#*amalia

Feyre and Nyx have the benefit of doubt of humans aging differently but Loa was a fae!

god this fucks me up all the time. because i think the answer is definitely no, right? like they are for sure peers more than they are mother/son, and that is the way both of them conceptualize it. it’s obviously exacerbated by what beron puts them through, but i think even if their lives played out healthier, their dynamic would always turn out that way because of their negligible difference in age. they'd be more openly affectionate and openly communicative probably, but — either way, she was a baby having a baby. she had no real idea how to be a mother yet, even with the support of her sisters, and in canon, she had the added burden of resenting eris for tying her irreparably to beron, of not wanting to love the baby that she knew beron would corrupt. she had the guilt of being a mother who did not want to love her baby, and that is not something she could confide in anyone, even when she had people she could confide in. so viewing eris as more of a peer once he was older probably helped to assuage the shame of that. beyond that, given the gender dynamics in autumn, eris likely had more power and influence than LoA almost immediately. by the time he was a teenager and beyond, the aristocracy knew to look to beron, then to him, then to her — and only if her other sons weren't around. so there are just so many emotional and interpersonal and political reasons for them to be peers before mother/son. and even when he conceptualizes her as a parent, she is his mother who gave birth to him, but she isn't ever fully his mom, even once beron is out of the picture. it's too late by then. that is something that can only exist for lucien. there are,,, tears in my eyes about it actually.

(Additional stressing factor if Loa and Helion's love child is a red haired, fire spirited little girl (Poor Lucinda, Fate was laughing at her face since day one))

very much a bit of both i think! because with lucien, at least he has his maleness as a safeguard, especially in a court like autumn, especially with beron not only as his father figure but as someone who (at minimum) suspects lucien is not his son. at least he always has a relatively secure social standing in that he is a male, which offers him innate protections navigating the court. this isn't even something that would cognitively occur to eris to be grateful for. maybe in passing when he's confronted with the abuse his mother endures under beron—but even then, in most all other ways, loa is untouchable in their court. not included in any actual governance of course, but no male would dare open his mouth against her or make presumptuous advances on her, even if that's just because beron would kill him.

but a sister is so, so much worse. inherently, daughters matter less to beron. they can't become heir, so what's the point in them? even worse—a daughter of his and his wife's blood runs the risk of passing the high lord lineage into someone else's bloodline and out of the vanserra bloodline if she has a baby. add on top of this that beron suspects her of not being his child at all. add on top of this that she is mouthy in a way unbefitting of a female. add on top of this that beron doesn't care to hone her abilities beyond cursory training because they won't amount to anything anyway. add on top of this that males see her and covet her for the access she offers them to power, the same way females have been doing to eris since he first showed markers of being heir. young. so young. add on top of this that these males take cue from beron's disdain of her and feel more emboldened to treat her presumptuously. it's like the perfect storm.

i do think loa would be extreeemely protective of a daughter, even more so one between her and helion. beron might initially try to wound loa by keeping this daughter away from her and with wetnurses/governesses, but ultimately he is too distrustful and doesn't care to raise a female himself so it goes back to loa. that's the duty of a wife. so he would let loa have her little doll to keep her busy. loa in turn would be even more protective of her daughter because of their closeness and the lack of interference from beron, who will ultimately only care about her when it comes time to leverage her in an advantageous political marriage.

that poses real big issues for known control freak eris vanserra, who would take it upon himself to keep his sister prepared and safe, just as he has always done for his brothers. picturing it sort of like the thought exercise where he has a daughter—him knowing how males treat females and therefore deciding to minimize her femininity as much as possible so that she has better standing in this male-dominated sociopolitical hellscape. but all the while loa is lashing at him even more viciously than she did in canon when it came to lucien. because what does eris know of being female? what does eris know of navigating life as a female? what does eris know of the ways females learn to protect themselves—which they do and have and will continue to do without his "help?" why is he nosing about her daughter anyway? what purpose could he possibly have for this?

iiiii would literally never. short answer is that i think they have delicious potential for a much more fraught vannozza/giulia farnese dynamic. all the weird feelings surrounding them looking like each other. this giving amalia a further sense of superiority, knowing beron really only enjoys iphigenia because she looks like her. the well-established matron who knows the intricacies of her husband and will always hold an immovable place in his heart but has fallen out of favor x the young start up on the scene trying to maintain the favor of her extraordinarily powerful (and fickle (and capable of killing her if she displeases him)) lover. in the borgias, giulia goes to vannozza for advice on keeping the pope’s interest—and i could see something of a like happening between iphigenia and amalia.

amalia comes across iphigenia fretting somewhere in the forest house. airy and scathing, she demands to know what a whore could be so preoccupied with. iphigenia apologizes—tries to leave. amalia doubles down. bold thing, iphigenia offers up a half-truth. but amalia knows beron. allow me a guess, she says. his eye has wandered to someone bright and new. iphigenia blushes and amalia knows she’s right. maybe a little hera/semele action at this point where amalia suggests a threesome, knowing that beron will come to expect it of iphigenia now that she’s introduced it, that it will undoubtedly shatter his warped conception of iphigenia as his pure little maiden. i’ve never lain with a female, iphigenia says. amalia replies, no? then let me show you what he will prefer to see.

yeah it's fine i didn't need my heart anyway

i'll say i don't think loa ever really does come to fully or willingly trust eris with her secrets, and to her, whatever sense of trust is between them is more like ... a tentative truce—even though eris would never, ever do anything to put her in harm's way. she doesn't know that, and she wouldn't believe it even if he said it right to her face. he is beron's son, and he has proven that time and time again. she believes he will ultimately do anything it takes to serve his own needs and has no real capacity for caring for anyone to the point of prioritizing them above himself. that's what makes his devotion to her and his brothers so devastating: she can never see it that way because she refuses to see him as anything more than what beron made him into.

when eris was a youngling, loa was extremely wary of saying the wrong thing in front of him, even when it came to pushing against the bigotry and classism beron was teaching him. if he repeated what she said in front of beron in the way children thoughtlessly tend to, they would both be punished; it was a risk she couldn't take. then eris was snugly in beron's pocket for his entire adolescence and even into his young adulthood. he was always so eager to prove himself to his father, who he idolized, and he believed everything beron told him without question—because why would he even think to question his father? why would his father lead him astray? how could his father be wrong? loa firmly believed he would have relayed whatever she told him to beron in a heartbeat if he thought his father would disapprove/he thought it would ingratiate him to his father.

so i think what happened ultimately is just—eris was too perceptive. even as a youngling, he was too quick, too smart. he would hear things or see things, and he just never forgot them, so he was able put information together across time in a way most other fae couldn't. offhandedly in conversation with loa, he would reveal how much he knew about various members of the nobility—things that he had no reason to know at his age—or (often correct) conclusions he came to based on tidbits he had gathered. he would always know his brothers' secrets, too—where they secreted away their treats, how they snuck out of their rooms at night and where they went, etc. and loa began to see how he would keep these secrets close to his chest up until he had use for them. if he wanted to keep his brothers in line, it certainly would be a shame if father were to hear of your nightly proclivities, or if he wanted to instigate, interesting. that isn't what carmine expressed to me.

oh this is such a lovely thought-invoking question. let me map post-eris ascension out a little … i think amalia probably waits on helion to seek her out because—if after all this time he does not want her, if after all this time his affections have waned, if after all this time he has found another, for she has of course heard of his dalliances, if after all this time he turns her away, then what does that leave her? but of course it doesn’t take very long for him to seek her out. probably at eris’s ceremony. which is time enough for eris to spin it as a calculated move on both of their parts. to make him a shrewd heir to the throne rather than an abandoned son; to make her into a wily and cunning politician to have leveraged herself as lady of another court so readily, that way the betrayed hearts of the people won’t bring any lords to prompt eris to seek vengeance against her and helion.

there’s never any hope for her and emile, and she knows it. he is her biggest disappointment, biggest failure. he immediately ingratiates himself with the beron loyalists and begins an intense downward spiral; he died without his father’s acceptance, the one thing he wanted above all, and so he mythologizes beron—is the most potent threat to all of his family. emile, by necessity, has to die soon after beron dies. she and carmine have a cordial but distant relationship, the way you might have with a friend you once loved dearly but fell out with and things can now never be the same but neither of you can address the rift because that would be to acknowledge a problem at all. she would favor marius most of all the non-lucien sons she has left, if only because his grief is the most potent and least generally violent—but he makes it very clear that he would kill lucien in less than a heartbeat and she can’t countenance that. he’s also most loyal to eris, if only because of complacency, which strains them further. so left to her after emile dies are eris, carmine and kirsi, and marius and adonia.

i think carmine and kirsi would probably bring her the biggest sense of indignation; they have three children together and carmine, despite still being charming and silver-tongued, is unlike amalia has ever known him to be now that he’s married to kirsi. proof to her of how different her sons could have been if they ever even just got free of beron, which means proof to her of how she failed her sons in letting beron sire them at all. kirsi is very hypervigilant of her kids and doesn’t let any vanserra close knowing How They Are, so i could see a lot of strain between kirsi and amalia at social gatherings, especially because kirsi doesn’t have time for autumn pleasantries and that would offend amalia. they are kin of my kin; i have a right to know them, amalia might say if sufficiently offended. you know not even your own kin; you may claim no right to mine, kirsi might say back. and carmine who has never (and will never) acknowledge that his deep-rooted sense of unlovability comes from his mother feels a keen satisfaction at hearing kirsi do so, which strains everything even more.

i’d say marius and adonia are most gracious with her in the aftermath, once adonia heals enough from losing her mate to regain her sense of self and her sense of propriety. but i think amalia disdains adonia for all she sees of herself in adonia—adonia who was in love with a male who was not her husband yet stayed with her husband until his end at the expense of herself and those around her, then immediately found solace in the arms of her love once her husband died. the parallels are Very Much There. so if adonia eventually gives birth to any of marius’ children, i think amalia might try to overstep with them. maybe try to make amends for her own failings as a mother by criticizing adonia. gently, of course. they are both autumn ladies. but marius wouldn’t stand for it, not after so long of adonia doubting herself with emile. he’s a bit more of his old self now, which is to say he takes on the silas role in his relationship with adonia—happy to be bark and bite on both of their behalves because she is him as he is her. this fills in the loss of a mating bond well for adonia; she basks in it.

4. what’s an underrated ship involving one of the vanserras?

okay i already went eluzriel so … prolly beron/helion. like what’s worse than getting cucked by another high lord? getting cucked by another high lord whose power and presence and swagger makes you hornyyyy. this is usually my imagery for helion/loa but—what is the sun if not the grandest, most spectacular fire? how could the high lord of the fire domain not want the sun to be his? and if he cannot have the sun itself, why would he not want its steward on earth under him in bed his control?

21. what kinds of magic, aside from fire, are found in autumn?

weeeeeee this is actually my favorite part of autumn! autumn is the harvest! autumn is decay! i love high fae of autumn having access to the flame but harvest/rot powers being more common amongst the people. i play with this a lot with eris—he has a natural affinity for encouraging fields towards harvest and proliferating bounty, and he uses it when he is out amongst the towns/farmlands and autumn, especially where folk are hungriest (tricky balance—noticeably more extensive harvest in a province would mean beron expects more for tithe next year, always just enough to fill some bellies, just enough for quick hands to whisk away) but of course beron demanded only fire of him. that was his domain. that was his birthright. that was what he was bred for. be as the best of them or be as nothing at all. ANYWAY i also explore this with my iphigenia girl. she has some flame to her. (more than she realizes actually — glass weaving requires extreme precision and control and hiiiigh temperatures at the fingertips, but it’s passed off as Women’s Work.) but her domain is really that balance between life/decay. she can coax crop to fruit—she can rot the earth and make it rich again. this of course as a complement to spring. so yeah. fire! but also harvest and decomposition. and of course random like nymphs—dryads, river nymphs, pixies, etc. Creatures.

30. does loa shave, groom, or go full bush?

great question. i don’t think she ever had a thought for it until beron, whose madonna/whore complex i think prevented him from commenting on the bush, but he didn’t need to for her to feel the disdain that first night. (was he unworthy of presentation?) she went to her sisters, red in the face—they taught her what they knew of grooming and tidying. their husbands didn’t care, but they knew of ladies with husbands who did. beron seemed pleased the next time, so she kept up with grooming. i feel like maybe she started going bare when she started sleeping with helion as well, much to helion’s dismay. an effort to cover her tracks. less area for his scent to be trapped and caught. but i also can’t imagine her taken a razor to her skin so i think there’s a magic way to be groomed. then one time she just didn’t have the time, maybe during War or something, and she slept with helion with full bush—red in the face, keeping under the covers, wishing he would just put it in instead of eat her out, protests when he kissed down her body—but helion of course went fucking feral for it. so i think she went back to grooming after that, but once beron is out of the picture….,,..,,.,.it’s bush time baby