Speaking Riddlish

This is my Ever After High side blog. Main blog here: @christiannerd

[speaking-riddlish]

First Post

Hello! This is my first post for my new Ever After High side blog! This will probably be mostly reblogging stuff, but I will make some original posts. I do fanart sometimes.

Favorite Character: Madeline Hatter!

Ships: Raven x Dexter, Daring x Lizzie, Bunny x Alistair

My favorite part of the show is the destiny vs. free will delema, so that'll probably show up a lot.

[speaking-riddlish]

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.

[sofiayyeah]

«Right then I realized I couldn't tell Raven what was in my true heart. Not yet. She's going through so much, and I couldn't make things more complicated for her. She needs a friend, not a boyfriend. Besides, I could wait, because girls like Raven are worth waiting for.»

[pontipines]

Why people say that the show was pro-Raven when literally all the cool things that her and her friends had in the books have been stripped away, while Apple's inner circle in the series has all the most interesting storylines. I mean, let's see:

The Evil Queen: The Evil Queen in the books is the definition of "haunting the narrative." Literally, because her actions have invaded the narratives of others. She was one of the first rebels. We get to know her, and even when she's not around, her actions resonate throughout the world. Because of her, Wonderland is ruined, Maddie and co. escaped, Beauty woke up early, and Raven herself now has her fate "altered." In the series, it first seems like she's the first Evil Queen (which isn't true), but then she's kind of... relatively nonexistent until Dragon Game.

Cerise: Not the worst case because at least here she's still BadWolf's daughter. BUT, they cut the plot to the Red Riding Hood village. Cerise is therefore a cool character in concept, but lacking any substantial development. The series ended with her still in hiding, despite the fact that destinies no longer exist since W2W. This is bad.

Maddie: One of the four main girls, a crucial character in the books. She's the link between the world of EAH and us readers. She's one of the Evil Queen's main victims, but she's also the first to forgive Raven. She represents a lot of classic archetypes and at the same time she's still a character with depth without being a stereotype. In the series she's just a comic relife, and they even make her participate in the contest of the woman who ruined her life. Oh yeah, I forgot! The Wonderland plot that haunts the narrative in the books doesn't exist here for 4/5 of the show.

Cedar: Raven's second best friend, her close confidante, the conscience of the group. So connected to the times of normality and autonomy, the heart of the third book... bound as a comic relife, a beautiful show. They don't talk about her traumas, and She don't go to Wonderland even though in the books she's lowkey the next Alice.

Dexter: In the books, I have no doubt whatsoever that Raven is in love with him, but that's because he's a completely different character than the one on the show. Is he awkward? Yes... BUT - he's also extremely intelligent, a skilled athlete, has great inventive and hacking skills, he's overtly pro-rebel, and he's the one who helps Raven throughout the first book, especially on an emotional level. In the series, he's the comic relief because he's supposed to be a loser compared to Daring. They don't even say that Dexter is short for Dexterouse.

???Why are they all reduced to comic relief?????

[speaking-riddlish]

Told myself I'd take a small break after classes before getting started on studying for finals. Special Interest took over. Now I have a new drawing of Maddie.

[ID: A drawing of Madeline Hatter in an anime style. She in the bottom left two thirds of the image, facing mostly forward but slightly to the right. bent a little bit at the hips, leaning slightly forward. She is looking up and smiling, and her shoulders are raised up near her face with her arms straight and her arms clasped together. Her character design is as she is in cannon, with the exception of her having her father's nose. The image appears slightly desaturated, and the light source, which comes from the top right, is fairly bright. The background is a pale, desaturated teal, of such a color that it could be interpreted either as an arbitrary solid background, or the sky on a cloudy day. /End ID]

[pontipines]

You know who the series really fumbled compared to its book counterpart? The Wonderland girls! Precisely because the curse of the Evil Queen isn't mentioned outside of the movie, a crucial detail about the girls is lost: that they are war refugees. And it's interesting because we get three profoundly different perspectives on the matter.

Kitty got the best because she also had the fewest problems, but in the series I have to admit: she's a lowkey a pain in the ass. In the books, however, her ambiguous nature is more lovable because she actually manages to build genuine relationships while being aware of her morally reprehensible nature. Lizzie and Maddie are talked about a lot, but her most important relationship, in my opinion, is with Cedar, because they're two natural opposites, but precisely for this reason, their bond grows stronger.

Lizzie,is a wonderful character in AWW. Besides being clearly autistic,she more than anyone else, has experienced the culture shock of expatriation. You can see some of this in the series, but it's more tied to her role as a noblewoman. And the choice to make her friend with Cedar instead of the other royals is significant, because she's found someone as strange as her. Just as her relationship with Daring is much more significant here: He's the epitome of perfection, and yet he wants her. Dgmw, Lizzie First Date is probably my favorite episode, but Dizzie in the books is superior.

Maddie pisses me off the most because she falls into that "deep character sacrificed for comic relief in the show" category. (Like all the characters in Raven's inner circle -_-). First of all, Maddie is one of the three POVs in all three of Shannon Hale's books, something that even Raven and Apple don't. She is the person who has remained most positive despite adversity. In the books, Maddie suffers from being away from home, she suffers from isolation, and when Raven doesn't talk to her, she's devastated. But she's also the character everyone loves for this. Even the worst guy in school rally to help her. But she's also one of the wisest characters in the story because she sees what others don't. In the series... Mad Hatter shenanigans. Okay.

So yeah,this girls deserved better

[pontipines]

From a narrative standpoint, I appreciate the ambiguity of never making it clear whether or not the Good King is also Snow White's father; it leaves room for interpretation. Sure,he could 100% be any random king that happens to marry Raven's mom (best scenario if you ship Rapple). BUT at the same time, if you know how fairy tales work, you'll get into, like I do,the darker implications it entails for Raven and Apple. (Such as Raven also having to marry Apple's dad). Whitch male sense since the father-lover-groomer is very common trope in fairy tales, like in Donkey Skin.

And actually,it's not the only messed up relationship: Since one of Cinderella's Stepsisters is destined to become the stepmother (we know this from Ashlynn's chapters), this means that the two families are basically stuck in a joint loop

But also: For the sake of logic, in this universe every Swan Queen and every Black Swan are half-sisters. (Since they need heirs, it's quite obvious that Odette and Siegfried conceived before her death, and that he and Odile then start a family.) and since some characters have multiple roles either Siegfried, as Odile's father, or the Odile herself who becomes the new RothBart. In both cases, the fact is that in this universe, Swan Lake became a story about the murder of blood relatives because one side of the family actively decides to sabotage the other... Perhaps Duchess isn't entirely wrong to hate humanity.

[eahtheramblings]

The evil queens attack on wonderland drives me up the wall because if eah had been written for even a slightly older audience the effects of that would be everywhere. Like don’t get me wrong, wonderlands poisoning does have a big impact on the story with the well of wonder and all, and has some effect on the motivations of immediately impacted characters (the wonderland bunch + Raven) but if you want to get dark with the story theres so much more that could be dug up with it. It’s implied that the wonderland attack was just one part of a greater war between the evil queen and the rest of ever after. Even if that war ended when they were young, like 6 or 7-ish, theres still so much that could have impacted their upbringings and motivations.

Apple hears whispers from the adults at court about a terrifying threat. What threat? She doesn’t know. Maybe it’s the type that a brave prince slays, or the type that requires fey-like cunning to beat. But whatever it is it seems to be an unknown thing that scares the adults around her and takes the eldest sons of the court. Apple is six years old and just survived her fall in the well after being left alone outside while her parents rushed to meet with Grimm over something. She hugs her stuffed bunny a bit tighter and re-reads a book with no unknowns, whose future of certainty will one day be hers.

Pinocchio, now Geppetto, stares down at the little cedar puppet he has just carved. The dark fairies destiny has just been stolen. No one even knew until it was over; it was a great disguise, a great lie. Geppetto is sick of lies. He’s sick of waking up and lying to himself that the lack of business in the workshop is due to people saving for the holidays and not due to the “random” attacks on shipments coming in and out of the kingdom. He’s sick of what he knows deep down to be lies in the newspaper, that she’s finally crossed a line and will soon be caught. He’s sick of Grimm’s lies, claiming to be interested in the mechanics of his puppets and clocks but eyeing anything that could have use as a weapon. He just wants something without lies. He goes to bed and that little cedar wood puppet wakes up the next morning with a wide curious gaze and a spark of joy. She’s the only proof of true goodness he’s found recently. She hasn’t learned to lie yet. He never forgives himself for the curse but he doesn’t regret it either.

Lizzie, Kitty, and Maddie spend hours puzzling over a picture book. “What does this page say?” The worksheet asks. They don’t know - the riddle on it makes no sense. ‘The bear plays with his jump rope’ the book says. They can see that - the picture of the bear jumping is right there in the corner. So what is the purpose of the written words that tell of the same thing? In wonderland picture books always came with riddles that delved deeper into the pictures meaning. Does it mean something about how the bear feels? “No.” does the bear not want to be jumping? “No.” do bears not play in this land?“Sometimes.” this riddle makes no sense. “Thats because it’s not a riddle” the tutor replies. She has to wait for the hatter to translate this reply to them. Maddie cries out of frustration; The tutor treats each book like it’s the clearest thing in the world, yet Maddie can’t make heads or tails or underbelly of this familiar sounding yet foreign language at all. Kitty places a hand on her shoulder but doesn’t do much else; all three are exhausted from nightmares.

King charming returns home to a parade and a tournament and feasts in his honor. The evil has been defeated, the king returned victorious. His sons take place in a junior joust at the tournament. Dexters gets scared and tries to guard himself but overshoots the movement, leading his brother to hit him in the exact spot where his heart would be with the plastic toy lance. They drill blocking and shields for months after that. He won’t have a weak son. He’s seen the fates of to many weak princes already.

No one questions why Red keeps Cerise away from everyone for the first few years. Their queen was a mad woman, and she was trying to destroy as many tales as possible; Rapunzels twins were almost kidnapped, and they don’t even have a connection the way Red and the Queen do. Granny understands, but she still wishes her daughter would open the door and let her in when she drops food outside the remote cottage Red built miles away from hoods hollow.

Raven hugs her knees tight. “It’s over” people cry outside; “the queen is dead, long live the king”. But she isn’t; she’d seen the mirror. The queen was alive and the people who helped her were alive and the king had been ruler for all but six hours before one of her knight attempted to kill him. Long live the king, she says aloud to no one in particular. She’d pray it to Grimm - if she hadn’t just seen that in the face of her mother, he wasn’t as all powerful as they claim. A flock of ravens flies past one of the many new holes in the castles roof and her heart aches to fly away with them.

[athena-xox]

Everytime I’m like “I should post more on tumblr” I remember last August (summer of 2024) and how my name was being thrown around like crazy within this fandom 😭😭

I have a many screenshots of ppl name dropping me in the EAH tag but these are the only neural ones cause I don’t wanna restart beef

That truly was something. And then like a month later everyone posting about me forget because I made more book links and a timeline and like ten billion other things cause I had no chill

Anyways guess who’s got two thumbs and is going over the ✨timeline✨ again

[athena-xox]

Ohhhh also in the spring when all the anons on the confession account were attacking me

[speaking-riddlish]

oh, I do remember that part. I think all the people attacking you was right after I joined tumblr. I remember you being one of the first people on here i saw posts from and thinking "this person seems cool" and then seeing all the hate and trying to defend you from the anons in the comments. (To no avail, obviously)

[thestorybookoflegendsarchive]

so one of my side projects right now is a map of ever after (cause why would i pick an easy side project)

but i was wondering if anyone has any particular headcanons about specific kingdoms in terms of location or terrain

[pontipines]

Ok,let's use some canon information first,so we can layout a general map:

The kingdoms are actually realms/countries,are located at a very great distance, proving the fact that (as we see in the second book) to travel from kingdom to kingdom, or even just to village, a system of enchanted wells-subways,is needed. In fact, Wonderland exists as a country of its own. The same goes for the Isle of the Lost.

The second detail we always glean from the books is that the Charming siblings' grandparents' palace is specified as "of the east." This, combined with the fact that Raven tells us her parents have separate palaces and subjects, seems to suggest that each kingdom likely has its own hamlets. I mean Snow White and the Evil Queen must share the same realm for plot reasons. So, overall, the geography is likely similar to Game of Thrones,like this:

Now, some personal ideas on the placement of some realms:

> EA's actual realm is in the center and is a neutral zone where everyone goes regardless of their realm. King's Landing likes (keeping with the Got exemple).

> Snow White's kingdom and the Evil Queen's kingdom are a diarchy on the same continent. Lowkey located in the the north, as Snow White is German.

>For the same reason, the two Beauties' kingdoms function the same way, also because the beast in the French version of B&B is a beast for a hundred years, so it makes sense that the two curses align.

>Since they're both Italian fairy tales,Cedar Village is part of Ashlynn's kingdom (the first version of Cinderella, called Cinderella, is Italian, so she's technically Italian). Theirs is a relatively southern kingdom.

>The kingdom of Siegfried of the Ring of the Nibelungs (the canon grandfather of our Charmings) is the largest all and is divided into several fractions,divided among all his descendants. He and his direct heirs hold the eastern fraction, while Daring and his family belong to the southern fraction, coinciding with the White kingdom (hence the Apple×Daring).

> Since Red Hood and Robin Hood are related in this universe, the village of Hoods and the village of the Wolves are both in the Sherwood Forest in the kingdom of Nottingham. Yes, I know Nottingham Is a county, but England doesn't exist here, so Nottingham is directly a kingdom in EAH. Goldilocks' and the Huntsman villages are also located here.

> Wonderland and the Isle of the Lost are archipelagos,they count as independent continents. Same goes for Little Mermaid Kingdom since is under water,and others.

>The Swan Queen's domain is actually a duchy in the north (because: Russia). The true royal families of their kingdom are the Rothbart's and Siegfried's. Since all of Odette's descendants in this universe are theoretically bastard daughters of the prince (for obvious reasons), it makes sense that, as in the Middle Ages, legitimate bastards would have their own duchies+ title of prince/princess.

[speaking-riddlish]

I always headcannoned that EAH is located in Snow White's kingdom, not a neutral territory. My reasoning for this is that Grim shows difference to Apple that he doesn't show to other princesses, calling her "my future queen", which he doesn't do with Ashlyn, or Briar, or anyone else who is going to be a queen. This makes sense if he is one of her subjects. This makes me think that either the school is located in the White's kingdom, or at least the Grim Brothers must be from that kingdom.

I also was pretty sure that Wonderland isn't just an island somewhere but actually a parallel world? That would explain how the laws of physics are different there, how cutting off all portals to it can contain a curse that's literally swirling in the sky, and how a portal to it is necessary to allow a trickle of wonder to flow through keeping the world alive. If it was physically in the same world with nothing but miles of ocean between them, then the quarantine shouldn't really be effective and Ever After's fabric of reality needing a connection to Wonderland to sustain itself doesn't really make sense because Wonderland is right there. I think the parallel worlds thing also makes sense for Wonderland since it's a parallel world in its story, and Ever After already canonically exists in a multiverse with MH and Matel's other "highschool with a gimic" properties.

[darlcharming]

Ngl I only made this bc I wanted to reinforce that Maddie is extremely intelligent

Disclaimer that I take into account a lot of stuff in my concept of intelligence, not only good grades

[pontipines]

As is usual on this blog, can we talk about how much interesting Cerise's arc is in the books compared to the series? To be fair,the series and the books aimed two different purposes,and to be intellectually honest, Cerise is the character where the cross media worked best (along with Hunlynn. True Heart Day > the info dump in the third book).

The series has played a lot with using her secret to create gags and tension within episodes, like the one with Kitty or the one with Hunter. And It's funny,sure however the problem is that this formula prevents what should have happened by force of circumstances to move the narrative forward: the revelation of her secret to the adults.

This is where,the books are superior, as usual. The decision to have the village discover that Cerise is a direwolf significantly increases the narrative tension because it forces the girls to face an adult force. And the fact that the village doesn't seem to be as hostile as it seems, but rather a "constitutional" rivalry, makes everything more interesting. The hatred between the Hoods and the Wolves is clearly a ploy created to maintain the status quo, and when there's an alien factor (Cerise and Raven), they have no problem teaming up to eliminate it. And the fact that Cerise's arc in the books sees her self-determination as a direwolf, yet at the same time the village conceptually rejects her, is definitely more interesting than the usual gag of her growling and then coughing.

[ever-after-high-alistair]

[joyoimiya]

every time i remember that dexter’s name is short for dexterous, it brings me joy

[wormpiratesblog]

look we all love evil raven and the angst the fake/real storybook of legends drama post thronecoming created, but going the route of a decoy vs. genuine magic destiny book was one of the worst decisions the eah writers could of have made. it always should have been fake. it was the plot device that would have best aligned with their overall message of destiny being a choice, not an assignment.

[speaking-riddlish]

To be fair to the righters, I think it legitimately being a magic destiny book for the previous generation's does tie up some of what would otherwise be plotholes. Not all destinies involve someone's active choices. Sometimes the story playing out involves natural stuff happening to someone, like death to natural illness. Imagine a case where someone's destiny says they're supposed to die of an illness when their child is young to set up their backstory for their run of the story, but the person in question is completely healthy. If it was never real, then the destiny system is up a creek without a paddle here. But if its a magic destiny book, it can rewrite fate to make sure that person dies.

I do get what you're saying though. Maybe the fact that it doesn't seal your fate until you sign it kind of salvages the free will message, but still

[speaking-riddlish]

Finally got around to finishing that Ashlyn redesign! Been a struggle with this one, but I think I got it to a point where I look at it and see Ash, so I think it's finally ready.

Ash kind of gave me the "oversized sweater with a maxi-skirt" kind of vibe, but she also gives me a cottage core vibe at the same time, so I tried to blend the two while keeping her signature color palate. Thank you so much to @internetgiraffekid1673 for helping me figure out how to adapt my design to still come across looking like her. At first I had only implemented floral in one way in her outfit, and had given her fully opaque sleaves and your advice really helped bring this together. I imagine this version of Ash has a really large and diverse shoe collection. Kind of like how my version of Maddie is always wearing a different hat every time you see her, this Ash is always wearing different shoes. No, I did not draw a bunch of different examples of her shoe collection for this one. Being the cottage core girlie she is, I figured a large chunk of her shoe collection would be historical reproduction victorian footwear, as a lot of us tend to be obsessed with those (source: I am also a cottage core girlie (maybe Im projecting here. I wish I could have that collection)). I also feel like she would totally be passing out flyers for an animal shelter or something on a regular basis, or maybe sometimes a plant conservatory. One of those two is what she's doing in the picture.

[ID: A drawing of a redesign of Ashlynn Ella drawn in an anime-like style. She stands facing front-right in a three quarters view. She is leaning slightly forward with her left hand holding a flyer up in the air, while her right clutches a stack of flyers to her side. Her facial expression is cheery and bright eyed with a wide, open mouthed smile, as though she is shouting something. Her hairstyle is a mix of the two different styles it has in cannon. It has the hair roll/bun thing higher on top of her head like her design before the soft reboot, and has mostly straighter hair with a very slight wave to it like her design after the soft reboot. She does not have the headband that her cannon design wears. She wears no makeup, with the exception of some subtle natural colored lip gloss. She wears a dusty pink oversized sweater, with leafy vines embroidered into it on her left side in a gold thread. The sleaves of the sweater are a two toned lace, primarily made of a shear thin teal lace with a floral pattern in the lace that's opaque, thicker, and the same color as the body of the sweater. The sweater is pulled down over the top of a long teal maxi-skirt, with a gold flower pattern printed onto it, of flower stalks coming up from the bottom of the skirt at varrying hights. Layered over the sweater is a teal crocheted underbust corset, with one large flower embroidered onto it with gold yarn. Her shoes are historial reproduction victorian boots, a pale teal in color, with gold buttons and gold colored soles and heels. She also wears a long gold drop neclace with a shoe pendant as her only jewlery. /EndID]

[ambquiroga]

❤️🐺🪾

[speaking-riddlish]

so pretty!!!