I finished S3 yesterday (look at me, managing to watch a show in a timely manner!) and I loved it!
And apparently I haven’t said anything about S2, although I watched it last year, obviously.
The first ten minutes of S3 premiere threw me off a bit with the recast of Baldwin’s actor, so since I’d been burnt by TV shows before (as you all know), I went straight to expecting the worst.
However, it can be said both for S2 and S3 (just as for S1), that although they did some changes (I’m guessing due to the budget and for the latest two seasons also due to Covid protocols etc.), the basics were there. The main themes and the most important plot points were addressed even if/when in a bit altered manner and the show stayed true to the characterisation and messages in the books.
So, yeah, I loved it, and the ending made me just as happy as in the books even if it was, of course, a lot quicker.
I would, however, not mind in the slightest if they give us S4 and do Time’s Convert as well. Pretty please, come on! I need more Marcus and Phoebe and, well, everyone.
(Also, gah, I hope Deborah Harkness writes another book or two (surely one for Gallowglass, and I wouldn't mind a Miriam book either.))
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It is mostly faithful to the books in that it tells the basic story. They made quite a few changes, some less and a few more bothersome: one I really liked, a couple I didn’t, and one that makes me vary of S2 (but considering the author is working on the show, I think it shouldn’t turn out (too) bad); most of them understandable, considering the medium and modern audience expectations.
However, there are a lot of things left out as to characterisation and relationships, certain story elements, as well as the nerdy/scientific/world-building details I loved in the book(s).
So, all in all, I take the show as a great addition to the books, in particularly for the stunning visuals, but I found the books so much better.
I think people who like plot-driven stories and those who hated the books, complaining they were too slow and boring, would like the show as it is, but for me who likes character-driven and nerdy things, the books come first.
(This is like LOTR, the films are nice for the visuals, but the books are top shit. And the fact that I’m making this comparison should tell you something.)
I could write an essay or a few (ahem, like with LOTR) about the changes and why the books are better, but I won’t, because there is no point in spoiling people who didn’t read them. And the show is still good on its own, so I do recommend it.
Anyway, @lglorien, you have to read the books! (Ha, that’s the umpteenth thing I’m gonna nag you to read, isn’t it? Oops, not really sorry. ;))
(Tagging you because you reminded me I need to get into it and so here we are. And I need someone to scream about the books with. :P)
Now, expect random reblogging bursts, because I have pretty things liked and drafted (and I plan to do more stalking for yet more of them.)
ADOW Hogwarts House Sorting! I think Matthew is a Gryffindor and Diana a Ravenclaw, but what's your thoughts?
Darling anon: thank you for this very thought-provoking ask! I’m sorry that it took such a while for me to answer it - and that my answer ultimately got so long that I had to stick it beneath a cut.I’ve been ping-ponging back and forth on different possibilities for Matthew and Diana’s Houses for a while now, which leads me to my first conclusion: if nothing else, I feel quite sure that the Sortings for both of these two would have resulted in a wicked case of Hatstall.But even the most profound cases of deadlock have to be resolved in a House Sorting one way or the other. And so: a slightly-rambling essay on Diana and Matthew’s character evolution, and personality tropes in two different magical universes below the cut…
First of all, I know we’re just using the Houses as a personality metric, but given that ADOW is a magical universe, I find it amusing to consider situations in which Matthew and Diana might actually have encountered the Sorting Hat as a magical artifact. The interesting thing to me is that both of them (for most of their lives) would have avoided it like the plague.
Diana, anxiously: You say that putting this hat on is a necessary first step to beginning my formal magical education? *instinctively Timewalks fifteen minutes into the future to avoid the whole thing*Matthew, coolly: As a 1500 year old French-born vampire, I could not possibly belong anywhere in a school for British witches.But let’s pretend they’re encountering the Sorting Hat early in their lives, as an expected ritual. Here, I think you’re right about Diana - she ends up in Ravenclaw, mostly due to her own negotiating with the Hat. I’m reminded of Harry’s silent plea - not Slytherin! - except for Diana, communing with the Sorting Hat, I think it would be not Gryffindor! It’s the Hat’s job to sort through someone’s potential, and I refuse to believe all of Diana’s very-present mettle would go unnoticed. But as a young girl, still reeling from the deaths of her parents, I think Diana would hear all of the bravery-bravery-bravery stuff associated with Gryffindor and think oh God, anything but that, please. Far better to end up with housemates who will understand the comfort of escaping into a good book, and the very real pleasures of research, rather than pushing her to do all kinds of extroverted joiner activities.
It’s really difficult to think about an analogue for this stage with Matthew. Eleven-year-old human Matthew - we know he liked tools and was bright and inquisitive, so maybe a Ravenclaw? But if we somehow reverse-engineer an eleven-year-old version of Matthew de Clairmont, son of Ysabeau, stepson of Phillippe, brother of Baldwin and Louisa -I mean, really. The de Clairmonts are a Slytherin family through and through. All jokes about blood purity aside (and look, who would have more invested in the question of blood purity than a bunch of vampires?), cunning and ambition is endemic there. There’s always been a de Clairmont on the Congregation? Mmm-hmm mmm-hmm.
But that’s just the family, you say. What about Matthew himself? Those Slytherin qualities are absolutely part of his character, especially in the earliest episodes. We see ruthless, calculating Matthew figuring out how to get Diana to share what she knows about Ashmole 782; we also see this side of him in action as he outmanuevers Baldwin by calling upon his fealty and obedience as a member of the Brotherhood. (Also, you don’t get a CV like Matthew’s without having a marked degree of professional ambition. Just saying.)
Slytherins have a rep for being the villains, and obviously I’m trying to push the characterization here past that one-dimensional stereotype. But we have ample testimony from the vampires who’ve known Matthew for hundreds of years - he CAN be “the bad guy,” whether you want to define that as at least two dead human women, or the selfishness that Baldwin describes and that Miriam and Marcus acknowledge, or even the whole pureblood thing. Think of the absolute certainty in Juliette’s voice as she tells Domenico, “Matthew hates witches.”So yeah, I think a young (or “young”) Matthew gets sorted into Slytherin. There’s definitely also a possible case for young!Matthew as a surprise Gryffindor - and oh BOY does that give me a whole bunch of Sirius Black feels - but mostly I could see him as a Slytherin, albeit an Andromeda Black-style Slytherin.
This is not necessarily the case for an older, wiser, sadder Matthew, however.
Don’t ask me how a c19 Matthew ends up with the Sorting Hat on his head (a very strange diversion during a hunting trip to Scotland?), but I think that there’d be a really good case for a Ravenclaw Sorting during the more “mature” part of Matthew’s life, before he meets Diana. The quest for knowledge is a fundamental part of his character, and it’s a really powerful part of what draws him and Diana together.
@burberrycanary and I have talked about this in detail, but the truly delightful part of this relationship is, well, the bits of it that AREN’T really magical or “fated.” I’m very here for the genuine attraction between these two individuals who are both curious, in their own ways, about the hows and whys of what we might call “the human condition,” inappropriate as that phrase might be here. It’s what Diana learns about Matthew’s long-standing research on creature origins - her belief in Matthew’s purity of motive - that sways her into telling him what she can remember about Ashmole 782.
(Well, fine. “Purity of motive” might not be the best way to describe everything going on in this GIF.)
(All creator credit to you, B.)
But okay, then. Ultimately, I would argue Matthew and Diana bring each other’s Gryffindor tendencies into full flower. To some degree, this is a function of narrative: they’re our protagonist characters, and we’re geared to see them as the heroes. And of course, the events that surround the discovery and disappearance of Ashmole 782 lend themselves to Gryffindor-esque displays of bravery and heroism.
But it’s more than just this Doylist explanation, I think - there’s a strong Watsonian explanation for Matthew and Diana both to be sorted as Gryffindor! Gryffindors are known for being brave and daring - occasionally to the point of recklessness (acting without thinking first). Nor are Gryffindors strangers to self-sacrifice, especially on matters of principle. And oh my goodness, feeling ALL THE THINGS and acting on them in grand ways is VERY, VERY much both Matthew and Diana, as we come to know them during the first season!Diana is a professional scholar, which makes us think “cerebral, methodical, disciplined” and makes us want to sort her as Ravenclaw. But so many of her decisions throughout this first season are impulsive and emotional! I say this not as criticism of Diana, but to argue that, no matter what her training is, her deepest impulses are Gryffindor in nature. Even before the most dramatic events of the season start, we see Diana reacting with stubborn bravery. She has zero problem telling Knox and Satu to bugger off with increasing firmness - the literal force of that “get out of my head!” moment feels very Gryffindor to me.
And of course, she’s not really intimidated by Matthew, either in his glacial professor mode or when that mask slips at the end of the first episode. In fact, he brings out a confrontational bluntness in her - “You’re a vampire”/“You’re following me”/“Is that a threat?”/“What are you going to do, rip my head off to find the truth?” - that is very, VERY Gryffindor. Once everything really kicks into gear, we see Diana following her emotional impulses nearly all the time. Feeling unsafe with witches? Seek out a vampire! Hell, let him drive you out of town, and spend the day with him. Invite him to dinner - as a starter. When the people who have been bothering you push your emotional buttons (the photographs), immediately seek them out to call them on it, and make a firm decision to try to end the conflict. Then, once they threaten your friend, unleash a torrent of magical power on them.
Diana only gets more Gryffindor from there, whether it’s her stubborn declaration that “they don’t get to choose who I love,” to taking everything that Ysabeau throws at her without flinching, to the brave romantic impetuousness that is the Hasty Vampire Elopement, to the climactic scene in which she nearly sacrifices herself to save Matthew, making an open-ended promise to the Fates.
Diana is a very very powerful, brave witch, and her magic is tied to her emotion. Better be GRYFFINDOR!Now, what about Matthew? In these first few episodes, I still gravitate towards that Slytherin classification. That exchange between them in the boathouse, where she asks if he’s going to rip her head off and he answers, “That’s not how I operate” - Slytherin, my dears, very very Slytherin. And yet. Matthew, is that true?He finds that self-disclosure is the most effective way to convince Diana to be his ally re: the Ashmole manuscript - and then he leans into it real hard.
And in this context, that’s a real act of bravery! For instance, after Gillian breaks into the lab, we learn that its existence has been a secret for a very long time - but Matthew brings Diana there only the fifth or sixth time they meet, and he spills the beans on the entire project, taking her at her word that she doesn’t subscribe to Knox’s supremacist, genocidal ideology. Emotional; brave; impetuous!As I’ve discussed elsewhere, that project of self-disclosure only accelerates, resulting in a romance that Matthew, at least, knows is going to be extremely problematic. He does attempt to deny the emotional attachment, to some degree - but it’s a small degree. Going back to Oxford against Hamish’s advice; accepting her dinner invitation; coming ‘round to her rooms the next day after rejecting her; eventually coming back to France from Oxford - please picture Matthew de Clairmont tossing his hair a la Mimi and saying “Self-control? I don’t know her.“
In one sense, this is Slytherin selfishness, but it’s also Gryffindor emotional decision-making - and bravery in the face of the dire consequences that are certain to follow. The peak Gryffindor Oxford moment for Matthew is, of course, the moment that he dashes into the Bodleian to confront (and calm) Diana as she’s in full tornado mode. There’s nothing shrewd, or cunning, or cerebral in those moments - it’s Matthew operating on pure instinct, and it’s brave, daring, and chivalrous.
I noted that Diana’s Gryffindor nature intensifies the longer that she and Matthew are around each other. The same is true for Matthew around Diana, despite the conflict engendered by the approach-avoidance paradigm before their Hasty Vampire Elopement. BTW, you notice that we never ACTUALLY get any kind of verbalized explanation for what changes his mind and makes him return to France, commit to Diana, and defy the wrath of the Congregation? Doylist explanation screams GENRE, but the Watsonian (and, I guess, based on this ask, the Rowling-esque) paradigm says: DARING GRYFFINDOR EMOTIONAL DECISION-MAKING. (Or, as @burberrycanary might put it: Soft Vampire Caring.)
Anyway, I can’t GIF things with any measure of skill, but LORD, do I need me a gifset that juxtaposes Matthew’s icy-cold "that’s not how I operate” in 1.01 with the short scene in 1.06 in which he and Baldwin come to blows within ten seconds of Matthew entering the room. Asking someone a question and then slugging them before they can answer? Has there ever been any purer form of Gryffindor nonsense?
Seriously, Ysabeau gives me EXTREMELY strong Narcissa Malfoy vibes, but her thousand-yard stare anytime that Baldwin and Matthew start mixing it up makes me think that she and Molly Weasley would have a few things to talk about as well. Ysabeau de Clairmont has been dealing with this sibling rivalry shit for fifteen hundred years, and she is OVER IT.
I’ve been (gently! gently! with love) dragging Matthew and Gryffindors here for the past few paragraphs, so I should obviously also reiterate: that heroic Gryffindor chivalrousness, in conjunction with the conventions of the genre, helps to explain so many of the things that make him work as a protagonist character. Bravery in defense of the people he loves and the principles that he has adopted? We see that time and again with how he acts, not only in protection and support of Diana, but in his care for Marcus and Miriam and Hamish and the whole complement of people who end up under the roof of my beloved Bishop house. For Matthew, this chivalry and bravery is to some degree culturally “baked in” (the man was literally a knight), but it’s clearly also a major set of personality traits.
Like Diana, there’s a lot of emotional control overlaid onto Matthew’s character, quite a deep vein of natural cunning, and an underlying hunger for knowledge that helps to explain their intellectual attraction. But when it comes down to it - he’s got those Big Damn Hero instincts, just like Diana. So again, for my money - that’s one more for GRYFFINDOR!
👻- 2 or 3 sentences from something you haven’t posted yet
She knows he’ll be able to hear.
He’ll hear the lap of the water against the sides of the tub, the way her heartbeat changes and the breathy exhales that he has always wanted to draw from her even when he had been conflicted about so much else.
Diana touches herself under the water. The motion sends ripples out across the surface.
He could be anywhere in the house and hear this.
—from The Careful Boundaries We Draw and Erase (ADOW, Bishmont)
💍- your most underrated story
This is a tough question since I’ve recently gotten lost in a maze of writing fic that I know no audience exists for just because I like Matthew Goode in some obscure role. (So these stories are equally obscure but rated about as they deserve.)
So I’ll go with Amor Fati, which is a fluffy fix-it to explain in Watsonian terms why on earth Matthew and Diana go horseback riding. ADOW has moments where ticking off genre boxes feels very Doylist—genre is as genre does, and this is ADOW performing one of its most throwback romance genre tropes just ‘cause.
As much as I like how the horseback riding scene is shot (and it is beautiful) and adore the sexualized breathing mixed into the audio track and Matthew’s joy in seeing Diana happy, which you can pry from my cold dead hands—it’s all lovely stuff—but seriously, show. What the fuck?
Diana is at the start of destroying a career she’s spent her entire adult life building; she’s on the run from people who want to coerce or hurt or kill her; she has pressing things she needs to deal with. But, no, hey. Let’s go horseback riding. Some part of me was haunted by the need for an in-universe and character-based explanation that connects this genre-driven moment back to the specific story being told with these characters.
I called this story Amor Fati, to love one’s fate, because both Matthew and Diana here are struggling to accept these fated changes that are irrevocably transforming their lives, love and magic, which come with such risks and costs.
Rakasa butts up against Diana’s shoulder with a snicker and Diana presses her forehead against the horse, whispering hypnotic reassurance in the same soft voice. “Shh, yeah, I know, I know. You weren’t made for a pen.”
&
Diana doesn’t take the step back that he expects, which means that he should. He should, but he doesn’t.
But it was also a way for me to nudge this conventional genre moment within ADOW’s storyline towards something that made emotional and psychological sense to me for the characters in this situation, rather than being a half eyeroll, half guilty pleasure moment I accepted as simply fated within the genre.
So I think this fic was me solving a pain-point for myself (and for @village-skeptic) that most people don’t view as being a problem in the first place :)
But hey mutual pining and UST are two great tastes that always taste great together and are at the heart of Amor Fati.
Favorite Season 1 Bishmont Moments [2/?]: The soap bubble of uncomplicated happiness
I love the way Diana turns to look at him as they are walking down the stairs, how she draws him forward a little faster in her giddy excitement. How, even though they are already holding hands, she caresses the back of his wrist with her palm because she can, because she hasn’t been wrong this whole time about what’s between them, and because she just really really wants to touch him. And like such a dork, Diana’s mind jumps from her heart being so happy to William Harvey’s discovery of the heart as a pump and it turns out that, oh hey, her amazing vampire boyfriend actually met him. This she has to hear.
And I love Matthew’s reactions. How pleased he is that his demur just makes her want the story even more. How having Diana’s passion and curiosity and happiness focused on him is so thrilling—equally terrifying and marvelous. And the way Matthew gives a shivery, full-body sway of delight when she brushes up against him and responds to her admiring attention by smiling like that.
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[It begins with obsession and knitwear; it begins with meta and fabrics; it begins with… the emotional semiotics of costuming. In this multi-part series, @burberrycanary and @village-skeptic exhaustively contextualize significant pieces of clothing from A Discovery of Witches.]
Diana's Cozy Cable-Knit Turtleneck of Vampire Backstory
[Part 3 of ?]
For as much digital ink as we’ve spilled about ADOW’s delicious knitwear, it’s interesting to note that we don’t actually see Diana in a sweater until near the beginning of the third episode. (And why? We'll get into that below.) However, you couldn’t ask for a stronger visual debut than this beautiful cream-colored chunky-knit Aran jumper!
Fisherman’s sweaters like this one have quite a distinguished lineage. Mid-century celebrities such as Grace Kelly, Steve McQueen and Elvis Presley made them casual fashion classics, but these thick sweaters originated as practical working gear for the fishing crews of the Aran Islands. Since these intricately-patterned beauties have such a rich history themselves, it’s rather appropriate that Diana seems to don one at the times that she ends up learning particularly important parts of Matthew’s history.
Now, some of you out there may be saying, “Hold on a second - we don’t learn anything about Matthew’s history the first time we see this sweater! He’s literally in the background and out of focus for most of this scene, in which Gillian offers Diana the world’s least effective apology.”
True enough—although Gillian’s behavior towards Matthew here does serve to remind us of the default status of vampire-witch relations. I know you’re angry with me—I understand!—but that does not mean that you have to spend time with that, Gillian sputters, and her scorn illustrates just how rare and improbable the developing trust (and attraction!) between Diana and Matthew is.
After a snap decision and a subsequent car ride filled with flirty glances, this sweater starts to do its real work as a visual cue: telling us it's time to shed some light on Matthew's past.
This process of revelation is not without its small hurdles, however. “Don’t you ask a lot of questions?” responds Matthew with a touch of wry bemusement, after Diana poses a rapid series of probing queries and follow-ups about his real name and background.
Yes, she does. But this process of self-disclosure starts and continues with Matthew himself! To avoid the creatures amassed at the archives, he could have taken her to a coffee shop, or a park, or even just wandered around Tesco aimlessly for a while. Instead, he brings Diana to his beautiful, historical house, where there are all sorts of lovely old books and objects for her to investigate.
One might be tempted to accuse him of peacocking a bit.
So, while Matthew opens up the house literally, he also opens up metaphorically, casually telling Diana about his history with the place. And then, after Diana’s mini-barrage of questions indicates that she values information about him, Matthew responds by volunteering ever-more-personal details about his past.
That reproof about her nosiness? Please. They don’t even make it up the stairs—she doesn’t even have her coat off—before he’s telling her about his mother and his stepfather. The Cozy Cable-Knit Turtleneck of Vampire Backstory is a very powerful garment.
Actually, the fact that Diana still has her coat on for most of these personal discussions feels right. There’s a lot of mutual self-disclosure going on during the day spent at Matthew’s house, but neither of them are quite acknowledging the growing intimacy between them. (That trainwreck happens later in the episode, after everyone’s coats and jackets are off.)
Moreover, the Vampire Backstory revealed in these conversations is still relatively devoid of any complicated or troubling details. Phillippe is “no longer with us”; same for Matthew’s brother, the former owner of the alchemy books which Diana so lovingly caresses. However, we learn nothing about the actual circumstances of their deaths. Similarly, the conversation about Matthew’s actual age (and un-death) is softened with language about “birthdays.” Witness eager historian Diana’s marveling reaction: “The things you must have seen!” Matthew’s cautiously self-revealing response—"Mm. And done”—has a chilling undertone, but it remains vague enough not to deflate the flirty, spontaneous “date” vibes of the afternoon. Ultimately, the hint of a warning that Matthew gives Diana here is nowhere near enough to dissuade her from impulsively inviting him to dinner.
On balance, then, this initial appearance of the Cozy Cable-Knit Turtleneck of Vampire Backstory is pretty warm and fuzzy. But that’s not at all the case the next time we see it: in France, when it’s Ysabeau who leads Diana through a recounting of Matthew’s history.
Sickness, death, grief, pain, anger, violence, regret and loneliness. It’s not a story that’s easy to hear - you might want the comfort of a cozy cable-knit sweater, too.
Diana doubles down on the woolens here, adding a gorgeous dark blue wrap to her ensemble. There’s an obvious contrast in color and aesthetic between Diana’s shawl and Ysabeau’s fur-trimmed one-shoulder stole, but the costuming choice here still emphasizes the similarities between them. Ysabeau approaches Diana with facts rather than theatrics here, and the result is that the two women are far more in tune with each other emotionally than we’ve ever seen them before.
Now, we would be remiss if we didn’t caution you that there’s a lot of unreliable, advertising-based mythology out there about Aran sweaters, especially the idea that certain stitches were supposed to have “traditionally” signified particular meanings. Similarly, it’s important to note that both times Diana wears the Cozy Cable-Knit Turtleneck of Vampire Backstory, the history that she receives is shaped by the agenda of the person who recounts it. Ysabeau tells Matthew’s story in order to dissuade her from a relationship with Matthew; Matthew engages in self-disclosure in ways that are specifically intended to impress Diana and to foster intimacy.
No one is a wholly objective source, especially when the stakes are high. But Diana is a historian; she’s used to evaluating evidence from different sources, and synthesizing it with her own insights to create as truthful an account as possible. Here, she sees beyond Ysabeau’s overt agenda, to the underlying truth that she is offering about the meaning of commitment and the inevitability of loss.
One final note: an analysis of the Cozy Cable-Knit Turtleneck of Vampire Backstory also helps to demonstrate some broad costuming paradigms within ADOW. In a previous post, we’ve already noted the show’s predilection for gorgeous saturated shades of blue, particularly a peacock hue that we just went ahead and dubbed “Diana’s blue.” Generally speaking, Diana appears in blue in moments of power, achievement, and/or comfort - when she’s feeling particularly resolute and grounded. Shades of white and cream, we would argue, signal issues involving the past.
The specific type of textiles used in the costuming for a given scene also seem to be significant. Woven cloth indicates a more formal, professional mode - consider Diana’s many button-down shirts, or Matthew’s impeccably-tailored wool blazers. But when there’s some real emotional work to be done, you’ll tend to see knitwear front and center.
So, to come full circle then. As Diana's getting dressed for work in the archives, she's unquestionably still processing her feelings about this paradigm-shifting little exchange the other day.
And when she is preparing to think about the past, but sorting through her own emotions? It's no surprise that Diana reaches into her closet and comes up with her very first piece of knitwear: the cream-colored Cozy Cable-Knit Turtleneck of Vampire Backstory.
4, 6, and 11 for Amor Fati and The Probable Stars. (I'm greedy!)
For The Probable Stars:
4: What’s your favorite line of dialogue?
This is a fic with very little dialogue, so I’ll give two answers to this. For actual dialogue, Em saying:
“The house would play with her for hours. It’d shift furniture nearby, something like that, to let her know she’d been found. How she used to laugh, sweet and carefree as though her heart wasn’t still cracked in two with missing her mom and dad.”
Valarie Pettiford’s Em has a very distinctive voice, both in rhythm and phrasing structure, which was fun to attempt to capture.
But if I can sneak in internal dialogue, then it’s this from Matthew:
God, what would I have done tonight?
Which sort of haunts me.
6: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?
Many of my fics seem, fundamentally, very similar to me, so this is a difficult question to answer.
My stories do focus intensely on interior spaces—life’s private worlds—either within the POV character or between the characters in my ship. So having Em play such an extended role in this story is different from nearly everything else I’ve written, where non-otp characters make only brief cameo appearances at most.
11: What do you like best about this fic?
In addition to this answer, I’m delighted to be able to give a second one because I really like this moment at the end when Diana is saving Matthew—
She’ll press her torn open skin against his mouth—don’t—forcing her blood onto his tongue until the clamorous speed of her heart is the only sound left on earth. She’ll curl her small light body forward, around him.
Death marriage birth he’ll think in a confused rush as his teeth sink into the skin of her neck, so fragile, so yielding.
I won’t let you—
The sound of Diana’s heartbeat threads through this entire story, which centers on the aftermath of Matthew’s forced loss of control where he feared he might kill her. Her heartbeat starts as an intimate and comforting touchpoint, something Matthew thinks of as tying them together across distances and that draws him closer to her with a “magnetic pull.” Later, when he returns to their bed, kissing her wrists and neck as though to prove to himself that she is safe with him, her heartbeat sounds like “the toiling of a clear and solemn church bell.”
But this analogy is intentionally ambiguous. A toiling church bell could just as likely be for a marriage or a death. And for Matthew, who has bound himself to a mortal, marriage and death are inherently intertwined now. “The furious speed of Diana’s life is already rushing through his fingers” the way blood gushes out from a wound.
The short epilogue draws together the story’s main threads. The start of the passage quoted above repeats that heartbreaking “don’t” from when Diana waved her bloodied hand in front of his face—the “don’t” that Diana didn’t listen to before making Matthew try to hurt her, against his will and without his consent. Her heartbeat, which began as comforting and then slipped towards ambiguity, shifts here to something that is almost apocalyptic: “the only sound left on earth.”
“Death, marriage, birth” blurs together his faith and his nature as a vampire—these Christian sacramental moments that he thinks of as he bites her, followed by a flash of him remembering Diana’s promise that she’d never let him hurt her.
I like this moment because it accurately represents the violence that has been done to my feelings if I stop and let myself really think about any of this.
I put my answers for Amor Fati in a separate post. Thanks so much for the asks, V! <3333
4, 6, and 11 for Amor Fati from @village-skeptic <333333
4: What’s your favorite line of dialogue?
Picking a single line was tough! But I think the “Yes. She is.” from:
Rakasa lifts her head, snorts and then ambles closer. When Diana reaches out this time, the horse noses into her palm with a soft whinny.
“Shh, shh. I don't have anything for you.” Her voice stays warm and gentle for Rakasa when she tells him, “She’s so beautiful.”
Matthew closes his eyes a moment. “Yes. She is.”
For such a short conversation—a dozen or so lines of dialogue that are ostensible about a horse—this covers a lot of ground. But what I love most is how totally gone Matthew is here. He is still conflicted and still trying to fight what he feels for her—and for good reason!—but it’s a losing battle because Diana can slip past his defenses without even being aware of what she is doing to him. And the moment I ended up picking is when Matthew is just overcome in this relatively subtle way: with how the sunlight (and her unconsciously used magic) turns her a little bit golden; by Diana’s mixture of teasing and gentleness that is so appealing to him; and by simply seeing her happy again and knowing that, however accidentally, he helped cause it.
Matthew’s reaction here is delightfully tender. But it’s also a little bit funny because bringing her here, to his family home, and being around her so much has left him so screwed.
6: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?
I’d say that Amor Fati is different from my other fics in the way it uses humor—however dry and understated that humor may be. The story very much engages with the absurdity of the situation Matthew has created for himself. He clearly did not think this through very well.
11: What do you like best about this fic?
I feel that this fic was a small turning point in how I’m able to write ADOW. My other ADOW fics have either been too much like meta in fic format or I didn’t have as solid a handle on characterization. But this fic is lighter and leaner and functions better from a purely storytelling perspective, especially in how I’m able to build and manage tension more effectively.
So what I like best here is how the story I wanted to tell and the storytelling mechanisms are in such strong alignment.
