#cicelythereaper

BEST bitch. 

Like, people think that I HATE Lugh, because he’s a homicidal bitch who has an “Ends justify the means” mentality, but, actually, I ADORE him for exactly those reasons. Every time he shows up in a text, you know you’re in for a good time, usually because Murder. Never 5get that, when he shows up in Bail in Scáil, he literally? Tosses his spear at Conn? Just for the Hell of it? When he decides to kill Bres, he doesn’t just poison his cup or anything, but creates THREE HUNDRED VATS OF FAKE POISON COW. Like. That was SO UNNECESSARY, but he did it anyway. The motherfucking HAWK OF ACHILL adores Lugh because of how many bodies he left behind him? THE HAWK OF ACHILL, aka The Bird Who Doesn’t Like Anyone And Is Notably Homicidal, ADORES Lugh because of how many people he killed. I love it. I love that his response to the Fomoire tax collectors in Oidheadh Chlonne Tuireann is to say “I have a strong desire to kill these men” and that he then proceeds to say it again. 

For someone who’s generally accepted to represent order and law (the invention of assemblies, for example), Lugh has this inexplicably CHAOTIC energy that I adore. Lugh....he’s always front and center, he’s always stealing the spotlight. In the Early Modern recension of CMT, Nuada even POINTS IT OUT, saying that he’ll take all the spotlight while the Tuatha Dé will get no glory of their own. This is something people NOTICED even at the time. 

Also, Lugh, despite coming off as quite cold and single-minded, actually cares DEEPLY for those around him, to truly tragic results? Like, the entire boys’ troop of Ulster’s killed and he doesn’t care because his son’s safe. His wife cheats on him and he kills the son of one of the most powerful men of the Tuatha Dé. His father’s killed and Lugh BREAKS DOWN at his grave and then is willing to tear the Tuatha Dé in two to get his revenge, regardless of the collateral damage. Lugh...loves, deeply, painfully, and, for those he loves, he’d let the world burn, and that’s a trait of his that is DEEPLY under-appreciated. 

And, in one of the bardic poems, there’s a very distinct implication that Lugh wasn’t always beloved by the Tuatha Dé - Gray interprets it as him having been bullied, I think it might be a reference to the Early Modern recension of the 2nd battle, either way, it implies there are Reasons for Lugh being Like That, and it gets more deeply tragic when you consider that he’d have been growing up IN BRES’ REIGN. Of COURSE Lugh would feel ostracized. Of course Lugh would do everything to prove that he’s in with the Tuatha Dé, even if it involves kinslaying. Even if it involves murder. Because the Fomoire aren’t really PEOPLE, are they? They’re not like him at all. Because he’s Right and Good and they’re not, because if he was to have that idea challenged, if he had to admit that there was anything he had in common with them, it’d break him. Because that’s how he survived. 

!!! Thanks for letting me know, I just looked up the prayer and it’s beautiful <3

I could go on all day about why you should appreciate this wonderful character but in lieu of that, have some fic! These are just two of the many Ron-centric fics I know and love, so please feel free to send in your favorites and I might try to make a masterlist.

you can climb a ladder up to the sun by @cicelythereaper

5 aspects of Ron Weasley. Beautifully written, perfectly characterized. Short and sweet, please read

brighter than the sun by @taizi

julian of norwich has some good reflections on this in “revelations of divine love” - the idea of original sin as “the fortunate sin” because it means more to do good when you are capable of wishing for bad. i genuinely love the idea of original blessing, but i also love the idea that we are inherently flawed and that that’s the point - not that that puts us further away from god but that it brings us closer to Them

hullo!

2. Is it easier to draw someone facing left or right (or forward even)

facing forward is the hardest to make look nice always.. i feel like it always ends up looking flat for me

5. has been answered 7. A medium of art you don't work in but appreciate

i've never ever tried oil paints but i like watching videos of people working on massive oil paintings.. i want to try but i dont exist in a space where it is possible unfortunately 29. Media you love, but doesn't inspire you artistically

5. What’s the first song that comes to mind when you think about them?

What made you ship it?

Not going to lie, I did ship it a little as far back as the German in some sense. It’s hard to say WHAT sense, but...in some sense, not the least because of that WEIRD power dynamic in “Weil Ich Besser Bin” where there are those little moments where it looks like Margrid’s starting to acquire that hard edge and develops some agency in it. There’s that push and pull. Like, Orléans is very clearly meant to be read as creepy there! But there’s this...odd dynamic. And, as far back as the German, Orléans was willing to be swayed courtesy of Margrid looking at him. It was always a wasted dynamic, given how little they really interact, but what little we got, when they weren’t OBSESSED with showing that Orléans is Evil™, had a lot of potential, especially since you could make the argument that they were in some sort of relationship since about twenty minutes in the first act. It made me interested for how they would do it in the Toho, and in the Toho...it’s less explicit (for the better, since it had time to establish the respect there), but also there’s a lot more between them. I THINK I really got interested when you see Orléans watching her after their first meeting, if I wasn’t then, I was definitely interested during their second, given that Orléans........almost TEASES her at times, while Margrid is very Done. There’s a distinctive “I am having the time of my life trolling Margrid” look he has. And then....the ending. Margrid looking absolutely DEVASTATED and drained as he’d taken away. 

I started off going “I don’t SHIP it, but they might have had some odd sexual tension” to “Okay, they might have had sex, but there were no FEELINGS, I am DRAWING THE LINE” to “Friends with Benefits over the years? Orléans still keeping up his thotty, thotty ways while occasionally banging Margrid” to “Your Honor, they were in love.” It didn’t hurt that, when I first watched the Toho, I was in my I Am A Good Queer And Don’t Ship M/F - Margrid Is A Strong Woman And Doesn’t Need A Love Interest, Least Of All A Man phase of media consumption, which was hopelessly limited and, honestly, distressing, because there was that GUILT over it. 

What are your favorite things about the ship?

That mutual level of respect, the two of them actually being a team. I have some OTPs where they’re total Yin-Yangs, and I love them, but the two of them really compliment one another in ways that I’m not used to working with for my interclass OTPs. Like, I was very used to writing Peyronan 1789 at that point, and, instead of having a very repressed, dutiful aristocrat with a chaotic stupid revolutionary, you have a fun-loving, charismatic aristocrat with a much more guarded person from a lower class, both of them are revolutionaries, and they’re both very intelligent. I still love Peyronan and their shared braincell, but it made for a bit of a break from the usual. The difference is that, while Margrid has more of a temper, Orléans is more impulsive, and the two of them keep the one another in check, and Orléans being hyper-tactile provides Margrid with some constant form of reassurance that he isn’t going anywhere (until....) They don’t split apart because “OH NO HE’S EVIL” - Orléans was forthright about what he was going to do from the beginning, Margrid signed on for that, so there’s also this element of “If she’d just been a slightly worse person...or he’d been a slightly better one, they would have had a shot.” And, depending on the production, some Orléanses look absolutely SMITTEN with Margrid at various points, while some Margrids are clearly soaking in the attention he gives her. They have a ton of angst, a ton of conflict, a ton of terrible places that they go to, but also a ton of history together that serves to accentuate the angst. 

Also that Margrid deserves having (1) person who doesn’t leave her and, honestly, we have more evidence for Orléans, directly, caring for her than Fersen, who shows compassion for her, absolutely (and, to his credit, got her out of being arrested that one time JUST out of the desire to help - I’m not going to diminish the times that his actions were purely altruistic), but also pretty clearly uses her to get to Antoinette. 

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?