but sometimes there are secrets trying to understand people
@isfjmel-phleg
Rebekah. English major, history minor, MA in English. ILL/cataloging assistant at a Baptist university library. Hypothetically a writer but mostly just a ranter. Sometimes I post about my writing, but this blog is mostly personal stuff and random (usally literary) interests. About the Annotated Psmith Project: From approximately 2013-18, I very informally annotated P. G. Wodehouse's Psmith series, most of his school stories, and a few Blandings, Jeeves, and standalone stories or novels with the intention of providing context and analysis. For personal reasons, this project is suspended for now, and the outdated annotations have been taken down. I may revisit this someday but not in the near future, although I welcome questions and discussion of Psmith anytime. This is NOT an MBTI blog, though I may occasionally address the subject, usually as it pertains to certain literary characters. This is a clean blog; I want everyone to feel comfortable viewing it. If you have any comments or genuine questions, the askbox is always open. Thank you for stopping by!
You may have seen me post about something called The Blackberry Bushes. That's my WIP. Though that title has become less relevant to the actual stories as the stories and characters have evolved over the last twenty or so years, it's stuck around. So what are these stories actually about?
In a fictional world reminiscent of Europe around the turn of the twentieth century, we follow the lives and adventures of seven young protagonists:
Rachel Doncath, nervous wreck who's never had a solid sense of home or friends thanks to growing up in a military family
Rietta Valencourt, teenage queen of a major nation, kept in isolation by her adamantly protective mother until she reaches her majority
Delclis Phemister, socially awkward botany nerd who would prefer to ignore the fact that he technically has a claim to his country's throne through the father he never met
Elystan Liddick, Delclis's half-brother, annoying little jerk, and the current heir to the throne--if he can survive to grow up
Amarantha Melbray, daughter of Elystan's nurse, dedicated aspiring artist, too serious for her own good, and deeply resentful of the boy who has monopolized her mother her entire life
Josiah Callon, elder son and heir of an ambitious and image-conscious king, raised to embody perfection and is obnoxiously good at it--until he isn't
Tamett Låsrygg (Lockridge), paid companion to the crown prince (Josiah) of a nation that long ago conquered his, might not be able to keep up the facade of dutiful compliance much longer
As much as I love researching this mostly historically-based world, the characters are the centerpiece of the stories--their growth, their relationships. These are stories about isolation and longing for connection, about family dynamics--good, bad, and complicated, about the tension between responsibility/expectations and personal inclinations, about how people are often more than our assumptions make them out to be. I try to present characters' flaws honestly (and some of them are very flawed) while also making them understandable and human.
The tone I'm going for is something that hopefully feels a lot like classic children's stories you might have read growing up.
If this is something you're interested in, here's where you can find what I've posted. None of the intended novels are anywhere near complete, but there are sample chapters and a lot of short stories.
Book 1: A chance foray through a door on the other side of the blackberry bushes in her grandparents’ garden leads Rachel Doncath to meet Rietta, the young queen of Faysmond. As they gradually befriend each other, the differences between the girls create complications that get more out of hand as Rachel gets caught up in the conflicts of Rietta’s life, including dealing with a regency council that is determined to remove Rietta’s mother from the picture and control Rietta further as she nears her majority, while events unfold in the neighboring nation of Corege that unexpectedly leave fourteen-year-old Delclis king.
Chapter One
Chapter Two (potentially subject to revision)
Excerpt from much later: The Boy with the Botanical Box
Book 2: About a year later. Prince Elystan of Corege has ruined Amarantha Melbray’s life. Not only does he monopolize her mother (his nurse), but he also provokes Amarantha to an act that destroys her chances to convince his mother to restore her art school scholarship. But when an unexpected calamity traps Amarantha and Elystan in the same residence, they must work together to unravel the mysteries around them. That is, if they can trust each other. Or anyone else.
Revised Chapter One
Revised Chapter Two
Revised Chapter Three
Revised Chapter Four
Revised Chapter Five
Revised Chapter Six
Book 3: About a year later. Tamett Låsrygg thinks he's finally got the chance to get out of his much-loathed job as companion to the self-important Prince Josiah. Instead, he ends up not only making Josiah hate him more than ever but also getting shipped out to Corege to accompany him to boarding school--and to spy on him. There, he meets Elystan, former prince with a massive grudge against his remaining family, and shenanigans ensue.
The present chapters are experimental and subject to future change.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
A Christmas Chapter (Tamett’s POV)
A Christmas Chapter (Josiah’s POV)
A Christmas Chapter (Elystan’s POV)
A Christmas Chapter (Herrich Böllingfurt's POV)
Book 4: About a year later. Delclis’s story. Otherwise, who even knows.
Pre-Book 1 short stories:
Constellation of Six (six-year-old Josiah's relationship with his family)
Prequel scene for Book 2 (Amarantha meets Elystan)
Seeing the Elephant (dynamic between ten-year-old Delclis and his stepfather)
A Building Project (eleven-year-old Delclis and seven-year-old Elystan build a blanket fort)
The Other Side of the Door (tension between thirteen-year-old Rietta and the daughter of the head of her regency council)
In a Nutshell (Elystan sneaks into a Halloween party he wasn't invited to and has a talk with Delclis)
Book 1 short stories:
Horrid Old Beautiful Ruin (Rietta and her mother vs. the Regency Council)
Over the Boundary Wall (Rietta, shortly after Book 1 Chapter One)
Book 1 Chapter One from Rietta's POV
Venturing In (Rietta and Rachel bonding, at some point in Book 1)
Book 2 short stories:
Early Morning Tea (tension between Amarantha and her mother, after Book 2 Chapter One)
Picnic in the Clock Tower (Amarantha and Elystan later in Book 2)
Book 3 short stories:
The Breakfast Room (Delclis and his mother struggle to connect)
Elystan's Infamous Lamplight Letter
A Visit from the Murderess (Elystan's mother pays him a visit at a particularly low point in his life)
Selections from the Correspondence of the Lockridge Family (epistolary story with "historical" footnotes starring Tamett and family) + bonus letter from Emenor
Incognito (Josiah, newly arrived in Corege, chats with commoners who don't know he's a prince)
Elystan meets Morstyn Hollock
Speaking to a Housemaid (Amarantha meets Josiah)
Elystan & Tamett (immediately after the Book 3 Christmas chapters)
Post-Book 3 short stories:
Portrait of the Monarch as a Young Woman (Amarantha meets Antavia, ex-queen of Corege)
Josiah & Emenor (Josiah's last interaction with Tamett's sister)
Delclis & Mikaiah (Delclis accidentally befriends Josiah's little brother)
A Pleasant Talk (twelve-part story in which a young adult Josiah dines with Antavia. PG-rated for alcohol and thematic elements, has more of a grown-up sensibility than the other stories)
Preface to The Captives of the Castle Clock Tower (glimpse into Elystan's future as an author)
For more on the characters: OC facts and OC descriptions.
For answers to asks: Q&A.
For more on the world: Worldbuilding.
For visuals: Art (commissioned works by lovely talented people) and Aesthetics (me fooling around with collages).
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actually one of the best things that happened today was going to Sunday school class and telling the people (including two of our biology professors), without naming any names, about the one dean who apparently got us sent that scolding rather than discuss his presumed issues directly with us, and then one of the professors telling me, "yeah that's really dumb." yes THANK YOU maybe I'm not completely crazy and it is in fact messed up that people do things like that.
Well, it's been a long, hard week full of emotional turmoil and dinosaur fights incessant plot twists. Too many things that kept piling up. Made a list. Too much handling things alone. Finally broke down and called my mom in the middle of the workday on Friday because I just couldn't. Bad at making myself understood. I'm sorry. Really hoping for a better week this time. A better me, if I'm fortunate.
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Another installment in my liveblog of @isfjmel-phleg's "A Pleasant Talk. This time, we broach the second half of the story with the seventh course of the dinner:
THE ROAST
Last time was sweet peach blossom sorbet, and we talked about sweet bygone moments from tender years. I can only anticipate what we're going to get with a metaphorical ROAST.
"Newly arrived plates of roasted chicken, dripping with juices and creamy bread sauce and festooned with sausages and bacon that still sizzled." I never got into the Redwall books as a child. I think you may be my equivalent insofar as the food descriptions go. It's a good thing I usually read from this story after lunching at the library cafe, or it would make me unspeakably ravenous!
"It looked such a cliché." Too faux-Germanic for your own good, boy.
“When the alternative was—unspeakable.” Hm. I wonder what the specific alternative was. It doesn't sound like he's referring to penalty of death or imprisonment.
"The tender cut" seems an apt turn of phrase. She's treating him with some kindness right now but some of her words are still landing cuttingly for Josiah, because his abdication was so very different from hers. Her attempts to speak of only their commonality of condition are beginning to sound insensitive to him now that they are talking specifically of the choice (or lack thereof.)
"Am I supposed to be hoping for something? Hoping for a—for someone to shoot me, perhaps.” That sounds like there's some rather dark mental health history in Josiah's past behind that remark. Of course I know his mental health has been through the wringer for many and many a year, but that's a lot. He wouldn't harm himself, but there's a lot of despair behind the sentiment. And he's still talking about it in the present tense - partly out of habit, no doubt. But these things don't go away easily. <3
"I was ten, mind you—as soon as they let me go, I ran back inside Bitterbank Castle, shedding bits of my regalia all the way, and threw myself on my bed and sobbed for hours. No one even heard me." Ten?! I knew she was young. But so young! She... she was yet another Blackberry child like the rest of them for sure. (Aren't they all? Aren't we all in some way or another?)
Weeping for this fallen world and its cycles, and grateful there's hope too. I'm getting distracted. Sometimes I remember the scope and connective tissue of these stories, and I am always moved.
"My father put me in charge of a regiment. A whole regiment. I barely knew what that was. He made me learn about correct marching form and drilling and so on so that I could review them quarterly, and he gave me a gold piece every time I caught one of the soldiers making a mistake and reprimanded him publicly. I did that until I was nearly thirteen. There’s newsreel footage of it somewhere." WHAT THE HECK ODREN
Got relieved of his commission because he had to go to school in Corege.
"Do not get me started on the newsreels. And the photographs. And the newspaper reports. Everything I ever did from birth until my abdication was documented and shared with the world for its critique. And believe me, everyone had strong opinions on what I wore and what I ate and what I studied and how I played and how I conducted myself." Victorian family vlogs and Disney Channel stars.
"That’s nothing." Let's get eat chicken and have a game of trauma one-upmanship. When else are we gonna do it.
Oh, hi, fencing incident! We know you!
His throat stopped up, and he had to force the stumbling words out. “—wouldn’t let me come home for years.” It really hurt, didn't it. And this one's less about the public embarrassment, and more about a deeper wound.
SHE WANTED TO GO TO QUEEN EDELLA'S. Of course she did! She's an artist! I wonder what Amarantha would think about that.
"To Queen Bethira. We probably both owe her our lives." I know they formed a kindly relationship that one Christmas - I wonder what other encounters they have had with each other, what water has passed under the bridge. Also very curious about Antavia and Bethira's relationship. It sounds like Antavia understands more about her than some.
"- but he couldn’t think of a single thing." I can. And I'm sure I don't know the whole of it.
"So my father made me write Tresta a letter, in my best hand, dictated by him, sealed with sealing wax, no less—telling her I couldn’t see her again. And I never have.” I want to hug them both and save them both. Josiah and Antavia.
The Roast course is not that kind of roast. Thankfully, perhaps. ;-)
Oh Josiah. I can understand why you wouldn't believe it, but from what I hear, Elystan at least is sincerely trying to be a friend to you. You've both got a TON of healing to do, but I hope you will come to see that him trying to get you to all those parties you hate is meant in the friendliest way. But you're not there yet.
"Are you going to eat that?” He gestured at the last sausage on the Duchess’s plate. Sympathetic me: He's really being vulnerable with her. And honestly, how like a kid. They've both been talking about their childhoods - he's almost relating to her as though they were both children. Unsympathetic me: Ha. Sloshed.
“Yes,” she said resentfully, and did. And you could also do that indignantly like a child or indignantly like an adult.
But oh gosh, it reminds him that he's supposed to have walls and standard,s and not let all his manners and defenses down.
And he's so hungry. Physically. Metaphorically.
But he ain't thinking anymore about being stereotypically faux-Germanic. Yet more lovely full circle scenes.
Oh, good! I am having to make these descriptions up since I haven't actually eaten most of these precise dishes, so I'm glad they sound appetizing, which is the goal.
I'm really not sure what Josiah's alternative to abdicating and going into exile was. I suspect it was imprisonment, likely some kind of public humiliation too. Who knows. I want to leave that open in case I ever write that story.
Ooh, that's an angle I wasn't thinking of--her words being cutting to Josiah. I was thinking more like she's treating the meat like a substitute for The System that she's so angry at--but the idea that she's unintentionally jabbing at Josiah too in failing to grasp how much more serious his situation was than her own...that's a lot more layered.
I don't know exactly how bad Josiah's mental health has gotten in the past, but he wasn't in a great place during the war and, of course, ever since everything fell apart. His words here might be an exaggeration, but there definitely have been times that he has wished that he had been born an ordinary person.
Yes! Ten is the age when the Prince (or Princess) of Arclis is ceremonially instated. Elystan was supposed to have this happen but kept getting sick at inconvenient times, much to his father's disgust. Antavia really was not so different back then. I should write a story about her as a child someday (I tried to once, from Talfrin's POV, but couldn't get it to go anywhere, and it was very much not my best work).
Some children of monarchs in the early twentieth century did indeed have their own regiments. Odren's handling of it is my own invention, as far as I know. He likely intended it as a lesson in leadership and thorough attention to detail.
Yes, exactly! Royal children in this universe are the equivalent of child stars. No wonder Antavia and Josiah are both so preoccupied with image. They've always been performing.
Josiah has been raised to be so competitive that he can't even talk about his own hurt without transforming it into oneupmanship. That way, even though he's revealing something he considers shamefully vulnerable, he's still "winning."
Yes, the humiliation was bad enough, but the rejection from his only remaining parent was devastating.
Antavia does mention her childhood interest in going to Queen Edella's to Amarantha during their talk in "Portrait of the Monarch as a Young Woman."
Bethira has been the closest thing Josiah has had to a mom in a long time during his time in Corege before the war. They bond quite a bit. He has sobbed on her shoulder. And Antavia has known her since they were at school together. Bethira's one of the few members of the royal family that she has no particular contempt for--they are both victims of the system. Bethira disapproves of her quite a bit, but Antavia has never been able to bring herself to dislike her.
Josiah doesn't really know anything about Bethira's background, and this conversation hasn't really done much for his sympathy for anyone besides himself and Antavia. If he really paid attention and thought about it, he could see the hurt in Bethira more clearly--but he can't right now.
On some level, I'm making fun of how these two are handling their little pity party here, there's a lot of elitism in Antavia's story, but they both legitimately have been through some awful stuff. Even in her fifties, Antavia is still haunted by a friendship she was forced to give up. There's been nothing external stopping her from tracking down Tresta since her abdication, but the fact that she hasn't suggests that she's still too ashamed of writing that letter to face her former friend.
Well, I'd intended it to be a roast in the sense of they're bashing their former lives, but it might be closer to how these two have been nonliterally roasted alive and treated like meat by their upbringings.
Yeah, Josiah's in no place to accept that anyone whom he might have once called his friend wants anything to do with him now. He'll have to gradually learn that Elystan, Amarantha, even Tamett don't hate him. And Delclis too doesn't mind him.
LOL! Interesting how the drinking brings out the childishness in both of them.
He's losing inhibitions gradually. The concern for looking like a cliche is gone, but the more deeply ingrained sense of Manners is still struggling to remain.
Another reason to keep CDs around if one can: sometimes I am so overwhelmed and frazzled by everything that the thought of listening to streamed music with inevitable annoying ads after every other song is just more than I can bear mentally, so instead I can put in the CD of Liana Flores's Flower of the Soul (beautiful and very calming, recommended) and listen to the music and only the music in peace while chopping vegetables. A lot less stressful, for me in this state at least.
Rachel Irène Doncath isn't from anywhere. The daughter of Deniol and Sanette Doncath, a Coregean sailor and a Faysmondian former governess, she has lived a more or less migrant life as her family moves from one military assignment to the next. She has an older brother and two younger sisters, and her mother has educated them privately at home. It's been a rather isolated existence, and Rachel has grown into a nervous, timid fourteen-year-old who spends most of her time reading.
When she, her mother, and her sisters come to Faysmond for an extended stay with relatives while her father is at sea and her brother is at the naval academy, they join a household full of family chaos. In an attempt to avoid the upheaval, Rachel accidentally meets a mysterious girl who lives in the castle on the other side of the garden wall. Over the next several months, they meet in secret and develop a close friendship. But it turns out that this girl happens to be Rietta, Queen of Faysmond. And Rachel, not only a commoner but a member of a religious minority discouraged by the Faysmondian government, is a most unsuitable friend for her.
Rachel will find herself caught up in not only her own family drama but the political intrigue surrounding Rietta as she struggles with her own insecurities, trust issues, and how exactly to navigate a friendship with such significant differences.
Why I Love Her
I have a bit of difficulty with Rachel, since in her earliest form she was basically an author insert (silly, embarrssing, etc.). She still bears a lot of similarity to my teenage self, and her family situation mirrors much of my own, but a redesign and some other changes have helped to conceptualize her as something more "inspired by" than "based on." She's become an interesting lens for exploring this fictional world from the perspective of someone who is an outsider in multiple ways and affected by multiple cultures. And yet she is the most "commoner" of all my protagonists. Her family isn't royalty or related to nobility or well-known in any way. She can be down-to-earth and weird at the same time in a way that the others can't. She provides a foil to Rietta, who is outgoing and adventurous and longs for travel but has been trapped in one place most of her life. Rachel, on the other hand, has seen the world but shies back from engaging with it and longs for stability. Instead, she's going to get a friendship that will change her life, some new and more nuanced perspectives on the world and humanity, and hopefully some confidence too. We'll see.
Description
Rachel tended to stand with her shoulders pulled in, clenching one wrist with the other hand, as if trying to correct nature’s mistake of making her a person instead of a piece of folding furniture. Nothing about her was particularly noticeable, except perhaps her hair, a shade too timid to be red. It was absurdly long, usually stabbed through with a pencil and bound back with a ribbon, which did not suit her square jaw. She had a small knob of a nose, a crooked mouth, and noticeably unaligned ears, which she tried to minimize with a habit of ducking her head. This did a disservice to her long-lashed hazel eyes, but their snapping expression was perhaps best left concealed in her household.
Further Info
There is an updated list of random OC facts for her here.
Appearances
Book 1 Chapter One
Book 1 Chapter Two
Book 1 Chapter Two from Rietta's POV
Possibly noncanon scene between Rachel and her sister Addie
Venturing In (later in Book 1)
The Boy with the Botanical Box (still later in Book 1)
I've had a lot of less than pleasant experiences with student athletes, so it's always a pleasure when somebody in our athletics department challenges that image by being very polite and agreeable. Much appreciation to the grad student with our basketball program who came into this afternoon wanting to know more about the library.
Fist-bumping the library worker is a bit unorthodox, but I will accept it LOL
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"A book is a friend. A library is a collection of friends. They will speak or be silent at your pleasure; and few human friends will do that."
Quote copied by Lorenz O. Engelmann in his copy of Gruss aus Deutschland: A Reader for Beginners in High School and College, no earlier than 1913.
I have not been able to track down a source for this precise wording, but it seems to be very similar to a quote attributed to Lyman Abbott.
Lorenz wrote his address in this book too. The house doesn't seem to be standing any longer, and I haven't been able to find Lorenz either after a cursory search. I'll keep looking when I can.
...oh right, it's my OC Rachel's birthday tomorrow and I was supposed to write a short conversation piece with her and...somebody, I forgot. I did not do that. The thought of doing it is currently overwhelming. You're just going to have to forgive me, because I won't be able to do it this time. My apologies.
When I got to work this morning, I found that the shawl I had left draped over the back of my desk chair was dragging on the floor in a position I had not left it in. When I sat down, the chair's height had been noticeably raised above what I normally leave it at.
I left before everyone else yesterday. C confirmed that none of the rest of our staff would have used my chair. Our janitor has been known to move items if she's vacuuming, but she doesn't normally mess with our things like this. The doors to the back office were locked when I arrived.
Someone, likely taller than me, used my chair and probably also my work computer while we weren't here. Someone got in after we closed and locked everything (and then they presumably relocked everything).
Thank goodness, it was our janitor! She got injured recently and needed to sit down while dusting the keyboard, as she has every right to. What a relief that it was someone who is authorized to be back here.
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When I got to work this morning, I found that the shawl I had left draped over the back of my desk chair was dragging on the floor in a position I had not left it in. When I sat down, the chair's height had been noticeably raised above what I normally leave it at.
I left before everyone else yesterday. C confirmed that none of the rest of our staff would have used my chair. Our janitor has been known to move items if she's vacuuming, but she doesn't normally mess with our things like this. The doors to the back office were locked when I arrived.
Someone, likely taller than me, used my chair and probably also my work computer while we weren't here. Someone got in after we closed and locked everything (and then they presumably relocked everything).
