#mq&a

(I know Dorian's from the Silken Squall but it's technically above Marquet so also not wrong in a sense.)

Sorry for the long wait. I kept forgetting to answer (and my laptop was out of commission for a bit)

There is definitely fun to be had when parts of a party/friend group know a language that not all of the party knows.

So have some headcanons on those languages:

Marquesian

Dorian knows the standard classroom accent/dialect of Marquesian as he learned it for diplomacy/trade stuff, being the second son of a distinguished family. (and we don't know if there's a particular region of Marquet that the Silken Squall is more strongly tied to). This also means that Dorian has had more focus on formal speech and diction.

Imogen is straight up Taloned Highlands accent/dialect.

FCG has a Taloned Highlands accent because of Dancer (though lighter than Imogen's because he heard a lot less of it around him), but a Hellcatch Valley dialect/vocabulary, seeing as that's where they lived first.

Ashton is straight up Hellcatch Marquesian since he learned it after getting dumped in Bassuras. They've probably picked up some ticks of the Oderan Wilds/Jrusar in the years they've lived there, but would still largely be Hellcatch.

Imogen and Ashton sometimes frustrate each other because of the different accents and choices of turns of phrase and such.

FCG hits a bit of a middle ground between Imogen and Ashton, and can usually smooth out any frustrations or miscommunications between the other two.

Dorian is still getting the hang of less formal Marquesian, but doesn't have too much trouble with the others' accents. Mostly because he has a good ear.

Primordial

Dorian is the most widely learned in different accents, dialects, formalities, etc of Primordial since his family are important people in a diaspora of (air) genasi.

Ashton would have learned basic Primordial as a kid, up to whatever standard might be expected of an 8 year old bilingual kid. Because Hishari should have boasted Primordial as a language that at least the leadership could speak, being a Titan Cult, and Ashton was Efterin, the leader's kid. Ashton's retention of Primordial, however, is due to the Shard of Ka'Mort, as well as an expansion in vocabulary and syntax. Mostly because I really doubt Ashton had much of anyone to speak Primordial with after getting teleported out of Hishari to maintain his knowledge of the language otherwise. Of course, because Ashton's main teacher in the long term is the fragment of a titan, he mainly speaks Primordial in an ancient dialect. It's like hearing someone speak Shakespearian English in modern times: understandable, but it might take some work with certain turns of phrase or vocab no longer really being in use.

Imogen learned Primordial by scooping the language thoughts out of her friends' heads. And since she was around Ashton a lot more than Dorian, she ends up doing her best to copy the ancient Primordial dialect they use.

Dorian is confused as hell the first time he hears Imogen and Ashton speak Primordial. Why are you bitches using the old formal speech? What do you mean "what am I talking about"?!

Thus begins some modernization lessons.

Right. Thanks.

So we're talking about this post that questions how Sir Julien might come to work with hated enemy Thjazi's fan club, with the tags being:

#i've said it in my own post about how i see the table split working at the moment #but if one of Thjazi's projects was re-opening the Door to Faerie. Julien could get behind that as it would restore power to House Royce

Which is referencing this post of mine about how I think Soldiers, Seekers, and Schemers might fall out in terms of what event/thread they're pursuing, who the anchoring/lead character(s) of the group will be, and who might potentially be at that table, based on episode 1.

And while the reasoning is a lot of looking at what few pieces we've got and piecing them together and making some guesses while doing so, it feels like a good thread to me.

Aranessa said to Halandil when asked how/why she couldn't get Thjazi's execution stopped, she mentioned that her political power has faded since the Doors to Faerie were closed. Which implies that House Royce's standing is/was tied to dealing with Faerie, which is no longer happening since Faerie has been completely(?) cut off.

Sir Julien is clearly stated to care about Aranessa and his political power/standing, given how much stock he puts in pulling the Davinos family out of the disgrace his father put it into.

The closing of the Doors to Faerie also seem to result in Thimble now aging, as it was mentioned when Teor laid eyes on Thimble that for the first time she looked older than she had before.

We have been told that Thjazi has a lot of irons in the fire, and he's got a propensity for rebellion. He's an illegal arcanist working with other arcanists, so he had magical shit going on. He was married to Aranessa and a long time friend/partner (in crime) with Thimble, people hurt by the loss of Faerie.

It has yet to be revealed what the timeline and circumstances of closing the Doors to Faerie were. We can assume the Doors closed sometime in the past 20-ish years, since Teor remembers a time that Thimble wasn't aging and there's some implication to the way Aranessa answered Hal's question that once she, personally, would have had the power to act under her House's banner.

And this is some guess work, but if the War of Axe and Vine was about closing the Doors, where Axe (cold iron) was in support of closed doors and Vine (nature/faerie magic) was for keeping them open, there's an even greater political element to the closing, as clearly some people derived political power from ties to Faerie.

So if one of the tasks Thjazi has left unfinished was re-opening the Doors to Faerie, well, that seems like the one thing about Thjazi that Sir Julien would actually want to help with. It would help Sir Julien's friend Aranessa, raise the status of House Royce of which the Davinos family is a vassal, and if he's feeling spiteful, it's doing what Thjazi didn't/couldn't.

I vaguely remember that they posted a set of emojis for each member of the party, and one of Bolaire's was the tragedy/comedy masks. Now that you mention it, I wonder if that might be more of a literal representation than I first thought, with the mask Bolaire wears having tears on it! Maybe he was seeking out the other mask, in hopes that it might counteract his curse somehow, if the two masks represent opposite energies like tragedy and comedy? Sort of like the negative and positive ends of a magnet?

Oh: And if Taliesin added the whole mask thing to his character, so that somewhere down the line we'll get a reprise of the "Darling, take the mask off..." moment, I am going to royally freak out! Just saying...

Admittedly, I was kind of thinking of that when I made the theatre mask mention in my post about the masks situation.

But, having dug up the emoji sets and someone's guess on who belonged to which set (which we never got a confirmed correct set matching), I think with the context of episode 1, that their guesses of Bolaire and Halandil's sets is actually reversed.

It was guessed that Bolaire's was 🎭📜🗝️ and Hal's was 🏛️⚱️🎻 But, we've learned that Hal just got the deed to a theatre and is likely to be key to figuring out what happened with Thjazi. While Bolaire runs a museum that has some rare urns/ancient pottery, though who knows what's up with the violin. Possibly a cultured and/or gala thing. Or maybe Bolaire can play the violin.

But regardless of the emoji set hints, given the prevalence of the paired theatre mask motif, if that is the deal between Bolaire's mask and the shattered one, then yeah, I would think that Bolaire might want it as a counterbalance to whatever his mask's deal is.

Or Bolaire possibly needs to collect whatever set his mask belongs to, regardless of how big or small the set, to stave off worse consequences to whatever his mask does, and/or remove it/its curse.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" And small arms wrap around his waist.

It's the first time he's ever been hugged.

...Well, as much as a mask using someone else's body can be hugged.

Not that this child knows what he is. No, to them he's just another soldier in the war. The one who saved their parents.

If the child did know, they might not have done it.

Certainly none of the soldiers he's known over the last sixty years has been willing to hug a body under his control. No, they've waited until he was asleep once more (probably) or worn by someone else.

The little arms squeeze tighter, demanding.

He pats the child on the back, as he has seen others do when hugged. His reward is one last squeeze before the child disengages, dashing back to their parents for more hugs. The parents give him grateful looks over the child's head.

It's... nice. To be treated like a person, not a weapon.

Green 5. "I trust you with my life."

The thing is, Wicander's a naive, stupid dick.

But the big idiot tries, with an unexpected ferocity, to be a good guy, just because he thinks it's the right thing to do.

Thimble isn't sure how those dicks trying to stomp her people out produced someone who genuinely wants to be kind to everyone, even if he barely has a fucking clue how to do so. So she tries to give him grace for trying, but man is it hard because he's just so stupid.

And he's not good ol' Teor, who Thimble can trust without reserve. Or Kattigan, who she can trust with some caveats. Or even Tyranny who at least understands some stuff that keeps people alive in their circumstances.

But Thimble landed in Wicander's hand, was healed. And well, maybe she can trust that he doesn't want her life to end. That he does want better for faeries and others under his stupid Creed.

A man of good faith from House Halovar. Who'd have thought?

There's a soft rustling in their self-imposed silence. Sharp against their ears with the migraine raging through their head.

The soft, wet smack of a kiss echoes next, but Ashton doesn't feel it.

"What're you doing?" he moans, not removing his face from the pillows.

"Kissing you better," Fearne seriously replies, the soft smack of another kiss coming from near his ear.

It's stupid, and childish, and sweet, and so very Fearne.

Another wet impact of another kiss.

They laugh, and it hurts, but the warmth of being cared for is worth it.

Not really. Mostly because I don't have a very solid idea for how I'd want to style Termina.

By canon descriptions so far, we just know that Termina is black clay and that she is obviously of the same style as Bolaire since Thaisha and Hal were able to draw that connection despite her broken state in the Overture.

But the thing about theatre masks is that the details and appearance are based on who/what they're meant to portray. And while we've learned a fair bit more about the mechanics of the Panto Play, we still know basically nothing about its story or what any of the individual Panto's character archetypes are. Even for Bolaire we only have guesses on what kind of character he was/is. With the main guesses being Tragedy for the carved tear tracks or Comedy because Lathalia is close to Thalia, Greek muse of comedy. Which are more genre than character archetype, to be honest.

I would guess that Termina doesn't have any high contrast color accents or details, simply because that feels like it should have been part of her descriptions, that some of the fragments are not black.

I think that to some degree it makes sense for Termina to be rather plain. She's Rauwyn's prison. The one who will be seen (directly) the least by the goddess for whom the play was meant to be performed. So where Termina pinned Rauwyn down (meta)physically, the other Panto are the ones that need to grab attention, be flashy and distracting from what is right on Rauwyn's face.

To get a little more headcanon territory, I wouldn't be surprised if Termina is a little more skull-like in her shape. A death's mask. Termina, terminal, terminate. The vengeance of the halflings upon their Shaper.

Going to set this as a possibility for what I'm calling the Beacon Yoink AU that I will, hopefully, start posting someday.

Red 2. "I'm so fucking pissed." Orange 1. "Here, I brought you juice."

Imogen is fuming.

How fucking dare her mom demand that she help her fuck over the world. Help those fucks who jacked her body and tried to hurt her friends. Act like Imogen was being unreasonable for not trusting the organization that backed Otohan Thull, killer of Laudna, and Orym and Fearne and Eshteross and a bunch of other innocent people. Treat Imogen like she was a child who didn't know better and just needed to submit to Ludinus and Predathos.

Fuck that.

"Have some fucking juice," Ashton quietly murmurs, pushing a glass against her cheek.

It's cool, and soothing. And it's not Laudna's usual glass of water. Imogen doesn't know if that's more or less reassuring. After all, Imogen is the one who created this aching distance.

"I'm so fucking pissed," Imogen tells them after she's drained half the glass.

They snort. "If that's how pushy your fucking mom's been this whole fucking time, I can see why. Kinda too fucking dumb to back the fuck off."

And something in Imogen wants to protest. Because there's still that little part of her that hopes for the momma she built up in her head over the years without her, that believes Liliana could be good and kind.

But the words never even formulate. What defense is there for how blind her momma is to who Imogen is, what she wants? Her momma is acting dumb. Imogen just isn't happy about being blatantly forced to acknowledge it.

"...I don't want to be pissed at her," Imogen softly confesses, the anger turning to melancholy. Because gods why is her momma being so dumb?

"Don't see fucking why," Ashton answers, a note of anger in his voice. "She's been fucking shit to you since you first reached out."

"But she tried to protect me for the last ten years. Told me to run," Imogen half-heartedly argues. It's the thing that helped her believe her momma was good.

"Personally, I don't find an empty fucking warning all that fucking helpful. Especially if you fucking ask about why and still get fucking nothing."

Those embers of anger flare inside Imogen because yeah, what the fuck, momma? She'd asked and gotten stonewalled so bad that there was practically no choice but for Imogen to push forward and find answers herself. Ignorance can only protect someone for so long.

"I know we're probably going to have to fight her," Imogen says into the silence. "I think I even want to fight her, crazy as it seems. At least she'll have to actually see me then, right? See that I'm serious about not helpin' Ludinus, or Predathos. Can't be her helpless baby girl if I'm kickin' her ass, right?"

"Fuck yeah," Ashton encourages.

"...I just don't think I want her dead," Imogen whispers.

Ashton shrugs, almost contemplative. "Think that one's up to her. 'Cause I'm fucking voting for her if it fucking comes to any of us or her."

Imogen closes her eyes and takes a shaky breath in. "Yeah. Guess you're right."