[ID: A digital art piece of Cerise Hood sitting in the middle of a forest. She is sitting with her feet tucked under her, and her arms are resting on her legs. Her body language appears at ease, and she is looking up toward the sky with a slight smile on her face as dappled lighting falls upon her, filtered through the trees. The drawing is done in an anime style, on the side of the anime spectrum with more realistic-leaning proportions. The environment around her is fully rendered. \EndID]
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Something something about Red and Badwolf having been the first people we know of who rebelled against the destiny system. Something something about the story of Little Red Riding Hood being a cautionary tale teaching kids to do what they're told and never stray from the path set before them. Something something about the very people who's story teaches blind obedience being the first to choose to think for themselves
Do yall ever think about the implications of what happened when Raven had to sign the book to fight Courtly? Sure, they were able to snap her out of it, but, at least temporarily, it *changed* her.
Maybe Apple and the others were only able to snap Raven out of it bc it was so soon after it happened. Maybe, if they hadn't destroyed the book mere hours later, surges of overwhelming evilness like that would have overcome her more and more frequently until they couldn't snap her out anymore and it'd be permanent. What if that's what happened with every Evil Queen before her, even her mom?
We know her mom stole the storybook of legends. What if that was one thing that actually wasn't an evil scheme? What if she hated the EQ destiny just as much as Raven does? What if that was the last dregs of the real her crying out to intervene? A final, desperate act in her last days of lucidity. It was too late to save herself, but maybe she could save her child, her child she didn't even have yet, from sharing her fate. Maybe she didn't trust herself to know it's location, knowing she'd be ful-evil soon. Maybe she gave it to her roommate, Red, and told Red to hide it where no one, not even her, would ever look. Maybe Red is the one who put it under the floorboards in their room.
What if it was always the story book making the Evil Queens evil? Raven was just the first to break free?
Headcannon: Hopper introduces Briar to the wonderful world of video games. At first she doesn't get the appeal until he sits her down with a good pvp first person shooter and her adrenaline junkie self can't get enough. From that point on any night where there isnt a party she spends staying up until 3-4 am playing. Totally because that's when all the most competitive players are online and totally not because she's afraid that if she goes to bed she won't wake up.
I think overthinking the Beauty family lineage might help understand how the destiny system is supposed to proceed if someone dies childless. Hear me out.
Briar and Rosabella are cousins. Their moms were twins. This begs the question: how did 2 destinies wind up in the same family with 1 main character destiny and a prince charming? Was their mom a sleeping beauty, or a beast's beauty? If they were just siblings but not twins, I would suggest half siblings as a solution to this problem, but they are twins so both sets of parents are the same.
Well, they do have 2 parents. 2 parents and 2 destinies, maybe each destiny came from a different parent.
"But their dad is a charming, not a main character destiny!" I hear you protest. Yes, he was. But what if one of his siblings wasn't?
If we're willing to accept the idea that younger siblings of main character destiny people could start new Charming lines, then maybe their dad had an older sister who was either a sleeping beauty or a beast's beauty. What if she was infertile, or for some other reason died without kids? What if the destiny then passed to his children as next in line (skipping him because he had already fulfilled a prince charming destiny)
Thus, the two Beauty lines merge into one line, with two sisters each taking a destiny. Then the cousins from there, and so on as the lines diverge again.
I think this theory has some merit, but it would need a little more work shopping to figure out how it works with Poppy not becoming a charming and with the charming trio's situation. But to be fair, I think that situation needs a theory to explain it as well. What fairy tale was Queen Charming a part of that she married a Prince Charming? Why are they not known by that fairy tale like all the other characters are (think of Apple as an example, her dad was a charming too)? Why did none of the kids get queen charming's destiny? All of this kind of needs an explanation. For how it works with the theory, this would mean that king charming has an older sibling with a main character destiny, and one of the kids, probably Daring as the oldest, should get Queen Charming's destiny, leaving the other two to be charmings.
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Finally finished this one! I'm actually pretty proud of how it came out. Here's our favorite adrenaline junkie fuled by existential dread!
[ID: A realistically rendered digital painting of Briar Beauty having fallen asleep on a couch, bathed in window light. There's a throw pillow on the couch next to her and bookshelves behind her. /EndID]
Thinking about how Riddlish is handled in cannon and in fics. I've seen people just put random things that happen to ryhm anytime they want someone to be speaking Riddlish and it's like, a minor pet peeve of mine? But every time we see Riddlish spoken in cannon, it kind of makes sense in a way? Like, if you think about what is said, and try to piece together any symbolism based on context, you can kind of understand what they're saying. Like Maddie said, "Riddlish is not an exact language". Putting together the metaphor and symbolism gives you the general idea of what they're getting across. And whenever a fic does this well, it's like an instant favorite.
Let's look at and dicect some cannon examples (I've always kind of found these facinating):
"Feathers and Friends, together alone!"
"Feathers" could refer to Raven, since she's named after a bird. She also has feathers fairly prominent in her character design, so it'd make sense for Giles to say this even though he doesn't know her name yet.
"and Friends" probably refers to Maddie, since she's known him for a while and is presumably his friend. It could also refer to their friendship, and maybe even be a way of including Raven in.
"together, alone" They're here with him, joining him in his solitude.
Putting it all together we get "Raven and Maddie, you're here! You came to visit me!" Which lines up pretty well with Maddie's translation of "he says it's nice to have us here!"
"Can a musical chair change its tone, when the tablet of granite is inscribed with a bone?"
"Can a musical chair change it's tone" The music in musical chairs is integral to the game, yet the song played does not come from the chair, but from the people playing. The tone of a musical chair is something fundamental about itself, and also something imposed by something outside itself. Can it change? Can something change something about itself that someone else has decided is fundamental?
"When the tablet of granite is inscribed with a bone?" A tablet of granite inscribed with something is literally that thing being written in stone, another reference to destiny and inevitability. And what's written on that stone is a bone, is death. Death is what is written in stone. Death is supposedly inevitable here.
From Raven's tone and terrified body language when asking Maddie to translate for her, it's fairly clear that the thing that wants to change is referring to Raven.
Putting it all together we get "Can Raven change from what others have said she's supposed to be, or is death the inevitable consequence of that like we've been told it is?" Which lines up pretty well with what Maddie was asked to translate: "What'll happen to me if I don't sign the book, am I really gonna disapear?"
"The king that sings with pages of sky fears too much the dawn that rises with lies"
"pages of sky" is in reference to the book, and maybe the fairytales themselves. The sky is often used to symbolically reference heaven and the divine. The book, determining people's destinies, fits fairly well into that category. It's almost like he's referring to the book as being from above.
"The king that sings with pages of sky" would then be Headmaster Grim. He's in a position of authority over the students like a king is to his subjects. He "sings with" the book/the stories with his constant insistence that people must sign the book and follow their stories, speaking in unison with them.
"fears too much" this part is fairly clear, Milton's paranoid. The consequences he thinks are inevitable aren't as inevitable as he claims.
"the dawn that rises with" would mean something like "the consequences of" or "the fallout from". Then there's one of two ways the rest could be. "lies" could refer to that which is contrary to what the stories say will happen. If you take the stories as "truth" then changing the stories would be "lies". Or, "rises with lies" could mean the consequences coming from Milton's lies being brought to light. The dawn rises as Milton's lies rise.
Yet the whole thing sounds rather foreboding, giving the impression that something is seriously wrong.
Bringing it all together, we either get "Headmaster Grim told you to follow your destiny because he's paranoid about what'll happen if you don't. But those fears are unfounded. Also something is very wrong." or "Headmaster Grim told you to follow your destiny because he's afraid of what will happen when people find out why you don't need to (and its emplied that that reason is something very bad)" This lines up fairly well with Maddie's translation of "There's something wrong with the book, and if you don't sign, your story will continue... I think". I like the touch that Maddie wasn't as confident in this translation, since the last phrase is more ambiguous. It's not really clear how the foreboding tone integrates into the message without more context than Maddie has, so Maddie doesn't really know what it means.
"The baby bird flies. The snake, it slithers. But the cage holds both, to die and to wither."
"The baby bird flies. The snake, it slithers." The baby bird and the snake are two very different creatures, they move and interact with the world in two totally different ways. Most people also would look more favorably on the baby bird than on the snake.
"but the cage holds both, to die and to wither." the cage doesn't care what is inside of it, it will indiscriminately hold them both captive. The things that make the baby bird different from the snake, and the adorable charms of the baby bird will not free the baby bird from the cage, nor will they protect the baby bird from the grisly fate that awaits it in the cage.
The context is also relevant, since she's talking to Alastair and Bunny, two of her subjects who have just been arrested, but also two of her daughter's friends.
Putting this all together we get "Yes, you enjoy privileges that others do not have, but my affection for you will not compromise my judgement. You are not above the law. I am not above punishing you like I would anynother citizen." While we don't have a cannon translation to compare this to, it seems to make sense. Its immediately followed up with her letting them off with a warning, and despite this interaction, Bunny later tells Lizzie that her mom really is a good queen, but that the curse has stressed her out. I think the Queen of Hearts probably made exploring illegal to protect people from the curse. If she really is a good queen, then this type of objectivity ("I don't care if you're my daughter's friends, crime is crime") would make total sense.
Raven spends a lot of time around mirrors. When getting ready in the mornings she lingers a little longer than normal before stepping away. She has a small round mirror on her bedside, she carries it with her at the bottom of her bag. Sometimes she can be found talking to it when she thinks she's alone. Sometimes you might catch her giving it a quick hug.
Most people assume this is vanity, a Daring-esque obsession with her looks. After all, she is destined to freak out over the idea of someone else being the fairest so much that she'd kill over it. She's supposed to be vain.
But those who know Raven know the real reason. Raven's mother is behind that glass.
Raven's relationship with her mother wasn't always so strained as it is now. There was a day when Raven was younger, too young to understand what their destiny was, too young to understand how truly evil her mom was, too young to understand what her mom had done. When her mom wasn't "the evil queen" to her, when her mom was just "mom". In these days she and her mother had been close. Raven had told her everything, and they'd done everything together. When her mom took her to go have tea every Tuesday, and they'd have salon days and smoothies on the weekends. Things may be more complicated now. Raven doesn't want to be like her mom, and says she hates her, wants nothing to do with her. But a part of her is still that little girl, wanting to run into her mother's arms for a hug. A part of her cries out to be close with her again. A part of her wishes her mother would support her in her rebellion against destiny, so they could be close again. She wishes her mother hated their destiny as much as she does. She wishes she could spend time with her mom, just the two of them, just one more time. She wishes that trying to do that wasn't an inevitable recipe for more pain, due to their different worldviews. It hurts.
Raven can't hear the other side of the mirror, but she knows her mom can see and hear through it. So when the little girl in side her is crying out, despite all her hatred and anger towards her mother...
