Sam Nightingale - Blog Posts

“i don’t need a boon… this is just because you’re hurting”

sam, my love, my heart. i’m so so happy to see this. this is just like what she did for lola and her dog, on a much much larger scale.

sam sees someone hurting, she sees that there is something she could do to lessen that hurt, and she reaches out to do it. it’s so unfair that she didn’t have someone that did the same for her, but she can make sure that other people don’t have to go through it without help. my beloved.

sam just embracing zelda while fully flying, suspended over the cliff-face is the most tender image???

zelda, who is is a ball of anxiety in any other situation, knowing that sam lashes out because she’s hurting. sam apologising and taking accountability for her actions. sam telling zelda how great she is, and that she should be nicer to herself! i love their dynamic!

thinking about how sam’s first instinct with lola was to help her get her dog out of the lake, with no other justification than “she’s a fire genasi, water hurts her, and this is something i can do to help.”

thinking about persephone saying that sam learned how to be mean and manipulative from her mother and penelope. sam growing up under pressure and surrounded by their toxicity, learning to give as good as she gets and then even better.

sam lashing out as a survival technique, because caring hurts and people can’t hurt you if you hurt them first (even when they can). sam imitating the biggest female presences in her life, because that’s how you find yourself when you’re not on solid foundation (they’re still teenagers, god).

i love her and the way persephone embodies her. and i’m so here for the seven being there for each other through all of their traumas and struggles.

i do love how brennan gives depth and a whole fullness of life to potential one-off characters like lola embers.

she has a distinctive personality trait that might be what the character is built around, sure, but she’s also a person! who chases after her dog and respects sam’s transness and personhood! i just think it’s neat!

“should i cast lightning again at the skeleton?”

“NO!”

“it’s just an idea”

ahhhh Sephie is the coolest and i love her Sam!!

the conversation between sam and penelope is Gutting. the simple fact that they know each other down to their bones, and knows perfectly what to say and how to say it in order to hurt each other the most. neither of them willing to let the mean girl facade slip even when one of them is in Literal Hell is just…shiver inducing.

penelope, who delights in pain!!! and sam, who does not!!!! my god, persephone and brennan acted the hell out of this scene

penelope's line from prompocalyse always stuck with me - 'i let them put my best friend in that crystal'. i can just picture her lying in her bed before prom wishing she had her best friend there, possibly the only person penelope ever actually loved, but knowing that she would never be forgiven for giving her up in the first place. sam wasn't a means to an end, in her eyes sam was a sacrifice that had to be made to be queen. sam was a shred of goodness and hope and happiness that penelope gave up for power, not only because sam herself would be sacrificed but because the sam that loved her, her best friend, would cease to exist.

i don't think she liked sam because she was pretty or talented or famous - i think she liked sam because sam loved her. it's both more and less meaningful, because in being loved by sam penelope could and did love her back but didn't anticipate that one day sam would stop loving her. she's left with this feeling of empitiness and loneliness that she doesn't even attempt to mend because she knows that nobody would ever compare to sam, so all she can do is cling to her crown and try to fill the hole herself with everything she thought she admired about sam.

sam was strong. sam was beautiful. sam was fierce and independent and powerful. penelope could be all of these things and more, and yet never be able to fill the hole sam left because she wouldn't let herself care. penelope loved that if she said the right thing sam would be hurt, because sam cared and penelope could always exploit that weakness. there was a kind of sick pride in not caring, because even if sam was stronger than her at least penelope didn't care. at least she could nurture that love and dependency without ever having to be burdened by reciprocating it.

penelope never anticipated that one day sam wouldn't care. and penelope would be forced to acknowledge that she cared, that she had cared all along, and that now sam didn't.

I’m thinking about nightpetal again and specifically thinking about the “I don’t love you anymore.” thinking about it from penelope’s perspective, if that actually was penelope. thinking about her taunting sam like she always did, except now six girls rip through time and space to take sam’s hand and take her away. six girls who have clearly fought through some shit to come get sam, six people who love sam and aren’t afraid to tell her, to show her. I just wonder how she felt seeing antiope taking sam by the hand and telling her she loves her so openly. I wonder if, as sam told her “I don’t love you anymore,” surrounded by people who would clearly do anything for her, if penelope regretted not being that for sam. I wonder if it hurt her to know that she didn’t have someone like that, especially because she knows that, for most of her life, she did.