#brilynn

These are the most common or ones that I know people ship so I'm sorry if I missed your ship

Requested by @reverie-king-of-eah , @thelilylav , and @chesca-123

Ah, another homoerotic codependent friendship found in its natural habitat: high school! The thing I really love about these two is that you FEEL like they should be able to fix each other's problems, but they just never quite manage it.

Ashlynn and Briar are two people who really deeply understand each other. On paper, they're both royals. They're best friends with Apple White, are willing to sacrifice a lot of their own happiness for her sake, want to do what they think is the right thing and follow their destinies, but have a LOT of issues with their destinies underneath the surface. And those issues with their destinies just have so many parallels to each other.

Briar is pretty open about hating the idea of being asleep for 100 years and everyone knows she's desperately trying to make up for it, but she's so nonchalant about it that most people think it's F.O.M.O. and don't even recognize it as intense grief for something she hasn't even lost yet. Ashlynn meanwhile is so secretive about her problems with her destiny that even when she openly becomes a rebel out of love for Hunter, most people don't recognize she has unrelated issues---her mother is scheduled for an untimely demise, she'll have to spend years getting tormented by Prudence and Charlotte, and she's already separated from her peers by being the only princess who has to learn to work. She's employed and is always having to do menial labor and cleaning jobs that the other royalty are spared from, and it does isolate her quite a bit (as a social thing, but also the massive time investment).

It makes sense then that they find so much comfort and understanding in each other. Their mutual confession and support in the Thronecoming special is honestly one of the peak moments of the series. It's also where one of the super unique aspects of Brilynn is on full display: they are almost too real. They care about each other SO much. They have similar problems and WANT to help each other with it. Unfortunately, they are also both just teenage girls and neither of them know what to do. So all they really can do is hold each other through the hard decisions and hope that it will all be okay. And something about that is just so close to reality and feels so extra tender to me.

This isn't the kind of ship that makes really big waves across the story, but I don't think it has to be. This is a ship that goes out to everybody who has been in a hard situation with someone they love. Where you didn't know how to help each other because you were too young and too inexperienced and too afraid, but you knew that you loved each other and by Talos you were going to make it to the other side together. I think it's so telling and so beautiful that by the end of the series, Briar and Ashlynn is still one of the cornerstone friendships of the story---their bond is one of the three things carrying Epic Winter (the others being Faybelle's subplot and Jackie and North Wind being a delight).

If I had encyclopedic knowledge of the show down to memorized episode titles and timestamps (which is basically what I have for the books), then I would probably give you an itemized list of the greatest Brilynn moments like I did for Dexven, but I am tragically inadequate. Instead, I'll just say that having someone who sees through their performances and facades and who they can honestly confide is extremely important for both of these characters both as people and storywise, and I'm so happy they were able to find it in each other. I see so many people I've loved in them and that kind of quiet solidarity they embody reminds me life is worth living.