THE Sge Fic - Tumblr Posts
Scott Street, Glossed:
In the true spirit of most of the books I like to read, I like to put lots of stupid references to things in my fics, so I am glossing them all here, for my personal amusement and for anyone who's interested in any they might have missed. This is very long. The fic is very long. (And now finished!)
The title: Scott Street is a song by Phoebe Bridgers, and the 'anyway, don't be a stranger' at the end of the summary is a lyric from that song.
Chapter 1:
"Crazy Emma (...) Does she make you all wear lime green stockings and baby-doll head earrings, like she did when she was a girl? Did she ever get better at customising glass slippers–" are all references to my Callis prequel fic, Tongues and Teeth, in which a younger Anemone is a character. They're not actually linked together by anything except references, the Wardwells, and the fact I wrote them both, but yk.
“God, they really need to learn when to stop with the franchising.” said Callis. “The titles are getting ridiculous.” / “You’re gonna read it anyway.” said Agatha. / “Well yeah. But if they go beyond the main storyline, I’m not bothering with them…”
Haha. anyway
Professor Clarissa Dovey, G.M.B.W.A.O is a slight spoof on all those acronyms you stacked get after prestigious academic's names, like MA (Cantab), MRes, MSc, PhD, and so on
Ever Queens a hundred years ago shaved off their eyebrows and yanked back their hairlines so they could look like Belle of Woods Beyond, who I seem to recall Sophie once called paunchy and plucked as a Christmas turkey, upon seeing her missing poster. Medieval high born ladies did actually do this kind of thing because having a high forehead and plucked eyebrows was a beauty standard. they just didn't, yk, do it to look like Belle.
Dismemberment in Drupathi is a long running fake Never slasher novel series that I've had in fics since at least Idle Worship
The ring Tedros gives Agatha is intended to be this one, because why make one up when there's one there
Chapter 2:
Lots and lots of locations in this are ripped directly from some Arthurian references. Carmelide/Carmeliad is the kingdom that legend tends to say Guinevere came from (not that they all agree obviously but. generally), Caerleon is one of the posited locations of Arthur's main court, and Pen Rhionydd, Celliwig and Mynyw are either other courts or other locations for Camelot. For the purposes of this fic, Camelot refers to the entire kingdom, whereas the other places, including Caerleon (which I use as the name of the main citadel, though I don't know if I ever explicitly say so?) exist within it
Ogreball scores? Lieges Knightly issues? Ogreball was invented as a fictional Woods sport a bit like rugby somewhere back in Ros Vs, I think, and Lieges Knightly is just a fictional chivalric magazine I made up on the fly. Knightly being a pun on Nightly.
...the School was crowded by several of the more powerful kingdoms; Bloodbrook and Foxwood to the north and north-east, Glass Mountains to the east, Akgul and Rainbow Gale to the south, Frostplains to the south-west… and Camelot to the north-west.
I felt it existed a bit like Vatican City. Also, this is technically canon:
A ceiniog is an medieval welsh coin.
Chapter 3:
Agatha is dressed in her movie Gavaldon outfit coz I liked it
Kalends of September: the dates in this are stolidly medieval. For pointless trivia wot I made up, the Woods measure their years post-creation of the Storian, and the Woods Beyond measure it after the start of the kidnappings, which makes things confusing for Gavaldon, but that's their own stupid fault.
Hadn't Tedros had the Virgin Mary on the back of his Trial shield? He'd been telling her some long-winded anecdote about how it had belonged to someone or other, but she hadn't listened... yeah, the shield in question belonged to Sir Gawain, who was Tedros's cousin. From SG&TGK:
That the holy Queen of Heaven had of her Child. / Accordingly the courteous knight had that queen's image / Etched on the inside of his armoured shield. / So that when he beheld her, his heart did not fail
Chapter 4:
“I wanted to be Sinbad!” “Yesterday you said you were Lancelot!” shameless foreshadowing for Adam and Jacob's Tedros-wilting obsession with Lancelot in chapter 11
“Surely you didn’t think kidnapping meant footmen.” Actually, Sophie did. she considers it in book 1 lmao.
Aurifaber, the surname of Beatrix's royal house, means goldsmith, which is apt considering they're the descendants of the Miller's daughter who spun gold.
Callis's family's address is Erinyes House, Netherwood. Erinyes is the Greek name for the Furies, the three immortal sisters who punished wrongdoers on earth. This keeps the classical theme I have going with the Wardwells, and one of Agatha's cousins is named Tisiphone, who is one of the three Furies (the other two being Alecto and Megaera)
“Is your Mama a witch?” “Oh my god, Flavia, you can’t just ask someone if their mother is a witch!”
The signet ring Agatha notices on Tedros's hand is another one of the movie rings. Like I said; why make it up when it's already there
Normal girl-- couldn't help myself, frankly
Chapter 5:
"No, really– I threw [the rose] really high on purpose so I wouldn't have to pick, I let… coincidence and gravity do it for me." It's not canon that this is what Tedros did with the welcoming rose, but I've always had a suspicion it was implied, given the emphasis on how high he threw it and the later assertion he didn't like any of the Evergirls
Teen Woods is a combined spoof of Teen Vogue, J-14, and various other teen mags. It first appeared in Ros Vs.
The pas d'armes is a real tournament thing, which you can read about here!
Toden-- Tedros's spelling is silly, but it is true that standardised spelling didn't exist until after the Arthurian heyday, and the further into the fic you get, the more real Middle English words you'll find, because I started looking them up more and more. I note this is Middle English, not Old English; Old English is almost completely illegible to modern English speakers, whereas with a lot of effort, sounding it out, and a glossary, Middle English is just about possible. Old English is the language of Beowulf, Middle English is the language of most of the major Arthurian epics, (hence the choice), Early Modern English is the language of Shakespeare &c.
“Oh, Professor, what big coincidences you preside over!” (...) “All the better to assure a happy ending with, my dear.” red riding hood ref. There's an earlier one when Tedros says 'all the better for your absence' to Sophie but it's subtler
Chapter 6:
The Round Table knights that are still alive in this fic are, for the most part, the knights that didn't explicitly die in Le Morte d'Arthur
'It’s taller than you. You’d take your own head off with it.' hee hee hee funny nod to the worst chapter of my life
The Trials and Tribulations of Sir Justin of Timber Lake is a reference to this joke in Shrek 2:
Where a Justin Timberlake poster is medieval-ified, but I kept pushing it by making his surname into his Endless Woods kingdom and giving him a Princess Brittany to have a tumultous relationship with (Justin Timberlake used to date Britney Spears)
Tedros chats happily about Dame Ragnelle from The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle, in which Gawain has to marry an old lady in order to solve a problem for Arthur, (hence 'loathly lady' trope) but because he's Nice and Chivalrous to his supposedly ugly bride and gives her leave to make a choice or two herself, she miraculously becomes beautiful, except I let her keep her slightly more... disruptive ways lmao
...and pray for the day he miraculously comes back to life as the Once and Future King. you know, the legend that arthur will come back to save england when it's in great peril? wish the bastard would hurry up tbh, but regardless I was surprised it wasn't more referenced in the books and wanted to do more with it, hence the O&FK sect
Chapter 7:
Again, I was surprised it was never explored how similar Dot's power is to Hester's mother's? which is why it's here.
“Don’t need to be crowned to be King, village girl,” this is a concession to a fantasy pet peeve and an SGE pet peeve. he IS king! that's how monarchy works! he'll just have a protector or a regent while he's in his minority! he's still king! and there's never any mention of who's ruling in his stead, either!
Mithraditism was a real thing, though fuck knows if it actually worked. You might have encountered it via the cruel prince, jude does it!
“Teddy, do you have to wear tights at home?” for his sake I decided he doesn't have to, but technically they should all probably dress like this in camelot lmfao (well, they kinda do. you will notice I prefer the women's fashions)
“Surely this could have been a messenger,” is just 'this could have been an email' circa 1450
Chapter 8:
Hort's yellow stockings with purple garters are a reference to Malvolio in Twelfth Night, who is tricked into believing that Olivia (rich lady he serves whom he has aspirations of marrying) wants him to wear them: 'Remember who commended thy yellow stockings, and wished to see thee ever cross-gartered'.
Chaddick is not Arthur's son in this fic. He's just some guy.
Not actually a reference per se but what I had in mind when I wrote 'Tedros uncorked the bottle dubiously, sniffed it, then gagged', was, admittedly:
Chapter 9:
Tedros takes Agatha's gloves and folds them up for her, which in the glove language she's studying means get rid of your company, and she balls them up in her right hand which means no lmao, so he has to content himself w sitting and being bullied by the Coven and Hester lmao.
(also, agatha drops them in the first place when tedros pulls up in his rugby shorts, which means I love you, lmfao)
"By the way, I’m really sorry I left you for eight entire years, sweetheart, but I really do just like Lancelot that much– what?” Tedros accidentally exposes here that the reason he doesn't like Dovey calling him sweetheart (re: chapter 2) is because it's what Guinevere called him
The Everwood Architectural Society are just really convenient as a minor villain lmao. First seen causing problems in Ros Vs
Chapter 10:
Nine Men's Morris is a real historical game!
I sympathise with the struggle over the camelot family tree. there's so many of them and so many have similar names
King Constantius is a real king of camelot from SGE apparently (according to, er, the wiki. I think he's in rise but idk.). anyway I think this might be a joke on Soman's part about how Constantine the Great was constantly adopted by Arthuriana writers
Morgause, Morgan and Elaine are, for the purposes of this fic, the original three daughters of Igraine and her first husband Gorlois, and hence Arthur's half-sisters and Tedros's aunts
The dances on Tedros's to-do-list are either real medieval dances, or ones I stole from cinderella 2015's soundtrack
"So long as I shall have leave to launch a return blow unchecked..." is also from Gawain and the Green Knight
Chapter 11:
Vaguely I have made Carmelide and Guinevere the Welsh side of things and Arthur and Camelot the Middle English side of things, but the current Camelot in this fic kinda exists with both languages at the same time
The lines Tedros recites (His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd; / On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode…) are NOT about Arthur fuckfjf he clearly wasn't listening bc they're from the Lady of Shallot, and the rest of the stanza goes: From underneath his helmet flow'd / his coal-black curls as on he rode, / as he rode down to Camelot / from the bank and from the river / he flash'd into the crystal mirror / "Tirra lirra," by the river / sang Sir Lancelot.
Tedros is told off by Callis for whistling Dinogad's Smock/Pais Dinogad, which is one of the oldest (Old) Welsh lullabys recorded. Tedros mentions Guinevere was his Welsh-speaking parent earlier in the chapter, and Callis clearly clocked the correlation there, bc it's part of the reason she accuses him of 'having mummy issues in [her] garden' fjhdghf. (It's also about the hunting prowess of the dead father of the infant, and it's in the same manuscript as one of the oldest references to Arthur, the Book of Aneirin)
Chapter 12:
Dear Lady Disdain is a reference to Much Ado About Nothing. It's not a hidden meaning really I just think Beatrice and Benedick are sooooo tagatha and I think Tedros accidentally memorising snippets of literature out of context and just constantly deploying them, usually wrongly, is funny
"...and wearing those crespinettes–” there are so many different names for the various medieval headgears, but by crespinette/crispinette what I specifically meant here was the mesh encasing the hair, like this:
the four humours joke is the lowest hanging fruit for medieval jokes, ever, but I laughed. I also thought it was funny that it would be a very camelot-exclusive upper class fad that normal people know is bullshit.
also sweating sickness was a weird late-medieval disease. no one quite knows exactly what it was, but it might have been hantavirus
Chapter 13:
I was in the process of reading a lot of discworld while writing this chapter and I'm sure you can tell
"It had gotten to the point people had just started calling her the Witch Queen of Netherwood, but Elias had had a few people torn apart with horses for that, so they’d stopped again." this is in here because I fucking FORGOT that there's a canon ruler of Netherwood, The Witch Queen, so I had to extrapolate my way into explaining how King Elias can exist
Hennins are the pointy medieval princess hats!
'I think we should keep them in cages' is a Derry Girls reference. Sister Michael is the finest character in TV history in my opinion
Chapter 14:
'PRINCESS AMELIA OF GENOVIA' yeahh in my defence I only watched the Princess Diaries for the first time recently
Findabair, Guinevere's fake name, is etymologically cognate with Gwenhwyfar, the original Welsh form of Guinevere, i.e. they're sister names. Clearly no one was feeling original, least of all me
'He stared up at the statue of his father with a steady, stony face, as if entranced' is ripped and rearranged from the lady of shallot (again): With a steady stony glance— Like some bold seer in a trance, Beholding all his own mischance
The prayer the Once and Future King Sect bishop makes is inspired by the Locked Tomb prayer in Gideon the Ninth, which runs as follows:
I pray the tomb is shut forever. I pray the rock is never rolled away. I pray that which was buried remains buried, insensate, in perpetual rest with closed eye and stilled brain. I pray it lives, I pray it sleeps...
Prince Grendel is named after Grendel in Beowulf bc I couldn't think of any other good villain names lmao
Bonus: I never got the opportunity to show you the teen woods coronation cover. here it is
Chapter 15:
Prince Charming's actual name is Christopher/Kit because that's his name in the live action Cinderella from 2015, which I actually loved
And the Ugly Duckling is called Hans because it seems Hans Christian Andersen projected onto him a lot. Like a lot.
Whene Guenore, ful gay, grayþed in þe myddes– another line from Sir Gawain, as it says in the text.
Chapter 16:
"Oh. Boo, you bore." is, of course:
"What are Readers, to shopping and socialising?" is a flip of Pride and Prejudice's what are young men to rocks and mountains?... sorry Jane.
Chapter 17:
I had liefer to die oft than yield me to thee; for though I lack weapon, I shall lack no worship, and if thou slay me weaponless that shall be thy shame. This is a quote from Morte D'arthur; in fact it's a quote from Arthur himself. Tedros was hoping to appeal to Griflet's sympathies; unfortunately he just made him desperate.
I'm gonna be honest I can't remember which brother out of Caleb or Cedric was the oldest one and I couldn't find a way of finding out (I don't have QFG w me) so I merely vibed my way through it.
The 24th courtly love rule Chaddick references is The lover's every deed is performed with the thought of his beloved in mind lmao. Arguably Tedros is good at a lot of them but he also sucks at some
Chapter 18:
Beatrix's sisters are all named w B names because I thought that was just the type of annoying shit her mother would do lol. I did note their ages; Beatrix 17/18, Babette 15, Blanchefleur 14, Bianca 11, Bluebell-Rye 9 (NEARLY 10!) Blodeuwedd 6, Brigitte 4. Blod is named after a welsh folklore/mythological figure bc I thought there'd be a Camelot Fad after Guinevere fled and dragged it all back into the spotlight again
Part of their address has 'Crassus' in it bc he was that Roman bloke that was MINTED
The way Tedros/Myfanwy's formal letters are written is based on real 13th/14th century letters I looked at. Tedros's address starts to read slightly more Early Modern English than Middle English in some of these letters, bc I started sliding as a result of reading a lot of that stuff for a module... and then realised that it's actually a good way of nodding to progression in him and Camelot so I didn't change it. I also did less editing on Myfanwy's letter to make it more wobbly and not as staunchly medieval as Tedros's.
Umm this is a really long post so I might have forgotten something but these are the really big ones lol