#Yiso

[noctilia]

Going a bit insane about these two

[bugcowboyart]

Sketches if Yiso from “Some Desperate Glory” by Emily Tesh.

I don’t actually own a copy of this book— I borrowed it from the library and have since returned it so I’m sure some details are off. I’m honestly not a good memorizer for things like color. If anyone wants to send me the book description I’d be grateful.

I hit the important parts (to me) which are nonbinary, expressive ears, fin, big sad grey eyes.

[ambiguous-ailouros]

Long ears tucked back, wrapped in the fabric of garden worlds, I present my take on Yiso!

[harmonious]

I need somebody to PLEASE make fanfic or fan art of Some Desperate Glory. I’ve been obsessed with this book for the past week but i can’t find any fan content and I’m not very artistic 😭

[setepenre-set]

New Fic

How Does Your Body Work

Fandom: Some Desperate Glory

Pairing: Kyr/Yiso

Summary: Kyr and Yiso, coming together in the aftermath.

AO3

[cielsosinfel]

i NEED everyone to read this book ("Some Desperate Glory" by Emily Tesh). please. I'm like 70% of the way done and it's just driving me fucking wild in a way a book has not done in a very, very, very long time. PLEASE READ THIS IF YOU LIKE SCIFI WITH HORRIBLE UNRELIABLE (MORE LIKE COMPLETELY IGNORANT OF THEIR LIVED REALITY) NARRATORS.

It's told from the POV of an 18 y/o child soldier raised in a human separatist enclave after Earth was blown up in a war by other sentient space-faring species, a girl who lives and breathes duty, who wants nothing more to serve and get revenge for all the lives lost and abandoned, BUT IT GOES OFF THE RAILS IN THE BEST (MOST PAINFUL) WAYS. PLEASE TRUST ME. The POV character is extremely abrasive and unpleasant and horribly unquestioning of the world she's been raised in and SHE IS SUCH A GOOD FUCKING CHARACTER WITH A NARRATIVE ARC THAT'S SO FUCKING A!!!!!

recommended if you like narrators who are constantly making things worse on themselves and everyone around them, complicated alien worldbuilding, horrific conspiracies being unfurled, and fucking with the space-time continuum, with a side of depressing gay messes (some who do not realize they are gay yet and are very unpleasant about it!)

(this also has a very long sheet of Content Warnings but it's all listed at the start of the book, just fyi)

[duck-that-does-stuff]

Dude. Yiso’s new Designer Reflection is just even more gay. Her and the Priestess just spend a week in a forest together, complementing (Flirting) the entire time. I say Yiso is claimed for the LBGTQ

[lost-tales-ffxiv]

All the flavor of bonbon you can get in FFXIV

[azulas-lightning-bolt]

okay so I’m not normally one to do {character} w plot of {disney character} or just another character in general but. but hear me out.

anastasia mako. HELP. for a little background I’m playing anya (anastasia) in my school play and my friend’s little sister is making us both watch the movie. it’s breaking my tradition of NEVER watching the movie before performing a show, so I’m just blasting the musical soundtrack on my headphones and posting this, so,,,

ANYWAYS! since I make everything about mako, let’s get going with this.

anastasia-mako parallels:

-orphan

-resemblance to royalty (specifically eyes—gold for mako, blue for anastasia)

-really funny when they get bitchy

-best friend is their little brother (alexei-bolin)

-important person who’s actually a street rat x street rat relationship dynamic (anya x dmitry, korra x mako)

-communist party/equalists!!

-keepsake item (music box/scarf)

-that’s all I’ve got but like. just listen.

zuko has two daughters; izumi and naoki. Izumi is destined for the throne and naoki doesn’t particularly want it—she’s left to her own devices, for the most part. then, naoki falling in love with an earthbender named san; they have two children, mako and bolin. mako and bolin are mixed, but current firelord zuko loves them all the same. they are raised in the palace until mako is eight and bolin is six. it’s at that point that a group of dissenters on zuko’s policies attack the palace, killing princess naoki and prince san in the castle, before abducting and likely also killing the little princes.

but a month later, the prince bolin returns! the fire nation celebrates, the beloved second branch of the royal family is not completely gone! but the halls of the palace are silent and devoid of celebration; the prince mako has not returned. and by the stone wall of silence prince bolin has made himself, it’s likely he never will.

but a month later, bolin speaks again for the first time since his parents’ death—mako is alive out there, somewhere, and they just need to find him. immediately, search efforts are employed, scouts and soldiers and notices sent out all around the world calling for help to return their prince. firelord zuko even offers a large bounty for his return, though he hates when it’s called such.

meanwhile, in republic city, a boy with no name and no memories wakes up on the side of a road. fresh snow painted the ground, blood (his blood?) soaking it red. the scarf wrapped around his neck matches in pigment. he shivers in clothing made of fine silks and meant for the warmth, trekking forward. he quickly discovers his clothes are worth enough to find something rougher for warm and cold. (he doesn’t consider for a second selling the scarf.) he doesn’t even know his own name, but the cold sinking beneath his skin tells him it’s a deal he needs to cut.

he finds odd jobs around. his first is working at a hospital. he doesn’t get payed monetarily, but they heal the nasty lightning scar that mangles him, stretching from his cheek and down his arm to his waist and feed him. the nice old lady named kya gives him odd looks now and then (she’s never met the prince mako, but she’s seen pictures. she should check. she just needs to check.) but she gives him extra clothes for free, so he doesn’t mind. he moves to washing dishes when the hospital can hire better equipped staff and his scar is healed. he needs to get actual yuan now—he wants to pay for passage to the fire nation. the scarf he clung to, a little embroidery was stitched into it; ‘together in caldera’. that’s his only clue to the eight years before, and he’s desperate to chase it.

he becomes a street sweeper after that, and uses whatever name people give him. he’s been masok and yiso and aizah and saijan and noriaki and roki and kichirō and just about every name under the sun. usually, people call him after their late family. something in that feels oddly fitting to him, but he doesn’t dwell on it. the name that sits the most in his head is masok, so it’s masok that he sticks with.

he spends his years with the triads. they all look at him the same way—a way he doesn’t see them look at the other kids who have no choice but gang work. he’s stared at like a prize. he gets invited to play a game of pretend, but he knows games with old men never end well for children, and he’s far too old for games like that by age 10.

he eventually settled in as an assistant for an office worker who rarely spares him a glance—he counts himself lucky that he’s no longer on the wrong side of the law and that he was never caught. where he is now pays well and if he keeps it up a while longer and is smart with saving, he’ll be on an airship and to caldera city in no time at all.

republic city falls into crisis, a madman calling himself amon leading the ‘equalists’ to try and destroy all benders. he only takes that as incentive to get out faster, while he still can.

and then, of course, the avatar comes crashing into his life in the most insane way possible. you would think it’d be unlikely for the avatar to encounter a paper-pusher, and you’d be right, except this particular avatar just ran over said paper-pusher with her giant ass polar bear dog which OW PLEASE GET IT OFF NOW!

she apologizes by taking him to meet her rich friend, asami, who’s helping her deal with the whole amon situation. he is decidedly not smitten immediately with either of them, especially because the avatar literally ran him over with her polar bear dog. but korra starts prodding him about the missing fire nation prince and for some reason asami (who had until then seemed reasonable) agreed. they argued that, without his scar and after growing out his scraggly close cut hair, he would look exactly like the prince. not even to mention that their timelines match up, and masok’s mystery past. he tells them they’re crazy, but the idea creeps on him, looming in the back of his head.

what if he is the prince? it does match up, there is a resemblance, and those little snippets of memory tug incessantly at his mind. a little brother, a loving grandfather, was it all really?

they teach him about the fire nation royal family. to jog his memory, they say, as he learns about bolin and zuko and izumi and naoki and san. they teach him to stand straight like a prince and not slurp his noodles and raise his chin but not look down his nose.

he follows along with their schemes, much to his chagrin, as he finds himself put on blast in amon’s threatening grip. an example is to be made of him, the world is told from a large screen. he tries not to break his composure, but something in this is familiar and his heart is beating out of his chest in an effort to understand exactly what.

amon says that mako should’ve learned his lesson years ago, when the palace was attacked, and never shown his scarred face again, much less at the avatar’s side.

mako, amon said.

and suddenly mako (yes, mako. that felt right on his tongue.) recalls bombs and screaming and burning flesh and a dead mother and father and the need to protect a little brother who was ripped away and a burning, burning, burning, and electric pain all down his side and then waking up and remembering none of it or any of what came before and he is the lost prince of the fire nation. he strikes up with fire and lightning crackles along his fingertips and he tells amon to finish him the way he finished his mother and father.

amon asks who he thinks he is, a pathetic child, to stand against the equalist forces. and mako (mako, mako, mako. that is who he always was.) proudly declares what he had not known he had a right to. he is prince mako, of the fire nation. amon will rise, or amon will die.

a stunning lightning strikes him at his side and amon does not get to choose. show us who you are, amon, an urging comes from within mako. he peels off the man’s mask. he is water tribe, a scar… painted(?) on his face. mako is on camera, he knows, but if there is something more than the identity reveal causing the panic on amon’s face, mako needs to find out.

the texture of his scar is nothing like mako’s, and he dumps water on it to be sure. the paint comes off dripping and—amon’s limbs twitch again and the water bends away from him. the leader of the equalists is a waterbender.

amon dies, as simple as that, with his brother at his side.

mako is ready to take some time to process what was revealed publicly, on national broadcast, that he hadn’t even known himself, but he can’t seem to catch a break. first korra and asami are affectionately assaulting him (oh god he’s in love with them both) and then prince bolin (bo, he always called him bo) is walking through the trap door of his attic.

mako just about falls over. why was he here? was he going to say that mako had died that night, and all his ‘memories’ were just tricks of the mind to suit his fancies? was he going to accuse mako of slandering the royal family because he looked so terribly taken care of that it was insulting to be associated with him?

none of this happened. he teared up, green eyes locking onto gold. he barrels forward, wrapping his waveringly declared brother in a hug. mako calls out a too-familiar nickname, too late to stop himself, sucking in a breath nervously.

it’s been too long, he is told. it’s time to go home. he still has the scarf, he affirms in hysterical relief.

and mako, masok, the street orphan with nothing but a brightly dyed red scarf to his name, puts on the robes of a fire nation prince with the avatar and a genius inventor at his side. he sweeps onto a balcony, falling into straight-backed composure with ease, greeting a sea of citizens.

a servant declares to his right,

“Prince Mako has returned home!”

[melanielocke]

Book recommendations - Morally complicated/unhinged protagonists

I usually tend to gravitate towards characters who are good. Most of my own written characters will fall firmly on the good side of an alignment chart even if they are complicated, have trauma etc. But every once in a while I do enjoy some characters who are kind of unhinged or morally complicated. Here are some of my favorites.

I'm going to start with the book I just finished reading and am currently obsessed with: Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh

In this book, earth has been destroyed, and Kyr has trained all her life to avenge earth. She was raised on an isolated space station with what she believes are the last humans, taught to hate the Majoda, the aliens who destroyed earth. Kyr has never questioned anything she's taught and worked hard to be a model soldier, but then her brother is assigned to a suicide mission while Kyr herself is relegated to the Nursery to bear children.

Kyr decides to take her fate into her own hands and rescue her brother from what she believes is pointless and leaves the space station together with her brother's brilliant but kind of unhinged friend Avi and a lonely Majo captive Yiso. But when Kyr enters the wider universe she must confront that not everything she's been taught is true and that the universe is a lot more complicated than she believes.

Essentially, this is a story of someone indoctrinated by a cult slowly breaking free. Kyr starts out not very likeable. She wants nothing more than to be the perfect soldier, is mean to everyone and is pretty clueless. But slowly she learns through the book and I loved watching her journey.

My favorite in this book has to be Avi though. He's unhinged. He's a genius, way too smart for his own good. He's gay and has a very complicated relationship with Kyr's twin brother Mags. I can't say too much without spoiling the book.

Mind the content warnings for this one, and keep in mind that Kyr is heavily indoctrinated by what is pretty much a fascist cult and as such she shows some queerphobic views (such as refusing to use they/them pronouns for a genderless Majo at first), though it also seems relatively watered down compared to how bad it probably was in the cult. It's also pretty obvious to a reader that Kyr is wrong about most things at this point.

The copy pictured is my Illumicrate edition, which has the UK cover (and very pretty edges)

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao is up next

Iron Widow is a YA sci fi with characters inspired by people from Chinese history. The main character, Zetian, is inspired by the only female emperor in Chinese history Wu Zetian.

Huaxia is under attack by hunduns, a type of mechanic aliens, and to combat them they fight in chrysalises, machines taking the shape of creatures of Chinese mythology piloted by a boy/girl pair using spirit presence. Unfortunately, the girls often die due to the mental strain.

Zetian's sister was murdered by one of the pilots outside of battle, and she enlists as a concubine pilot to kill the man responsible. She gets her wish in an unexpected way, when said pilot takes her with him to battle, she kills him through the mental link.

Labeled an Iron Widow, Zetian is paired with the most powerful male pilot, a convicted murderer who is only kept alive because of his exceptional spirit presence. But Zetian has had her taste of revenge and is not going to go down quietly.

I love how unhinged Zetian is in this book, and the author is very good at making us root for her. They could probably have Zetian blow up an orphanage and still have us cheer for her. Zetian's anger is understandable, she's a girl fed up with the patriarchy and girls dying as pilots. This book also has a poly main couple, with all three being bi and into each other.

The book is the first in a duology and book 2 will be out April 2024 (it was delayed)

The Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir is already pretty well known but it fit this category well and I only started it recently

There's three books out, but book 3 only comes out in paperback this September which is why I don't have it yet (nor have I read it)

The first two books focus on Gideon and Harrow, who are both from the ninth house. Harrow is a necromancer and heir to the ninth house, whereas Gideon is a warrior who would much rather leave the ninth house altogether. But when Gideon tries to escape, again, Harrow makes her an offer, become her cavalier when she answers the summons of the emperor, who called the heirs of all nine houses and their cavaliers to become lyctors.

The first two books are already very different in tone. Gideon in book 1 is funny, the language is very modern and Gideon is often not paying attention because she's describing all the attractive female characters in full detail, but otherwise she's relatively reliable as a narrator. Then comes Harrow the Ninth, which is one of the most confusing books I have ever read. It pays off in the end, everything will make sense (mostly).

What I found very funny in book 1 was just how childish and petty Gideon and Harrow could be towards each other. They hate each other but in a very childish way. Harrow calls Gideon "Griddle". Gideon considers that Harrow would never leave her alone in their rooms on purpose because then Gideon would mess up the buttons of Harrow's clothes.

Book 2 in comparison has a much more serious tone, which much written in 2nd perspective as well as some flashbacks to previous events that do not add up to what we saw in book 1. I have yet to read book 3 but I've heard it's amazing. After Nona there will be one more book which comes out 2024.

Last up is Black Sun and Fevered Star by Rebecca Roanhorse

This book is not so much unhinged, but very morally complicated. The world is based on pre Columbian americas and it shows a complicated conflict between different cultural group through the POV's of a couple different characters. The main character Xiala is a Teek who was banished from her own home. The Teek are very recluse and not super involved with the main conflict.

She is given the task of sailing Serapio to city of Tova, where much of the conflict takes place. Serapio's mother made him to be the reincarnation of their god, the Carrion Crow, and avenge their people.

We also follow Naranpa, who is the Sun Priest in Tova but grew up in a poor section with a group of culture who were excluded from the clans that make up the city.

And then there's Okoa, the brother of the leader of the Carrion Crow clan within the city, who only wants to protect his clan but doesn't really know what is the best way to do this, meaning he often changes his mind and alliances.

The first book builds towards the Black Sun, a rare solar eclipse that will change the world.

There are currently two books out and the third and last is scheduled for 2024.

@alastaircarstairsdefenselawyer @life-through-the-eyes-of @astriefer @justanormaldemon @ipromiseiwillwrite @a-dream-dirty-and-bruised @amchara @all-for-the-fanfiction @imsoftforthomastair @ddepressedbookworm @queenlilith43 @wagner-fell @cant-think-of-anything @laylax13s @tessherongraystairs @boredfangirl16 @artist-in-soul @aliandtommy @ikissedsmithparker

[literary-illuminati]

And finished Some Desperate Glory!

Been some time since a book sucked me in like that. Literally can't remember the last SFF book I was left actively wishing was longer.

Third act was weaker than the rest, I think, Wisdom sincerely needed more characterization than two tiny conversations for the fact that the entire thing pivoted on its choices.

But also I just selfishly wanted more loops and more fun times with Kyr, Avi and Yiso being profoundly socially maladjusted with each other.

[amochi]

When Yiso said “I’ll always remember that” at the end made me put my head in my hands

[zodiac-rave]

books happened 2023: 13/?, Some Desperate Glory

I think this is the first thing I read this year that was actually published this year. The downside of this is that running to youtube in hopes of finding someone with more organized thoughts about it than me isn't helping because there's, like, four videos. I'm left here trying to pitch hay in my brain by myself. I'm never reading anything current again!!

---listen.

(spoilers now)

The first half of this was so hard for me to get through because you're stuck in the head of a really unlikable main character with really unlikable thoughts. She's like that for a reason and they do something with that discomfort eventually but when you're chugging through it and don't know about the severe plot swing halfway through it's a lot.

The second half of it was more readable and I even liked parts of it from a scifi bones structure standpoint - the concept of how the alternate universe versions of the characters influenced their behavior in whatever universe they were currently in, how Yiso developed because they had their alternate memories for longer, the idea of getting to Redo Stuff And Save People. It's some of the meat that went on those bones that I'm still not sure how I feel about. There were some points where it felt like maybe the relationship between the humans and the aliens was trying to represent some things that feel weird to be using space aliens as a metaphor for.

Basically the end of the book was me going like this if you accept the red button as "trying to assign a rating on goodreads", which I gave up on.

[meladyguizado]

Esto —señaló su runa de parabatai— significa que tú eres la otra mitad de mí, la mejor de hecho, y me importas más de lo que me importo yo misma.

- Cassandra Clare

Dedicado a mi única e irreemplazable hermana. Te amo yiso precioso ❤️

[lost-tales-ffxiv]

That feel when you suddenly realize you gave all your characters the same glam, so now it's their "uniform" for when they work together on a case....

Man it's hard using these tools...