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rainbowfic2013-03-04 11:26 pm
shadowsong26) wrote in rainbowfic2013-03-04 11:26 pm
Entry tags:
- author: shadowsong26 supreme whumpmaster,
- color: dove grey,
- color: dove white,
- color: old lace,
- story: feredar,
- style: bichromatic,
- style: tapestry,
- supply: brush,
- supply: feathers,
- supply: frame,
- supply: glitter,
- supply: modeling clay,
- supply: novelty beads,
- supply: oils,
- supply: seed beads,
- supply: yarn
Old Lace #9, Dove White #11, Dove Grey #14
Name: shadowsong26
Story: Appearances Can Be Deceiving
'Verse: Feredar
Colors: Old Lace #9. One might do something that is considered definitely wrong--that is considered a crime, even, for a very good and sufficient reason., Dove White #11. My marriage had its ups and downs like anyone's, but when it came down to it, I knew it was solid., Dove Grey #14. Memory becomes your partner.
Supplies and Materials: tapestry, bichromatic, frame, brush (paltry), oils, feathers, modeling clay, seed beads, novelty beads, yarn, glitter ("Evil is a point of view." – Anne Rice)
Word Count: 916
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Sola
Warnings: References to war and adultery, sexism
Notes: Constructive criticism welcome, as always. This is supposed to be a not-very-good (in the sense of OH CRAP THIS IS DUE TOMORROW QUICK QUICK QUICK BULLSHIT!) high school history essay, written sometime during the heyday of the Farglass Empire.
Of all the people and events that went into the founding of the Empire, it can hardly be denied that the women involved made a huge impact. Of course, everyone knows the stories of Queens Kesshare and Nolani, and all the rumors surrounding Queen Nida, as well as the heroic Captain Taz Hantree and her sister Kes, plus the horrors perpetrated by Princess Tana, but there are some whose contributions are overlooked.
King Sorell IV had four daughters, though most people only seem to talk about the youngest. When they do talk about the oldest three, they mostly focus on Princess Deva, whose Red Rose Movement connections are indisputible. A few mention Princess Keta, mostly in connection with Princess Tana, since they disappeared together. This paper, however, will talk about the last--though technically the second--Princess Sola.
Princess Sola was born in 945 FY, the second child and daughter of King Sorell IV and his consort, Queen Nida. This made her twenty years older than her youngest brother, who became King Andrell. She had six kids and the longest confirmed lifespan of any of her siblings, dying at age 90 in 1035 FY.
But that's not what makes her interesting. Sola generally has a reputation, both among writers of the time and modern historians, of being not very bright. She was petite and blonde, considered the prettiest of her sisters (though some people named Tana instead), and was known for being an outrageous flirt. Her husband seemed to have no problem with that, saying in a letter to his brother that "My wife likes to play, and it amuses me greatly to watch her." This was probably not quite as risque as it sounds, since there were no suggestions at the time that any of her children were bastards.
All of this is in well-preserved letters and so on from the time. But if the details between the lines are read, a more complicated picture emerges. First, alone of all her sisters, Sola was favored by all three kings of her lifetime--her father and both of her brothers. True, Sorell IV didn't really play favorites--except for the fact that no one in the family seemed to think much of the second son, Prince Mellir, except for Princess Keta--but Deva had a very strained, though not actually violent, relationship with Kellom II and Keta and Tana were so politically attached to him that they fled after the city fell and Andrell took the throne. Sola, on the other hand, remained not only in favor but seemed to play some sort of role in all three administrations.
It has been suggested, by scholars like Osselo in 132 I.C., that Sola served as a sort of internal spymaster and one-woman intelligence network, gleaning information from people stupid enough to underestimate her. Osselo somehow manages to, while praising her, still criticize her for her lax morals, implying that she got most of her information through pillowtalk. As mentioned above, though, since no contemporary sources call her children bastards, this is most likely an invention by Osselo and other sexist writers who don't like that Sola managed to stay neutral and influential as long as she did. Further evidence for this is the fact that he thinks Queen Kesshare was a puppet of her husband's ambition, which is how she managed to be such a great queen and conqueror, which anyone who's read their letters or any contemporary source would know is almost the polar opposite of the truth.
Other scholars, recognizing Osselo's details for the sexist garbage they are, agree with him in principle--whether or not Sola slept with her sources, she certainly wheedled information out of them with her charm and her graceful dancing and her pretty blue eyes. There is some evidence, in King Andrell's journals, that she helped smooth over a lot of the opposition to his pacifist policies, using that same charm. There's one brief reference in an account by Keta that their father actually asked Sola to help him persuade the father of their middle brother's future wife that Mellir would actually be a good husband, despite all the evidence to the contrary, so the match would go forward.
In short, Princess Sola was, based on contemporary accounts and the holes left in them, a one-woman intelligence and internal diplomacy committee for her father and her two reigning brothers. She wielded charm and beauty like a knife, covered in a silk cloth of apparent stupidity, in order to stab people between the eyes when they got in the way of her nation's best interests. There's a quote, which is probably the best way to end this essay, from one of her journals that goes like this: "My sister Deva cares for the politics of the present, my sister Keta buries herself alive with the ghosts of history, and my sister Tana dances forward into her idea of a bright future. I try to balance all three of these things, to ensure a smooth and problem-free environment for my King and country. The details of right and wrong don't concern me--just a safe and productive environment, so when violence is the only answer to the problems the nation faces, the action isn't clouded by lesser attacks."
Princess Sola was, in a time of extraordinary women, a bright shadow flickering on the fringes and at the heart of her family's intrigues, and, because of her diplomacy and intelligence-gathering flirtations, was as instrumental in the formation of the Empire as Queen Kesshare.
Story: Appearances Can Be Deceiving
'Verse: Feredar
Colors: Old Lace #9. One might do something that is considered definitely wrong--that is considered a crime, even, for a very good and sufficient reason., Dove White #11. My marriage had its ups and downs like anyone's, but when it came down to it, I knew it was solid., Dove Grey #14. Memory becomes your partner.
Supplies and Materials: tapestry, bichromatic, frame, brush (paltry), oils, feathers, modeling clay, seed beads, novelty beads, yarn, glitter ("Evil is a point of view." – Anne Rice)
Word Count: 916
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Sola
Warnings: References to war and adultery, sexism
Notes: Constructive criticism welcome, as always. This is supposed to be a not-very-good (in the sense of OH CRAP THIS IS DUE TOMORROW QUICK QUICK QUICK BULLSHIT!) high school history essay, written sometime during the heyday of the Farglass Empire.
Of all the people and events that went into the founding of the Empire, it can hardly be denied that the women involved made a huge impact. Of course, everyone knows the stories of Queens Kesshare and Nolani, and all the rumors surrounding Queen Nida, as well as the heroic Captain Taz Hantree and her sister Kes, plus the horrors perpetrated by Princess Tana, but there are some whose contributions are overlooked.
King Sorell IV had four daughters, though most people only seem to talk about the youngest. When they do talk about the oldest three, they mostly focus on Princess Deva, whose Red Rose Movement connections are indisputible. A few mention Princess Keta, mostly in connection with Princess Tana, since they disappeared together. This paper, however, will talk about the last--though technically the second--Princess Sola.
Princess Sola was born in 945 FY, the second child and daughter of King Sorell IV and his consort, Queen Nida. This made her twenty years older than her youngest brother, who became King Andrell. She had six kids and the longest confirmed lifespan of any of her siblings, dying at age 90 in 1035 FY.
But that's not what makes her interesting. Sola generally has a reputation, both among writers of the time and modern historians, of being not very bright. She was petite and blonde, considered the prettiest of her sisters (though some people named Tana instead), and was known for being an outrageous flirt. Her husband seemed to have no problem with that, saying in a letter to his brother that "My wife likes to play, and it amuses me greatly to watch her." This was probably not quite as risque as it sounds, since there were no suggestions at the time that any of her children were bastards.
All of this is in well-preserved letters and so on from the time. But if the details between the lines are read, a more complicated picture emerges. First, alone of all her sisters, Sola was favored by all three kings of her lifetime--her father and both of her brothers. True, Sorell IV didn't really play favorites--except for the fact that no one in the family seemed to think much of the second son, Prince Mellir, except for Princess Keta--but Deva had a very strained, though not actually violent, relationship with Kellom II and Keta and Tana were so politically attached to him that they fled after the city fell and Andrell took the throne. Sola, on the other hand, remained not only in favor but seemed to play some sort of role in all three administrations.
It has been suggested, by scholars like Osselo in 132 I.C., that Sola served as a sort of internal spymaster and one-woman intelligence network, gleaning information from people stupid enough to underestimate her. Osselo somehow manages to, while praising her, still criticize her for her lax morals, implying that she got most of her information through pillowtalk. As mentioned above, though, since no contemporary sources call her children bastards, this is most likely an invention by Osselo and other sexist writers who don't like that Sola managed to stay neutral and influential as long as she did. Further evidence for this is the fact that he thinks Queen Kesshare was a puppet of her husband's ambition, which is how she managed to be such a great queen and conqueror, which anyone who's read their letters or any contemporary source would know is almost the polar opposite of the truth.
Other scholars, recognizing Osselo's details for the sexist garbage they are, agree with him in principle--whether or not Sola slept with her sources, she certainly wheedled information out of them with her charm and her graceful dancing and her pretty blue eyes. There is some evidence, in King Andrell's journals, that she helped smooth over a lot of the opposition to his pacifist policies, using that same charm. There's one brief reference in an account by Keta that their father actually asked Sola to help him persuade the father of their middle brother's future wife that Mellir would actually be a good husband, despite all the evidence to the contrary, so the match would go forward.
In short, Princess Sola was, based on contemporary accounts and the holes left in them, a one-woman intelligence and internal diplomacy committee for her father and her two reigning brothers. She wielded charm and beauty like a knife, covered in a silk cloth of apparent stupidity, in order to stab people between the eyes when they got in the way of her nation's best interests. There's a quote, which is probably the best way to end this essay, from one of her journals that goes like this: "My sister Deva cares for the politics of the present, my sister Keta buries herself alive with the ghosts of history, and my sister Tana dances forward into her idea of a bright future. I try to balance all three of these things, to ensure a smooth and problem-free environment for my King and country. The details of right and wrong don't concern me--just a safe and productive environment, so when violence is the only answer to the problems the nation faces, the action isn't clouded by lesser attacks."
Princess Sola was, in a time of extraordinary women, a bright shadow flickering on the fringes and at the heart of her family's intrigues, and, because of her diplomacy and intelligence-gathering flirtations, was as instrumental in the formation of the Empire as Queen Kesshare.
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She is. I need to do more with her.
The kid's got some wording issues and goes on a couple of tangents--probably to beef up the word count--so it's fairly obvious the essay was thrown together the night before, I think is more what I meant about the 'not very good' part. But the argument is made and supported well, so.
((I think the assignment was "Defend the contributions of an underrated Founder of the Empire with reference to primary sources" or something))
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I'm glad the tone I was going for did get across. Bright but lazy and/or forgetful student scrambling to not end up with a zero.
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Sorry for making your brain itch XD