#sunshine lover

[thequibblah]

Hey Suze! I hope you’re having the best day!

I am once again asking if you are now at liberty to say what book the below answer is referring to

Xxx

Ellie

spice road by maiya ibrahim: “we will fight, but first we will have tea.”

[clare-with-no-i]

clare! i finally read beneath the blue suburban skies and it was so good!!!!!! i left a comment already but i wanted to come here and show you some more love.

the red phone scene —> perfection!

the dancing scene! you know the one i mean! —> perfection

“…and if he were a better writer, he’d be able to make it a metaphor for something: armor, maybe, or a cloak of invisibility. Something to hide whatever lies within.” STOPPPP IT RIGHT NOW

i’m destroyed. but i’m happy about it.

💖💖💖💖

omg ELLIEEEEE this is the sweetest thing, I'm SO glad you enjoyed it! gosh this is lovely.

thank you for reading and being your usual kind brilliant self!! MWAH

[theesteemedladydebourgh]

so excited for this! will lily’s friends start to integrate with the marauders over the course of the fic because gosh i always love that so much. has roger been sort out or is he going to continue to be a Problem? and will lily and james at all try to find loopholes in the process so they can pretend to live together in the beginning without actually properly doing it?

hi! 🥰yes, the friend groups will definitely start to come back together.

they're all rather friendly since the wizarding world is a small one, but Marlene isn't close with any of the Marauders since the Great Break Up pretty much split them all up. But this will change, and Dorcas will definitely come into play (imagine the mocking she and Sirius will do).

Roger, Roger...I mean, when is he ever not a Problem?

re: will they try to get out of living together: think about Lily and James at the end of JHF and tell me if you think they'd be like, great let's throw a house warming party! 😉

Ask me about TFTDC! 🥳

[thequibblah]

Since you wanted this ask, if you were on a remote island with nothing but your wits and a fully charged iPad and a delicious beverage, what fics would you choose to read to pas the time until you were rescued by the person of your choice? (Personally I'd like to be rescued by Andrew Garfield but this is your party)

thank you friends HAAAA! i thought long and hard about cheating and answering with four separate fics but i will hold to integrity honour etc... @mcgngll @crimson-snitch @sunshine-lover

i did a very serious scroll through my bookmarks and had a small meltdown about how do i choose one and here i think is my final answer

...theogony by internet wife @clare-with-no-i, because historical setting brilliant characterisation yearning tee em james "my wife" potter? there is nothing else i need. the caveat is that clare will beam me her thoughts so i receive the updates as theyre made. don't worry we have the technology.

PERSON of choice, thank you for this bonus round, sarah. i have weirdly been seeing lots of elizabeth swann gifs of late LOL so i think if i can be rescued by blonde keira knightley pirate king, i will be waiting with open arms to be carried home over the sea or whatever

[thequibblah]

with a heavy heart 😎

ask me about my wips!

as ellie knows well but possibly some of you know less well, with a heavy heart is my old kingdom au, born out of my undying love for the books and a recentish reread of sabriel! this au is loosely inspired by sabriel (lily maps much more easily onto her than lirael imo, and ditto for james and touchstone) but only loosely.

honestly i've been putting off writing down so much of this even though it's in my head, so this is as good an excuse as anyy. enjoy!

The Old Kingdom delegation didn't like waiting — or more to the point, Captain Scrimgeour didn't like waiting. James was restless enough by nature, but even he was on edge watching the captain shift from foot to foot and glance anxiously at the snow-covered Wall behind them. He could only imagine Minister McGonagall's irritation.

He eyed his former tutor now, watching the flare of her nostrils. McGonagall opened her mouth and James found himself eagerly awaiting whatever rebuke she'd deliver — but before she could, the wind died down enough that they could hear muffled hoofbeats approaching the garrison. At once the guard arranged itself at attention. James wasn't one of them, but he straightened as well, peering through his specs and the steadily-falling snow for his first glimpse at the new Abhorsen.

There were only two horses. An Ancelstierran soldier, clad in dark blue, dismounted smoothly from the lead one, turning to help the cloaked figure on the horse behind him. But he needn't have bothered. The girl had already hopped to the ground and gathered up the reins, striding through the ankle-deep snow with her mount in hand.

The wind had been blowing steadily from the north, across the Wall — just another factor in the list of things that made Scrimgeour wary. Back in the Old Kingdom, it had been a drizzling autumn morning when they'd crossed. No sign of that here, of course. Ancelstierre and James's home could have entirely different climates in the very same day.

But the wind — ripe with petrichor — died down at that very moment, just in time for James to hear her speak.

"He's a garrison horse, yes?" the new Abhorsen was saying to the soldier, who was now scurrying to catch up.

James wasn't sure what he'd been expecting — she sounded steady, cool, her voice rather deeper than he'd imagined. She didn't sound like she was only eighteen, which made him nervous.

Not that he'd been imagining what she sounded like. A snickering reminiscent of his best mate, Sirius, filled James's head. He hoped if he looked red-cheeked at all, they'd all chalk it up to the chill.

"Yes, miss," the soldier responded. "Ma'am. Ma'am Abhorsen."

"Miss is fine," said the girl. James noted her audible discomfort.

The soldier and the Abhorsen made for a poor party indeed, nothing like when James had seen Ancelstierran delegations and ambassadors arriving in Belisaere, in the Old Kingdom. But then again, he supposed, the Abhorsen wasn't really an Ancelstierran dignitary. She was one of theirs. No matter how distant her relation to the last Abhorsen, this girl was the necromancer who could save them.

This thought rang in his mind as the girl pushed back the hood of her cloak, and never had words and visuals been so at odds. She was close enough now that James could make out she was tall for a girl, but in every other way she looked nothing like she sounded. Her red hair was tousled from the ride, her fringe plastered to her forehead. Her lips were pursed. Bluish smudges made hollows beneath her eyes, which were startlingly green but far from bright. She might not have slept in two weeks, by his estimation. She looked very young.

But the Old Kingdom delegation wouldn't stand there and gawp. McGonagall and Scrimgeour bowed, and so too did the guard; James belatedly followed, lifting his eyes to watch the Abhorsen hand off her horse's reins to the soldier and curtsey smoothly, looking distinctly Ancelstierran.

McGonagall, thank the Charter, took the lead. "I am Minerva McGonagall, advisor to the King and minister of war. A pleasure to meet you, Abhorsen, though I wish it had been under better circumstances."

The Abhorsen's pursed lips tightened. "My name is Lily," she said, quiet but firm.

James sensed Scrimgeour's scepticism; the entire guard he commanded seemed to tense. Before he could properly think it through, he hurried to stand by McGonagall and stuck his hand out.

"James," he said, into the wind-whistling evening.

Her eyes narrowed.

"James," said McGonagall with a note of weariness, "is properly Lord Potter's son. He is the King's cousin, sent personally by His Majesty to escort you north, Lily."

The Abhorsen — or Lily, if that was what she wanted to be called — only studied him longer. It seemed to James that she doubted he could do any sort of escorting, which stung. He was handy with a sword and with Charter Magic besides, and it wasn't as though he wanted to be at the Wall while the Dead strolled up and down the Old Kingdom entirely unchecked.

And honestly, what right did she have to doubt his ability to do his job? At least he'd been trained for it.

His stewing was interrupted by a sudden motion — Lily had raised her arm, bypassing a handshake entirely. The guard startled behind him, the telltale clink of metal announcing hands on swords. But all she did was press one gloved forefinger to the Charter mark on his forehead.

She withdrew it seconds later, apparently satisfied. James tried not to be insulted by this too. He could've told her himself he carried no Free Magic taint.

But she was suspicious of him. Maybe she was suspicious of everyone, a deeply buried, logical part of him said — and yet the fact remained that she didn't seem to think any of them could actually help her. She didn't seem to want to be helpful in return.

James was optimistic enough by nature, but he felt a sudden shock of fear. There was a war in his homeland, beyond the Wall, and the Dead would overrun all that he loved if the Abhorsen couldn't stop them. And this was the Abhorsen they had — eighteen and untrained and Ancelstierran, and no friend of the Old Kingdom. What could come of this?

If she sensed or cared about the awkwardness she'd caused, the Abhorsen showed no sign of it. She slipped like water between James and McGonagall, moving entranced towards the Wall. Bristling, he swivelled around after her.

She was staring at the enormous structure, marred as it was with Ancelstierran barbed wire and explosives. None of this mattered in the face of the Dead, of course, and if the northerly wind persisted, all their gunpowder and technology was rendered useless by Old Kingdom magic. It was ugly and forbidding. The Abhorsen studied it like she'd never seen anything so magical. Maybe she hadn't.

"Let us not stand on formality," McGonagall said, as if it had been her idea to have such a strange, stilted greeting. "We must cross the Wall now if we're to make good progress to the Abhorsen's House."

James thought this was rather too forgiving of the Abhorsen's rudeness. But he scanned the guards arrayed behind a stony Scrimgeour — their expressions ranged from sceptical to outright suspicious. A glance at McGonagall told him she was perfectly aware of this; James realised she wanted them to the safety of the Abhorsen's House as quickly as possible not just for fear of the Dead, but because the sooner the girl looked like a real necromancer, the more faith she'd get from at least the King's own men.

Which meant any hard feelings he had for her had to be firmly tamped down, at least when the others could see him. James stifled a sigh and tried to look less dejected.

"Yes," said the Abhorsen, and then, almost guiltily, "thank you, Minister."

She had not taken her eyes off the Wall.

"Yes," she murmured, "we should go. The Dead are near."

[thequibblah]

2 + 94

2: Royal AU & 94: Hair Brushing/Braiding

oh my god OH MY GOD ok scandalous royal marriage in which james picks minor royalty lily out of the lineup of women he's supposed to marry and all his advisors are like YEAH YOU COULD CHOOSE BUT WE DIDN'T WANT YOU TO CHOOSE HER and he's like mm no don't care read 4:51 p.m. and she's like look you think i'm pretty i think you're hot (paraphrasing, they're saying this in medievalspeak) and that's great and stuff but i'm here just to be a queen i don't like have to get to know you or even to like you at all!! and he's like well i just needed a wife and i didn't even need you specifically i picked you to piss people off! and she's like great!! and he's like fine we can just live separate lives!!

but it's like, your majesty... are u ready to visit ur husbands bedchamber mayhaps and she's like god this is awkward the ladies of my privy chamber don't know my husband and i have essentially agreed we're not having a child until we at least settle into this new arrangement so we have to fake it i guess so she goes to his bedroom and takes ye olde book of poetry or something and he's just living his life in there and they fall asleep beside each other no funny business...

but then as time passes he's like this is boring we may as well do something and she's like i don't want to do something!! and he's like read that poetry book to me so i can participate at least and she's like if we're doing anything you can brush my hair, it gets terribly tangled because we take it out and brush it in advance of me coming here but then i sit around reading poetry for hours and it's a mess by the time i'm in bed. and james is like :/ >:( this is awkward her hair is why i picked her to marry and it's so pretty... but i cannot be seen to LIKE her or w/e but he's like FINE i'll brush your hair and THEN will you read poetry to me and she's like um no my poetry book is private and he's like lol why is it all your courtiers' love poems to you and shes like NO >:( but then she finally agrees (for the sake of her hair... of course...) and while he brushes her hair she reads him some poems and they're all about her homeland and he realises she must be homesick and feels shitty for never making an effort to hear about where she's from and what she misses.

so then he starts to use the poems for info and drops little details during council meetings or during court functions and shes like wow hes paying attention huh..... and he continues to brush her hair by night and it becomes like their comfort ritual and

oh god i'm really going to have to write this one

send me two tropes from this list and i’ll combine them!

read the others here

[thequibblah]

going through your book talk tag and can you answer this yet?!

nope still not out yet 😔😔😔

[thequibblah]

👀

“Kiss me,” she suggests. He arches a brow. “A knight kisses a lady on the hand.” She rolls her eyes. “A husband kisses his wife on the mouth, lest anyone doubt what this is.”

send me a 👀for a snippet of something i didn’t finish this year

read the others here