#yaad

6) if you could talk to your Blorbo, what would you say to them?

setting aside daydreams where i call them cuties and say i love them, i just. wouldn't talk to thistle DHKDHD we're too similar in the headfucked department and would probably end up fighting (i would die). i'd call him a pitiful little shit behind his back. yaad though i would chat up about ethics and gender and deviously insinuate that her situation is less than ideal... and maybe she has the power to change it...

9) describe your Blorbo in 3 words

little haunted doll. both of them.

24) if you could change one canonical thing about your Blorbo, what would it be?

make a more direct connection between thistle's white features (purple eyes & blond hair) and his colonized mindset - particularly the magical effects of his eyes correlating to his usage of magic in service of delgal.

What are your headcanons about her? Post canon headcanons in normal dungeon Meshi? Facts and stuff about her in your fic that aren’t too spoiler-y?

erring on the side of caution when it comes to her heritage since i'm still new to understanding the other abrahamic faiths/jewish culture as a whole, but tbh that works out well enough for me as of now since she's more catholic than anything else during canon proper. generally speaking, though, i like to write her as embodying jewish values in spite of her outward catholicism, since her mother was a stronger influence on her upbringing when it came to her personal ethics than anyone else.

pre-canon to canon: her mama's name was ava. i'm assuming in-universe attitudes to jewish faith and people would mirror irl medieval history, so her marriage to eodio would have been taboo outside the dungeon, but was (made) acceptable within due to its isolated state. delgal just didn't gaf, whatever made his son happy he allowed. eodio let his wife name yaad - and a blatantly non-christian name for a prince of a christian kingdom in what everyone assumed, for a while, was a state close to heaven? audacious, but permitted! she understood there was an ironic sanctuary the dungeon provided for her in that respect, seeing as its elven tyrant isn't exactly the picture of a good upright christian himself. but she also understood the difficulty of the circumstances and had hopes that yaad, true to his name, would serve as a spiritual guide - not just for the kingdom itself, but maybe even for thistle.

however, even with all that in mind, the decision to return to the surface was mutually agreed upon between yaad's parents due to the psychological toll of immortality (plus, both their religions would definitely frown on its existence). after eodio's death, his wife went off with her people and the queen to search for an escape as a last resort. she and the queen left behind writings, books and such for yaad to find and to guide him while he grew up without them.

beyond that sliver of connection to her mother, yasmin had virtually nothing. even her catholicism was mostly her own choice, since neither delgal nor eodio were devotees of their own faith beyond what was necessary to be seen as respectable members of society. in yasmin's case, it was a way to cope with feeling disconnected from her body, from her family, from the world... but she struggles with losing even that connection after learning the demon had been posing as her god. on some level, she knows she's already started to deconstruct her beliefs inside the dungeon, but the loss is still palpable.

post-canon: she actually does try to build a deeper connection to her mother's culture, and... that's about all i feel capable of talking about at that point lol. i have more thoughts about her realizing she's trans through the way she relates to delgal's body - how it simultaneously feels like something meant for her, something she has always been, yet is also something that carries heavy scars because of her upbringing. it takes her a while to realize the euphoria comes from being grown, not from being a man lmao. i've mentioned in a different post that she learns herself better by relating to thistle's own experiences with gender, especially once she figures out it isn't solely an elven experience; in fact, she and thistle mirror one another's experiences so closely because their growth was stunted and then stretched out during critical periods of their lives, and that is something unique to them. being trans is something that bridges their understanding of one another to a fuller extent. i like to imagine they get to a point of feeling comforted by their shared connection rather than burdened by it, especially post-transition, when they both feel like different people and can start over on a cleaner slate.

fairy tale au: fun thing about the golden kingdom citizens in this au (and how i generally write them anyway) is they align pretty well with the fools of chelm from ashkenazi jewish folklore. obviously the citizens themselves aren't jewish - though not all of them are native to the kingdom either! there are citizens descended from people who came from neighboring lands - but given the vague laws of cosmological fuckery i've cooked up for this verse, they still end up falling under that broad "city archetype" by association with yaad/yasmin as their leader, who feels more emotionally connected to her mother than her father. they're just a bunch of sillies near the end of their wits.

also, there are presently no golems in the kingdom - they all followed the "deserters" who joined the princess, and only a few remain in the labyrinth in the present day

Where the Sun Hides | Chapter 5: who has choices need not choose (~17k)

Characters/Pairings: Yaad & Thistle, Thistle & Delgal, Yaad & Delgal, Falin

Rating: Teen

With the coming of a new spring, so shall you wash away the sorrows of days past. It is our shared hope that when peace finds your heart, we may once again dine together as family. Hence, we await your response with utmost patience from our Good Mage's homestead. I send all my love. Have faith and be well, until spring arrives to carpet your steps. Yaad

Golden Kingdom Fairy Tale AU. Thistle falls ill.

(Tags below. Detailed content notes in Chapter 1)