You guys answered a lot of these so I tried to find two that weren’t answered lol. Hope you like them!
🌱: what is something tickle-related you've learned about yourself?
🤐: do you like interrogation tickling? for lees, have you held out every time?
🌱
💙 - I’m stupidly ticklish in a very specific area, discovered by Cherry, of course. It is now is my torment as long as I shall live lol
❤️ - Berry made me realize I am a ler-leaning switch. He’s outrageously ticklish and I cannot resist attacking him at any chance (which is constantly)
🤐
You see, the problem is:
😅🫦😏😈
We both love to interrogate but already know everything about one another. We need fresh blood to interrogate secrets from. Think you could help us with that dilemma?
Recently I made a poll about Deus Ex Machinas in Septimus Heap, and thinking about it has also got me thinking that all of these come from Aunt Zelda in some way.
The Flyte Charm was in her copy of 'Undoing the Darkness'.
She was the Keeper of the Dragon Boat.
Spit-Fyre hatched at her cottage, and his egg came from the tunnels beneath the cottage
She Awoke Jim Knee for Sep
She's also inadvertently responsible for much of the plot outside of these Deus Ex Machinas.
She introduces Sep to his family, setting in motion the events of the entire rest of the series, and - more immediately - Simon's villain arch in Flyte.
She save Merrin, allowing for his villain arch from Queste to Darke.
Simon's and Merrin's villain arches together lead to Marcia getting hold of the Two-Faced Ring, and the events of Fyre.
This continues even after her death, by making Wolf Boy her successor, she causes the Ancient Ways to be discovered, and these are a major part of the TodHunter Moon books.
No one who reads the books would say that Zelda is a minor character, but this just reminds me how relevant she is throughout the series. Even though she appears less after Magyk, and even though she dies at the end of Fyre, she is always the one who sets the threads of the plot in motion, and she usually plays some part in resolving those various plot threads. Not to mention just how aware she seems to be of everything that happens, despite her declining mental state, and despite her isolated location.
To extend Zelda is a sort of author-insert for Angie Sage, a way in which she - as author and god of her books' universe - is able to intervene directly; Zelda's cottage is always a place where her characters can rest, retreat and recover, Zelda gives characters the tools they need, and the information they need. Even the names of the character and author show this relationship; note that Zelda is almost always called Aunt Zelda, even by non-relatives, Aunt Zelda, A.Z., Angie Sage, A.S., and what is 'Z' but the reflection of 'S'.
The term Deus Ex Machina translates as 'god from the machine', but - because of the way Latin grammar works, could also be interpreted as 'machine from the god', and Zelda is that machine from her god, her author, which is Ms. Sage.
So, if Zelda is Sage's insert, what then is to be read into her declining mental state as the books progress, and what into her eventual death? It is poignant that Zelda dies at the end of the original seven books, symbolising - for a period at least - the death of the author and the end of the story. Is the decline in Zelda's mental-state meant, therefore, to symbolise the stresses of writing, or Sage's personal troubles.
The festival with the glowing paint (I'll think of other attributes of course) is called the Eildark Festival. It's a celebration of when the moon goddess (who needs a name, fml), cast the ruler of Desolation back into his realm.
“I want to speak the clear
The intricate meeting-place
Of all things with all desires:
Cut down by risk to the root
Where everything is given.”
-Muriel Rukeyser, Asleep and Awake-
All your meanings, all your fires, and deep – like a prerequisite of want before I even knew to want you. Trust my mouth is yours forever. You are my sanctity of speech.
