "for my people...it was always for Cordonia", having Hana claim that Madeleine "would mostly likely take a bullet for Liam... because you'd never leave Cordonia without a King". Coupled with Godfrey and Adeleide's toxic family dynamics, the story is set to push forward a narrative where we are meant to sympathize with her and preferably downplay her behaviour from the previous book.

Throughout Madeleine's tenure as press sec, we are expected to laud her "work" - even though the truth is that she makes our work harder by giving us heavy folders and 100 note cards of materials just minutes before our meetings, and leaving out important information (like Zeke) for us to scramble about and find. Where during her time as future queen, her ladies-in-waiting were expected to have every detail perfect as per her desires otherwise face her wrath - as our employee, we are expected to appreciate efforts alone, and be lenient when she doesn't follow our rules (eg. wearing gold for our bachelorette when she was supposed to wear muted colours, trying to sneak in a white dress to our wedding). Most of our responses to her "work" involve fulsome praise, or at most a very light criticism that still claims she's good at her job (she isn't). And it isn't just the MC - even Justin (who recommended her) and Hana are made to sing her praises.

Having canon claim Madeleine does a good job when she actually doesn't is... frustrating, but not as awful as the retconning they do for her past behaviour. But it is part of a pattern that whitewashes Madeleine altogether so the readers can consider her deserving of the rewards that the narrative so badly wants to give her, whether her actual conduct matches up to these fulsome praises or not.

One clear tactic that is used to achieve this, was to have the person she harmed the most, speak of her in glowing terms. In TRR3 Ch 3, you have at least two instances during the "Cordonia's Most" game where Hana uses the game to compliment Madeleine. Here, she compliments Madeleine on knowing how to "charm a crowd...her confidence and poise", and claims her to be very patriotic. If the MC refuses to coddle Madeleine during their private conversation, the onus to be kind to her rests solely on Hana's shoulders, where she is required to say, "maybe it's time to see if you can catch more flies with honey". Hana is also shown wanting to include Madeleine in group activities (TRR3 Ch 6, before going to the spa), in the same way she tried to include Olivia in TRR2. When we're shown a Hana who is not only willing but enthusiastic to speak to Madeleine, it further encourages the reader to befriend her - almost as if to say, "if Hana doesn't mind being friendly with her, why should you?".

And this wouldn't be possible at all if canon was honest about Madeleine's conduct in TRR2. So much about Madeleine's advice to us in TRR3 directly contradicts her own behaviour as future queen in TRR2 ("having an entourage isn't about vanity...it's about support"). Had canon actually been honest about her conduct, this statement would be viewed as extremely ironic, a huge portion of the blame for Penelope's reluctance to return to court would be (rightly) placed on Madeleine's shoulders and we would be able to call her out specifically on her tyrannical behaviour as future queen, as well as her inability to adjust her work to suit her client now. We would not be placing Madeleine on a pedestal ad nauseum, or paying much attention to her childish complaints that her "efforts" are going unappreciated.

Whenever the early part of the engagement tour is referenced, it is spoken of in the vaguest, most milquetoast terms. The narrative will speak vaguely of "meanness", but never actually specify what Madeleine did. The closest we get to any sort of confirmation of this is in the Costume Gala (Ch 9) if the MC warns Madeleine to stay away from Hana...and even there, the MC just says she did "mean things". Which is the mildest possible way I have seen of someone describing a person who gloated about breaking Hana. Like the word "hazing" from the previous book, all these vague references leave it to the readers' faint memories, or imagination, to figure out what Madeleine did.

But all of these are just hints at best, and most of what we could assume of the writers' intentions came largely from guesswork. There was constantly a sense of something not being right, but many of us at the time couldn't completely articulate it. That is, until Ch 16, and only if we pressed a specific option in the Vegas diamond scene, in just Hana's playthrough:

Unlike the previous scenes - which were mostly attempts to obfuscate the events of the previous book - this scene replaces what actually happened with blatant lies. Not only does it wipe out entirely what Madeleine did, replacing it with a casual comment from Hana about her "fun side", it also smears Kiara for something she didn't do at all during the bachelorette (for clarity, Kiara found out she was a great dancer, and looked quite annoyed if the MC chose a wrong dialogue option as an excuse to see her card. The MC never saw her lashing out at Penelope during this event). Even if the MC and Hana were so drunk that night that they wouldn't remember events clearly (which isn't how they're depicted at all when the "chocolate incident" took place), it wouldn't be replaced with things that never actually happened. The writers were more than ready to throw Kiara under the bus to make Madeleine look better, and have those lies come out of Hana's mouth (and mind you, Hana liked Kiara so much she chose her to be her MoH in Ch 18 of her playthrough, so it can't even have been spite towards Kiara on her part).

In contrast, Penelope is allowed to be open about Madeleine's mistreatment of her. In fact she cites it as the main reason for her reluctance to return to court, and even complains at the MC if the latter asks her if she didn't get the memo on the bachelorette dress code in TRR3 Ch 16 ("oh no, no, it's like Madeleine all over again!"). The group is required to protect her from Madeleine; in Ch 4, when Penelope is upset at the very sight of Madeleine, Drake comes to her rescue and reassures her ("She's with us, Penelope. We won't let her bite."). While Madeleine herself is protected from any consequences for what she did to Penelope (besides an optional tiny jibe in Ch 4), the MC and her group are required to reassure her that they will never allow it to happen again. In a very disgusting contrast, the narrative pushes Hana at the forefront of the diamond scene with Madeleine, without ever considering her comfort or safety around the person who wanted to break her. Not only does the group involve her without ever asking her if she wants to be part of it - Drake and Maxwell safely distance themselves when the time comes for Madeleine to speak personally about her troubles, and the MC can choose not to be sympathetic in certain dialogue options. Which means that the onus to comfort and persuade her is largely on Hana's shoulders. We must also remember that, unlike Penelope, Hana is deprived of the full truth of Madeleine's intentions in the last book too.

Where the writers were ready to at least admit that Madeleine's behaviour affected Penelope deeply, they went to the extent of completely rewriting the narrative of her TRR2 bachelorette to erase what she put Hana through.

The "Romance" in TRR3

(First four screenshots from my playthroughs, next four from the Adventure...Romance...Thrills YouTube Channel, and the final row's screenshots from the Annabelle Lee YouTube channel and the Skylia YouTube channel)

The Hana and Madeleine "romance" is hinted at in 5 scenes (4 in other playthroughs, and just one in Hana's own). As with most of the other romances, Madeleine's feelings are the most prominent. To the more romance-coded overtures, Hana's reaction is usually shock and disbelief, with a small suspicion over whether Madeleine is doing this to trick her into humiliation later. But the narrative gives her very little opportunity to even talk about anything related to Madeleine, especially anything negative. You do have a scene at the finale that is meant to provide closure, but not in a romantic way. This scene is very different from the others, and in some ways puts an end to the possibility of this relationship happening anytime soon.

How did we get from those scenes to this final one in Ch 22? It would be useful to look at the scenes, within the timeline of TRR3's release and with the context of fandom reactions.

1. The "Cordonia's Most" Scene (Ch 3)

This diamond scene is written to give the MC/reader a bit of background on Madeleine's past and family, which will prove useful later when she has to convince the Amaranths to fix their relationship with each other. It is set against the background of a drinking game where an asker can quiz everyone else about who would be the most likely to do a particular action. Hana references Madeleine twice in the game (in a very complimentary manner), and Madeleine references Hana once. It was her comment about Hana being "stupidly sweet and perfect" that caught the attention of some readers and made them wonder if that was the route PB was planning to take with Hana. This dialogue shows up in Hana's route as well.

In later chapters, we see instances of Hana trying to include Madeleine in group activities...such as in Ch 6 where she invites the latter to come with them to the spa after the football match with Jiro and Camellia.

2 and 3. Cross-Referencing Each Other at Costume Gala (Ch 9)

This is a very interesting development, at an equally interesting time. Around the time Ch 9 released (end-April 2018), PB announced that TRR's team would be taking a hiatus, mostly to work on "some exciting stuff" during that break. It also gave them the time to work on certain things the fandom was demanding, and do away with others due to stan vitriol (Kiara's attraction towards Drake being one of them). The next chapter would only appear a month and a half later (mid-June).

Ch 9 sneaked in a scene that hinted at Hana and Madeleine as a romance option, but in a way that made it very hard for players to notice on a casual read. The scene is split in two parts: the MC can choose to speak to either Hana and Olivia, or Maxwell, Justin and Madeleine. Hana and Olivia's scene shows the two commenting on Gala outfits, which kickstarts a conversation about diplomacy vs bluntness. The latter option explores a variety of topics, mostly revolving around an appreciation for Madeleine's "great work".

Both Hana and Madeleine reference each other in their scenes. Hana's dialogue depends on whether the MC is her fiancèe or not; in other playthroughs, she admires Madeleine's costume, the compliment on her good looks very personal. In her own playthrough, she compliments Kiara's outfit but in a more distant fashion ("subtle and clever, just like her...very well-chosen"). In Madeleine's scene (which is the same across playthroughs), the ending involves her telling the MC to "send my regards to Hana", in response to which she can choose a line of questioning (which ranges from "protective towards Hana" to largely indifferent. In all three options, thankfully, the MC can close with "don't let me catch you antagonizing her", but that really is one small mercy in a pile of blatant retconning.

What marks Hana's dialogue about Madeleine as an LI-specific option, is that she says something entirely different if the MC is getting married to her. This is an indication that the dialogue was intended to be read as romantic, and that it couldn't be said by an LI who was already in love and ready to marry the MC. Pretty much in the same way that Olivia in Liam's playthrough cannot hold his hand in Applewood or dance with him in Vegas.

I wrote an essay on this at the time - both on the possibility of the pairing and why it was a bad idea - and the overall response I received at the time was mixed. Those who remembered exactly what went down at Madeleine's bachelorette and weren't her fans hated the prospect, but some weren't as convinced and some refused to believe it would happen. So there was some pushback for it, citing Madeleine's "chocolate incident" (thankfully, since there were players who had forgotten about it), but it was very low-key and didn't gain much traction.

4. An Offer to Dance in Vegas (Ch 16)

The most obvious indication of Hana and Madeleine being a romantic possibility was in the Vegas chapter. It was impossible to miss for people who didn't romance Hana. This scene, again, featured only in playthroughs where Hana wasn't getting married - which meant that many Hana-romancers didn't get to know of this pairing unless they were told by a friend or saw any such posts on their dash (some even found out years later, to their shock and dismay).

The mild pushback from Ch 9 resulted in a scene where the writers could be emboldened to continue writing this pairing, but confirm (in the vaguest possible way) that Madeleine treated Hana badly. Madeleine's non-apology "apology" really reads more like an attempt to get into Hana's pants than actual regret, and is followed by a reaction from Hana that is confusing in its mildness. Hana is surprised at the offer to dance, asking Madeleine whether she's trying to trick her. While the mild suspicion is a slight improvement from Hana's fulsome praise and enthusiastic attempts to involve Madeleine in group stuff in previous chapters, it still downplays what Hana suffered at Madeleine's hands by making her present the weakest, most milquetoast examples of "fooling someone", examples that pale miserably in comparison to what Madeleine actually put Hana through.

With both the "stupidly sweet and perfect" dialogue and this scene, you'll notice that Madeleine is not only the one who initiates the conversation, but is also the only one with an actual voice in these exchanges. Forget having an opinion on whether she wants to have anything to do with Madeleine or not - the narrative doesn't even give poor Hana the opportunity to properly react beyond mere shock.

There was a stronger reaction to this scene than to the Ch 9 one, because it was way more visible (though you could avoid it just by letting Madeleine stay in her hotel) with Madeleine's romantic intentions on full display. Her asking Hana for a dance immediately after the no apology made it pretty obvious. Players who didn't see the Ch 9 scenes or who didn't believe the divergences meant anything, now couldn't deny that this was positioned as an alternative romance. Additionally by this time, those who forgot about the "chocolate incident" did get reminded of the exact scene, so the vagueness with which Madeleine "addressed" her actions in TRR2 felt criminally inadequate for a number of readers.

Most of us, however, didn't know about the retcon in Hana's Vegas scene, until years later. Those who didn't do Hana's playthrough would have had no idea, and those who did more likely chose the more romantic options.

5. "Jealous?" (Ch 20)

This scene is unique in that the option shows up across all playthroughs, but the specific reaction only shows up in two of them. It's understandable that Hana stans would have missed this - the dialogue is an option, the response is very fleeting and you would have to look through the same option in other playthroughs to recognise the variations.

In the cases of both Drake and Maxwell, Madeleine's response to this jibe from the MC is "ugh, please". Dismissive, almost mocking the idea that she would have any interest in them. In Liam's and Hana's cases, she appears shocked for a minute, then composes herself and gives a more neutral response ("I...I refuse to dignify such a ridiculous question with a response"). In Liam's case, one can safely assume that even though she had no romantic interest in him, she was still on the verge of marrying Liam and that alone would make the situation awkward. In Hana's case there is really no other reason for her to feel that awkward besides having lingering feelings that she cannot suppress.

While this version of the scene doesn't feature in playthroughs where she is single at all, it's still a very strong indicator of authorial intent. Even in the face of backlash against the pairing, the writers clearly wanted to continue hinting at the possibility, if they were slipping in hints of Madeleine's feelings for Hana as late as Ch 20 (just two chapters before the finale). The most plausible theory for this inclusion would be that the backlash was a lot more than it was after Ch 9, but not entirely enough to do away without the pairing completely...yet.

6. "I Wanted To Break You" (Ch 22)

No one knows what happened between Chs 20 and 22, and there's little I can think of that would account for such a quick change in such a short span of time. The finale has a scene featuring Hana and Madeleine, that begins by drawing more obvious parallels between the two women and their families (until now, the parallels were not as pronounced. It's not exactly a great parallel to begin with, since Madeleine has at least one supportive parent and doesn't get punished to the extent that Hana has been, if she openly protests against her parents' methods. But in TRR3 the narrative sometimes does use Hana's toxic parental situation as a parallel to garner sympathy for Madeleine's).

However, once the parents are out of the picture, the attention then turns to Hana and Madeleine, setting the stage for either a romantic confession or a full apology. This time, canon opts to go for the latter.

Unlike all the others, this scene is bluntly specific not just about what Madeleine did but what exactly her intentions were. It has her use the word "break"; it has her actually say the word "sorry". It allowed Hana, for the first time, to fully hear the truth about the harm Madeleine planned to wreck on her. And most importantly, it also allowed Hana her own voice in response to Madeleine's revelations, making it very clear to her that her forgiveness needed to be earned, over a period of time.

The dialogues used to talk about Madeleine's bachelorette in the finale are poles apart from the language they'd used earlier ("hazing", "put my ladies through their paces", "mean things", "refuse to coddle", "wronged"). The finale scene was a more accurate return to the original language and purpose of that bachelorette scene. In fact it sounds less like what canon had been attempting to gaslight their readers into believing thus far, and even seemed to borrow verbatim from the language of the readers who closely followed this issue.

One could call it a good closure scene on the surface level...but there are many, many problems with it.

One was the reaction of the MC. Her angry "excuse me?" in response to Madeleine's confession is still a very obvious retcon. It may have been done to preserve the myth that the MC is a good friend/wife to Hana, but reads as extremely dishonest when you remember that canonically, the MC knew the truth about Madeleine's intentions the whole time and just chose to leave Hana in the dark. It's an attempt to make the MC seem protective that ultimately rings false.

Another is the excuse Madeleine gives for why she targeted Hana. "I wanted to push Hana too far, and for her to drop the nice-girl act once and for all! Only, it isn't an act, is it?" My response when I first read this was "if Hana was faking it...so what. So fucking what. Who was she harming". Coming from the reigning queen of duplicity herself, Madeleine is really not in a position to be judging anyone for putting up a front. This also ties into the hollowness of the motives PB tried to belatedly cook up for TRR2 Madeleine's bullying - no matter what canon says to whitewash her actions, her attempts achieved nothing, did no good for Cordonia, and would likely have led to a very fractured court if the Unity Tour was held while she was queen.

Ultimately, the possibility of this pairing becoming canon was laid to rest in the final chapter. One could interpret Madeleine's promise of a starting gesture ("know that if anyone at court gives you trouble, I can make them regret it") as a possible opening to something more, but considering the earlier backlash, that was unlikely.

TRH - Madeleine Gets The Penelope Treatment, Hana Gets Her Entire Childhood History Retconned.

An interesting development that came up when TRH dropped was the departure of Jeffrey Herdman from the team, most likely because he was heavily involved in the writing of its Renaissance-era spin-off The Royal Masquerade. He would return, by TRF (he is part of their finale livestream), but by then his pet favourite character was likely gone.

TRH has a different set of circumstances, and different power dynamics. The MC is settled into marriage and trying for a child, the LIs are working in the council, Olivia is upgraded to cosplaying spymaster and the side characters go on with their lives. The first book of TRH seemed to do a surface-level recognition of some of the complaints certain readers had in previous books, but their favourites and the people who wouldn't get much attention or appreciation, remained the same.

TRH1 was a time when the writers praised Hana and claimed in a livestream that she was the kind of LI they would love to marry, but also where they gave her a condition that (inaccurately) made her unable to safely carry children (just for the MC to be the mother of the heir) and forced her to be immediately okay with that fate. As the sequel series progressed over the course of 4 books, the erasure of all that Hana was in the past was subtle and insidious - the narrative often compared her to Olivia and found her lesser, she was never allowed to even mention her home place China and worst of all - the writing completely retconned the emotional abuse she suffered at home by claiming it emerged from loving protection, from wanting to keep their daughter away from a cult. And even though Hana's discovery of her sexuality was described by Kara as a "journey that she's still on", no attempts were ever made to show her exploring what she likes romantically, or to show her dating. We don't know if she's involved with anyone, we don't know where she lives, we learn very little of her interests beyond what benefits the MC at any given moment, and the narrative never fails to remind us that they like Olivia more than they like her. Hell, they still encourage Olivia to keep insulting and degrading Hana! Hardly the behaviour of writers who love a character so much they would marry them irl, honestly.

On the other hand, Madeleine wasn't very prominent in TRH1, but gained notoriety in the next two books. The first book has her occasionally engage in inappropriate, invasive badgering of the MC to get pregnant quickly, and she continues to pretend that her doing whatever she likes without ever consulting the person in charge is professional behaviour (eg. Setting up the presscon about the MC's pregnancy announcement. She never even considers whether the MC would be comfortable announcing this pregnancy or not at this time). She gets to deliver a small bit of foreshadowing in the second half of the book (an early hint about Queen Eleanor's pregnancy, though Madeleine's awareness of it hardly makes sense when you look at the entire TRH series, and it never comes up as a point again). Her father being exposed as the traitor who poisoned the former queen builds up to a storyline that benefits her the most in the long run.

Hana is given one chapter where she can call Madeleine out on her entitlement (Savannah's bachelorette). She doesn't insult or berate Madeleine in TRH1 Ch 7, but is refreshingly no-nonsense and will not put up with Madeleine's constant whining about an event she had invited herself to. It's a small, cold comfort, since Hana's actions here are tied to making Savannah's bachelorette a success rather than for herself - but it's still gratifying to see Hana in a position where she can call people out without having to worry about the repercussions. Especially when the narrative disrespects Hana in so, so many other ways for the rest of the series.

In the same chapter, the ladies of the court are given an opportunity to talk about their love lives. Of the four, two women can speak about the people they like (Penelope about Ezekiel by default, and Olivia about Liam if you choose), and one only mentions him by name if the MC is married to someone else (Kiara, about Drake, if you choose to ask her over Madeleine). Madeleine doesn't mention anyone at all, insisting that marriage is something she will only consider for the benefit of her country or estate. This was a relief to players who feared that PB might attempt to push the possibility of romance between Madeleine and Hana again.

Though Madeleine doesn't get the romance that PB so desperately wanted to gift her in the last series, and she isn't given any further romances...the narrative clearly wasn't done pandering to her, even though Jeffrey was not officially a part of the team.

Remember how in the previous essay, we explored the levels to which PB encouraged players to coddle Penelope? Entire chapters would be spent just making her feel comfortable and safe, in encouraging her to help us. No actual initiative or enthusiasm from her end, even if her actions caused the problem or there were lives and reputations at stake. No, Penelope's comfort and happiness should be front and center.

Now think of that treatment, but on steroids and lasting for two whole books. That's what Madeleine's story - starting from TRH2 - looks like.

TRH1 ends with the reveal that Madeleine's father, Godfrey, was involved in the assassination of Liam's mother Eleanor. So a certain amount of narrative focus on Madeleine was expected, perhaps. But the second book doesn't stop at just that.

We are not merely asked to be kind to Madeleine. No, kindness towards Madeleine is expected of us. The warning issued in TRH2 Ch 4 promises "consequences", which means we know straight off the bat that we will be punished if we're not nice enough. It insists we take note of her "fragile state", and give her the mercy and compassion she had never given to anyone in her court.

To give Madeleine the smallest of credits, she acknowledges this just two chapters prior to the oath ("in the past, our positions were once reversed and I was...unkind to you. I had no reason to expect any kindness from you..."). However, this admission does sound disingenuous in the face of the narrative's implicit demand that we treat her nicely. Because if she did recognise her own past behaviour in TRR2 esp as hurtful, and herself as not exactly deserving of kindness, then it makes no sense for her to judge people for behaving exactly as she expected. A genuine redemption arc would have been one where she understood no one owed her kindness after what she'd done, and still determinedly forged ahead to do good for her country. After all, the narrative wanted us so badly to believe this woman was patriotic, right? If her "patriotic spirit" was so tied to her ego that you needed to pamper and praise her every five minutes, just for her to not support such an obviously-foolish tyrant as Bartie Sr, then it can't have been as strong as canon so vehemently claimed.

TRH tracks our "treatment" of Madeleine over 2 books and 10 distinct scenes. Of these, 6 scenes allow us to choose between kind responses and unkind ones, 2 others require the player to choose one among multiple options of people, and 2 scenes are check-in dialogues rather than actual choices (which means that the player doesn't choose an option, they just find out through such scenes whether they are winning Madeleine's favour or not). I imagine that the first category is the most important, with the second being options that you don't necessarily need to choose Madeleine for if you want to go for one of the others, as long as you pressed enough "kind" options.

To elaborate, here's the breakdown:

Kind/Unkind Responses

- House Amaranth's pledge (TRH2 Ch 4). Notably, the "most hurtful" one doesn't even accuse her of anything - it just tells her that the family needs to earn back the Crown's trust. Compare that to Madeleine's accusations to Hana that she was trying to kill her and deserved to lose her position in court. You know, the cruel treatment that some Madeleine stans claimed "wasn't that bad".

- Carrying the Heir's train at Anointing Ball or not (Ch 5)

- Deciphering Madeleine's conversation with Godfrey on his boat (ie whether she is betraying or helping the MC) (Ch 6)

- Acknowledging Madeleine's help in capturing Godfrey, at the Gratitude Ball (Ch 7)

- Gently encouraging Madeleine into being Penelope's bridal attendant, rather than mocking her (TRH3 Ch 2). There is no longer any need to acknowledge Penelope's earlier fear of Madeleine - we are expected to forget entirely that she was the main reason why Penelope didn't want to return to court in TRR3.

- Trusting Madeleine to help with investigations at Fydelia (Ch 6)

Choosing Among Multiple People:

- Speaking about loyalty before making a pledge to the Heir. Other ladies of the house are also presented as choices (TRH 2 Ch 14)

- Babysitting the Heir during Fox Hunt. Other choices are Regina and Savannah (TRH3 Ch 10)

Relationship Check-in:

- The way Madeleine greets you at Fydelia (Warm Welcome/Cold Front) (TRH3 Ch 6)

- Whether Madeleine helps you escape with the Heir in Ch 13, or allows the child to get kidnapped by Godfrey in Ch 15 (Desparate Times/What Goes Around)

The ending of TRH3 has Madeleine either thriving and inheriting her mother's estate, or being merely fired from her job in Royal Communications (a better punishment would have been to strip the entire Amaranth family of their lands, but I digress). She is notably absent in TRF, possibly because she wasn't entirely very popular to start with and two whole books of coddling her didn't exactly help matters either. As one of the junior writers in the TRF team said, "some people exiled her so..."

The first few opportunities to win her over, notably emerge from attempts Madeleine makes to assure the Crown/MC of House Amaranth's loyalty, and you will find that even at an early stage she expects to be included in sensitive discussions that call for discretion, and to be constantly praised for her efforts. Let me give a reminder, again, that she hardly ever gave any praise to the women working for her, and in fact punished them just to keep them constantly in fear of her.

I know it sounds like I'm labouring too much on this point, but it's important to understand just how much effort the narrative had put into coddling this one woman. Chapters and chapters of branch coding, writing two routes, title cards, dialogues, rewards and consequences.

This is similar to the way the narrative encouraged kindness and sympathy towards Penelope, but it's now over a lengthier period of time and with more drastic consequences. We were required to coddle Penelope over a chapter each in three specific books, or be deprived of her support/help. We are required to constantly shower Madeleine with praise and sweet words over the course of 31 chapters, or she will help an unscrupulous Regent-Elect kidnap our child. She will even openly accept that the only reason she put a mere child through that, was because we weren't nice to her ("Wouldn't you have done the same to me? You've made it abundantly clear you see me as the enemy").

But if the MC deserved a punishment this cruel for just mocking Madeleine at every turn, then what punishments should Madeleine get for what she put her own ladies-in-waiting through? What should she get for planning to "break" one of her courtiers? A second broken engagement doesn't seem entirely enough by such parameters.

Then again - as I said before, the narrative deliberately shifted the goal posts for what a potential royal could and couldn't get away with, in the time between Madeleine's engagement tour and the MC's marriage, for this very reason. So that Madeleine would never have to face the kind of constant censure the MC and Liam would face regularly. Among characters in canon, or among largely biased stans in the fandom. Speaking of which...

Fandom

Madeleine's popularity has always been a mixed bag, ever since TRR2. By TRR2, there were people who loved her for what they thought were her craftiness and wiles, some who suspected her to be involved in the plot against the MC, and a number of Liam stans had reactions that ranged from stanning, to indifferent (after all, both Liam and Madeleine showed a mutual disinterest towards each other), to slightly jealous (after all, she was still his fiancée).

But it was Madeleine's treatment of Hana in Ch 7 that definitely crossed a line for quite a few. It was so unwarranted, and her justification for this act so inarguably cruel, that it turned several people off her immediately. The way canon dealt with this was to make her feature less in the story until the memory of the "chocolate incident" was faded and almost forgotten, and then encourage fans to sympathize with her.

The gamble definitely worked, with plenty of help from hardcore Madeleine stans who often downplayed what happened to Hana ("a prank", "making Hana cry just once" were some of the terms used to describe it). By TRR3, I recall having to remind some of my mutuals what actually happened in this scene - their own recollections of it were that vague. The Hana and Madeleine ship would have died a far quicker death if more people remembered this incident as it was shown, and not as narrative wanted us to remember it (and also, if more people cared that it was Hana being hurt, rather than their fave white girl/boy).

Madeleine gained some popularity among the wlw crowd - a couple of them did have a soft spot for stoic, aggressive or women often labelled as "bitchy" (I know a few who also showed a similar amount of love for ACOR's Xanthe or BB's Priya, to be fair...but the adulation for the white female antagonists was a lot more), and Madeleine clearly fit that bill.

A point that often came up from Madeleine stans who were wlw (and reiterated with other mean-girl characters) was that grey-shaded and villanous male characters weren't subject to as much censure as their favourites were. While there is truth to such an argument, it fails to take into account the role race often plays in the way some "mean" women are loved and certain others are scorned. Madeleine clearly did not have the scale of hate that a Xanthe or even a Kiara (who isn't even on the same level) got. In fact when it suited them, many in the fandom were more than ready to view Madeleine as a victim when Liam broke his engagement with her.

Madeleine's "patriotism" - as I've now clearly established - was a retcon made to erase the worst aspects of her characterization. Sometimes it was used to make people feel sorry for her losses, other times it was made to cover up her actual behaviour in TRR2. But there were very few readers who didn't consider it an undeniable fact. Even among those who were indifferent towards her. For instance, in an anon ask that compared Madeleine and QB's Poppy, a poster responded that "the difference between the two was that Madeleine had a sense of duty, and Poppy was just petty". In TRH3, players who claimed that "we can all agree Madeleine is fully redeemed" when she worked with the MC to protect the child from Bartie Sr, stayed mysteriously silent when the other consequence (her helping in the child's kidnapping because she didn't like the MC's pettiness) showed up.

And while these responses could be attributed to the way canon gassed Madeleine up in TRR2 and 3, some of these players had no problem nitpicking the political savvy or work of certain other (CoC) characters, esp Liam (often bashing them for "throwing parties every day", even though the general populace was depicted as being happy with their rule and influence. Mind you, no prompting from PB was necessary to bash these characters). So why were these parameters never applied to Madeleine? Why was practically no one asking what the political relevance of her bullying (as future Queen) was, or why we were expected to sing her praises for poor time management or terrible work ethics towards her boss, or ask what work she actually did in canon as Royal Comms Director? (There is a reference or two to the position, but you aren't shown that many instances of her doing much work). For quite a few, the fact that she walked around with a job title in TRH was more than enough (somehow Kiara never got this kind of fandom treatment despite being part of the Diplomatic Liaisons department).

How does this adulation for such a heavily retconned character, affect the way the Hana and Madeleine ship was viewed? For one, it meant that readers bought into the retcons easily enough that Hana's pairing with her was seen as an extension of her "redemption arc" by some.

Take the example of the various posts that argue in favour of this pairing, or fic that features them as a couple - a lot of them center Madeleine: her pain, her history, her reasons, the correctness of giving her a reward. Hana is barely mentioned or given much attention in these arguments - and often when she has any sort of voice, it is only there to humanize Madeleine. Supporters of this pair often took stances that were either ready to throw Hana under the bus, act like she hardly mattered, or treat her like some sort of blank slate to scribble their adulation for Madeleine over.

Hana is often viewed as less worthy of a focus - she is often the benevolent saint who forgives Madeleine because she "worked so hard to be better". Often it never matters to get into detail why Hana thought Madeleine earned her forgiveness, what Hana's perspective was, what journey she went through to get such a point. Because if Hana's journey really mattered in such a ship, the most pressing questions would revolve around why Hana should ever trust a person who wanted to break her in the first place. Why she should feel safe around such a person. Why her own friend group wouldn't want to protect her from such a person.

Some readers would bring up their parallels as daughters brought up in families that didn't value them, but neglect to take into account the nuances of those dynamics (Madeleine's mother at least wanted to be supportive, and no matter how bad things got, Madeleine was never in danger of being disowned. Hana was, repeatedly). Nor is it fully honest about how Madeleine was comfortable being a perpetrator of abuse, in contrast to Hana's own deep discomfort with the idea of controlling her partner.

In certain cases, I can maybe see this attitude in fandom emerging from an acceptance of the narrative's retcons as truth. But I also think there were as many readers who were just inclined to liking the mean white girl, and finding justifications and excuses for her behaviour.

Fandom's attitudes towards Hana herself often played a small role in how Hana's end of this story was ignored too. When TRR3 fucked up her arc phenomenally (by rushing her parents' turnaround from disowning her to supporting her in Ch 15), it became popular to view Hana as a lesser character, and the "meaner" white women as better. People who wanted other options for female LI often took their frustrations out on her, calling her "weak", servile and submissive, dismissing her honest accounts of the treatment she faced even from her own parents as "whining". If that was the way people preferred to view her emotionally abusive childhood...then what can one expect from such a fandom when she was being outright bullied?

Fandom was already comfortable with the idea of erasing Hana in their content, or replacing her with either their fave white girl (or an equally white OC esp in their fanfic - but more on that in a future Hana essay). So neglecting to center her in what would have been her only canonical alternative romance wouldn't be too difficult for some people.

Which merits the question...is there a way to write about (or write fic for) such a pairing, in a way that centers Hana, respects her story, makes it clear that she has the right to never forgive Madeleine no matter what she does to "earn" it - if that was what she wanted? I highly doubt it. You'd have to completely change Madeleine for that to happen, and that would more likely result in a situation where you were too busy working on her as a character, to give Hana the attention and focus she deserved.

And that's a real pity, because there's plenty to explore about Hana if you actually take the effort to look.

Conclusion

In a lot of ways, once the team had decided upon making Madeleine into a more positive character, they tried to draw a little from Olivia's arc to replicate its success. You can see some of these parallels in the way TRR2 structured the bachelorette as a semi-callback to the childhood- reveal-mocking-Savannah sequences in TRR1 Ch 7. Both chapters gave you reasons to start seeing these women in a different light, while still feeling free to dislike them. In both chapters they also targeted LIs - the only difference was that Drake's diamond scene post that confrontation centered him, and Hana's parallel diamond scene a book later...centered everyone else.

That attempt in TRR2 didn't work for several reasons - the timing wasn't right, Madeleine's cruelty had gone too far for some, the retconning hoodwinked quite a few people but not enough.

So when they tried to pair her up with the victim of her bullying, and twisted canon to make it happen - enough readers emerged to call it out, enough people pushed back by Ch 16, and the possibility of this alternative pairing garnered enough dislike that not only did the writers have to backtrack, but they also had to wipe away their past retcons and write in a scene where Madeleine gave Hana the full, unvarnished truth about the "chocolate incident". Hana was, thankfully, given a chance to give Madeleine her most polite "no".

And although that ship would never be brought up again, the team (even without Madeleine's top writer Jeffrey) still attempted to make pampering and uncritically praising her a narrative priority. She gained a bit more popularity during this time period - quite a few were inclined to feel sorry for her (especially considering the way her father's crimes affected her social standing) and saw only what happened if you were consistently nice to her.

But there was also a significant section of people who were tired of the constant coddling, and who didn't like that it was demanded of the player (when there were far more deserving WOC in the same book, who didn't get this level of kindness). It was significant enough that Madeleine wasn't given any scenes in the final book, and the writers cited her lack of popularity as a reason why.

As a Hana fan myself, it was a relief to see Hana not be paired up with her bully. But it was also immensely disheartening for me to see that "ship" get as far as it did, and to see the narrative do so much more work for Madeleine, than they did for Hana even in the follow up series. It was even more disheartening to see so many in fandom follow suit.

--

By now, we have explored 3 out of the 4 alternative pairings that TRR put forward for the LIs. They all vary in terms of buildup, attention, and payoff. But there are several things that are common about them. They all have either significant histories with the LI, or the narrative thinks they share something in common. The moment an "alternative" option ends up harming the MC, they are no longer suitable as an option because of the LI's loyalty towards her.

But perhaps the most common factor among the three women we have explored so far is how the LI is expected to treat the alternate, no matter how jealous the MC is allowed to get, no matter what the alternate themselves may have done in the past. The alternate is supposed to be treated well. With respect, with kindness, with compassion.

Betrayal doesn't allow an LI to treat their alternate badly. Bad behaviour doesn't allow an LI to treat their alternate badly. Disregarding consent doesn't allow an LI to treat their alternate badly. Classism doesn't allow an LI to treat their alternate badly. Not loving them back doesn't allow it either. Not even extreme levels of bullying...allows an LI to disrespect them.

In the next essay, we will see if any of these rules apply to our last alternative LI - Kiara.

Next: Drake and Kiara.

#essay series: trr's alternative lis #the royal romance #the royal heir #the royal finale #hana lee #madeleine amaranth #trr meta

[bylermybabys]

welcome to my account 🔅!

get to know me ?????

im robyn , or kenna cus mackennas my middle name and i rly like it :)

my kins????

• okay so first off, max mayfield. straight off the bat.

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•most definitely richie tozie AND stanley uris at the same time

probably about it ..

I LVOE BYLER. they are my babys, also stozier is just 🥰🥰 but; dare i say i do not like reddie and croud goes wild. but i do not like reddie ok. sure sure the actually movie i ship bc richie liked eddie but still 🤬🤬

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bands/music artists i like!!:

TV GIRL.

the smiths fs

the cure.

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duster

queen

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continuing!!

salvia path

currents joys

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i also love boreo (the goldfinch ship if u are uncultured)

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ok bye !

ALSO I AM A APART OF THE WILL BYERS DEFENSE SQUAD. but also MIKE WHEELER DEFENSE SQUADE too.

#will byers is my son #will byers #mike wheeler #byler endgame #byler #miwi #finn wolfhard #i hate noah snap. #the cure #the smiths #get to know me #welcome to my account! #boys dont cry #alex g #max mayfield

[leseigneurdufeu]

Please give an opinion on The Remarried Empress, especially S2

I liked S1 but S2 kinda left a sour taste in my mouth and I'd like to hear a hot take about it

General opinion:

In their world, having a concubine is totally legal so I'm not going to go after Rashta as a homewrecker, only as a scheming hypocrite.

That being said: I love Sovieshu x Navier's relationship, but I do have qualms about the fact that he becomes immediately jealous and suspicious when she spends time with other men. On the other hand, while she was being professionnal, said men (Kaufmann and Heinley) both were meeting with her with ulterior motives (the romantic kind).

While we're on the characters, let's explore:

- Our Male Lead, Heinrey: I hate him. It might just be due to personnal taste but I don't get why "puppy labrador man" is considered more attractive than "tall dark and handsome" Sovieshy. But that's just on the attractive side. Nothing to warrant hatred. So let's get to his personnality. He 1) approached Navier with the intention to destroy her and only came back on his idea when he fell in love with her, 2) used his bird form to see and touch her in ways that he shouldn't and deceived her (if we use Kenna as an example, same situations but he managed to avoid all that), 3) apparently has something to do with the magic disappearing, which is part of some grand scheme to completely destroy Navier's country, but he spares Navier and her little protegee to avoid hurting Navier's feelings. His behaviour is creepy and stalkish and him trying to destroy everything and everyone oh wait no, let's make an exception for the woman he's obsessed with, is a behavioral red flag for fictional characters as far as I'm concerned.

- Sovieshu: like said before, he might be a bit jealous and not really trust Navier. On the other hand, the situation proved him right since not only did both men who meet her fall in love with her and asked her to follow them to their country but she even accepted one of them. Yeah sure he shouldn't have put her in a difficult position by bringing in a side girl and try to make her empress. But again, in the world where they live it's perfectly normal, not a complete betrayal. The only mistake he made, in my eyes, was to try to make Rashta empress instead of Navier when Rashta is so blatantly uncapable of everything. And not making Navier aware of his double-swap plan.

- Navier: I like her and she makes an efficient empress but my brain just starts lagging then bugging when i think about how she went for Heinrey instead of having a discussion with Sovieshu to manage a common plan that would benefit both (like for example having her simulate a pregnancy, then pass Rashta's kid as her own and pretend Rashta's died at birth, idk, i've got tons of stupid ideas that would work better than Sovieshu's double-swap plan).

- Kaufmann: what the heck??? It might be because the webtoon is an adaptation and maybe his role is more important in the source material idk but he seems so irrelevant to the plot except for the time he tried to make Navier give a rape drug to her husband when she never even asked him to meddle with their love life in the first place (and even if she did it would still be wrong to suggest rape drug but you get what i mean).

- Krista: people who smear her don't realize that Krista-Navier is exactly Navier-Rashta except we see everything from Navier's pov. And I like her for that. She is not overly antagonistic. She just stands her ground and refuses to be more friendly to Navier than she wants to. To Navier = to That Girl the emperor brought in who is absolutely not qualified at the moment to be empress and who is trying to one-up you despite you having been here longer and being the former empress and also trying to sway the court to her side and make you the bad guy. Krista seeing Navier arrive is the same as Navier seeing Rashta arrive and I wish people just realized that.

Anyway now that we're done with that let's dig into the plot.

Navier and Sovieshu are basically soulmates. They've known each other since their childhood, she's the perfect empress for the empire and the perfect wife for him and he's the perfect husband for her. They're so in tune with each other and so close and all! Great couple!

He... finds an escaped slave during a hunting trip, ok. Brings her to the palace? Weird reaction but ok we need a plot. Makes her his concubine? I mean, again, in their world, it's not such a weird/bad reaction. Then she becomes pregnant from him. (he mentionned that despite a long married life, Navier had never become pregnant so i looked it up and apparently they have been married only 3 years before he brings Rashta home? like wtf dude? but anyway he later explains why he has good reasons to believe Navier is sterile other than not having children with him yet so the excuse is stupid but the reasonning is comprehensible.

That Navier refuses to adopt Rashta's child and taht Rashta refuses to give up her child, it's completely normal. That Sovieshu plans to divorce Navier, make Rashta his empress, then divorce her after the birth and take Navier back, it's stupid. Making the whole plan without even putting Navier in the secret is just plain stupid. She's smart and bright and efficient and (ok maybe lowkey a mary sue but we need some in our reads) she loves him and if she had known she could have told him why it was a stupid plan, draft a better one, make everyone happy.

Anyway so far that's my ideas about the series.

About season 2 particularly:

Navier goes to the new empire. Whole Krista situation in which i wholeheartedly support Krista. Heinrey suffers no consequences at all for repeatedly stalking Navier, pushing her boundaries, intruding upon her, etc, both in bird and human form, nor does he suffer any consequences for lying to her, deceiving her, touching/seeing her in inappropriate ways without her consent, or even making everyone around her and in her empire suffer from his initial plan of destroying them all which he only amended to exclude her from the destruction. As far as I'm concerned, Heinrey is the vilain of this story, but from what I know (which i hope I'm wrong) he's supposed to be the good guy but ok.

Loving Rashta spiraling down in paranoia because of Ergi. I still don't know what his deal is but I love what I see. I know I said I wouldn't judge her for being a homewrecker when she's not by their world's standards, but 1) she still is a hypocritical piece of shit and 2) I still unconsciously consider her kind of a home wrecker because the standards in my world are not the same as the ones in her world.

Anyway I'm pretty sure nobles sent gifts to her for her wedding (unless they all refused to because she's always prioritizing the smallfolks, but while it's possible I find it inplausible that all of them would do that) (also, Ergi's gift was half under a sofa so it's probable it just fell from a pile and then the other gifts were removed: either he got them out of the room to make her spiral down even more or Sovieshu took them and will tell her only later that for reason X or Y he didn't want them to stay in her room?). But seeing her accuse Navier of putting people against her when all she did was worry about people talking in her back when she was there? I love a good quid pro quo.

Seeing Rashta wearing the same dress and hairdo as Navier did, in the second-to-last episode of season 2, really shows how she's become desperate. She wants to find the secret ingredient that made Navier being loved by everyone, but she can't find it, because 1) this ingredient is partly the author's favor, 2) she has very bad advice from Ergi and 3) Navier had her whole life to learn how to navigate politics and Rashta just arrived.

The Lotteshu subplot of Rashta's previous child? I like it but I don't know where it will go. I saw a comment somewhere about how Sovieshu might be the one sterile and Rashta's child might not be his, I don't know what to think of this.

I also love Navier's brother, can't remember his name. He's... a lot, but in a good way? I guess? And I like her new lady-in-waiting who's got a spear in her back all the time. So anyway here was my whole thing.

TL;DR of the hot takes:

Heinrey is the bad guy of the story.

Rashta is actually not so bad as the fandom paints her (although she still is bad)

Ergi is entertainingly despicable.

Kaufmann is also questionable.

Sovieshu is the closest thing from a good guy we have among the male leads.

#the remarried empress #webtoon

[tatumispretty]

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[historyhermann]

My Adventures With Superman Season One Spoiler-Filled Review [Part 2]

Continued from part 1

The voice cast is talented. Jack Quaid lent his voice to Peter Parker / Lizard in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and more prominently as Ensign Bradward "Brad" Boimler in Star Trek: Lower Decks. This series marks one of Alice Lee's first voice roles, apart from voicing a character in Mickey Mouse Funhouse. She has played characters in TV series since 2009. Ishmel Sahid has been working on similar series since around the same time. In an exclusive interview with Lee and Sahid, both said they were excited to see fanart, but also said it was challenging to maintain the high energy of Lois and Jimmy. Both noted the writers and producers helped them. They described how they had to adjust their speaking voices to the characters and explained the flair they gave each character through the voices.

One member of the voice cast, Kari Wahlgren, is well-known. She voiced Martha Kent, and young Clark Kent, in this series. She has done dubbing of anime characters since 2002, and has voiced iconic characters in Western animation. This includes Electronique in Kim Possible,  Suzy Johnson in Phineas and Ferb, Tigress/Sheena in Carmen Sandiego, Callie in the somewhat underrated Cleopatra in Space, and Zatanna in DC Super Hero Girls. She also lent her voice to characters in Sym-Bionic Titan, Young Justice, Infinity Train, Dota: Dragon's Blood, The Ghost and Molly McGee, The Owl House, Velma, and OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes.

Wahlgren is voice actor powerhouse in her own right. There are few voice actors, in the cast, who have voiced as many characters as Wahlgren. One exception is Zehra Fazal. She is recognized for voicing Nadia Rizavi in Voltron: Legendary Defender and Halo/Violet in Young Justice. She also voiced Faraday and Shannon in Craig of the Creek, Mara in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Zahra and Sabrina in Glitch Techs, General Yunan in Amphibia, and Tassia in Dragon Age: Absolution.

Reprinted from Pop Culture Maniacs and Wayback Machine. This was the forty-ninth article I wrote for Pop Culture Maniacs. This post was originally published on September 21, 2023.

Others have voiced just as many characters. Chris Parnell voiced characters in Gravity Falls, BoJack Horseman, Elena of Avalor (Migs), Samurai Jack, and Dogs in Space (Ed). Debra Wilson previously voiced characters in Cannon Busters (Lady Day), Final Space (Quinn's mother), The Casagrandes, The Owl House, Star Trek: Prodigy, Black Dynamite, and The Proud Family. Catherine Taber voiced her share of animated characters including Padmé Amidala in Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Lori Loud in The Loud House. Lucas Grabeel voiced characters such as Jiku in Elena of Avalor and the haughty scammer Julian in Spirit Riding Free.

The voice cast includes other prominent voice actors. Vincent Tong voiced characters in 16 Hudson, Ninjago, LoliRock (Mephisto), My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Polly Pocket, and The Dragon Prince (Prince Kasef). André Sogliuzzo voiced King Bumi in Avatar: The Last Airbender and King Verago in Elena of Avalor. He also voiced characters in Samurai Jack, Star Wars Rebels, and The Owl House. Darrell Brown previously lent his voice to characters in Gabby's Dollhouse and Madagascar: A Little Wild. Azuri Hardy-Jones voiced Jade in Deer Squad. Kenna Ramsey voiced various characters in video games.

Apt viewers may recognize Jake Green, Laila Berzins, Jesse Inocalla, David Errigo Jr., Max Mittleman, and Andromeda Dunker. Errigo Jr. is known for voicing Ferb in the 2020 film, Candace Against the Universe. The film is the most recent iteration of the Phineas and Ferb franchise. Inocalla voiced Soren in The Dragon Prince. Berzins voiced characters in indie animations such as Satina, Wild Card: Shuffled, and Monkey Wrench.

Other well-known individuals voice bit characters in the seventh episode: Kimberly Brooks as Jalana Olsen, Osric Chau as Lewis Lane, and Lauren Tom as Leader Lois. Brooks is best-known as Princess Allura in Voltron: Legendary Defender and the rough-and-tough Jasper in Steven Universe. Some may remember Chau as the one who voiced the villainous computer hacker known as The Troll in Carmen Sandiego. Tom voiced Mop Girl in recently ended a mature animation, Disenchantment, and Amy Wong in currently airing Futurama, another mature animation. This differs with actors such as Reid Scott, Joel De La Fuente, Melanie Minichino, and Michael Emerson (as Brainac). All four do wonderful voice work on this show, but have almost exclusively, or exclusively, previously done live-action TV series.

Warner Bros. Animation is a subsidiary of the Warner Bros. Discovery conglomerate. This subsidiary produced Velma, Harley Quinn, DC Super Hero Girls, Young Justice, Justice League Unlimited, Teen Titans, Justice League, Static Shock, Superman: The Animated Series, and Batman: The Animated Series. Rooster Teeth, another subsidiary, is recognized for RWBY, its flagship series. The CRWBY is doing all they can to ensure RWBY gets a tenth season. The RWBY superhero crossover film (part 2) is coming out this fall. It may include a version of Superman, like part one.

A largely-circulated spreadsheet in which people anonymously described their conditions in animation studios mentions Warner Bros. Animation. In one entry, Warner Bros. Animation is said to have too much work and treat workers badly. However, it acknowledges that each production is different. People on Glassdoor praised Studio Mir for high-quality projects and talented colleagues. Others were more critical.

Whatever the second season of My Adventures with Superman brings, the number of fans will continue to grow (including the  10,000+ fans across two subreddits), regardless of the corporate decision to air it on Adult Swim rather than Cartoon Network, possibly because of "dark moments" in the series. Hopefully the next season goes above and beyond what the first season delivered. Even so, I can't rate this series high enough, as it is just as strong as Harley Quinn and superior in many ways to the sometimes-convoluted Young Justice and mediocre Velma.

My Adventures with Superman can be streamed on Max or Spectrum. It can also be purchased on Prime Video, either as an entire season or individual episodes, iTunes, Vudu, Google Play, or Microsoft Store.

© 2023 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

#my adventures with superman #jack quaid #lower decks #kari wahlgren #zehra fazal #chris parnell #debra wilson #catherine taber #lucas grabeel #subreddit #reddit #reviews #voice acting #max #spectrum #hbo max #rwby #warner bros discovery #conglomerates

[spurgie-cousin]

1. Carlin, no real update, Mayo suggested some other tests and meds, its probably epilepsy (maybe related to the meningitis after Layla)?

2. Also, if it were Ben, would the Duggars have really kept him around the littles as a tutor? My vote is Derrick.

3, Also does TiffBoni use filters? Isn't that kind of like internet makeup.....

4. Did Nat and Esther actually go out to eat for their anniversary days after having a baby..... hopefully they went before the baby....

5. Also, I hope Tiffany B is actually pregnant and bad at hiding it.... if she isn't and struggles to conceive or something, she will be berated non-stop more than all of them already are with how much she talks about it.

6. I just started grad school so haven't been on fundie tumblr in a bit so sorry for all the questions at once. Thanks for being my study break!

(submission)

------------------------------------

That's the vibe I've gotten from the reblogs and reddit. It sounds like Mayo doesn't have any concrete answers yet either and that it'll just be more of the same for awhile. She also had COVID which some people are speculating could've affected her but I have no idea if that's a possibility or not, it seems unlikely to me tbh just with the nature of COVID symptoms (but not impossible). -

We've got a real team Edward or Jacob situation on our hands here 😂 regardless of what the Duggars want people to believe I think it's *extremely* possible that they had no idea what most of their older kids were up to during this time. The older girls hung out with/helped the married girls at their houses all the time (I think at this point it was basically just Jill, Jessa, and I'm sure Anna was in that rotation too). So it's possible Jinger spent tons of unsupervised hours with Jessa and Ben pre-Jerm. I also don't get the vibe that Ben (or Derrick) like, sat Jinger down and went through a bulleted list of everything she believed that was wrong. I really think it was probably more of an osmosis thing, like she was just around someone who thought differently so much that it really rubbed off on her. -

It definitely seems to me like she does?? She's also hella image conscious in basically every other area and I really just don't understand that side of apostolic culture.........there are other ways to 'adorn' yourself other than makeup or jewelry like, extremely gawdy outfits, hair, and fanny packs, for example. How do they account for that in their ideology I wonder? -

They didn't say (or if they did I didn't see) so I can only guess that they posted that in real-time. All of the comments from moms I saw on reddit were like HOW is she doing this rn?? lol so maybe they did squeeze it in earlier and Esther just didn't say, that feels like something she would do (also this is adjacently related but my brain keeps wanting to refer to Esther by her baby's name Kenna??? I legit was just struggling to remember her actual name just now I think it's because she really seems like a Kenna). -

Yea hard same. Whether they're just doing it for clicks or they're actually trying and she just can't help but talk about it, there totally will be backlash in this corner of the internet if she keeps mentioning it and never announces a pregnancy. So for her sake I hope she actually is, bc people will not be very nice which would be super hard to take if you're struggling to conceive. -

No apologies necessary, the only thing on tumblr I like more than talking fundies are organized, numbered lists lol so you're all good. Good luck in grad school!!

#submission

[checkoutmybookshelf]

Sci Fantasy is My New Favorite Thing

Probably the three modes that are best represented on my bookshelf are sword and sorcery, space opera (all the Star Wars) and urban fantasy. I tend not to be a sci fi girl, and any sci fi I do read tends to be extremely soft. So when I saw The Blood Trials described as "sci fantasy" in all the marketing materials, I was intrigued. And then I swallowed Kenna's story in a weekend and thought that the two weeks until the second book came out might kill me. Let's talk The Blood Trials.

UPDATE: Communities of readers are important, because it has been brought to my attention that this book could use some content warnings for gore, violence, and cannibalism. This review doesn't go in detail on those, but please be aware if you read this book! It's adult sci fantasy, not YA, so it gets heavy in places.

I think the first thing we need to do with a book that is explicitly multi-genre is to define some stuff. Depending on who you ask, science fiction is either its own genre of speculative fiction (a category of fiction that literally covers everything that is not the real-world here-and-now) or a subgenre of fantasy. That ambiguity--and the preponderance of internet memes that go "Sci fi is when [Actor] looks like this, and fantasy is when [Same Actor] looks like this"--really highlight the amount of crossover that happens between these genres. Now, if you want to highlight some differences, a pretty simple one is that sci fi deals with science, technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel universes/multiverses, and aliens, whereas fantasy usually involves magic. And then Arthur C. Clarke pops up with "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" and totally muddies the water again. Thanks, Art.

So if the general is all wibbly wobbly timey wimey, let's get specific. What does Sci Fantasy mean for N.E. Davenport's The Blood Trials? I'm going to tell you that it comes down to the fact that the book has both super futuristic technology and a kickass soft magic system. I'd say the sci fi/technology elements are pretty soft in the grand scheme of things too. The preponderance of soft magic and soft sci fi is kind of wild, given how hard and sharp-edged the narrative is. Although that's just this whole book; it carefully balances opposites to create a whirlwind of dynamic forces wrapped in Ikenna's grief and rage and narrative threads.

I also desperately want to describe this book as "dystopian," but I don't want to give you Hunger Games vibes, because that's not the vibe I got with this book, and crucially, Kenna isn't a Katniss analogue. Kenna is in a social position or relative privilege (although that's not a simple statement, and systemic racism in the world makes that privilege less privilegey than it would be for a white character). If this book is dystopian, it is so in the broader sense of dystopian fiction, which offers "fresh perspectives on problematic social and political practices that might otherwise be taken for granted or considered natural and inevitable." Kenna is about to break power structures both within her society and in the broader world.

I'm not sure if there is a specific genre for "trainee endures and survives literally murderous elite supesoldier training," but if there is, The Blood Trials falls into that genre too. These parts of the book are where the most Hunger Games vibes are, but the context is significantly different.

Then we get to the characters. Our cast of characters are just incredible in their range, given that the context is completely elite supersoldiers and trainees. Kenna is out here to get the credential to then burn it all down. Selene is out here to avoid being turned into a socialite brood mare and have just...all the sex, Zayne is almost too sweet to be real in the situation, Chance is objectively a homicidal zealot, and Reed is so clearly traumatized by his life that his survival skills are clashing HARD with his innate compassion. Caiman has a hella interesting character redemption arc, and towards the end of the book, Dannica comes out of left field to be a hard contender for my favorite secondary character.

I don't have enough good things to say about this book, and I cannot wait for The Blood Gift to Release in a couple of weeks!

#ne davenport #the blood trials #sci fi #science fiction #fantasy novel #sci fantasy #books and novels #books #books and reading #books & libraries #books and literature

[cassandra-has-moonlit-eyes]

Cats Vienna 29.05.2022

Went today again because tomorrow I will have a horribly stressful day and Cats is my coping mechanism 1 atm and I was lucky that I went because:

Anneka Dacres played Demeter! She usually plays Cassandra and I really wanted to see her as Demeter. I was so happy, when I read her name next to Demeter’s name on the cast list. She didn’t disapoint. She was such a incredible expressive and emotional Demeter.

Also Tommie Luyben played Electra. I think he wore an Old Deut Chorus costume but I’m not sure. I didn’t see it coming because I didn’t read the cast list that hard. I was like: Who is that on the trapez? Is it Billy? Nah? Then I saw that it was Luyben and I was like oh, that’s new. Three boii Schilmms for the day. He was a very fun Electra and played her similiar to how he plays Bill but more about him later.

I sat quite on the side so I couldn’t see everything but most of it. I was so happy when Dacres Demeter entered the stage. She has such a beautiful voice, I little bit lower than the other Demeters I would say. During the naming of the Cats she was right in front of me and I could see every expression she made, as always A+

Rumpleteazer (Vicky Riddoch) was gold. She wanted Alonzo’s attention at the beginning bat he wasn’t having it.

Bombalurina (Anneke Brunekreeft) massaged Demeter’s back at the beginning of the Gumbie Cat and they were both so happy to sing her song.

Today Tugger (Dominik Hees) petted Admetus’ (Nicholas Li) head when he nuzzeled him. Also today again, Mungojerrie, Rumpleteazer and Jelly played his band. Also: With Electra being a boii today, only two girls (Vicky and Jem) where sceaming at the end of the song and Jemima (Anastasia Bertinshaw) had to take over as main fangirl fainting at the end.

Male Electra stayed at Victoria’s side after she isn’t allowed to touch Griz, same as female Electra.

Demeter was so sad and expressive during the Glamour Cat song. She was surprised and nearly shocked when Bombalurina joined her. It seemed like she thought she would have to sing this song alone.

She was also very sad at the beginning of Bustopher Jones and cleaned herself before looking at him. Also Tantomile (Meghan Peploe-Williams) and Cassandra (Susannah Murphy, small Cass, cute Cass) had a small interaction and smiled at each other. Alonzo (George Maniadis) really wanted Bustophers’ attention and waved at him. At the end Bustopher (Felix Martin) kissed Jenny’s (Denise Jastraunig) hand. “Küss die Hand”

First Macavity scare: I love how Fetterle Munk reacts to Alonzo leaving him alone. Today he reached out to him like he was asking him to stay.

Mungo (Jan-Eike Mayert) and Rumple were fun as always. Today I was sitting right there where they look at when they are watching the vase go down. Yay me. It seemed like they were laughing at me lol.

At the beginning of the Old Deut song they both were cuddeling and cleaning each other. Didn’t even try to get Tugger’s attention today.

Pekes and Pollicles is so much fun. I will miss how the number is now but I’m curious to see Gus Rumpus Cat next week! I love how Carbucketty (Johnny Randall) tries to impress the girls who a sitting next to Old Deut and sometimes Mungojerrie has to shove him in the right direction for his part as the main Pollicle. Also Misto (Stephen Martin Allan) took his time to come out as the Scottish dog and Skimble (Gerben Grimmius) looked quite displeased.

Jelly Ball time. Now Carbucketty can finally dance with Vicky (Hannah Kenna Thomas). As far as I could see Electra danced Electra’s usual part. Also the center at the end. Today, for a change, Tugger was cuddeling in Demeter’s and Munkustrap’s direction and not in the twin’s direction.

Second Act:

During Gus, the twins streched their legs and Alonzo who was sitting behind them had to push their legs down so that the audience could still admire him. They looked kind of offended.

I still have no real opinion on the pirate part, thou I find it kind of fun, especially the interaction between Growltiger and Griddlebone.

During Skimbleshanks Electra played Electra’s part as always. At the end, shortly before Skimble steps und Mungojerrie’s back, Mungo and Deme had a cute interaction. She clawed/stroked his back and they smiled at each other.

First Macavity apperence: Demeter hid behind Munk, Mungo behind Old Deut.

Loved, loved, loved Macavity today. Dacres is such an expressive Demeter you could really feel that one part in the choreo with that he made sweet love to me but I hated him. Also, she seems less scared of Macavity than other Demeters. She was also very offended that he cheats at cards haha. All in all incredible performance, especially the dancing but the singing too. You feel every bit of the choreo. For the first time I could like read her relationship to Macavity (of course with all my background knowledge lol).

Than Macavity comes AND Li was amazing as always. Demeter seemed to fear him but at the same time felt drawn to him. When he hypnotized her at the beginning and she fell asleep Tantomile had to wake her up again. Whe she woke up, she saw that Jemima was near him (Vicky and Jem sit left and right while Macavity dances on center front stage) and she was furious. She hissed ad Macavity and tried to get Jemima behind herself quickly.

When Macavity got her, Munk and Bomba freed her and Bomba again crouched over her to protect her.

Today I also had the perfect seat to see the Munk, Deme light/shadow thing and it is truely beautiful.

Misto pretty much as always. Didn’t notice much new today only that Alonzo doesn’t raise his hand but his leg when everybody wants to be picked as magical assistant. He was kind of “sad” when he wasn’t picked and started cleaning himself.

Grizabella (Ana Milva Gomes) had so much pain and sadness in her movements and voice today. She was amazing!

After Victoria touched Grizabella, Admetus touched her too very short and he then smiled at Victoria and the nuzzled each others head. Also Carbucketty took her hand and looked at her glove? There was pure joy on Demeter’s face when she took Grizabella’s arm and when she lead her to Bomba it seemed as if she would reconcile (?) them with each other. I felt that.

All in all, very good show today. 

At the end I want to write a little bit about Carbucketty. I think in the USA he is usually called Pouncival and I like him quite a lot (I’m still so confused with the boiis so don’t @ me). In Vienna he seems to like Misto and Vicky, of course, they are the ballet cats, but also Bill and Bomba. He really wants Vicky’s attention during the Pekes and Pollicles haha. During the ball he mainly dances with Vicky and Misto and sometimes it seems like he wants to cuddle with Misto but Misto is not that impressed, so he cuddles with Rump on his other side (thou there were evenings when he cuddled with Misto). He is also usually the one that recieves the sparkeling jacket after Tugger takes it of off Misto and sometimes he acts a bit like a fanboy. He is also a bit proud and looks offended when Bomba admires Tugger and ignores him or when Gus talkes about the kittens today. Very fun character as like everybody in Vienna.

#cats the musical #pspspsps #demeter #electra #carbucketty

[court-jobi]

Night Walks and Good Talks

Pairing: Geralt of Rivia x Kenna (Herbalist OC)

Words: 5,558

Ratings: Teen/Up Audience

Warnings: mild descriptions of injury/poison; none

A/N: Another rest point for the Witcher and Kenna… these little moments are few and far between for two widely-versed travellers! Kenna may have a chance to settle down on the horizon… what will Geralt think of this news? And what might she think when more is shared about how her strong, silent Witcher really sees himself. This is a one-shot set a little time after the start of my upcoming fic, A Stroke of Luck; enjoy~

Summary:   

Kenna learns more about Geralt’s motives during his visit tonight. She knows he's looking for someone, and is spending any moment of quiet he can chance to rest up and plan his next move while he’s on the search. A certain buzz in her belly has been acting up whenever he comes around, though– and it’s making her more curious by the day.

Geralt values Kenna’s help and ear, tonight as always. Rare find, to have a friend to catch-up with who’s not engrossed in politics and stress and all the hazards of the day. He can just unwind with Kenna in the cool of a night like this, taking a walk to clear the lungs and keep her tucked under his arm… something he– doesn’t realize he’s doing until she walks in stride with him. For some reason, it just feels natural and he’s not so sure he wants it to stop. Still, he wonders how much he can really confide in her, or risk changing her view of him entirely.

Read on AO3

Kenna

When Kenna lifted her gaze from her tablespoon’s careful measurements at the light of the opening door, a welcome sight crossed the threshold. She scrunched her nose familiarly to greet Geralt as he strode into the tavern’s landing. It’s been almost three days now that he’s been out on hunts around the outskirts. The contracts he picked up were personal favours to follow up on recently, so he said before he set off. 

Geralt nodded back with tired eyes, but a firm-lipped smile back. The two shared an understanding that when her hands were busy with something small, accuracy was likely needed. 

Ever the hostess, Kenna would normally assure him that she would come over to his table soon when she arrived at a stopping point— but she froze, and looked to him again in a comical double-take:

Melitele’s freakish Grace and Favour… 

Geralt got a haircut. A good one.

Positioned from his perfect side profile, Kenna watched as the Witcher shed his swords and was currently reloading and aligning his crossbow at the bench of his table, nearest the fire. While his habitual maintenance was nothing new, her sights fixed on his now edgy undercut, shorn from the base of his neck up just so until a low-pulled ponytail gathered the rest of his hair. His beard also has been trimmed up, likely by the same barber. Its white and grey flecks mixed together more noticeably now in a shorter length, but still visible enough to catch the amber light.

Kenna caught herself. Not from self awareness sending her in a daze- but from a nudge from the owner’s young daughter, who tugged at the bottom of her skirt from the chosen hiding place beneath the table.

“More?” The child whined not-so subtly, and asked for the next batch of jerky to fill her plate.

Kenna huffed a little laugh and slid her a few more pieces from the seasoning rack. 

“Not too much more, kiddo- or else your mama will have my head if I spoiled your dinner. I’ll be right back okay? No snooping up top, hear me?”

The girl munched and swept her pile of dried apricots she’d chosen to play with into her lap, nodding blindly to Kenna’s soft warning.  Satisfied, Kenna deemed it safe enough to leave the child unattended for just a moment.

Wiping her hands of a few stray pollen granules chalking up her fingertips, Kenna slipped behind the bar to fill up a stein and drop it off Geralt's way. 

“Hey, stranger. Welcome back~.”

“Afternoon, Kenna. Thanks-” the Witcher looked up with a soft smile. He took a sip, albeit brief since a question spurred him with a playful snark, “Can’t still think I’m that much of a stranger to you by now, am I?”

Kenna crossed her arms, keeping her flirtatious outburst to a minimum but skewing her lip with interest, 

“Could have fooled me. I’ve never seen your hair up like that. You look like a new man.”

“Hm? Oh yeah,” Geralt clicked the last piece into place to secure his arrow and set it down, leaning back to fully enjoy his drink in the booth. “Got a bit of a shave while I was in Riverdell, east side of Toussaint. Got a friend of a friend there that came recommended.”

“You find a 'friend' everywhere you go, huh?”

“More and more these days- m’glad for any help I can get.”

“Good for you. It’s about time.” 

Kenna supported his efforts always, but couldn't help but cock her head admiring the new head-on angle of his updated look. 

Geralt noted her attention, of course. He always caught on quick to the smallest things. His brevity, initially more set on enjoying his drink, turned inquisitive as he sought her opinion on it.

“Haven’t gone for anything this short before. It was getting a bit warm underneath, so I thought I’d try it out. What do you think?”

“It’s– a good look, I can’t lie.” Kenna complimented with a surprised smile.

Geralt appeared pleased at this. “Yeah?”

“Mhm. You’ll have all the rebel ladies drooling over you,” Kenna sassed busying herself at the counter for a moment- anything to get a grip from leering at him.

Geralt chuckled mirthlessly at this, and shook his head seeking sympathy from the floorboards. Clearly the man wasn’t the sort for vanity.

“Not looking for that kind of attention. From others, I mean… Appreciate your encouragement though.” Geralt winked in her direction. 

Oh did she wish her heart wouldn’t stutter so easily when he did that. 

Muting a nervous school-girl laugh, Kenna plated Geralt up some of the same jerky and some tart field strawberries and stopped off at his table one more time. Getting back to her work would give her enough incentive to finish up and spend the evening she wanted with the ever enticing Witcher.

“Well, intentional lady killer or not,”Kenna centered back on him, “it’s a nice look on you and I do like it. I gotta take care of a few things, but we’ll catch up later, yeah? I wanna hear about that job taking you all the way to Beauclaire.  I bet the food was a-mazing.”

Geralt fingered around for one of the berries before eating it whole and nodding back. 

“I won’t spoil it for you. Take your time.”

And take her time she did. Kenna went back to her portioning and child-care for the next few hours while Geralt simply sat content to care for his weapons and eat. 

Kenna caught glances at Geralt a few times when her eye wandered. As early evening grew closer, he’d be reading over some papers and writing on occasion by the oil lamplight as the sun started going down. Kenna rested in the fact that at least Geralt was taking a break in his own way to gather his thoughts- and in an environment that was more comfortable than being stuck out in the middle of a forest all alone. At least here, she could grant him a refill or two and give him another human to talk to. Not that Roach was ever to be considered poor company...

With sunset came the usual dinner rush and patrons spilling in to rest in the early evening firelight. Each table filled up quickly, parties catching up with friends of their own while Dandelion started regaling the small hall with storysongs to pass the time. He was well received here; Kenna knew he would be. Given Roggeven’s strong positioning on the river, travellers from all over would come into the Gull’s Nest sooner or later on their visit- and would be excited to recognize Dandelion by name and want to come enjoy his repertoire. All was going according to plan here on this stop and for that, Kenna was grateful- and more willing to put up with the small gigs that bookended this stop along the way to the shining goal of setting up in Novigrad. 

Providing favours and independent sales of her goods were proving very profitable, actually- and efficient as she hoped her portable enterprise could be. Fortune certainly favoured her in Roggeven, and for every member of her party... though not quite favouring the body, as it grew more tired by the hour. 

The riverside location of the city was great in terms of walkthrough traffic; but could hardly be called comfortable or quiet accommodations, by that very token. The beds were squished together in their cohabited space, so Kenna roused intermittently to listen to the cacophony of Dandelion’s midnight mumblings, Terrance’s snores, plus each and every drunk carrying on outside. All this from the discomfort of a poorly-boarded bed frame that lifted against her lower back every night…

But to her credit, Kenna was hardly one to complain of lack of sleep. Truthfully, she could operate on little as it was and has slept in far worse conditions out in the wilds. But the toll on the body did have its drawbacks when she was supposedly given the promise of ‘plentiful accommodations' from their host…

With a moment to use the countertop of the worktable as means to help her stretch out her back with a solid grip on something, Kenna twisted about left and right waiting for the satisfying pops to free up the tension lodged between each vertebrae. Spooking a jump up her spine, she heard a low chuckle from over her shoulder. 

Geralt, keenly studying and sipping his ale casually as ever, leaned back against the end of the bar. 

"Had enough excitement for today?" The Witcher’s cheeky stance wryly waited, watching her bend stiffly upright again.

“I wouldn't call today exciting- pretty much the opposite. Boring and a bit repetitive.” Kenna primped around her waistband despite the tie of the apron cutting into her. “-And my back is paying for it. But, it was probably filled with more people and conversation than you care for.”

“You’d be surprised. Went on a bit of a scavenger hunt around the city today. Picked up some clues I’ve had an eye out for. Had to talk to a lot of people. Said 'please' and 'thank you' all day- you’d have been proud.”

Kenna huffed with a weary smile, “Well, look who’s growing up; networking like the best of ‘em.”

Geralt rolled his eyes flatly. “Don’t get too excited. I got what I came for- so it’s back to the lone wolf status for me for a while.”

“You seem pretty habitual for a lone wolf. Communal, even-” Kenna countered, “what, with you turning up everywhere Dandelion's gone recently. We could almost call you a groupie by this point. I think you actually miss seeing some friendly faces.”

“Friendly faces are always worth the visit; those don’t count. I never mind talking with you.” 

Geralt looked off to somewhere in the room, 

“--Now Dandelion? That thorn in my side is hit or miss.”

“Ouch, poor Dandie!” Kenna hushed a giggle down her chest, not wanting to betray her friend so blatantly, but still tickled by Geralt’s blunt delivery.

Poor bard, singing about the room unaware of the snide remarks… 

Kenna laughed easily at the end of the day, whatever the subject matter of jokes. Even Geralt’s dryness was welcome, after a day of being mannerable and hospitable to reel in clients and customers. Putting on airs and charms galore was tiring, as was effectively babysitting a child on top of her other responsibilities. 

She felt a sinking ease around Geralt every time he came by for a spell- and she hoped he felt the same. This was a nice little habit they were falling into.

Even now as she finished her cleaning up routine and might have normally turned in for the night any other day of the week, Kenna felt a second wind take over. Hands dried, she came to Geralt’s side of the bar to finally catch up properly.

Kenna tossed her apron aside for the first time today.  There were plenty of odd tucks of her shirt around the middle where her corset didn't quite wrap around fully, but at the end of the day, ‘style over substance’ hardly mattered. 

"Whew... No offence to the maestro here, but I could probably use some air, honestly.” 

Geralt hummed at her idea, watching over the room in his standoffish brand of quiet.

The idea came when her lower back cramped at the slightest movement, “Care to join me? Just for a walk around?" 

Geralt agreed, with a quick gulp to down the rest of his drink.

"Couldn’t hurt. Lead the way."

Outside, the air was beginning to cool and fog would be rolling in soon past midnight. The bells had rung the ten o’clock hour not long ago, but many of the ground floor taverns around the city were still alive and well at this point of the night. Here in the docking district, the liveliness of every establishment within four blocks could be heard by their boisterous bouts of laughter, inciting shouts for low-stakes fights, and calls for more and more beer. A jolly enough place to warm up, but maybe too raucous for Kenna’s taste after a day of fielding complaints and orders about the ‘Gull’s Nest Tavern’. 

Kenna hadn’t quite planned on keeping children from touching distillery burners and stove tops, or any other hazard-watching that monopolised her day… The cool, biting air made Kenna realize this was the first time she’d stepped outside since yesterday morning.

Here along the boardwalk’s edge, Kenna and Geralt walked at an unrushed pace. Taller and even-paced, Geralt took the curb along the water’s edge, keen eyes on the ripple patterns and reflective moonbeams skimming the top, while Kenna took in the sight of the stars, lamplights and everything on the side of the streets. This was one of lower tier areas of the staggered city, situated on a precarious hillside. But here on the outskirts closest to the river, the rush of crowded streets made for some rare quiet at night- and for plenty of stars to be visible without the clouds of steam rising about from the city’s daytime activities. Autumn would be around the bend soon which would mean more business in the weeks ahead. Kenna valued sleepy nights like this to be the calm before the storm. 

“How’s your hand doing?”

Geralt piped up from their quiet lull in conversation, calling Kenna’s gaze back to him. 

Kenna hummed, but remembered a moment later. Her hands stayed tucked in her pockets as they walked to keep warm, but she remembered her left digit's canvas wrap was still warming her wrist as it had all day. Became like a second skin, it did- conforming to the curve of her palm while healing, that is.

“Hm? Oh yes- it’s much better. Hasn’t given me much trouble at all the last few days, really.” 

Kenna’s gratefulness shone in her eyes, sliding her hand out and giving it a cursory flip for Geralt to watch the ease of how she could move it now.  

Geralt gave a neutral hum back and a small nod of approval. Simple as he treated the question, Kenna still warmed at the knowledge of how he’d played a role in the remedy of the injury:

Sunrise greeted Geralt’s final stop before heading to Beauclaire, but without Kenna’s presence at the inn as he expected. She would come in a few hours later: nervously shaking and sporting a long, barbed needle embedded on the fleshy outer part of her left hand, a casualty of her foraging. 

As it turns out, Kenna mistakenly selected a more poisonous plant for a mild one to weed through on her early morning walk. 

Having forgotten proper gloves (which, naturally, Geralt groused at her for forgetting after the fact), Kenna stumbled inside making a beeline for her quarters. Even from a distance, he heard the woman managing small winces and nearly tearing up over its fiery pain that she wasn't ready for. She rarely made a mistake that resulted in wounds- careful as she was to handle bark, barbs, and sharp exteriors of succulents. Quick as ever, a rush spurred Kenna back to her workroom for some hot water and a blade to leverage it out, but the deep green barb proved troublesome and she was growing feverish at an alarming rate. Something was wrong about this little pin prick, but Kenna hadn’t realized at the time how dire it was.

Not until Geralt swooped into the room without announcement- finding her fruitlessly trying to fuss at the injured hand. Geralt immediately knew what to do. Directing a frantic Dandelion at his heels, he called around the room with curt orders of what he needed in order to help her. 

The first task involved telling her how he identified the indeed poisonous barb, and how to extract it properly. Kenna’s gut twisted at the embarrassment she found herself into, but she hardly had time to berate herself with what the present was forcing her to address.

Puzzling– Geralt pulled a potion from his belt and started swishing some around his mouth before swallowing. Not unlike a palace taste tester would do his duty. Before Kenna could even ask what he was planning on doing to help, Geralt motioned for Dandelion to give him the empty cup on the table so it would be in close reach for him. Supplies set, Geralt braced Kenna with a calm assurance coupled with a tender grip on her wrist. 

A 1-2-3 warning later, the Witcher skillfully worked the blunt edge of a sterilised paring knife against the quill to coax the needle out swiftly— 

Then latched his lips to her hand.

… And started sucking.

Kenna’s frustrated tears stopped altogether. Watching in half horror- half awe at Geralt drawing out whatever greenish-black poison was afflicting her with gentle suction and subsequently spitting its remains out into the stein. 

Golden Oriole: the elixir he’d prepped with, was to thank for its anti-venom qualities. He’d later devine that its alchemical makeup served to combat what had begun to process in her bloodstream when applied soon after injection. 

But again, this saving grace solution was granted to her by Geralt’s very lips and tongue- never mind the fire-lit glance he chanced up to her eyes for the briefest moment while he effectively lapped at her palm. That look nearly stopped her heart altogether.

In the end, a simple herb paste was all that was recommended to apply after that incident once Geralt deemed her in the clear; along with orders of plenty of fluids to flush her system out. His hovering watch over her  that evening while everyone sat entertained by Dandelion’s program of the night didn't go unnoticed, either.

The memory alone burned in her, even now- unorthodox didn’t begin to cover that day.

Kenna could look back on the incident now with a safe sense of recovery and relief, though she couldn’t stave off the odd sense of wonder and… dare she say attraction to how Geralt had worked on her hand so gently. Surely that wasn’t part of his Witcher training, right?

“Herbs worked wonders, just like you said. And uh–” Kenna pocketed her hands again with a little lilt to her step and a gentle nudge to his arm in a purposefully friendly gesture,  “-you certainly gave it the best chance at healing.”

Geralt’s sights fell away from her at the emphasis on his tactics. Shyly, Kenna dared to think? The man’s head cocked aside nonchalantly and carried on like it was nothing. Perhaps for him, it was all part of the job.

“Poison’s nasty stuff. ‘Course I hope now, someone’s learned her lesson about wearing some damn gloves next time? You should every time, really.”

“I know, it wasn’t my finest decision,” Kenna sighed, recalling his previous lecture as well. “I blame it on my lack of caffeination and wherewithal to act sensibly that early in the morning.”

“Hm. Not an early morning person... Figured you’d be sunshine and roses the second you wake up. Always are, when I see you.”

Kenna sneered playfully back, 

“I’ll spare you that experience then, Master Witcher. Fortunately, no one back in the troupe knows my secret. I’ve got to have some black coffee and two sugars before I can open my mouth and have something remotely kind come out. S’why I’m up before everyone else for breakfast.”

Kenna in her gentleness really wasn’t that temperamental. Geralt knew that, so a muted smile lifting his weathered cheeks. But he still leaned into the tease with devilish intent,

“Note to self: hide all cacao beans from Dandelion’s stash… Then watch and wait for draconic activity to take over the area.”

Kenna gasped with indignation, “You wouldn’t dare. That’s mean.”

“Never said I was nice, Kenna.” Geralt looked back at her with a slight warning. 

“You are nice,” Kenna replied lightly. “Doesn’t matter how much you try and show off otherwise- mean guys don’t have half the heart or moral backbone you do.”

The Witcher slowed a bit when she said this. 

But before Kenna could check back and wonder why he stopped matching her gait, Geralt flashed a look behind them and pulled Kenna by the waist across him towards the inside shoulder of the road–

A cart teetering about recklessly with some hollering sailors blew past the two, trotting haphazardly across the bend of the road. 

Managing her breath from the sudden interruption, Kenna tipped back up to Geralt’s firm focus on the passing cart. The steely-eyed man muttered something of an annoyed curse under his breath. She had to smirk, because this only proved her point. His hand hadn’t left her upper back as he embraced her close- no longer a sudden reflex. 

Kenna dropped her facetious tone. She meant every word of this:

“Mean guys wouldn’t have done that, either.”

Geralt managed to level off his irritation under Kenna’s expectant hazel gaze. He simply smoothed up her back to squeeze her shoulder assuringly, and pocketed his other hand in his long brigandine’s outer vest. 

A simple hum was all he gave in response.

Kenna took advantage of the arrangement and chuckled easily. Reaching back to settle her arm more comfortably along his waistcoat -just higher than a belt would be- Kenna practically snuggled into Geralt’s side, and walked them both onward.

“C'mon, you think I’m alright sometimes…” Kenna pulled the grump along out of his flash of protective anger. Geralt fell into step with her as she led- and left his hand where it was. “-even if I forget my gloves and make you worry.”

“You don’t make me worry.” Geralt shook his head and faced ahead on their walk. “You’re probably the only one here who’s capable of wrangling the cats of Dandelion’s company."

Kenna beamed for the moment…

But in true fashion, the snide remarks soon followed:

"What I pity is your sense of patience," Geralt breezed. "It’s going to give you angina and a premature death if you stay with the bard much longer- knowing the stunts he pulls when he gets too antsy on the road.” 

The visual of the rapscallions mucking about the kitchen like they so often did in the mornings made Kenna laugh bright and easy again. The fact each of them were so lovable in their own way- messy and uncoordinated habits and all- endeared them to her in their predictability, and it was not a hardship. After all, she knew what she was getting into.

“And what would you suggest Dandie does in my stead, huh?” Kenna asked, “Say I left tomorrow: you really think he could keep the books in order, pay his levy and touring taxes to the right officers, get any actual vegetables in his diet, and feed his creative genius for this cabaret plan all on his own? Let alone fund it?”

Geralt’s fingers scratched along Kenna’s shoulder seam lightly.

“Someone needs to fill that job, alright. Just–” Geralt’s eyes fell along her facial features with a subtle regard, “Take the benefactor's hunt alone; that's a big ask. I’d say that for theatre types and bards, alike. Finding patrons to support their efforts and talking up their shows is a full time gig.”

“-That pays as a full time gig,” Kenna assured. “One I didn’t mind taking on from the start. I think it turned out for the best. There were plenty of opportunities for both of us.”

“So you’ve said.”

As a gull flew to its nest along the pier’s awnings above them, Kenna ran through the gameplan in case Geralt hadn’t received the sales pitch from Dandelion already.

“I know it started as a means to run through my old haunts, coming along with Dandelion- with some added company along the way. But when I have the time between destinations, he gets my services as a manager who can make sense of his artist-addled brain cells so he can do what he’s best at.”

Geralt hummed again. “Hm, makes sense. Still sounds like you’re putting most of the work in while he flits around.”

“He can flit around all he wants,”  Kenna waved her bandaged hand a bit for emphasis, “Dandie works the crowd! Men like him aren't that hard to handle. He’s not getting any younger, you know, so his ‘flitting’ days are numbered.” Kenna made a small poke at his expense; “I know you know he thinks he’s not a day over twenty. He acts like quite the party animal- but he’s out like a light after the 8 bell on a regular weeknight.”

Geralt burst out a rough laugh at this. A strong, stroking thumb teased by Kenna’s neck with a little squeeze to her shoulder. 

“Hell, you’re way too nice for your own good, sweet thing.” 

“What? He can entertain himself and ‘schmooze’ the feathered-hat clubs he’s so familiar with… meanwhile, he leaves me to my work that ends up helping us both in the end. Insider's information and some pocket money. Creative package deal, but it works fine for us!”

Geralt hummed, considering her words. Kenna sweetened the deal, 

“He’s really got big plans for this place in Novigrad," Kenna introduced Dandelion's efforts, "Plans to make it a haven for folks of all kinds and trades. Starting off with me, I guess; and we can see where it grows when he gets settled in. And, like you said yourself, I get to see some familiar faces every now and again while I’m on this stretch of the journey there.”

“Hm,” Geralt conceded. “And when you get to Novigrad- what are your plans then? Pretty far aways from White Orchard.”

Kenna followed the lamplights along the river again, "I was never going to stay in White Orchard. I'd been toying with the idea for a northlands circuit anyways for some seasonal resources. I don't really need a home base to care for,"

Kenna looked up to Geralt again, finding him already looking at her. Smile teasing one side of her lips up at his attention, she simply summed up her answer.

"I'm happy enough to see where the wind takes me."

A gust crossed their path just then– brushing some pieces of hair into both eyes and mouth in a funny bluster. 

With a little huff, Geralt chuckled and pulled her hair aside with his nearby hand; its leather crackled and softly fussed against her cheek.

"As long as you don't start eating the wind, that is."

Kenna beamed at the ease Geralt was settled into now. To have a break and let down after such a busy few contracts… Kenna was secretly hoping more and more chances like this would be in their future- arm slack across her shoulders or not. 

“You’ve gotta be craving a bit of quiet yourself, aren’t you?” she asked, flipping the rest of her errant curls back from the wind. “That last trip sounded exhausting.”

Geralt shook his head, “Even if I wanted it, won’t happen anytime soon. On the hunt.”

“Big job?”

A wisp of a pause kept Geralt from likely saying too much.

“...Big undertaking. Bit more personal than others.”

“I see,” Kenna let him keep his secrets, for now. “I’ll leave you to your hero-ing then.”

“I’m no hero.”

“Ehh, you kind of are!”

"I'm not the hero people want.” Geralt softened the firm delivery his voice usually carried, “ I just do the work no one else will."

Kenna held back a chortle.

“What’s that look for.”

"Pretty heroic thing to say, Geralt."

"I mean I'm not--"

 Kenna sighed with familiar patience, "Not what?"

Geralt slowed his pace again, but slipped his hand down Kenna’s back in the process. His eyes trailed along her shoulder down to where he lingered at her side. 

"I'm not what you think I am."

As usual, Kenna tired of Geralt’s self-deprecating tendencies when it came to his talents. 

Talents, she’d decided, because while witchers may have been engineered as hunters and killers by way of disposition and capabilities, she believed the extent of a successful one was determined by choosing to grow that skillset. Credit his School of the Wolf, Geralt claimed as far as Witcher training goes… but in Kenna’s eyes, this did not guarantee that one would have the ideal blend of both instinct and a good moral backbone– Geralt held both of these traits. 

Geralt might see himself as just a Witcher trying to make his way, but Kenna –somehow– thought better of him. There’s power in choice; his just as much as her own. 

"I know what you are, even though I know you won't believe me."

Geralt gave  pause, hearing her out. 

Kenna turned to sidle up to him, towards the riverfront for a change of view, 

"And I also know the reason why you won’t…” she eased his arm back over her shoulder, "-is because you've been treated like ‘less than’ for the longest time. Sure, you've learned to not hold onto the hate, like you say… but you've let another core belief in that you do not deserve:”

Her hip swayed into his, getting his attention, 

“I reckon not letting the bad things get to you has conditioned the opposite- meaning, you'll not accept the good things much, either... But you don't deserve that, Geralt. You deserve to hear the truth, and that truth is that you are nice. You are good, and not by any sort of blessing or curse. If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t do it. And I can believe there’s a lot you care about, and more than just money.”

Geralt considered this, and perked again when she continued,

“So whatever hunt you’re on? You’ll sort it out. Maybe you don’t wanna be called a hero for it, but I can try my best to make you feel appreciated, at least. And I'll do whatever it takes to make you believe better for yourself. "

He didn’t look her back in the eye as she did, but he couldn’t hide the smirk  that appeared when he chipped his chin up over the river.

"Sounds like rotten work. Sure you have plenty better things to do." 

"Not your call to make, I'm afraid,” Kenna looked out to the river, too. "Call me invested, Master Witcher. You don't get a say in this one." 

Geralt squeezed her in again, all while not letting her get the chance to see his face.

What she’d trade and harvest and grind away at the mill to be able to make the rough n' ready Witcher smile for once. 

"If you say so."

The smile carried in Geralt’s low voice, so she didn’t need to see.

The owls called out their own morningsong, and Kenna settled back under Geralt’s arm. 

“Nice night.”

“Mhm.”

Geralt

In the moment, she probably thought a pep talk was all he needed.

But Geralt? If Kenna only knew the pang of humanity that resounded in his chest hearing the words leave her mouth: ‘You deserve more.’

All he could remember for years before now was each fleeting interaction he had, which were many. Intimidation, fear and disgust fluttered over the countenance of just about everyone who greeted him. Washes of panic and eerie quiet silenced them every time. 

But her? None of these even crossed her mind, it seemed. Never once did fear fill her eyes when she looked at him. Kenna only ever had a spot saved for him by the fire, food on the table, and someone with a sweet voice to catch-up with after days or weeks spent alone in the Wilds. No, nothing but the finest sort of respect, of kindness, congeniality. Something akin to-

"You coming, Master Witcher?"

A nudge up for Roach to get a move on, Geralt pulled himself from his distraction, too.

"Think that's up to Roach, now."

A lovely flutter of chuckles spring from Kenna's chest, the sound turning into a coo over to Roach. With a bribe of an apple from Kenna’s waist pocket, the brown mare jumped into step from the patch of grass and followed Kenna's lead further into the wooded grove, the Witcher left to trail after them both.

Her call -a sweet, genteel 'come here, pretty girl'- is one he's biting his own tongue from letting loose.

Kenna chances looks at Geralt over her shoulder that he follows, with a lilting smile- her gratitude for his company so she didn't have to walk the rest of the trail alone back to Roggeven Proper. Not for protection or making sure she’s staying away from the poisonous bits- just 'pleasurable company', so she says. Geralt likens her to the spirit of a child scouring the shore for seashells, with her keen eyes fixed on what herbs she can salvage from the woods around them and brew into elixirs; all to his benefit. 

The hunt for Ciri keeps on, with creatures of every foul sort stopping him along the Path with every pull of his attention.. 

And so, her call- infused with care in every word- pulled the horse and Witcher both down the rough, trodden path. And if the sky and sea be damned, Geralt knew very well what to call this;

...if he wasn't careful, he'd be falling in love with her by month's end.

#ASoL:Witcher #masterlist #geralt x oc #geralt x ofc #herbalist oc #my work #my oc #game Geralt is top tier #henry cavill #the witcher fanfiction

[mogai-headcanons]

Kenna Rys from The Crown And The Flame is a futch bisexual sapphic trans woman who uses she/her. She is best friends with Dominic/Dom, a dragongender trans bisexual man who uses he/fyre. Dom is also best friends with Sei, a dragongender trans lesbian who uses she/fyre. Sei is also dating Kenna.

Val (from the same game) is a butch genderqueer lesbian who prefers to go by Val instead of her birth name, and who uses any pronouns. He is dating Annelyse, a femme princessgender lesbian who uses she/her pronouns. Both of them are also dating Kenna.

Dom is dating Jackson, a knightgender bisexual trans man who uses he/him. Jackson is very close with Val, and the two are in a QPR.

Kenna is also friends with Raydan, a nonbinary shadowgender gay man who uses they/them or it/its. Raydan is dating Diavolos, a princegender gay man who uses he/him and is exploring they/them pronouns. Both Raydan and Diavolos are also dating Dom.

Another friend of hers is Whitlock, an aromantic sciencegender lesboy who uses he or she pronouns.

Kenna is allied with Tevan, a femme flamboric gay man who uses he/him. She is also allied with Kailani, a butch casualic lesbian who uses she/her, and Rowan, a bowshootian thorngender lesbian who uses bow/bows and she/her. Kailani and Rowan are dating.

Kenna is also friends and allies with Adder, a snakegender bisexual woman who uses she/they/it or nameself pronouns. Adder is dating Zenobia Nevrakis, a princessgender bisexual woman who uses she/her. Kenna is also friends with Helene, an aromantic knightgender butch lesbian who does not care about what pronouns people use for them.

Kenna also is very fond of her ally Lia, who is a lightninggender girl who uses light/lights or she/her! Kenna sees her as almost being like a niece!

queued!

#long post

[melodyplucked]

MELODYPLUCKED: INDEPENDENT, SELECTIVE & PRIVATE blog for RICKY BOWEN from high school musical: the musical: the series. enhanced and written as an original character by kenna. established december 2022

exploring themes of: embracing change, following your heart (no matter where it takes you), the guy with the guitar, young love that never dies proving to everyone they were wrong about you, more than your broken home, skater boy turned superstar, hundreds of love songs all for the same girl.

links: PROMO | MEMES | STARTER CALLS INBOX ( 4 ) | DRAFTS ( 5 )

ricky is heavily affiliated, single ship, and exclusive with hales's nini @inspotlight

other blogs: @heartfe1t, @sheactress (sideblog to this blog), @mimistjames (sideblog to this blog), @anyonebutbea (sideblog to this blog)

blog mains: @inspotlight / @famefckr / hales' other blogs, @grvdged / pluto's other blogs, @depictedblue

guidelines:

i'm kenna, i'm 23, and i use she/her pronouns. this blog is 18+.

my blog is mutuals only, but if i follow you i want to write with you! memes are usually the easiest way to start.

i am stuck with the new beta editor. please use this / x-kit rewritten for our threads if possible.

follow typical rp etiquette please! so no godmodding, don't reblog my threads if it's not with you, that usual sort of thing.

triggers will be tagged as 'trigger tw', 'trigger //' or 'trigger mention tw'. people in this vein will usually be tagged with 'person name //'. please let me know if i miss something, i'd be happy to tag it for you!

ricky turns 18 at the end of season 3, the summer before his senior year, and this blog is set almost consistently post high school. ricky is 18+ by default and has not been 'aged up'.

i do not follow season 3 and 4 canon in terms of plot. i may take bits and pieces for characterization purposes just depending. this blog operates almost entirely outside of the actual show's canon at this point, but can also be considered post-canon. i do have season 3 and 4 adjacent verses, and we'll see how close and far they become.

ricky is single ship with hales' nini over at inspotlight. he's with her in some regard in most threads, and even if he's not, she's a part of his life. there's a lot we can do that doesn't involve ships i promise.

disclaimer: i am not and am not affiliated with disney, hsmtmts, joshua bassett, etc. i do not own this character, i am simply writing my own take on another version of his story and where the future could take him.

#pinned. #melodyplucked #//do not reblog

[firelordgrantham]

So, here is my personnal headcannons of pairings of former LIs:

TRR/TRH/TRF:

My MC married Liam.

I would have loved to see Maxwell and Hana end up together, they are both so sweet, and she's responsible to balance his goofiness while he knows when to have fun to balance her seriousness.

Drake and Olivia spent the whole series teasing each other, mainly with whiskey and daggers in silver plates. I think they are both rough diamonds with a softer heart, and it would have been nice to see them date.

If my MC had married Drake (which I wanted to do on my second walkthrough but I also decided she would not be a romantic but a roughless ambitious and she ended up marrying royalty because that's where the power is) I could have seen Olivia and Liam together. They don't strike me as a perfect pair, but they've known each other for long and were each other's only friend for a while (except for Drake in Liam's case).

Endless Summer

Idk what needs to be said but... Jake x Estella, and Sean x Quinn.

Renegade soldier boy and aventurer assassin girl? Perfect pairing.

Sweet boy scout and nice shy girl? Perfect pairing.

Desire and Decorum

Luke Harper was paired with one of Miss Parsons' little sisters and that was great.

I think Prince Hamid would have been a great husband for the other sister.

As for Miss Parson I think, had she been interested in men, she could have been married to Ernest Sinclaire. They are both headstrong and difficultely giving their trust. Since she is not interested in men, she could have married Mr Chambers to stop her family from pestering her into marriage.

Distant Shores

I've got to admit I could have imagined Edward and Charlie together. They had chemistry.

Red Carpet Diaries

Seth and Teja together for work and for life!

Victoria Fontaine, I don't see her married to anyone. And I don't see Matt Rodriguez marrying anyone except MC?? Idk. Maybe with Addison?

Hunter? Single for life. If he can't get with MC, no one can get with him or something.

The Crown and the Flame

My Kenna married Raydan.

Dom? Oh come on with Rose! I was so sad she didn't come back in book 2 and 3!

Tevan would go well with Annelise I think. They have common interests (fashion, beauty, but also culture)

I could see Val ending with Diavolo. They are both ruthless. But there's something off with their vibes idk, it's not a soulmates pairing.

The Elementalists

Shreya and Griffin would go together. They're both extroverts, popular, and enterprising. They would be the kind of couple where he is out of the house half of the year, trekking and doing charity work on the other side of the world, when she's at home running her business/also on the other side of the world but not the same, to run her business.

I could picture Beckett and Aster together. They both have this shyness/precaution to them...

Wake the Dead

Like in Endless Summer we've got the tough LIs and the nice LIs, but here they are 5 so it complicates pairings. Also here I don't think pairing the tough together would work, smae with the nice.

Mine ended with Shanon but I could see her with Eli. He needs her knowledge and strategy, she needs his strength and bravery.

Angel would end up alone I think. Not everyone is cpaable of following her pace.

I don't see the girl from the gritty people who kill zombies and change their names, whose name I forgot, settling, much less when it would mean show her men a soft side of her and maybe make her lose her grip on them.

Troy? idk tbh. He seemed kinda bland to me.

#pb choices #trr #choices trh #choices trr #endless summer #desire & decorum #distant shores #wake the dead #the elementalists #the crown and the flame #red carpet diaries

[lilyapolonis]

Reminders Of Him: Book Review ☆☆(☆) 2.5/5

Colleen Hoover is exploding on TikTok at the moment. Endless book annotations and love for her works have been showing up on my Instagram feed, with no signs of stopping anytime soon: the supposed magnum opus being "It ends with us" which has been on my TBR for some time.

This is the first book I've read from CoHo- and despite the book's rating leaning on the lower side, it wont be my last.

My beloved best (and longest) friend, also amazingly bookish, [actually] shoved the book in my direction, proclaiming its brilliance. I didn't really have a say in the matter, but I trusted her instincts anyway.

I'll start with the Positive. It's definitely a unique [unconventional] story. I found myself empathizing with so many opposing characters all at once- in relation to the whole Grace/Patrick and Kenna rivalry. I like that in the sense that it makes the book more complex in the reader's head.

Don't get me wrong though, Despite some heavy topics (which aren't really explored in depth), It's a light-ish read. The most standout being the recount of Scotty's death, I loved how that was described and would've loved to see the rest of the book written in that fashion. It didn't take me long to finish: I can't decide if that's a positive or negative as I usually finish books quite quickly- though, I was guiltily invested in the story.

I cannot help but say this book isnt really realistic. At all. Ledger cant stop giving her lifts to her apartment. Grace and Patrick decide forgive her IMMEDIATELY after hearing the letter, despite their unwarranted grudge that they held for so many years, and Diem takes the news a little too easily for my liking. A few other reviewers have mentioned that the Law doesn't really work like that etc.

You know what, I don't mind books that aren't necessarily accurate to real life- as long as they embrace that, and they're not dressed up to appeal to us as deeply profound. Think about it like a Rom-Com. What differentiates something like After from Clueless (asides from, the obviously better starting material)?

"You've already exceeded my expectations, Kenna"

Call me harsh, but that feels icky to me. I can't pinpoint why- Reading that line didn't make me swoon like it should've.

In terms of Characters, Scotty is heralded as this 'perfect guy' - which, without some sort of supporting humanistic traits, is somewhat... sleazy? Lady Diana's character could be argued tokenist- she's simply there to lighten the mood, and in a worst case scenario, tick a few "Woke" boxes. Diem is simply perfect- a saving grace. Roman is cool and well-grounded, I found myself agreeing with him the most out of all the Characters. The landlady, and Amy are great characters with a lot of potential- the latter especially should've been incorporated into the story more.

Something else I picked up randomly- she often is described to be crying or on the verge of tears- it gets a little tiring to have this described repeatedly in the same way. There's also not a clear timeframe for when the book takes place- it could be weeks, days, hours. I personally value knowing how long has passed.

I can confirm that she is a good writer, but I don't think this book is her best work. Maybe my scale by which I assess this is flawed, but here I'm largely considering context. This book was published during the January of this year- I believe as she was gaining immense popularity. I can understand there would've been a tremendous amount of pressure put on Colleen, not only by her publisher but her audience to make the most of this by releasing new content. It felt... rushed, somewhat. At certain stages, as though she'd written in Bullet points.

With all that in mind, I can say that there is so much untapped potential. I hate the prospect of comparing different books, like children, to one another as a measure of greatness. But I can't help but think... This could've been the next Gone Girl.

Reading this review back, I feel grouchy. Though really... I don't think that this book is breaking new ground in any way, and evidently there are some things that could be improved. It depends on what you value in a book. If you're in a reading slump, this book is perfect. It's light and it is coming from a place of talent, in my mind at least. I wouldn't not recommend it, If that makes any sense.

P.S: "Is that a fucking Pigeon?"

By far my favourite line in the book.

#books and literature #book review #sylvia plath #girlblogging #girlboss #gilmore girls #aesthetic #booksbooksbooks #bookblr #bookaholic #booknerd #bookworm #colleen hoover #it ends with us #reminders of him #pinterest #coquette #romantic #romance

[fetchkitty]

#FETCHKITTY

IND. SEMI SEL. & PRIVATE blog for GRETCHEN WEINERS from mean girls (musical and 2024). enhanced and written by kenna. established 1/28/2024

links: MEMES | STARTER CALL | STUDY

INBOX ( 3 ) | DRAFTS ( 6 ) | STARTERS ( 0 )

guidelines and such below the cut!

i'm kenna, i'm 23, and i use she/her pronouns. this blog is 18+ because i am.

my blog is mutuals only, though i am a bit flexible for sideblogs. just lmk.

if i follow you i want to write with you! memes are usually the easiest way to start.

please cut your posts- i will do the same!

follow typical rp etiquette please! so no godmodding, don't reblog my threads if it's not with you, that usual sort of thing.

triggers will be tagged as 'trigger tw' or 'trigger mention tw'. people in this vein will usually be tagged with 'person name //'. please let me know if i miss something, i'd be happy to tag it for you!

bebe wood is cuban and so is gretchen. please respect and do not erase this. she's latina! she mentions her 'abuelito' got her the music box! just- respect her background!

ship with gretchen! i think she would say she's straight- so it's def easier to ship with guys- but- she LOVES her girls- so ... plastics ships? idk idk. perhaps

i do have a few other rp blogs, @melodyplucked and ricky is my main active rp blog rn, he also has a few characters on sideblogs. i also have a multi @heartfe1t where gretchen came over from. if i reblog a meme on any of my blogs, you are welcome to send it in to or for any other blog.

disclaimer: i am not and am not affiliated with mean girls in any format, gretchen, bebe wood, etc. i do not own this character, i am simply writing my own take on her, her story and where the future could take her.

#pinned. #//do not reblog

[edsbacktattoo]

"guys this is an emergency!!!!!!!!! send me an ask with your favourite albums and i’ll listen to them and rank them bc i need more music STAT!!!!!" Ok, babe - here you go: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys by MCR Blue Wonder Power Milk by Hooverphonic Goodbye by Dubstar Promenade by The Divine Comedy New Sacred Cow by Kenna Siobhan - The Patron Saint of Debauchery Numbers by Cat Stevens Bang by Empires Roulette Girl by Mary Prankster Foxy Shazam by Foxy Shazam

ohhghhgg you legend. you absolute bloody legend. i love u forever. let's go <3

Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys by My Chemical Romance

listen. me and this album have eloped and we’ve had a baby. while this isn't my fave mcr album (that honour belongs to three cheers, of course), it's got some of my faves on it.

i'd rate this album a 9/10

my favourite tracks are 'Vampire Money', 'Summertime' and 'Planetary (GO!)'

(this is also maybe the only excuse i'm gonna get to show these off) so here's some pics i took at the show in Sydney, night 2 <3

i’m also going to put a cut here for the sake of everyone’s dash lol <3

Blue Wonder Power Milk by Hooverphonic

i liked this album a lot! it had an ethereal sound to it that i enjoyed :) reminded me a little of massive attack? not sure why

i'd rate this a 6.5/10

my favourite tracks were 'Eden' and 'One Way Ride'

Goodbye by Dubstar

this album was a lot of fun! lots of variety between the songs, which i liked.

I'd rate this one a 7/10

my favourite songs are 'Inside' and 'It's Clear'

Promenade by The Divine Comedy

I really clicked with this one! i loved the theatrics, the instrumentals, the storytelling.

i'd rate this album an 8/10

my favourite tracks were 'Going Downhill Fast' and 'Tonight We Fly'

I couldn't actually find an album called 'New Sacred Cow' by Kenna on spotify, but I did listen to 'Make Sure They See My Face' so!

Make Sure They See My Face by Kenna

i wanted to like this album more, but i was a little distracted. the production on it isn't great :( it ended up sounding a little flat imo!

i'd rate it a 5/10

I did love the track 'Sun Red Sky Blue', though!

Numbers by Cat Stevens/Yusuf

i adore Cat Stevens so I knew that this one was gonna be good and yeah i was right. super rich and fun! definitely not my favourite album of his, though!

i'd rate this album a 7.5/10

my favourite songs were 'Jzero' and 'Banapple Gas'

Bang by Empires

oh this EP i adored. the songwriting is amazing! feels nostalgic too, like i would have heard this on the radio in 2006 (which is a positive feeling) and the vocals are so clean. yes yum yum

i'd rate this album an 8.5/10

my favourite songs were 'Voodooized' and 'Damn Things Over'

Roulette Girl by Mary Prankster

i liked this album a lot! it feels like she's blurring genres between songs on the same album, which is a lot of fun.

i'd rate this a 7/10

my favourite songs were 'The World is Full of Bastards' and 'Mata Hari'

Foxy Shazam by Foxy Shazam

woohoo!!! weeeee!!! this album was great! you can really hear the queen/meatloaf influence here but they’ve put their own fun spin into the ‘rock’ genre. and those vocals!!! wowie

i’d rate this an 8.5/10

my favourite songs were ‘Bye Bye Symphony’ and ‘Connect’

thank you so so so much for all your suggestions!! i’ve gotten a lot of new tracks from these albums and they’ll now be on rotation :)

send me your favourite albums and i’ll rate them

#this one took a few days to get through bc i had to find time to listen to all these babies #and it’s finally done!!! #thank you so much again for these i had a blast #if you ever feel so inclined to send more pls do x #music