and maybe it's becuase i was also a fat kid with frizzy hair who was always sort of generally liked but no one's bestest best friend when i was first reading the books but good god i think about dorcus loom a lot
because, sure, yeah, she's one of the 'evil' endowed children... by why wouldn't she be? think about it!
you're dorcus, you are described by the narrative as perpetually smiling and cheerful and unoffensive and fat. you don't really have any close friends, because none of the boys talk to you, and zelda is mean, and maybe you think, a little bit, that you and emilia moon are friends because you are both in art and you are both quiet but you don't actually hang out.
you're endowment is scary, if you even know what it is, so you don't tell anyone about it. poisioning clothing is mean and bad and no one will be your friend if they know so you don't tell them about it. you live in a house with over protective brothers who love you but aren't your friends and big dogs you're scared of. and maybe those big dogs are why you don't like animals. who knows? they're your brothers dogs and there isn't much you can do about it.
then, charlie bone shows up, and emilia becomes this cool, bright, beautiful thing named emma who certainly isn't your friend now. she barely was before. and there becomes this big divide between the children of the red king: the mean ones and the good ones.
no one seems to care where you go. the good ones don't try to get you on their side, even when they wish the scales were balanced more to their ends. no one talks to you, even when they're allowed to.
and then... belle. belle, who is pretty and blonde and maybe she promises to teach you how to take care of your hair and maybe she tells you that she knows what your endowment is. that it's not something scary and awful, it's beautiful. it's useful. and maybe you're tired of being a pleasent thing that no one bothers to get to know.
she takes you to a person whose just like you, who can help, who we've been taught by the narrative is a lovely, beautiful manipulator and who is telling you that she likes you.
sure, listening to venetia and belle gets people hurt, but those people don't like you much anyway.
and then, even after belle leaves, you have friends! the twins! and joshua tilpin who makes you feel so good about yourself. this magnetic boy who makes you feel so, so, so happy all the time. friends!!!
venetia still teaches you, and the adults think you're capable, and you have friends and that's all you ever wanted.
and also you're ten.
you are ten years old at the start of this.
no shit she's evil!!! no one fucking tried to stop it!! they didn't talk to her ever and then wrote her off so insanely fast!!! ohhhh my god!!!! also she's a lesbian btw!!! i've decided as perhaps the only person alive who cares about dorcas loom!!! this fat gay ten year old didn't stand a chance!!!
I am just now realizing that I always thought Dorcas was older than Charlie and co.??? Like in my head she has always been two years above them, WHY are all the endowed kids in this school either 17 or 10????
Dorcas Loom had a secret. She was in love with Gabriel Silk, the famous concert pianist. But there was a small problem—she was cursed.
It had started with her illustrious ancestor Ifalda Loom, who had gotten herself into an affair with a married French Lord. Unfortunately, that lord had a powerful witch for a wife, and once she found out about the affair she became enraged and cursed poor Ifalda to never find love. She also cursed her husband—she turned him into a toad.
Sadly for Dorcas, the curse was inherited by Ifalda’s descendants, particularly her female descendants. Dorcas only found out about it on her eighteenth birthday, when she came of age and her longtime boyfriend broke up with her suddenly for a very vague and strange reason. It was the curse, her parents told her when they revealed the truth to her. The curse had driven him away. This was to be her fate, for the rest of her life.
Dorcas was understandably distraught. She would never be able to find love, and all because some stupid ancestor had pissed off a witch. It was outrageous, it was unfair! For years she lived in denial and tried to circumvent the curse—she pursued countless men (Dorcas had never been attracted to women) but once they got to the engagement stage the men would either suddenly drop dead, disappear or break up with her. None of her relationships lasted.
It had to be the curse, working its magic. After years of this, Dorcas had to accept that it was real and that she would never find love. But then she fell in love with Gabriel Silk.
Gabriel Silk was an old friend from her school days. They’d gone together to Bloor’s Academy, but she hadn’t thought much of him then. He’d always been so moody, depressed and odd. Plus, she’d also put him into a coma once by enchanting a cape he tried on—something which she’d assumed he wouldn’t forgive her for. After all, she wouldn’t forgive anyone who did that to her.
More recently, however, she’d reunited with him in a coffee shop in L.A. where they were both working now—he as a concert pianist and her as a fashion designer. And as he said hello to her and smiled, she found herself blushing and stammering like a schoolgirl. Oh my god, she realized, Gabriel Silk is hot!
Unlike herself, who was still as pudgy and plain as she’d been as a teenager. But Gabriel didn’t seem to notice that and just said that she looked great.
They got into talking to each other and found that they had quite a bit in common. They exchanged phone numbers, since they had to get back to their jobs right then, and Dorcas almost swooned as Gabriel wrote his on a paper napkin and gave it to her with a sweet smile.
‘I’ll see you later, won’t I?’ he said. There was hope in his eyes that warmed Dorcas’ hollow heart.
‘Yes, definitely,’ Dorcas breathed out.
‘It was only after he left that Dorcas remembered about her curse.
Their first coffee date was a huge success, and so they arranged another one, and then another, until they had to admit that they liked each other a lot. So they started dating. At this point, Dorcas knew that she should tell Gabriel about her curse, but part of her was reluctant—what if Gabriel broke up with her, and wasn’t their relationship doomed to failure because of the curse anyway?
Still… she had to tell him at some point. It wouldn’t be fair to him otherwise. She just had to wait for the right moment.
The right moment, it turned out was months later, right when he was about to propose to her.
‘Wait!’ she screeched, as he knelt before her with a rockstar diamond ring in his hands. ‘You can’t propose to me yet! I’m cursed!’
Gabriel looked at her incredulously, but listened as she told him her story. She expected him to freak out and run away from her, but once she’d finished speaking he only took her hands and said, ‘I’m sorry you had to go through all of that. You still want to marry me, right?’
‘Of course I do!’ Dorcas said. ‘More than anything.’
A steely determined look filled Gabriel’s eyes. ‘Then let’s break your curse so we can get married and live happily ever after!’
Dorcas didn’t have his optimism, but if it did work then she’d be able to be with her love forever, so she smiled and agreed.
Their first step in breaking the curse was research. Dorcas knew how the curse had started, but not how to break it. It took months of searching and a visit to a magic library and a witch doctor, but they finally discovered the three key ingredients—a Mafia’s tears, a pearl lost in a crocodile-filled swamp, and a True Love’s Kiss. The True Love’s Kiss was a very special kiss and could only be done when the couple in question were so in love that nothing could keep them apart. Also, one of them had to be dying for it to work. Yadda, yadda, something to do with the tales of Sleeping Beauty and Snow White and how their princes had woken them up from a death-like sleep with a kiss, Dorcas read.
Ugh. She didn’t want either of them to almost die so that they could be together. But if it was the only choice, well, they would have to deal with it when they came to that point.
For now, they had to get the Mafia’s tears. Luckily for them, one of Gabriel’s best friends from Bloor’s Academy, Lysander Sage, was now a Mafia mob boss. Dorcas had no clue how that happened, for hadn’t Lysander gotten into a law degree at some prestigious university back in Britain? Gabriel shrugged. He didn’t know either. He’d lost touch with Lysander when he moved to L.A. to become a famous musician.
They travelled to Lysander’s Mafia group’s secret hideout in San Francisco, where Lysander said they could meet when Gabriel had contacted him. When they did meet, Lysander embraced Gabriel with tears in his eyes, which was very unlike him. ‘He’s high on weed,’ one of Lysander’s minions said. ‘It’s his favourite drug.’
Since Lysander was a Mafia boss and he was already crying, Gabriel asked him, ‘Hey Sander, can I have some of your tears? We need them to break Dorcas’ curse so she can marry me.’
Lysander sniffed and said, ‘Yeah, sure.’ And so Gabriel took out a small bottle from his pocket, uncorked it, and held it underneath one of Lysander’s eye and five drops of tears dropped into the bottle.
Dorcas sighed with relief. That’s one ingredient down. Now two to go!
However, just before they could leave, the hideout was invaded by another Mafia group lead by none other than… Dagbert Endless!
‘Dagbert?’ Lysander stared, surprised. ‘What’re you doing here?’
‘Hey, babe,’ Dagbert said to him. ‘My Mafia minions have come to take over your turf and destroy everything you’ve built. While they’re fighting do you want to go get married in Vegas? I’ve got a car waiting up front for us.’
Lysander thought for a moment, then shrugged. ‘Sure, why not?’
He and Dagbert kissed and ran off while their minions were shooting at each other and dying. Since Gabriel and Dorcas were heading in the direct of Las Vegas anyway, they decided to join Lysander and Dagbert in the car. Dorcas thought this may have been a mistake, since the whole way to Las Vegas Lysander and Dagbert kept kissing with their eyes glued to each other and didn’t stop even when Dorcas threw one of her shoes at them.
In Las Vegas, the two lovebirds got married. Gabriel was Lysander’s best man and Dorcas was Dagbert’s maid of honour. The best thing about this wedding, Dorcas thought with some satisfaction, was that Lysander and Dagbert were both rich and paid for whatever bridesmaid dress she wanted to buy. So Dorcas bought and wore a pink Cinderella style dress with matching high heels and had her hair done up like Marilyn Monroe. She felt like a queen and Gabriel said that she looked gorgeous.
After the wedding, Lysander and Dagbert went back to their wedding suite to fuck and Dorcas and Gabriel used that to their advantage to steal their car. After all, it was a long way to New Orleans.
It took them an unknown number of hours to reach New Orleans—mainly because this author is not American—where their second ingredient was. A pearl trapped in a swamp surrounded by crocodiles. It sounded like a suicide mission, but they would have to try if they wanted to break Dorcas’ curse.
So they bought some good swamp clothes, boots and weapons against crocodiles and headed into the swamp. The swamp was really icky and smelly and disgusting, but hopefully they would be out of there quickly. If they didn’t get eaten by crocodiles first, Dorcas thought grumpily.
They managed to reach the location of their prize fairly easily. It helped that the pearl was shining like a lighthouse beacon, guiding them toward it as if it wanted them to find it. The problem now was that it was surrounded by a ring of hungry crocodiles.
“Oh grief, oh mum!” Gabriel screamed and almost fainted. He did collapse, though.
Dorcas wanted to scream as well, but since Gabriel had collapsed, it probably wasn’t a good idea if she did too.
‘Hey, you!’ she snapped at the crocodiles. ‘I need that pearl, so you can skitter on out of here!’
The crocodiles turned to look at her, and Dorcas was reminded that they were very hungry and she probably looked like an appetising meal to them.
Then one of the crocodiles spoke. ‘Uhh pearl? We don’t care about that,’ it said. ‘We’re just lying here so that someone will feed us if they come searching for the pearl.’
‘Then you won’t mind if we just take it?’ Dorcas asked.
‘Only if you feed us,’ the crocodile said.
Dorcas rummaged through a bag Gabriel had brought with them and lo and behold, she found the leftovers of the wedding feast she, Gabriel, Dagbert and Lysander had eaten way back in Las Vegas. ‘Catch,’ she called out, and dumped the whole lot of it in the middle of the ring of crocodiles.
She and Gabriel watched for some time as the crocodiles ate the feast. Once the crocodiles were done, she said, ‘Now can you please let us pass? We need to get that pearl.’
‘Sure,’ the crocodiles said. ‘That feast was nice. Thanks!’
Polite crocodiles. Who would have thought it? The crocodiles moved to let Gabriel and Dorcas through and Dorcas collected the pearl, which glowed between her fingers. Thank god, she thought. Now they could get out of there. She hated swamps.
Now, there was only one ingredient left—the True Love’s Kiss. Dorcas wasn’t looking forward to that at all. She and Gabriel drove all the way back to the witch doctor they’d first visited ages ago, for surely the witch doctor would have something they could use to induce a death-like sleep.
Thankfully, the witch doctor did have needle that would put one into a seemingly deadly coma upon being pricked by it. Much to Dorcas’ annoyance, the doctor insisted that she must be the one to be pricked by the needle, for ‘in the tales it’s a princess who falls asleep and is kissed awake by the prince’.
'What kind of fucked up sexist shit is that?’ Dorcas snapped, outraged.
Dorcas didn’t hear the witch doctor’s response, because while Dorcas was distracted the witch doctor had stabbed her in the arm with the needle and Dorcas fell over unconscious.
‘There,’ the witch doctor said to Gabriel. ‘Now kiss her and you can be together forever!’
‘Here?’ Gabriel asked doubtfully.
‘Hmm.’ The witch doctor thought for a moment. ‘No, you’re right. The setting should be a lot more romantic than this.’
And so they moved the unconscious Dorcas to a clearing filled with sweet-smelling flowers in a forest and laid her down gently on her back. Then it was time to do the thing. As Gabriel gazed down at his love, he hesitated for a moment, for the idea of kissing an unconscious person felt a bit weird. Was it considered assault if his lady wasn’t awake to say yes? But then he remembered that the whole point of this was to break Dorcas’ curse so that they could be together, and so he leaned his head down and kissed her gently, softly on the lips, and willed with all his heart that she would awaken and be free of the curse so they could get married and be together.
It took a few moments, but Dorcas stirred, came awake and kissed him back ardently. The witch doctor cheered.
When they were done kissing, Gabriel asked the witch doctor, ‘Now that we have all the ingredients, how do we break the curse?’
‘Oh,’ the witch doctor said, ‘the curse should already be broken now. All you really needed was the True Love’s Kiss.’
‘What?’ Dorcas glared daggers at the witch doctor. ‘We went to San Francisco and to that horrible swamp for nothing?’
‘You’ve made me rich,’ the witch doctor said. ‘That’s not nothing. I can sell the pearl at a great price and get out of this hellhole. And I can use the mafia’s tears to give my greatest enemy Hanahaki Disease.’
‘That’s… great?’ Gabriel said, bewildered, while trying to hold Dorcas back from gouging the witch doctor’s eyes out. ‘Well, we’d better get going. How will we know if the curse is gone?’
The witch doctor shrugged. ‘If you get married, I’d say it’s been broken.’
‘Great, thanks!’ Gabriel dragged a still-angry Dorcas away and toward their car. After all, it was a long way to Las Vegas and they had a wedding to do.
Dorcas and Gabriel arrived in Las Vegas to find Lysander and Dagbert still there, as those two had decided to stay and party after realising that their car had been stolen. They were rich, after all, and didn’t need to worry about how much it would cost. Upon being told about Dorcas and Gabriel’s upcoming nuptials, Lysander and Dagbert enthusiastically agreed to be their best men.
And so Dorcas and Gabriel were married in a beautiful Italian Roman-looking chapel in Las Vegas. Gabriel was dressed in the most handsome black tuxedo, and Dorcas in a Hollywood-style fluffy white wedding dress with so many layers people wondered how she could walk in it. She had a tiara in her hair, because it made her feel like a queen. Petals were thrown into the air, vows were spoken, and she and Gabriel kissed, and neither of them dropped dead. It was a dream come true.
After the wedding, the newlyweds ran off to their honeymoon suite to fuck. Meanwhile, Dagbert and Lysander took this opportunity to steal back their car and journey to places unseen, for after all it was originally Dagbert’s car in the first place and they wanted to give Dorcas and Gabriel a tiny bit of their own medicine. But they did leave behind enough cash to allow the newlyweds to get out of Las Vegas when they were done fucking, as a wedding gift.
