FORGIVE ME FOR ASKINF AGAIN but what was the plot of boisvert and its time period? whats the fashion like in the universe?
IT'S OK because i love talking about boisvert more than ANYTHING in the WORLD! ok so boisvert is about merilance, a changeling, and her sister valerie, who both end up stolen away to fairyland because of their aforementioned status of changeling and unclaimed child. they are taken by two fairies claiming to have been sent by merilance’s ‘mother’. they’re taken in by a fairy named braughen, who lets them live in his home with his children: roscobell, andrias, daghain, and floralee & florabell.
braughen lives in the fairy court of the quagmire which is in a period of political instability because it is in the process of planning the annexation of the smaller court of boisvert. quagmire is doing this because the treacherous true ruler of quagmire, pasrsifal priorhark, is believed to be hiding somewhere within boisvert’s borders. merilance and valerie grow up here (they’re taken when they’re about 13-14, and then there is a vague time jump to when they’re in their early 20s) with vastly different goals in mind: merilance wishes to become a knight for quagmire in order to prove herself and protect valerie and get her back home, while valerie wants to stay in fairyland and continue studying magic, which is a science in the world.
merilance meets a scholar by the name of carrier who promises to help her become a knight in exchange for her help in his research into a particular branch of magic known as siphoning. as the story moves on, merilance becomes more and more disillusioned with quagmire’s political agenda, but all of this comes to head when braughen is murdered presumably due to his involvement with an anti-annexation group of radicals known as the priormancia, and his son, andrias, is wrongfully convicted of the crime. much of the first book revolves around merilance, valerie, and roscobell attempting to solve his murder which they learn is inextricably linked to quagmire, its ruler the rosenthral, and the ever-looming shadow of the ever-unknowable parsifal!
time-wise: fairyland exists outside of time. there's a whole diagram i drew but basically fairyland is only able to exist thanks to time that has passed and time that will pass, and so exists sort of next to the 'real' timeline. things move differently there. this reflects in the general structure of fairyland, which is vaguely medieval but more heavily lies on the imagination and what people think a fairyland would look like ^.^ as for what time merilance and valerie are from, they're taken some time in the early to mid-2000s.
i LOVE the fashion question. it's super stuffy and formal but really it can be whatever because fairies are silly! when drawing, i reference a lot of older illustrations for fairy tales, pantomime and other stageplay costumes, and generally strange and whimsical fits for strange and whimsical fairies. here's some choice picks from the pinterest board for u.
