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alfvaen · 4 months

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Novel Mother

With the winds blowing us all backwards into the future, I read another month's worth of books in May of 2024. And made thoughtful comments about them in a file which got turned into a blog post. This very one, in fact.

Details below the cut; possible spoilers for Rachel Bach's "Paradox" series, N.K. Jemisin's "Great Cities", Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of The Fallen, and of course Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga.

Katharine Kerr: Daggerspell, completed May 1

This book came out in 1986, and I remember seeing it on the shelves at the time, if only because I was reading a lot of Katherine Kurtz at the time, and I kept seeing this one and thinking it was Kurtz, but it wasn't. It had a sequel, Darkspell, which I also recall seeing, and apparently there were more after that but I've rarely spotted them. I probably originally picked it up used, and it sat on my shelves for a while. According to my records, I read it in 1996, in my "Random" slot, i.e. literally selected at random out of my unread books at the time. (It's an interesting technique; I should maybe do it more often.) And I remembered very little about it, except perhaps that the "daggerspell" of the title was a little deceptive, though not more than that. I did also end up with a copy of Darkspell, and even the third book, The Bristling Wood (abandoning the title theme, which is probably for the best), but I haven't read them.

So why did I take it out to reread? Good question. I guess I had it in my head somewhere that I had heard that Deverry, the world where these took place, was another planet. Which made me wonder if this was actually another Steerswoman-type situation, science fiction in fantasy clothing, which made it seem more interesting. It had certainly been long enough that if I ever did want to go on in the series (which is now up to like sixteen books, divided into multiple "acts" or subsequences) I'd want to reread the first book. Since I like to put one standalone reread in with my series rereads these days (along with the Pratchett, the Star Trek, and now the Dick Francis), I put it into that slot. (It's not a standalone, of course, but I figured that as the only book in a series that I've read it would be close enough.)

It pretty clearly is not a secret science fiction book--it's a Celtic fantasy (though at least more Brythonic than Gaelic, for a change) in a secondary world. There's a lot of familiar elements--elves and dwarves, mercenaries (here distinguished by their silver daggers, also used as a metonymous designation for them), inns and horses, clearly-defined patriarchal gender roles, etc. And there's dweomer (magic), prophecies, Wyrd (fate), and a hefty helping of reincarnation. We start with a young girl who can see fairies, her mother dies and her silver-dagger father takes her to live on the road with him. But it turns out that 400 years earlier, she was a beautiful woman fought over by a prince, her brother (TW: incest), and another lord, and things go badly for most of them. The prince, who wanted to abandon his life to study the dweomer anyway, swears not to rest until he can fix things in some future life, and ends up cursed with immortality until he has fulfilled his vow. The flashbacks into the earlier timelines (we also see one other earlier reincarnation where things do not get resolved properly), and the youth of the main character, sap the early momentum of the story, and it's not until almost halfway through the book that we settle into our main plot, meeting the other reincarnated characters, and also dealing with other plot elements. A furtive glance at the Wikipedia page for the series implies that we mostly stick with characters from this timeline, and don't keep jumping further, but I could be wrong.

I had planned to get through the book in four days--under a hundred pages a day, should have been doable--but in the end it did not happen, partly because of other things going on, but mostly because I just was not being drawn in. I ended up committing to five days instead (bumping it into May's list) and even the reduced quota was a bit of a slog. Things did seem to pull together a little by the end--after resolving the external conflict with the bad guys, the author still leaves plenty of time to resolve the good guys' interpersonal problems, giving them to chance to use what they've absorbed from their multiple reincarnations to change their Wyrds. So I'm not feeling quite as firmly convinced as I was while I was actually reading the book that I will never continue on in the series. I guess I'll see how I feel. (As nice as it would be to weed a few more books and reclaim a modicum of shelf space…)

N.K. Jemisin: The World We Make, completed May 5

Cycled back around to the female diversity slot, which, as mentioned before, seems to leave me with a lot more choices than male does, with my current collection at least. And while there are several new authors for me to try, I'm also in the middle of a few series, so I elected to progress with one of them. It didn't feel quite time yet to go back to Michelle Sagara/West, and really I was interested in finishing off N.K. Jemisin's Great Cities duology.

The City We Became was a weird but cool book, "urban fantasy" in the absolutely strictest most literal sense of the word. As in, the fantastical creatures living in the cities were…well, cities. Several people find themselves becoming the avatars of New York boroughs, with the city's overall avatar itself in trouble. Like many people who don't live there, I imagine, my familiarity with New York is somewhat superficial, and probably mostly Manhattan-focused, from comic books and "Friends" and the like, and I couldn't have really told you the difference between Brooklyn, Queens and The Bronx, so I found it educational and informative. There were also strong social justice themes underlying the story, and a little bit of cosmic horror too. And there were also some guest appearances by other city avatars, with the implication that we'd see more of them in the sequel.

The book feels like it could be longer, the resolution to some issues made more concrete. The author talks in the endnotes about how this was planned as a trilogy, but uncomfortable convergence with real-world events made her collapse it down to two books, so perhaps that accounts for some of it. The conflicts have a very magic-realism feel to them, where things happen according to an internal logic which doesn't line up to the real world, and some of them get very abstract. And I'm not sure I found the ultimate resolution to be 100% satisfying. But I enjoyed reading it nonetheless.

Rachel Bach: Honour's Knight, completed May 9

Now I wanted something other than an epic or urban fantasy, with a female author, but I still felt like something reasonably fast-paced after Daggerspell. I decided this meant it was time for the next Rachel Bach book.

Rachel Bach is really Rachel Aaron, using a pseudonym because this is SF and not fantasy like the Eli Monpress series she was known for at the time. I read and enjoyed the Eli Monpress books, though I have to say that by the end of the fifth book it had really twisted the default-seeming secondary fantasy world into something a lot weirder. I always appreciate that, when you realize that the default assumptions you've been making about the nature of the world weren't actually justified at all.

This is the second book in the Rachel Bach series (officially designated the Paradox series, which seems to be the name of the culture/planet/interstellar polity/whatever that the main character is from). In the first one, Fortune's Pawn, Devi, a high-tech fighter from Paradox (which is now no longer at war with the Terrans--she is human, though there are aliens around as well) is looking for work and gets hired on a small cargo ship as security. The captain of the ship is clearly not on the up-and-up, since it rarely carries any cargo and frequently makes odd stops at isolated planets. And his daughter Ren doesn't talk to anyone and just sits and plays chess all day. Also, the ship's cook, Rupert, is more than he seems, and Devi is drawn to him. Oh, and sometimes she sees glowing insects floating around the ship that nobody except Ren seems to notice.

At the beginning of the second book, though, things have changed, and Devi has a weird gap in her memory. (Kind of like the gap I have in my own memory, since it's been a year and a half since I read the first book.) The other security guy is dead, and she feels a weird revulsion whenever she sees the cook guy (whose name she can never remember). When they go to hire a replacement security guy to help her out, most of the applicants mysteriously don't show up, leaving the only obvious candidate a guy named Rashid. Who we saw in the prologue of the book, when his daughter was abducted by mysterious people and somehow…transformed into a duplicate of Ren? So clearly a lot is afoot.

The book does shed light on a lot of the mysteries, but there's multiple groups with overlapping but differing goals, and Devi is going to have try to decide who to trust and who she can work with and who she has to work with. Should be an interesting third book…

Steven Erikson: Forge of Darkness, completed May 19

It'd been a minute since I read some Steven Erikson. I finished the Malazan Book of The Fallen in 2015, and since then I've only read one of the Bauchelain and Korbal Broach short story collections. I may have mentioned before how much I bogged down in Toll The Hounds, the eighth Malazan book (it took me three weeks to get through), and while things did pick up for the last two books, I guess I was left a little gunshy. I have instead been reading some of Ian Esslemont's books in the same world (the two writers share the Malazan world, interestingly), and I did consider reading the next one of those instead, but ended up with this one instead.

I have been kind of avoiding thick books because of the Goodreads challenge thing, but I guess I'm deciding now that that's not a good enough reason. On the other hand, when I'm reading a book for a long time I start to get antsy and want to get on to something else, so probably that will keep me from reading too many of them in a year anyway.

This is the first book of the Kharkanas trilogy, which I generally understood was a prequel series, going back possibly centuries, though given that some of the characters are extremely long-lived (the Tiste are vaguely elf-coded) we do see a few familiar faces. It's a little unclear where exactly things take place, though. There's some maps at the beginning, but one of them is for a place called Kurald Galain. Now, in the main (future-timeline) Malazan series, Kurald Galain is a warren, a term which is helpfully (but belatedly) explained in the fifth book, Midnight Tides. Essentially, warrens are other worlds that are sources of magical power for mages to draw on. In this book, on the other hand, warren is only used in the literal sense of a burrow for a small animal to hide in. Which leads me to think that maybe warrens don't exist yet, and that perhaps we will see their formation by the end of the series. (Similarly, there is an abandoned city, formally inhabited by members of the Jaghut species, called Omtose Phellack, which is also a warren in the later books.)

The Tiste are in a state of restlessness, having put down a major invasion, and while some are willing to embrace peace, at least one fellow is ambitious for Urusander's Legion to become active again, and so he schemes to create unrest so the Legion has to be recalled. Many families have exchanged hostages to attempt to assure peace. Anomander Rake, a major player in the Malazan series, but only a minor one in this book, is having a sword made, and his brother Andarist is getting married. They and their brother Silchas Ruin have been adopted by Mother Dark, a near-divine Tiste woman worshipped by many (those who don't, the Deniers, are outcasts and easy targets for violence). The Tiste in the Malazan series are divided into three sub-races: Tiste Andii (dark), Tiste Edur (shadow) and Tiste Liosan (light), and we begin to see those divisions forming here. We also get to see several Azathanai (powerful, godlike creatures) like Hood (before he became God of Death) and Draconus (consort of Mother Dark and divisive figure), and the return (?) of the Eleint, also known as Dragons. There are some horrible scenes of slaughter and rape, and some characters you just want to see come to a bad end.

I do have the next book, Fall of Light, though it may take me a while to get back to it. (I did take a bunch of notes and put them into a file for when I do go back to it; now I just need to not lose it this time like I did all those notes on Diana Pharaoh Francis's Crimson Wind…still no idea where that got to.) On the other hand, apparently this series was not doing as well as the Malazan books, so the third book is not actually out yet, because he turned to a different series, Witness, spinning off "fan-favourite" character Karsa Orlong from the Malazan series. So there's no rush.

Lois McMaster Bujold, "Winterfair Gifts", completed May 20

For completeness in the Vorkosigan reread, the next entry is this novella, a quick read which does help offset the long Steven Erikson book. The next novel to come out was Diplomatic Immunity, set after Miles and Ekaterin's wedding, and I read that one before reading the story of their actual wedding. I originally read it in the Irresistible Forces anthology, a collection of romance novellas with a SF/fantasy "theme", and I did read the rest of the stories, though I recall very little of them right now.

Years of reading comic books have shown that it's probably best that your wedding not actually take place onscreen, or else something will go wrong with it, and sadly, this is also the case here. Armsman Roic is the POV character, after his small but memorable, and quite embarrassing, role in the climax of A Civil Campaign. He meets Miles's offworld wedding guests, particularly Sergeant Taura, and they have a little bit of a romance before things start to go awry, but between them they are able to figure out the problem and, if not solve it, at least bring it to the attention of those who can. Roic redeems himself and get the girl (for a little while, anyway).

James F. David: Footprints of Thunder, stopped reading May 22

If you've been paying attention, you may be able to figure out my criteria for this next book. Male author, since two (non-reread) books ago was a female author. First book after a reread, so it's either a diversity slot or trying a new author, but since the last one (the N.K. Jemisin) was diversity this one isn't.

Picking the actual book I mostly leave up to random chance; often it'll be some book or author that I heard mentioned, or that I thought of for some reason. In this case, I actually saw someone mentioning this book on the SF Stack Exchange, or rather describing the book and trying to get it identified. I sometimes look at those (though rarely am I the identifier), and when someone suggested this book, I realized it sounded familiar, and sure enough, it was sitting in the rows of books by untried author sitting, um, on my pool table (that's the untried-author-book storage department right now). I did get, I suppose, some minor spoilers from the Stack Exchange post, but no worse than reading the back of the book; from what I gather, it's a sort of disaster book in which time portals back to Dinosaur Days open up and dinosaurs invade the "modern day" (in this case, probably circa the publication date of 1995). Which leads me to realize that Under The Dome was basically a disaster book, wasn't it? Except a very localized one.

Apparently what happens is that there's a full-fledged "Time-Quilt" event where small patches of the world get replaced with their copies from the past,which includes a lot of dinosaurs. We meet a number of characters, including a lot of people from Oregon (presumably the author's own stomping grounds). There's a small group of scientists and students who, based on a number of "objects or creatures raining out of the sky" events and ancient Sumerian prophecies, conclude that something is about to happen, but they don't know what. One of them takes his cave-guide sister and her hapless charges hostage underground to try to protect them. We also meet a blended family sailing to Bermuda, and a widow in a New York apartment. And then the event happens--the widow gets to see some dinosaurs, the sailing family's boat is swamped by a tsunami (apparently sometimes chunks of earth manifest in the ocean as "floating islands" that quickly sink, which was an interesting concept), and other people encounter dinosaurs and chunks of primeval jungle. And we got the obligatory fictional president (improbably enough, from a Democratic splinter party???) and his advisors.

The dinosaur thing was probably supposed to be a big selling point in the wake of "Jurassic Park" (which came out a couple of years before this book), but every description reminded me how dated that movie's dinosaurs seem already. I mean, this was before the "dinosaurs have feathers" facts really went mainstream. I ended up putting the book down less than 150 pages in--I wasn't caring about the characters, the gosh-wow-dinosaurs thing wasn't getting me, and things were getting too fragmented. But also there's the fact (for which the author likely cannot be blamed) that the second-hand paperback book I was reading was really quite filthy. More than once I ran across dark brown stains that had soaked through multiple pages, and bits of dried food or whatever. Plus a badly curved spine and a cover on the verge of coming unglued, and it was just a mildly unpleasant object to hold, physically. So I set it aside, and quite frankly put it into the recycling because it was just in too poor condition to donate.

Mary Robinette Kowal: Valour And Vanity, completed May 27

I didn't spend a lot of time thinking about the next book--should be a female author, and presumably something slightly different from Footprints of Thunder, but while sometimes I spend a lot of time poring over my shelves (in physical form or some digital form, like the Goodreads list or my tracking spreadsheet) to narrow down the next book, for some reason this one bubbled up right away and I just went with it.

I actually first heard of Mary Robinette Kowal at the World Fantasy Convention that I attended in Calgary in 2008. At the banquet, my wife and I ended up sitting with a bunch of people we didn't know, which turned out to include Carrie Vaughn (whose Kitty And The Midnight Hour I had already read), Diana Rowland (whose Kara Gillian series hadn't quite started to come out yet), and Mary Robinette Kowal, who had recently won what was then still the John W. Campbell award (which came with a tiara, which she was wearing) but didn't have any novels out yet either. So I kept an eye out for her name, and read her first novel, Shades of Milk And Honey, when it came out.

Shades of Milk And Honey is the first book in this series, the Glamourist Histories, a sort of alternate history with magic. But the magic, or "glamour", is mostly just for the creation of illusions of light and sound (with some minor side effects which can, say, be used to draw heat out of things). The series is deliberately Austenesque in tone, following Jane and her initial romance and then marriage with glamourist Lord Vincent, and developing her own powers as well. I took a break after the previous book, Without A Summer, to read the Lady Astronaut series, but decided to return to it.

This is, apparently, a heist book, mostly set in and around Venice (mostly on the island of Murano), with nuns (which makes me think of Donald Westlake's Good Behaviour), Lord Byron, and plenty of glamour. A trifle slow in parts, but picks up admirably towards the end. One book remains in the series, which I will probably read before going on to her SF mystery The Spare Man.

Susanna Clarke: Piranesi, completed May 30

I had a little trouble trying to decide what to read next. It should still be a female author, but not space opera because there's another Vorkosigan reread coming up next, not thick fantasy because I still need more time to recover from Forge of Darkness, and I wasn't really feeling like urban fantasy after Valour And Vanity. (Yes, I know that's not really urban fantasy, but somehow it feels similar, perhaps only via the fact that Gail Carriger's books are kind of similar to both?) I was vaguely considering a zombie book (either Mira Grant's Feedback or the next Diana Rowland "White Trash Zombie" book), but then I ran across Piranesi, which seemed reasonably short, and, my wife assured me, "not that similar to any other book she'd ever read". Seemed ideal.

Though it does have some similarities to other works, from time to time. The endless palace makes me think of Gormenghast; the individual surviving in a watery environment makes me think of Patrick Rothfuss's The Slow Regard of Silent Things; and bits of it make me think of Iain Banks's The Bridge, if only because I feel like the POV character is in a surreal environment and has forgotten a lot of their past. But apart from those similarities, it does seem more than somewhat sui generis.

I have also gotten back into one of the nonfiction books I'd started months ago but got bogged down in--Sugar: A Bittersweet History by Elizabeth Abbott. Some years ago I had read an interesting book about the history of salt, and this seemed like it might be the same sort of thing. But apparently is it a lot darker than that, because so much of the sugar industry is tied into the history of slavery in the Caribbean and the Americas, and I guess Abbott decided to lean into it, so a lot of the book is about slavery. That's one of the reasons I put it down earlier, but now, I guess feeling more braced for it, I've picked it up again. I've got a stack of seven other nonfiction books I'm ready to pick up one of if I get bogged down again, but so far so good.

I also reread the second Calvin & Hobbes collection, and finished another month of Marvel Comics, which I probably won't get back to until I finish Sugar (or give up on it).

And currently I am into the next Vorkosigan reread, Diplomatic Immunity, which shouldn't take me too long.

#Katherine Kerr #Deverry #N.K. Jemisin #Rachel Bach #Rachel Aaron #Steven Erikson #Lois McMaster Bujold #Vorkosigan #James F. David #Mary Robinette Kowal #Glamourist Histories #Susanna Clarke #books #reading

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mcspoofyvt · 1 year

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MARRIAGE TOXIN BABY YAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH

This recommendation will contain somewhat light spoilers, but nothing that should hurt your experience in reading it

Marriagetoxin is an action comedy romance manga series about the head of a family of assassins who decides to seek out marriage in order for his sister to be with her girlfriend instead of being forced into a marriage to continue the bloodline. He ends up seeking out the help of a swindler who helps him in his love life.

Marriagetoxin does indeed have queer representation, though it is more subdued than the initial tweet I saw recommending the manga portrays. This is neither a bad thing, and the series doesnt hide its queer representation, its just not (as of right now) a major element of the plot. This could change in the future, but currently it holds no bearing on the mainplot.

The main protagonist’s gay sister has so far not made many appearances in the main plot, though I do not mind this so much for a couple of reasons. For one, her gayness is very much explicit whenever she has made an appearance, we actually get to see the girlfriend and a little slice of what their relationship with each other is like. I do hope we get more appearances of those two because I do like them and think they can serve as a good example of the kind of life the main protagonist is seeking out. Secondly, the main plot is in fact about the brother’s search for marriage and did not set the expectation for anything else. I think mostly as a way to hook people on reading the manga, people wanted to play up the queerness of the story, which is there but not as a big element of it (so far). If the book had set out the explicit expectation that the sister was going to be a major element of the story, I would be more frustrated with it. I wont disagree with people that there could be more gay elements within the story, but I think some people are putting their own expectations upon it when the story from the beginning tells you what it is.

The secondary protagonist of the story is what I read into as a genderqueer character. Current translation Ive been reading refers to the character as a man for the most part, though the character seems to be comfortable in taking on the role of a man or a woman and usually represents feminine in the story. I dont have the language knowledge necessary to determine if the translation is accurate on this account, but from what is widely available that is what seems to be where the character is at.

I do have to give a content warning for incest as there is a character who is the main protagonist’s cousin who has romantic feelings towards him. So far the character has only showed up in a couple of chapters, and is rejected by the main protagonist. Its still an uncomfortable element I wish was not in it but from whats currently out is not something that is focused on or indulged in.

Otherwise, I have a blast with this manga. I hope it does more with its queer representation but its a big fun ride all around and Im excited to read more!!!

#marriagetoxin #manga recommendation #light spoilers #cw inc*st #the tag is scary and is an element I dont feel comfortable with but luckily is not a major element of the story #I do really like the manga and am looking forward to reading more chapters #I wanted to give a very thorough recommendation just because its a series I really like and want to give people the proper expectations #hope yall have fun with this if you do give it a read!#cw needles #comedy manga #action manga

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captainelliecomb · 2 years

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WIP Wishlist End of Year 2022 Updates

WIP Wishlist

I love doing the WIP Wishlists. Cheers for the first full year! Your comments and tags are brilliant and make me happy every time.

WIPs that have been updated since I did the mid-year update in July.

The Blue Knight vs. The Kingslayer by SeeThemFlying @seethemflying From round eight, last updated 20 Sep 2022

Things I love: Brienne and Pod’s friendship and teamwork, the sheer silliness and threat of the Kingslayer, Imp, and Evil Queen, the Honor League, the sweetness and softness between Brienne and Jaime while their alteregos wage war on each other, how over-the-top and joyful and perfect this is as a comic book story.

Break the Shape We Take by ClasseySpanks From round eight, last updated 19 Oct 2022

Things I love: Intriguing worldbuilding, particularly around the Evenstar prophecy, Jaime needling at Brienne because he loves to see her eyes and her blush and to argue with her, something dangerous lurking in the trees and impaling deer on branches, Brienne brave and fearless when she’s doing what she’s been born to do and awkward and withdrawn otherwise, Jaime and Brienne teaming up.

The Crossover by LadyRhiyana From round sixteen, last updated 29 Sep 2022

Things I Love: The humour, the comic book characters and their stories, Jaime and Brienne clashing and brilliant together, Tyrion and his Halfman Comics team, the descriptions of the creative process, everyone’s characterisations.

Golden Lion by chrkrose Mentioned in round fourteen, last updated 28 July 2022

Things I Love: The entire premise, the failed conquest of the seven separate kingdoms of Westeros, Queen Joanna fiercely leading her family, the dragons of Tarth, a woman as Evenstar, sweet, honourable young Brienne, Queen Joanna and the Evenstar helping each other.

The Keeper by PalyGirl From round two, last updated, 14 Aug 2022

Things I love: Intriguing plot and world building, Brienne with friends and dragons, Young Griff is sometimes fantastic, friendships.

The Kingsguard by LadyRhiyana From round nine, now complete

Things I love: Modern AUs with Brienne as a princess, why Selwyn joins the rebels, Jaime the undercover Kingsguard, the way they annoy each other to no end, Brienne’s friendships, the way they protect each other, the history of Evenfall Hall, Lannister sibling dynamics, and spring break shenanigans.

Oh Lazarus, Were You So Afraid? by enemiesloversparadise From round fifteen, last updated 3 Dec 2022

Things I Love: Jaime actually dealing with the sept explosion, Tommen, queer Westeros, how Brienne and Pod relate to each other, Jon Snow and his politics, Sansa and Brienne’s friendship, the secondary pairings, the adventure of the story so far and potential to come.

An Old Lion Amongst Young Wolves by Angelic_Temptress From round three, last updated 02 Nov 2022

Things I love: Arya and Sansa friendship; Sansa’s clever playing of the game; complicated, difficult incursions of the dead more than just one hard-to-see long night; dialogue that is smart, and witty, and sarcastic; more practical ways to go to war.

Play On by motorbike_on_the_avenue From round fifteen, last updated 16 Nov 2022

Things I Love: The humour, Jaime and Brienne’s bickering, Brienne’s friendship with Margaery, the slow reveal of Brienne’s history, Brienne’s relationship with Cersei, the job choices for secondary characters, and the sheer entertainment of the setup.

she can't be convicted, she's earned her degree by aeemmmoor @kishibashiinghiing From round eighteen, last updated 26 Nov 2022

Things I Love: Jaime and Cersei swapping places, Cersei’s ambition, Cersei’s gender issues, how intrigued Jaime is by the plan but how strange it feels too, Cersei’s height, Tyrion’s response to everything, the obsessive love that does not lead to incest.

Silk and Steel by LadyRhiyana From round ten, now complete

Things I Love: Brienne the Targaryen with a dragon and an army of Stark, Baratheon, and Arryn fighters, Brienne’s advisors warning her away from her beautiful, golden spoils of war, Brienne growing up beloved and respected as a strong, fierce, determined alpha who rose against her mad uncle Aerys.

the top of my to-do list by Valmalpal From round seventeen, now complete

Things I Love: Jaime’s obsession with Brienne, how hot they are together slowly moving closer to sex, Brienne’s mix of stubborn and shy, how they care for each other, the way the tension builds.

unfiltered. by SeeThemFlying @seethemflying From round fifteen, last updated 23 Nov 2022

Things I Love: Brienne’s characterisation, Olenna Tyrell in all her glorious sharpness, Jaime’s inexplicable – to him – reactions to Brienne and to other people appreciating her, the punch of sexual tension, Jaime’s emotional softness set against his sharp words when he feels attacked, and the pining, conscious and unconscious.

#wip wishlist #seethemflying #classeyspanks #ladyrhiyana #chrkrose #palygirl #enemiesloversparadise #angelic temptress #motorbike on the avenue #aeemmmoor #valmalpal #jaime x brienne

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inkykeiji · 2 years

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Ah Clari, I just finished flowers in the attic (spoilers ahead) and ugh even though they escaped i feel soo sad... The betrayal of Corrine and poor Cory.... It makes me so mad!!! The grandfather had been dead for a year! And she kept them in the goddamned attic!! Do you think their mother was always this evil, because yeah she seems pretty selfish from the start but to poison your children for money and a comfortable life???? Also I cant explain how much I adored Cathy... i hope (in vain i think) she finds something close to happiness in the next books😪 Oh and in my head Christopher looks like keigo but without the scratchy beard thingy he has going on in the anime hahahah, like every time he is condescending towards Cathy I pictured his smug smirk. Also in his desperation to be loved and in control all the time. Cant imagine what the future holds for them, luckily more angst and drama!!

omg anon!!!!!!!

honestly i really enjoyed petals on the wind (the second book) but the third and fourth books aren’t nearly as entertaining imo. but that really comes down to personal preference hehe c:

i do think corrine was always evil (or, at least, very very corrupt), yes!!! i think she’s always been a very selfish, very greedy, and very jealous person. there’s hints of it even when christopher sr. is alive, just with the way she kind of eyes cathy and seems to envy the relationship she has with her own father, as if corrine wants all of christopher sr.’s attention for herself. and i think she heavily substitutes that with her own son (chris jr) after their father and her husband passes.

aaaaaaaah i love cathy too!!!!! i especially love her and her struggles in petals on the wind, so if you read it you absolutely have to come back and share your thoughts with me!!! there’s so much i have to say about cathy as a character but it spoils the other books so i’ll have to wait until u finish them to share it with u!!

EEEEE oh christopher <3 i can completely see where ur coming from anon omg yes!!!! chris is also an interesting character that i have a lot of thoughts on, but again most of it pertains to petals on the wind hehe

all in all i’m glad u enjoyed it anon!!! it’s such a fun, dramatic, quintessential trashy pulp fiction type book all wrapped up in a family gothic and gaaah i love that about it c: i hope you enjoy the other books as well!!! please feel free to come back and tell me what you think!! <3

#it really is such a tragic and twisted story #people who solely focus on the incest kind of completely miss the point lmao #because the incest is secondary to the actual plot and the actual story #which is of this grotesque mother #and how money and greed can further corrupt people #in addition to the religious themes as well as the themes of abuse #chris slicing open his arm to feed the twins his blood is so horrific when you truly think about it #like that he was forced to that length!!!!#but anyway!!! i can't wait for u to read petals on the wind omg #have an awesome monday anon <33 #keep safe and stay hydrated ofc!!#inky.bb #clari gets mail

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mira--mira · 4 years

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Madara and Hashirama for the ask meme 👀

Hashirama

What I love about them:

I really love Hashirama's stubborn optimism. I say "stubborn" here bc I think after a certain point of pain in misery in someone's everyday life, in some way it is a choice to remain optimistic despite that suffering. I don't characterize Hashirama as constantly happy and he can recognize the more realistic/pessimistic possibilities, he just refuses to accept them. I have it in my notes for OoT but haven't worked it in verbatim but Madara would call him "ruthlessly optimistic " and while that's tinged with Madara's own bias, I think it fits quite well.

What I hate about them:

Hashirama is stubbornly optimistic LOL. It's a double-edged sword and I think by the time he reached adulthood in a canon setting, Hashirama was so desperate for there to be peace he maintained his "everything will work out" attitude when he otherwise shouldn't have. There were the concerns with Madara and the Uchiha, his own brothers views that he certainly should have recognized could become a problem, and, after depending on when Tobirama took on students/how old they were, the possibility of biases being passed down and a Danzo like figure coming to power. However this was not Hashirama's responsibility alone to fix. I don't think, despite his love, Hashirama alone could have kept Madara in a village that hated him and a clan that distrusted him. Tobirama was an adult and let his own bias pass under a veil of "logic" and passed that, either intentionally or unintentionally down to his students. None of this is Hashirama's fault, but I think part of the canon story being a tragedy was he was blinded by a bright, hopeful future that he failed to see the early signs right in front of him.

Favorite Moment/Quote:

"To me, Madara was like a gift from the divine."

Even thinking about it makes me melt. It's so sweet and really emphasizes how much Madara means to him. 🥺

What I would like to see more focus on:

In fics? Hashirama's mental health and how his childhood affected him. Most of the long fics I've read focus on Madara. Which I understand, Madara has an arc into becoming a villain while Hashirama is just kinda "there" and it's easy for him to fulfill a support role to helping Madara in canon Au fics. A sort of unshakeable, always optimistic stone for Madara to depend on and stop his downward spiral into villainy. But, what makes hashimada so great for me is that Madara and Hashirama are equals. There will be times one falters and needs to depend on the other, and they're capable of giving each other that support. It'd also be great to see Hashirama struggle yet continue to choose optimism and compassion time after time because that feels more weighty and important than an eternally optimistic characterization that never wavers.

Headcanon wise...this isn't something I've found but desperately want to see (and will come up in all of my own aus) is the connection between the god tree and the god of shinobi who's famed ninjutsu is wood release and who's cells can be used for everything under the sun and are specifically needed to control the gedo statue / ten-tails. 👀 Look when I got back into Naruto and only vaguely knew about the war arc plot I thought Kishimoto was Doing Something with that. He was not. I am.

What I would like to see less focus on:

This is pretty much mentioned above but Hashirama as mainly a support for Madara rather than getting his own (non romantic) arcs in long canon Au fics. Headcanon wise, this is such a small nitpick, but Hashirama constantly being the one described as warm whereas Madara is cold. The big tree can *retain* heat, but he pales in comparison to Madara's ability to *generate* heat.

Favorite pairing with:

Hashimada (Hashirama x Madara)

No one should be surprised. I can wax prose about this for days but it's about ultimately finding someone else in a terrible world that *understands* you that you can grow with and support. I'm a sucker for friends to lovers and battle couples so guess what's right up my alley?

Favorite friendship:

Canon/BoaF- Hashirama & Mito

I know Madara & Mito is more popular, and I do love their dynamic but christ Hashirama needs friends outside Madara and Tobirama and I think they'd be good friends. Canon!Mito would provide a good level-headed perspective and wouldn't have the messy, complicated history like the three founders have together and it'd be good for Hashirama to get a break from that. BoaF!Mito and Hashirama are cousins their relationship eventually progresses to a sibling-like bond. They’re quite protective of each other and gossip endlessly together. Mito’s not as good as gardening, but they do it together and incorporate Uzumaki sealing techniques for certain houseplant decorations. Mito also might know about Madara 👀

OoT-Hashirama & Sakura or Hashirama & Sai

His and Sakura's relationship is p similar to how I would characterize his and Mito's but with the added hilarity of Sakura being his "student" yet having 0 deference for him once they actually get to the "teaching" part (surprise: Hashirama's most uttered lines are "you do the thing, you know the thing, you know you just...do it. The thing. Madara "translates" a lot of their sessions.) Hashirama and Sai antagonize each other constantly and he *will* tease Sai into oblivion as any older brother would. Tobirama never reacted to Hashirama's mischief in ~fun~ ways and he felt bad about messing with Itama, who was even more emotional than he was and Kawarama, who hero-worshipped him. Sai is the perfect "if anyone messes with you I will personally make them regret being born yet *I* will tease you mercilessly to my hearts content" kind of little brother.

NOTP:

Hashitobi (Hashirama x Tobirama)

I don't do incest. At all. Even "non-incest" aus where they aren't technically related squick me out.

Favorite headcanon:

Hashirama can Speak to the trees.

Either humorously or seriously, I love this kinda, sorta, maybe not quite human power.

Madara

What I love about them:

Madara is kind and does his best to do what he thinks is right. The “kind” point is a lot of Hashirama talking/flashbacks and the “good” intention behind the Infinite Tsukuyomi. Making everyone a “winner” in the dreamworld, while absolutely insane and full of holes, is odd for a villain’s motivation. His role in the war arc is mostly focused on watching him wreck absolutely everyone he comes into contact with but I love Hashirama’s flashbacks and the glimpses of kid!Madara we get. Madara believed in his philosophy from a lifetime of pain that ended in him losing everything and being manipulated but he was still seeking a way to “help” the most people he could. He’s such a rich character that makes it easy to want to imagine other what-if scenarios where things turned out just a bit differently.

What I hate about them:

Madara takes all responsibility onto himself. This is more speculation because we don’t get Madara’s POV of his childhood or any significant scenes with the clan. However, I think this is one of the primary roots of most of Madara’s problems. If he blamed himself for mistakes that weren’t technically his, he could get into a cycle where he only blames himself and doesn’t seek help/support when he should have and purposefully reduces his support circle because he becomes paranoid that he won’t be able to protect them. A smaller issue that is both about Madara and not is he didn’t fall victim to the Talk no Jutsu, but was Madara aware of what was happening when he was possessed(?) by Kaguya? I forgot but if he wasn’t...I don’t think he’d agree Hashirama’s way was the right way at the end, merely his way was wrong. Because, in Madara’s point of view, the village may have been “better” (used very loosely) than becoming food/power for an alien goddess but it wasn’t good. It wasn’t the solution. Hashirama saying they were both wrong in some way saved the scene but Madara still jumped back to Hashirama’s dream being the right one too quickly imo.

Favorite Moment/Quote:

“What are you going to do about the second [meteor] Onoki?”

I’m sorry, that was just hilarious. We see this man slaughter an entire division and drop a meteor from the sky...two kages desperately try to stop it and it looks like they managed to succeed and he just...cool. What about the second? Really cemented Madara is Here and he is Dramatic. A close second fav is him flying across the battlefield to confront Hashirama only for the “I’ll deal with you later” line.

What I would like to see more focus on:

I really love it when fics fill in the blanks of Madara’s childhood/his time with the Uchiha so that’s always a plus for me. The other thing is Hashirama calls Madara a “fundamentally kind man” and according to Tobirama the Uchiha feel love “too deeply” so I like fics that do focus on these aspects of Madara’s personality while staying true to his prickly demeanor. For headcanons I love, love, love exploring kekkei genkai/ninjutsu/genjutsu and how they individually affect people/clans. Digging deeper so that “fire affinity” means constantly running hot/pushing into possibly having fire resistance/unable to distinguish “too hot” / or even affinity acting like a secondary blood type so even if two people had AB blood if one had a water affinity and the other fire their blood would be incompatible. Also the mundane ways powers can be used (I have some Ideas for non-combat genjustu applications that the Uchiha use and those will come up in OoT 👀)

What I would like to see less focus on:

This again kinda ties into the Hashirama segments, but Madara completely depending on Hashirama and Hashirama alone for happiness. Especially in long AUs where he’s still in Konoha but has a poor relationship with the Uchiha. That’s fine starting out! But if the fic ends or doesn’t seriously work on improving that relationship it just sits a bit weird with me bc I don’t think Madara could be truly happy in that situation. (NSFW start) The other thing I see commonly is Madara is extremely passive/submissive in bed with Hashirama which is...weird to me? There’s also a reoccurring thing where he doesn’t have a lot of experience but Hashirama does and this leads to embarrassment and the aforementioned passive/submissiveness. I understand lack of experience can be embarrassing and I do believe Madara could be embarrassed, but instead of withdrawing into himself I think he’d push through it with something close to bravado and his usual single-minded intensity, for better or worse. I do think Madara usually bottoms in his and Hashirama’s relationship but both of them are as enthusiastic about sex as they are fighting and neither is especially submissive or dominant. (NSFW end)

Favorite pairing with:

Hashimada (Hashirama x Madara)

See absolutely everything else 😂

Favorite friendship:

Canon/BoaF- Madara & Naori or Madara & Hikkaku

I really like focusing on the Uchiha clan and exploring the dynamics within it. We get nothing about Madara’s early life outside of Hashirama so this is almost completely speculation. For the angst of canon, I like Madara being close to his clan only to lose them after his friendship with Hashirama is revealed bc he awakened his sharingan over Hashirama and that can’t be easily hidden. For BoaF, a large part of it is exploring the clans’ cultures before they made the village so this necessitates actually fleshing out said clans. Naori and Izuna are v similar in personality and both live to prank Madara and annoy him, but they hardly ever team up bc they start squabbling amongst themselves. Hikakku is stoic and calm in contrast to Naori’s mania and Madara’s intensity but he keeps track of every little favor and Madara dreads the day he’ll act on them because he knows it’ll result in something embarrassing for him. But like all BoaF!Uchiha, they’re fiercely protective of one another and you really don’t want to insult the wrong person.

OoT - Madara & Naruto or Madara & Sai

I really Madara and Naruto’s dynamic, it’s very entertaining and fun for me to write and they’re both positive influences on each other. Madara gets more people to smother with his brand of affection and Naruto gets early recognition and training. Their weird non-training shenanigans (coupon collecting, gaming, etc.) also is p amusing. Madara and Sai have a similar relationship but I really like writing theirs from Sai’s POV bc he insists that he doesn’t feel close/like when Madara treats him like a little brother when he really does.

NOTP:

Madatobi (Madara x Tobirama)

Logically, I know why this pairing is popular. Fanfic is saturated with the enemies to lovers trope yet emotionally I Do Not Understand it. Personally, I don’t enjoy toxic relationships, to read or write. And, to me, that’s what a close canon Madara and Tobirama pairing would be. Tobirama tried to convince Hashirama to kill him, he killed Izuna, even if it was in war, and I don’t think Madara could or would get over that. If Tobirama has similar attitudes about the Uchiha it makes it worse. AUs exist to rewrite this, of course, but I still don’t enjoy their romantic chemistry. At best, I like Tobirama and Madara as reluctant frenemies who insult each other and try to one-up each other.

Favorite headcanon:

Madara is fire proof.

I have a whole rant about this in OoT’s author notes 😂 Sasuke’s Amaterasu should have been a serious threat when it hit him. Instead the man just lets his clothes fall off then kicks their asses. He’s fire proof.

In response to the ask game:

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unqualified-critic · 3 years

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I’d like to start off this review with the reminder that these people put their heart and soul into their work. They work countless hours, while I sit on my ass and type on a blog. I have no film experience, or writing skill, yet plenty of opinions.

I was initially very excited for the series, I love Loki as a character and Tom Hiddleston always does a fantastic job playing him (I actually wish they had him write the character instead of giving him minimal input) However, I wish I didn't watch past episode 3. The directing and writing felt sloppy at best. Loki felt extremely out of character. The development he goes through feels overnight. Remember this is the same Loki that ripped out a guys eye and the next day is in the TVA.

We see Loki go through great change in Dark World and Ragnarok (I get it we can’t all be Taika Waititi) despite the limited scenes featuring him. I’m the movies we see his transition from evil, but he is still the god of mischief, first and foremost. Those movies were maybe 5 hours together, yet better translated the characters depth, than the entire show about him. If it really was about Loki... the series felt as if Loki is back seat to a long monologue filled with plot holes.

There is a severe lack of action. At one point it is addressed that magic cannot be used in the TVA; but Loki is still witty, a good fighter, and has super human strength. We see none of that here and he is reduced to a powerless shell of himself. The few over the top “super hero” effects used, were produced beautifully by the cgi and film crew. The TVA set was well produced and fun with the retro “DMV” feel. The simple costume design with neutral colors and progressively darker lighting, could've paired nicely in contrast against Loki’s character. He’s typically sarcastic, quick on his feet, egotistical, and energetically self absorbed. This series he didn’t even feel broken or exhausted, just bland. Hey, you should always have artistic vision and change material. But characters can only be changed so far, and so quickly without any sustainable reason. It felt almost like a fan-fiction written from the writers ideas, and not the source material.

One of my biggest issues and final straws was the relationship. The relationship felt very forced and wrong. Slyvie and Loki are essentially twins, due to the same parentage. A love interest is not necessary in every series, and it took away from this one severely. I found myself dreading the finale due to the obvious upcoming kiss. The director, Kate Herron, addressed that it was to represent self love...however if you have to explain why it's not incest, it's probably incest. I understand some people don't mind because Slyvie doesn't feel like a Loki (Maybe it's the fact that she looks like and is named after Enchantress rather than lady Loki...not very creative guys) But it made me very uncomfortable. The director is a LGBT woman herself, yet I feel she was locked in a very male gaze, heteronormative, direction. A woman can co-star without being a love interest. An example of this done well is Loki’s friendly relationship with Verity in the comic Agent of Asgard. They met and became friends in only a matter of comics, with better tangibility of relations. In the comics we also see as a version of Lady Loki, and expression of gender-fluidity; without feeling forced or “woke.” On that note, if Loki is established as gender fluid in the MCU, why is there only one female variant of him. The other variants even express surprise of there being a female variant.

Slyvie lacks depth and felt “gatekeep, gaslight, girlboss.” Sophia Di Martino plays Slyvie well and I have no qualms with the castings. I was very excited for a female character with more story than Black Widow, but it was never given. It’s been confirmed that Sylvie isn’t Enchantress, however for the sake of character design, continuity, and incest...I hope she is and that they’re just keeping it a secret.

With a second season coming, I’m glad a new director will be taking the reins. As bad as I feel saying it. Disney has the budget to do better, and not use a “well let’s see what they make” strategy.

I’m not sure how a series can feel so rushed and so empty at the same time. As if it was drawn out to waste time and tell us nothing.

I also found the secondary characters like Owen Wilson’s Mobius and Wunmi Mosaku who plays hunter b-15 likable but underused. Something that left a bad taste in my mouth was how all the characters played by POC were bad guys or killed off. For those unaware this is a trope often exercised by “progressive” creators, usually attempting to include black or Hispanic characters but promptly killing them off or reducing them to a villain. This all just contributes to an absolutely messy series.

No, I didn’t think they’d reverse Loki’s death, give us gender shifting Loki, or Lady Loki as she is from the comics. However the lack of coherent writing (not that I’m one to talk,) contrast of Loki’s character, and rushed emptiness, was a major disappointment. If you love this character, don’t go past episode 2. Feel free to let me know your thoughts both critically and enjoyability at face value.

TLDR: good acting, casting, special effects. Poor character development, weird incest relationship, empty “progressiveness” and lack of action.

Wouldn’t watch past episode 2 if I could go back in time

#loki #loki laufeyson #loki show #loki tv #loki series #loki odinson #slyvie #slyvie laufeydottir #lady loki #mcu #marvel

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sanctuaryforascrivener · 4 years

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Hey I've been following you for a long while and at this point I'm just gonna ask so I have some context with your reblogs, what is the untamed about? I don't get any of it but I don't wanna unfollow so maybe if I can be like "oh yeah it's those men in wigs doing x again" it'll be less confusing before I scroll on. Also happy new year!!

!!!!! oh, hi! Happy New Year! I really.... need to actually start tagging stuff..........

It’s. My latest hyperfixation/obsession. I’m sorry that I’ve been spamming... Honestly, I had the same thing going on, seeing all these gifs of pretty people on my dash and being like “what is going on, I gotta know”. Let me see if I can give you a brief summary. The good news is that it’s on Netflix if you’re curious or interested, and I believe there are a few sites you can find it streaming free, too, if you don’t have access to an account.

Meta stuff first: The Untamed is a Chinese period fantasy drama that came out in 2019. It’s 50 episodes long and is based on a Chinese online boy-love novel called Mo Dao Zu Shi, often translated as “Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation” or “Founder of Daibolism.” There’s also a manhua (manga) and a donghua (anime/cartoon) that are both ongoing and, unlike The Untamed, don’t censor the explicit romantic relationship between the main male lead and the secondary male lead. Or, at least, the manhua doesn’t. Given the donghua is ongoing, it’s a lot harder to tell whether or not that’ll end up explicit or just as heavily implied as The Untamed.

Plot wise, The Untamed follows the story of Wei Wuxian’s life, death, and return. The first two episodes are a bit confusing because you wind up dropped in the middle of things without very much context, beginning with a scene of Wei Wuxian’s death and then jumping forward in time to when another man, Mo Xuanyu, sacrifices himself in order to bring him back to life, so that Wei Wuxian might take revenge upon Mo Xuanyu’s family. The reason he opted to bring Wei Wuxian back is because Wei Wuxian is the scourge of the cultivation world.

(Cultivation is a path of magic and supernatural study by which someone cultivates their own spiritual energy in order to, ultimately, ascend to immortality. Cultivators do a lot of ghost hunting and monster slaying as well, making sure that spirits and souls are laid to rest. I do not know a whole lot about all of this because I am not Chinese and very new to Chinese media, so this is a very rough outline, but the important thing to know is that they’re sort of magicians and they take care of supernatural stuff. There are various sects that pursue specific specialties and paths of cultivation, and there’s a LOT of political intrigue going on as well.)

After the first couple of episodes, there begins an extended flashback to the years shortly before Wei Wuxian died to show how he went from one of the greatest and most admired cultivators of his generation to the most reviled. When things finally jump back to the present, the rest of the show focuses on the mystery set up in the first couple of episodes and Wei Wuxian rebuilding his relationships with the various people he loved in his former life, as well as--ultimately--clearing his name.

There’s a lot of political intrigue, drama, humor, romance, and tragedy. The show examines some serious themes of good vs. bad, how the actions of a person reflect upon those around them regardless of intention, how people can become trapped by the society around them, what does it mean to sacrifice, whether the ends justify the means. Despite all of that, the show DOES end on a hopeful, if somewhat bittersweet note, and even though the explicit gayness is censored, there’s more than enough to be like ‘oh, yeah, okay you two,’ about it, and neither of the couple are shoe-horned off into some forced heterosexual marriage in order to make it clear that they’re not gay or anything like that, which is nice. Plus I basically refer to the set up and beginning as “Unbury Your Gays” given that the first ten minutes or so involve Wei Wuxian coming back to life. Because I think I’m funny.

It’s a beautifully filmed series, so many of the actors are drop dead gorgeous, the plot is engaging, the soundtrack is to die for, and I drool over the costumes. Basically, highly recommend. It’s not without it’s problems (the women characters are few but kick-ass, but also most of them die), and there’s definitely some triggering stuff in there--death, dismemberment, self-harm, suicide, and incest, and probably more that I’m not able to remember, so if you do watch it and any of those are triggers, proceed with caution.

But in general, I HIGHLY recommend it. I found a whole new sub-genre of fantasy that I never knew about! I’m telling myself I’m not going to learn Mandarin but I’m probably going to break soon.

Also, I’m really flattered that you actually asked me because you like my chaotic blog so much instead of just being like ‘meh, guess it’s time to unfollow.’ OTL Thank you.

#inked-to-bring-you-back #long post

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arofili · 4 years

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rare pairs exchange 2020 letter :)

Hello lovely creator, thanks for writing for me in the Rare Pairs Exchange!! I’m very excited and grateful for whatever you write me :) Here are my thoughts on the various Silm ships I requested!!

Elemmírë/Findis: Vanyarin lesbians!! I see Elemmírë as a woman (specifically a trans woman, though if you don’t want to get into the details of her gender that’s fine), and a major reason in why Findis stuck around in Aman instead of leaving with her siblings. I like the theory that Glorfindel is Findis’ son, which would make Elemmírë his other mother. But if you’d rather depict them as not together at the time of the Darkening, that would be fine too; maybe Elemmírë is upset at the thought of Findis leaving but Findis stays because she’s realized she’s in love with Elemmírë, or something like that. Elemmírë wrote a song about the Darkening, so I think focusing on that time of fear and uncertainty would be very interesting. I would like a happy ending with these two, though.

Celegorm/Dior: Look, they’re both called “the Fair,” and Celegorm was into Dior’s mom. I’d love an exploration of a fucked-up dynamic between them. I’d prefer if they know who each other are, so not identity porn. Maybe Celegorm is trying to seduce Dior into giving him the Silmaril, or Dior is trying to seduce Celegorm into not attacking Doriath, or they’re both trying to get revenge on each other for what happened surrounding Lúthien, or whatever. Rivalry and hatefucking would be great. No non-con, please, not even in reference to the Celegorm and Lúthien situation, but dub-con would be delicious. “Mutually sensual murder” is about the happiest ending I can think of for these two so feel free to make it dark!

Ok here are my Finrod ships. I love Finrod as completely unashamed of his sexuality and sleeping with whoever he wants...and as a result while I’d prefer no PWP for any other ships, if Finrod’s involved, go for it! It’s what he would want! Though if you want to include some plot I would be delighted :)

Finrod/Turgon: This is my rarepair to end all rarepairs tbh. I honestly don’t know why these two are not shipped more! I am desperate for any and all content with them, I am not picky at all, I just love them. Fun times in Aman before things get dark and serious would be lovely, I think in that context their relationship would be more casual (or at least they’re trying to make it casual and that leads to hurt feelings). I’d rather not focus on their relationships with their canon love interests, mostly because I’m not a fan of stories about jealousy (also because I see both Finrod and Amarië as gay and together mostly out for convenience’s sake), but I do ship Elenwë/Amarië so those two having some sort of arrangement with Finrod and Turgon could be fun. But feel free to just ignore any of that and depict Finrod and Turgon together without their respective ladies! If you go into Beleriand times, I like: Turgon grieving Elenwë and finding solace with Finrod; whatever went down that night by the river they never wanted to talk about again; helping each other build their hidden kingdoms; Finrod sneaking into Gondolin maybe??; repressed Turgon being angsty about discovering his bisexuality and Finrod either helping him or making things more complicated; Finrod missing Turgon and trying to distract himself in Nargothrond (maybe in combination with another Finrod ship I put down?). A Beleriand-focused story that ends sadly would be fine, I do love some First Age angst. Post-reembodiment scenarios would also be great. I think that whatever the situation between Amarië and Finrod was, she’s moved on from him by the time he’s reborn; maybe she’s with Elenwë now, which would make Turgon’s life a bit easier. Or maybe Turgon can make room for both Elenwë and Finrod. If you go this route I’d prefer a happy ending. Or maybe you want to do an AU with them! Supernatural creatures? Some other fantasy setting? A space opera? Honestly the only AU I wouldn’t be interested in is a modern AU, I’m very picky with my Silm Modern AUs. Honestly like I said earlier, I would love ANY content with Finrod and Turgon, you’d make me very happy if you depicted them together!! Feel free to ignore any of the stuff I said if you’ve got a better idea!!

Celegorm/Finrod/Curufin: The Nargothrond Disaster Trio. Curufin and his pet blonds. Finrod and his pet Fëanorians. Whatever you’d like to call them, I can’t get enough of these three! I see their relationship as full of politics all the way around: Curufin is very upfront about it, Finrod tries to deny it, Celegorm sees it as secondary to the actual fun but still there. Maybe C&C think they’re seducing and manipulating Finrod, but Finrod thinks he’s seducing and manipulating C&C... Fics where Finrod gets fucked by both of them at the same time are *chef’s kiss* very good. I love short Curufin / tall Celegorm / average height Finrod. Curufin controlling the situation and then accidentally letting himself go is very fun. My favorite versions of this ship have Celegorm and Curufin using Finrod as a buffer between them, but if you wanted to include some hints of Celegorm/Curufin that would be okay, just nothing too explicit. I mean, be as explicit as you’d like where Finrod’s involved, but keep the sibling incest to a minimum, if that makes sense.

These next few fall into the category of “I have so many Maedhros ships but I also love Russingon most of all, why not ship BOTH of them with someone else?” (Also just...putting this out there...there aren’t enough fics that take advantage of Maedhros’ stump...)

Fingon/Maedhros/Finrod: Look, Maedhros and Fingon are ridiculously in love, and Finrod is a hoe, and I can’t believe there wasn’t at least one time they had a threesome. Again, Finrod getting fucked by both of them at once would be excellent. Finrod is canonically friendly with the Fëanorians in Beleriand and goes hunting with Maglor and Maedhros, maybe this is a time where it’s Fingon instead of Maglor and they fuck in the woods, or Maedhros and Fingon visit Nargothrond, or Maedhros and Finrod visit Barad Eithel, or Fingon and Finrod visit Himring. Is this a planned encounter? Something spontaneous? Is Finrod seducing them both, or are they inviting him in? Did Maedhros and Finrod have a fling in Valinor, or did Finrod and Fingon find comfort together on the Ice, or both? I’d love to see where you take this!

Fingon/Maedhros/Mairon: Okay I love how many possibilities there are for this ship. I’d like it to be mostly consensual - feel free to redeem Mairon, make Melkor irredeemable, etc, whatever you need to do to get there. Does Mairon have a soft spot for Maedhros as a prisoner in Angband, and he’s relieved/helpful when Fingon comes to rescue him? Is it an AU where Fingon gets captured trying rescue Maedhros and Mairon helps them break out? Or an AU where Fingon is imprisoned after the Nírnaeth instead of killed, and Maedhros manipulates Mairon into helping him rescue Fingon? I would prefer not to have a dark!Maedhros in this, but maybe he pretends to break under torture and he gets “rewarded” with a lordship in Angband and he and Mairon scheme to overthrow Morgoth. Basically, Maedhros and Mairon have something weird and fucked up going on but Maedhros is always going to prioritize Fingon, and Mairon and Fingon have to deal with both of them being involved with Maedhros. Does Mairon break with Melkor, or does he stick with his abusive master/lover til the end? Is he torn between what he “knows” is right and what his nature as a Maia servant to a Vala demands of him? There are sooo many ways to take this and I’d love to see one or more of them explored!

Fingon/Maedhros/Azaghâl: I’m a sucker for elf/dwarf ships, and there aren’t very many in the First Age! I’d love to see Maedhros dealing with whatever’s going on with him and Azaghâl while at the same time grappling with what that means for his preexisting relationship with Fingon. Maybe Fingon is kind of jealous until he meets Azaghâl and starts to like him too, or maybe he’s supportive of Maedhros exploring this relationship because he knows that Azaghâl is mortal and Mae will always come home to him at the end. I think Fingon getting in on the action, perhaps to his surprise, would be very fun! Also: Azaghâl gave the Dragon-helm of Dor-lómin to Maedhros, who gave it to Fingon, who gave it to Hador...it’s like the Boyfriend-hood of the Traveling Helmet. If that was involved in the story I would be very amused! I’ve seen some versions where Azaghâl is a female dwarf, which is interesting, but my Maedhros is gay so I’d rather not have that here. Unless you want to make Maedhros and Fingon both women, too, in which case go for it!

Maedhros/Turgon: Okay in my head Turgon hates the Fëanorians and blames them for his wife’s death and all the awful things that have happened to him and his family, and since Fëanor himself is dead he shifts all that blame onto Maedhros (and there’s the added resentment that Maedhros is fucking Turgon’s brother). Of course he also blames himself but he doesn’t want to admit that. Maedhros on the other hand (which he only has one of) doesn’t like Turgon but he also blames himself for a lot of the bad things that have happened and basically this all comes to a head after Fingon’s death where they’re both grieving and angry with each other and themselves. Hatefucking!! Fealty - Mae already had a fealty kink from Fingon’s time as king, and now he’s swearing loyalty to Turgon as the new High King... Maybe this is the immediate aftermath of the Nírnaeth and everything is super raw, or maybe it’s some sort of AU where Turgon gets off his ass and tries to unite the Noldor against Morgoth when Ulmo warns him about Gondolin’s fall and he has to confront his least favorite half-cousin. Comparisons between Fingon and Turgon’s physical appearances would be great, Maedhros almost letting himself forget that Fingon is dead for maximum angst, but then Fingon was short and Turgon is almost as tall as Mae is so the illusion is shattered and also Turgon just REALLY hates that Maedhros was genuinely in love with his brother because it would be easier to despise Mae if that was all manipulation. Mae not taking care of himself and purposefully pissing Turgon off and letting himself be manhandled. Turgon who hates how much this is all turning him on. Just a lot of resentment and angst!!

Ok now we get to the Túrin ships, prepare for this disaster human being even MORE of a disaster!

Andróg/Beleg/Túrin: I love Beleg/Túrin (don’t we all?) and throwing Andróg into the mix is very interesting to me! Were Túrin and Andróg messing around before Beleg showed up again? Andróg is canonically jealous of Beleg’s relationship with Túrin, and mistreats him...but Beleg heals his wounds anyway. Enemies to lovers would be very fun here, with tension born of both rivalry and attraction. Is Túrin trying to nudge his two lovers together? Is he trying to be with both of them separately but they make things difficult? Does Beleg try to save Andróg when Amon Rûdh falls? Really anything with these three during the time they’re together in canon would be excellent.

Finduilas/Gwindor/Túrin: I JUST THINK THEY COULD HAVE MADE IT WORK, YOU KNOW? There’s some juicy Túrin/Gwindor lines in COH, Túrin has a thing for blonds so I can see him developing feelings for Finduilas even if he didn’t necessarily have them in canon, Gwindor and Finduilas’ doomed romance just breaks me and I want to FIX it!! If they had been better at communicating, maybe...idk, this could be a fix it or not, but they’re all drama queens and they’re all in love with each other and what if Túrin had managed to save Gwindor and Finduilas and they all went to Brethil together, or something?? Who knows I just need them all together!

Maeglin/Túrin: I feel like I’m the only person sailing this ship but I will go down with it. So WHAT that they never met in canon?? They have MATCHING SWORDS and they’re both doomed by family curses and I think it would be incredibly sexy of Túrin to go to Gondolin. Or maybe Maeglin and Aredhel escaped to Nargothrond (perhaps with Celegorm and Curufin?) and that’s where they meet? What if their curses cancel each other out and they help each other avoid their dooms! What if Maeglin tries to duel Túrin for the right to wield Anglachel! What if Túrin also has a thing for Idril (again...he’s got a thing for blonds, especially blond elves) and they bond over being jealous of Tuor and then fall in love! What if they refuse to acknowledge the insane amount of sexual tension between them until some incredibly inopportune moment like Idril and Tuor’s wedding! So many possibilities and I just adore the concept of this ship!!

Celebrimbor/Maeglin/Túrin: I like to call this ship “Doomed Disaster Boyfriends.” I think this works best in that Maeglin in Nargothrond AU; Celegorm and Curufin have been exiled by Celebrimbor and Maeglin and Aredhel stayed behind in Nargothrond when they left, or maybe Aredhel went with them but Maeglin didn’t, or maybe Aredhel fought in the Nírnaeth and didn’t make it through the battle or something. Although if you wanted to take the Gondolin route instead, where Tyelpë makes his way to Gondolin after the Nírnaeth and Túrin joins up with Tuor instead of heading to Brethil, that would be neat too. Or if you want to go a super dark route: Tyelpë was taken captive to Angband after the Nírnaeth, and Beleg didn’t manage to rescue Túrin so he’s in Angband too, and Maeglin gets kidnapped himself, so they all try and break out together... Anyway: whatever the situation they’re all horribly doomed, they all have family curses, Tyelpë and Maeglin is a great ship because they’re both smiths and everyone hates their dads, Maeglin and Túrin is a great ship because they have matching swords and they’re both super dramatically emo, Túrin and Celebrimbor is a great ship because honestly of course it was Tyelpë who reforged Anglachel into Gurthang and they were both kind of outsiders in Nargothrond - anyway just. Throw them all together into one screaming angsty mess that probably ends up even worse than in canon, I would LOVE that. And Tyelpë outlives both his boyfriends and eventually falls for Annatar who unbeknownst to him had a hand in both their awful demises...

Celebrimbor/Narvi/Annatar: Why feel torn between Celebrimbor/Narvi and Celebrimbor/Annatar when you can have BOTH? We don’t know when Narvi was alive, and it’s entirely possible Annatar’s stay in Eregion overlapped with the crafting of the Doors of Durin. Maybe Tyelpë has a preexisting relationship with Narvi and falls in love with the beautiful stranger; maybe Narvi tries to warn Tyelpë about how suspicious Annatar is but is eventually charmed by him too. Narvi giving Annatar the shovel talk would be amazing. Really I’m interested in anything with these three interacting! Like I mentioned earlier, I love elf/dwarf ships and elf/Ainu ships are great too, so this is a great combination of them :) I generally see Narvi as a female dwarf, but if you’d like to have Narvi be male that’s fine too.

Wow this was longer than I anticipated - I have a lot of rarepair feelings! Thanks for reading this far, and whatever you end up writing for me I am super excited to read it!! And if have questions or ideas or something, my askbox is open and I have anon messages on, I’d love to talk! Thank you <3

#tmi anna #dn rb pls #rpex20

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thecloserkin · 5 years

Text

fic rec: we get dark, only to shine by anghraine

fandom: The Borgias (Showtime 2011)

pairing: Cesare Borgia/Lucrezia Borgia

word count: 168k, unfinished

Is it canon: Yes

Is it explicit: Yes

Is it endgame: Yes

Is it shippable: Yes

Bottom line: hi my name is asdfghhkl i’ve been in fandom half my life and this is without a doubt a top 5 fic for me. i mean i got to the end and i went right back to the beginning to reread it

This is a Season 1 AU where Cesare and Lucrezia are each other’s first loves, as they ought to have been. First of all I absorbed more Borgia history via this fic than three published biographies put together (Sarah Bradford, Lucrezia Borgia: Life Love and Death in Renaissance Italy; GJ Meyer, The Borgias: The Secret History; Christopher Hibbert, The Borgias and Their Enemies). I found myself looking forward to the end of every chapter so I could devour the footnotes. This is a meticulously researched, perfectly paced, ingeniously plotted gem of a story that made all the historical details relevant. It is also a very cerebral story, which is not to say it didn’t sucker-punch me in the gut, just that it isn’t rough around the edges — it is SHARP. Lucrezia and Cesare are whip-smart; all the secondary characters are smart; the author is obviously brill and you, dear reader, better bring both your brain cells if you want to keep up.

To set the scene, we are in Rome at the beginning of the papacy of Alexander VI aka Rodrigo Borgia, the first pope to openly acknowledge his children gotten out of wedlock. The primary thing to understand about the Borgias is they are FOREIGNERS. They are from Valencia and their native tongue is Catalan; and while Cesare, Juan, Lucrezia and Jofre may have been born in Rome, foreigners they will forever remain in the eyes of the xenophobic populace. Rome is a cesspit of backstabbing and the Borgias are an unusually close-knit, insular clan. Here is an overview of Cesare and Lucrezia’s codependent-from-the-cradle relationship, intensified ofc by the hostile environment of Rome:

At first, Lucrezia would scream whenever the nurse took her away, and sneak after him at all hours. Cesare scarcely spoke, except to her. They looked like kicked puppies.

Yet it had always been that way with them: Lucrècia a little queen reigning over their games, Cèsar devoted to her.

he never paid much attention to other women around Lucrezia, even when she was little more than a prattling child.

Cesare had woken with Lucrezia in his bed more times than he could count. At eight, twelve, a newly-returned sixteen, he often opened his eyes to his sister sprawled beside him or curled up under his blankets. On more anxious nights, when she had an unpleasant dream or felt particularly troubled, he would find her pressed against him

“When he left for Perugia, one might have believed him going to his gallows. Their letters must have stripped a forest.”

Ok not to be an incest junkie on main but shoutout to the Childhood Bedsharing Trope. “When he left for Perguia” is when he went away to university, leaving Lucrezia disconsolate. When he came home following this extended absence is when her feelings for him flowered into sexual desire. The fic opens on the eve of Lucrezia’s marriage to Giovanni Sforza. Her impending nuptials are causing her anxiety:

”But I am a Borgia. I should not be afraid of anything.” “Nonsense,” said Cesare, “I fear dozens of things, myself.” “You?”

So much to unpack here:

being a Borgia means never letting the world see your weakness

Lucrezia’s hero-worship!!! she obviously thinks he’s the bravest person she knows

Cesare confessing his vulnerability, his fears, chief of which is “I fear most of all for your happiness. I shall not be able to ensure it from so far.” i am y e l l i n g

To relieve her anxiety about pleasing her bridegroom, she convinces Cesare to give her KISSING LESSONS. That’s how it starts. Did someone say I Want My Brother to Be My First because I love this song.

“Is there no one else?” he demanded. She tilted her head inquisitively. “Is there a man you would rather instructed me? Really, is there another man you would permit to touch me? To even remain alone with me? Juan? Should I ask him instead?” “No!” Cesare scrambled to his feet.

She knows exactly how to push his buttons, doesn’t she? She baits him with the idea of another man touching her—specifically Juan, his archrival—an idea guaranteed to get his blood up, and Cesare instantly shoves his scruples aside. A kissing lesson ensues, Lucrezia is married shortly thereafter, and that’s how things stand when this fic diverges from canon: Cesare stops by Pesaro to visit Lucrezia.

Now we all know how Lucrezia’s first marriage went—her husband treated his horse a sight better than he treated her. And we see her struggle with telling Cesare the truth about the abuse, because the importance of the Sforza alliance must stay Cesare’s hand from his natural impulse to pulverize anyone who hurts Lucrezia. I like how this fic draws a distinction between the family’s reaction and Cesare’s reaction:

as soon as Cesare understood, he would be set on vengeance. Any brother would, even one less devoted than Cesare. Jofrè would probably cheer him on. Juan would have strung Sforza up already. And of course, Cesare was Cesare.

Juan and Jofre are her brothers too, and neither of them would have let Sforza’s behavior slide. Cesare, though, is on a whole other level. Cesare actually sees red. The most romantic thing he does in this entire story is play chess with Lucrezia all night to spare her the nightly ordeal of marital rape. That was the first night. The second day he has Micheletto loosen the girth of Sforza’s saddle to cause a nonfatal riding accident which—honestly it makes way more sense thematically for the brother who loves her more than life to do this, than for an untutored stableboy whom Lucrezia met 5 minutes ago to suddenly exhibit master assassin skills?!! Fuck canon, this is what happened. Also fuck insta-love, I’m so glad Cesare and Lucrezia are head over heels for each other rather than some randos.

His pulse quickened in his throat, yet it was nothing he had not seen before, when he read to her until she fell asleep, talked to her as she sulked in her room, sat at her bedside wiping cloths all over her feverish head.

I’m so soft for this!!! Tfw it’s not the physical proximity to your sibling—that part’s familiar—what’s new is your feelings shifting like tectonic plates?? Askjdfkdjfd.

The thing that really precipitates the affair is Lucrezia’s brute of a husband, obviously. This fic has one or two Giovanni Sforza POVS and it does such a great job of depicting that discomfort of being laughed at by people smarter than you. Sforza was strong-armed into this match and he feels slighted by the choice of bride—because she’s bastard-born, because she’s Spanish, he thinks he’s married down. This brings him into inevitable conflict with Cesare, who will brook no insult to Lucrezia on his watch:

“My sister, Lord Sforza, is a daughter of Rome. Roman-born, Roman-bred, Roman to her fingertips. Is it not so, Lucretia?”

The POWER of this line—remember when i said the Borgias are forever seen as outsiders despite being BORN IN ROME? i felt that.

Perhaps their mother was right, and she loved him too much. Too much, at any rate, to spare that kind of love for anyone else. Sforza was a monster, but if he had not been, she still would not have loved him.

Vanozza is very perceptive; she fears her children’s all-consuming love for each other leaves little room for other attachments AND SHE WAS RIGHT. To put it baldly:

They had spent their hearts on each other, all they had to give, with only scraps left for anyone else.

“I am your brother, Lucrezia … There is a word for this. I would not have anyone say it of you.” “A word for what? … For loving me more than the baronessa Ursula, or some other woman you only half-know?”

THERE IS A WORD, Cesare intimates. He won’t even say it aloud. But this black cloud of rumor and innuendo that hangs over their family is not going to dissipate just because they refrain from giving into their feelings. The first time Cesare heard someone call his sister a whore, she was literally four years old. They’ve had to guard their hearts their whole lives because there is no one they can trust outside the family — and yet the family itself is riven by strife and jealousy (Lucrezia has a good laugh when her maid mistakes “my brother is coming to dinner” for “the Duke of Gandia is coming to dinner”— as if Juan would ever visit her in Pesaro!):

“I am the only person in the world you love without qualification or resentment or confusion, aren’t I?” “Yes … Well. Some confusion.” “And yet you pull away from me. You have spent our lives pulling away from me, because--what? There is a word? You will not even say it. Why should we care if people who hate us, hate our blood and our language and our father, use one more insult? For heavens’ sake, Cesare, you yourself told me that this friar in Florence preaches against my hair.”

!!!! The dig at Savonarola I fell out of my chair looooool

“We have no real friends here, do we? We don’t even have allies beyond the Sforza. Everything depends on Papa. If anything happens, perhaps--perhaps it would be better to go home.” “We could run away to Valencia,” he murmured, eyes distant, almost wistful.

They never entertain this as a serious possibility because “anything is better than obscurity” and sry2say a modern AU is the only place these kids are going to get a happy ending. They’re too ambitious and fiercely protective of their family for aught else.

the affinity they’d always felt flaring to life, the certainty that he could depend on her abilities as well as her loyalties. Together they had outwitted Giovanni Sforza and all of Pesaro; now there was the Pope, their family, Rome, and then--all of Italy? The world? Why not?

I say again, HE COULD DEPEND ON HER ABILITIES AS WELL AS HER LOYALTIES. Because they’re a team. Picture Cesare and Lucrezia, weapons in hand, back to back holding off a horde of enemies—but like, metaphorically. That’s the kind of partnership they have, that’s the kind of trust they share.

he would put her before ambition and glory. Even their father had not … Cesare wasn’t like the Pope. He loved her more than anything.

Meaning there are things her father would put before her happiness, but there is absolutely NOTHING Cesare would not do for her. What woman could resist this utter unhesitating devotion when it is laid at her feet??

gazing at her with all the adoration he had never offered to God

He would never hurt me. If she knew nothing else, she knew that.

She resolves to consummate their relationship, despite all her knowledge of sex being bound up with pain. Like, she literally doesn’t know if sex can even be pleasurable for women, but she wants Cesare in the face of her fear, which is impressive and heartbreaking:

there were Roman courtesans who knew something of him that Lucrezia did not, and it was intolerable. She wanted everything.

Yessss she already has the rest of him, she just wants this one last piece of Cesare to belong to her too. And as for Cesare, this is the first & only time physical attraction and emotional connection have been united in the same partner:

he had never been one to stay in a woman’s bed, afterwards, but he felt no inclination to move.

She laid her hand against his face, rubbing her thumb over his cheekbone, gazing at him with her impossible mix of steady, companionable affection and rapture.

He had long known that he did not love anyone as he did Lucrezia; now he could not imagine desiring anyone as much, either.

What I love is that the romantic/sexual aspect is just another layer overlaid on what has always been the most important relationship in their respective lives; it doesn’t change the underlying dynamic:

“Have we been mauled by bears, do you think?” “Nothing so dramatic, I’m afraid. We would need scratches for that.”

This is them putting their clothes on after an assignation in the woods (they go riding a lot). What strikes me is the companionable tenor of their conspirational lies.

She relished each touch, yet there was something ordinary in it, familiar and commonplace. Your cross is crooked. Your cap is falling off. Let me adjust your sleeve. I can mend your tunic. They had always been peculiarly domestic together, a comfortable intimacy they never repeated with their brothers.

hello siblings being simultaneously incestuous & domestic is my kink byeeeee

“Cesare,” said Lucrezia, eyes widening, “am I your mistress now?” “You are Lucrezia Borgia. The Pope’s daughter and my beloved sister. The man who calls you anyone’s mistress will lose his tongue. As for you and I, we are what we are. I love you. We belong to each other. That is all.”

NO LABELS WE JUST BELONG TO EACH OTHER. Favorite favorite favorite line forever

His sister, his — lover? How could he give up either? What have I done?

Please picture me shoveling popcorn into my mouth as I type this. This is the pinnacle of everything I love about incest ships. You don’t fuck your sister unless you fucking mean it. It’s like you’re married from the first kiss. As Lucrezia explains later to someone who has ferreted out their secret: “He is not some lover to be mourned and forgotten. If I lose him over this, I lose him in everything.”

You can’t date your brother casually, the stakes are HIGH.

A lover is invented in order to explain Lucrezia’s love bites and torn clothing to her maid. Micheletto accepts this explanation as well, until one day he realizes the true state of affairs, and it’s such an innocuous little moment, it’s not like Micheletto wALks iN On tHEM or anything similarly dramatic, oh no. He is watching them—he is always watching—and he must have picked up on some subtle cue of body language or something bc all of a sudden it hits him they’re in love:

Valentino bent his head down; Lucrezia was saying something, Catalan, scarcely comprehensible through her heavy accent and giggles--Micheletto thought it had to do with the Duke of Gandía and a race. Whatever it was, Valentino whispered back to her, mouth against her ear, and they burst out laughing. There was no lover. He could not say, exactly, how he knew for certain then, with no proof, and not before or after. But he knew it. There were no others for them, no room for others: only Valentino and Lucrezia, and Micheletto watching over them.

The perfect encapsulation of this show tbh!!!

They are recalled to Rome to attend Joffre’s wedding to Sancia d’Aragon. They leave Lucrezia’s recuperating husband behind in Pesaro.

“If this all depends upon the impression that Juan makes--” “God help us,” said Cesare.

first of all, FINISHING EACH OTHER’S SENTENCES. but also, this is a delicate mission Juan’s been dispatched on—sent to Naples to woo Jofre’s bride—and i am l i v i n g as I watch Cesare & Lucrezia bond over their low opinion of Juan’s diplomatic mettle. it reminds me of that scene in S2E1 during the masquerade ball when Lucrezia asks Cesare if he can make her laugh, and IMMEDIATELY he causes Juan (who is dancing) to take a humiliating stumble and then Lucrezia & Cesare choke back giggles behind their masks. What’s great about returning to Rome is we get to see them interact with the rest of their family. The Pope is wroth with Cesare for staying so long away and for ignoring his summonses, but Cesare tells him the truth—that Lucrezia needed him:

“Your daughter, Holy Father, could wring concessions out of a saint, and I am anything but that.”

The audacity!! Cesare straight up confessed to fucking the Pope’s daughter but he said it flippantly, so Alexander heard what he wanted to hear.

Then there’s Giulia, who takes one look at Lucrezia and detects the glow of first love. Lucrezia fobs her off with the same story of a clandestine lover, assignations in the woods, etc.:

“Swear to me that you will not repeat what I have said.” “To your father? I already promised that.” “To anyone! … Father would separate us. Juan would kill him. If my husband discovered it …” Lucrezia shuddered. “That would indeed be a disaster,” Giulia said, “but I think you have forgotten someone, Lucrezia.” “What do you mean?” She touched Lucrezia's face. “Your brother Cesare.” Lucrezia absolutely froze.

BWAHAHAHA and then Lucrezia scrambles to convince Giulia that her secret is that Cesare is discreetly facilitating her affair, rather than the far more salacious secret that Cesare is her affair.

“Men,” Giulia said carefully, “say many things, Lucrezia.” “Other men,” said Lucrezia …. The very idea that Cesare might not love her!

And of course Lucrezia is in a v unique situation here but it is the lot of highborn girls in Renaissance Europe to be bartered off to seal an alliance; Lucrezia was raised to expect it. She did no more than her duty. She also recognizes the balance of power is never going to be in her favor when it comes to matters of the heart. With one notable exception, of course:

But Lucrezia had never shown the slightest inclination to guard herself from him. I love you, she’d said as soon as she could babble out the words, clambering into his lap, wrapping her arms about his neck, toddling after him, I love you best, I love you most. And now she declared herself dozens of times a day, in word or deed: whispering into his ear, laughing at his side, crawling into his arms when she could and watching him with a greedy, possessive look when she could not.

Cesare is the only one she trusts to never hurt her, whose interests are always aligned with hers, are never opposed to her family’s since Cesare is her family. The only wrinkle is, he can’t protect her adequately as he promised to. Cesare reflects that if the truth about the incest ever came out “he would be lucky to escape with excommunication, while Giovanni Sforza could violate her nightly and nobody would say a word.” The unjustness of this, the way patriarchy arrays itself in Sforza’s defense, galls Cesare to no end.

Another person who comes into their orbit in Rome is Jofre’s new bride, Sancia of Aragon. It’s historical canon that she slept with both Juan and Cesare; in this fic of course Cesare/Lucrezia are exclusive. Lucrezia can’t decide whether Sancia is predatory (she wants to bang Cesare) or suspicious (she has a hunch Cesare is banging Lucrezia). Either way:

Lucrezia wanted Sancia dead, or disfigured, or shamed--and she wanted her to leave happily with Jofrè--and she wanted Juan to take her away, to satisfy her with some kind of discretion--and for one mad moment, Lucrezia wanted everyone to know what Cesare was to her.

Sancia and Juan, by the way, conduct an outrageously indiscreet affair where their lovemaking is so obnoxious it keeps Lucrezia up at night. She does what she always does when she seeks solace: she crawls into Cesare’s bed. They’re young, they’re honry, they’re in love … but the sound of Juan pounding away at Sancia definitively kills the mood. Lmao. The next morning at breakfast Cesare & Lucrezia lay their complaints before Alexander, who gives Cesare a cardinal’s palace to live in and bids him take Lucrezia with him. So now the two of them move out of the papal palace into their very own palace. I mean, the possibilities are endless! Here is a gem from Sancia and Juan’s pillowtalk, where Juan’s assessment is simultaneously hilariously off base and 100% accurate:

“Cesare has always been a sanctimonious prude, if you ask me. At any rate, Lucrezia says he's having a fit of celibacy.” “Lucrezia?” Sancia said, nearly laughing. “What, he tells her about his—?” Juan snorted. “They probably tell each other about their bowel movements.”

Some of my favorite moments from this “Cesare + Lucrezia keeping house together” idyll: She visits him in the confessional, they hold a lengthy strategy conference about Sancia’s divided loyalties, and he wraps up with:

“Have you any other sins to confess?” “No … Well, I am guilty of the sin of lust, but you knew that already.”

LOOOOOL and how could I forget this:

She always wanted him: when he approached her, when he touched her, looked at her, when she thought of him, when someone mentioned his name.

I give you my main bitch Lucrezia Borgia, who fantasizes about being rawed by her brother WHENEVER SOMEONE MENTIONS HIS NAME. We stan a bona fide legend.

Ok so among the people they encounter in Rome are their cousins Isabel and Bernardo, who are also Borgias, and who independently unravel the truth re: Cesare & Lucrezia, which means that we get not one but two Outsider POVs which means I have probably died and gone to heaven. My friends TONIGHT WE FEAST IN VALHALLA. Ain’t nothing I love more than an Outsider POV angle on an incestuous romance, and in this case we are truly blessed because we get two. This is Bernardo as he listens to Cesare wax lyrical about his new paramour:

Yet Bernardo heard none of the wild passion or simpering folly of men in the throes of infatuation; Cesare looked and sounded less like a newly enthralled lover, and more like a man speaking of someone he knew well and liked a great deal. Bernardo felt a flicker of alarm.

Bruh you’re supposed to talk about your mistress’s tits not her personality clearly Cesare did not get the memo?? And this is Bernardo when the pieces finally click into place for him—he walks in on Lucrezia dyeing her hair:

A Spaniard, very fair? By nature? No, Cesare had said, half-laughing, and even then Bernardo caught the odd shift in his tone, from the adoration of a lover to an easy, familiar affection. And he remembered Cesare, indignant even for a young man in the throes of infatuation. She is not my mistress!

It’s the vehemence with which he denies it, the “not my mistress” part, that gives Cesare away. Because she’s not; she’s his everything. Bernardo cannot seem to wrap his head around how they can be both siblings and soulmates, since for him there is just no overlap between those categories:

Cesare certainly looked and sounded more brother than forbidden paramour. That, in itself, troubled him; if they had rejected the fact of their blood relationship in pursuit of their lusts, convinced themselves that they did not truly feel themselves family, pretended to be something other than what they were—well, that would have been bad enough. But they did not pretend. They acted less as if they willfully transgressed the boundary between siblings and lovers, and more as if they utterly failed to notice its existence.

Cesare and Lucrezia glanced at each other, their conspiratorial smiles alarmingly familiar. He’d seen those exact expressions on their faces before, dozens if not hundreds of times. They’d always had secrets, their little schemes and confidences, childish mischief. And now—what? Deeper secrets, more convoluted schemes, more dangerous mischief. Was that it? Did they lie together and think it little different from the rest?—altered in degree, but not kind? Did they … when had catapulting oranges at the unwary become a hidden incestuous affair?

This is Bernardo watching Cesare & Lucrezia argue about who “made the first move” as far as initiating their relationship:

he knew not whether he was witnessing a lovers’ quarrel or a sibling one. He felt uncomfortably that, subject aside, it sounded very much more like the latter.

I think part of Bernardo’s difficulty is the way patriarchy teaches men to think about women, and treat them as means to an end:

There were, after all, other ways to avoid a pregnancy—though in his experience of eighteen-year-old boys, they did not bother with such things, and rarely thought that far in the first place. But then, in his experience of eighteen-year-old boys, they did not fuck their sisters, either.

Because eighteen-year-old boys are typically in lust whereas Cesare Borgia has found the love of his life. Can we also take a moment to appreciate that Cesare and Lucrezia are eighteen and fourteen respectively?? This must be their canon ages. They’re not even fetuses they’re like, homunculi. I won’t bother to look it up since this author clearly has forgotten more details about the Borgias than I ever knew—as God is my witness I would take her footnotes with me to a desert island over 80% of the other fics in existence. Holliday Grainger was 22 when The Borgias started filming, and Isolde Dychauk was 17 in S1 of Borgia, and of course we’re used to Hollywood giving us thirty-year-olds playing high schoolers so it’s not as if Lucrezia’s been aged up an unconscionable amount, but wow, fourteen is young.

Isabel and Bernardo have another sister, Jeromina, whose husband’s neglect is indirectly responsible for her death in childbed. Lucrezia holds up poor Jeromina’s fate as a cautionary tale of what can happen to any woman who lacks a male protector in her corner:

”We are not speaking of Jeromina.” “Indeed not. Her brother never came for her.”

Shots fired!!! This is Lucrezia’s implied rebuke to Bernardo: that he wasn’t there for Jeromina, that Lucrezia’s own brother would never have let her down as Bernardo let Jeromina down. Later on Lucrezia even locates the origins of her incestuous passion in the same system that killed Jeromina—she describes loving Cesare thusly:

“Something I chose, for myself,” said Lucrezia. “Everything else has been chosen for me”

Excuse me while I emit a series of high-pitched pterodactyl noises. It’s a subject the fic touches on very lightly, but the topic of aristocratic girls falling in love with their brothers as a big middle finger to The Patriarchy? This is a topic NEAR AND DEAR to my heart.

Isabel is a woman and sees more clearly than Bernardo does that Cesare & Lucrezia’s attachment is not mere puppy love:

Nor did she believe that a passion built on lifelong intimacy would be easily broken.

Damn straight, this is the real deal. Isabel then takes a different tack—she suggests that Lucrezia is at an age where girls itch to exercise their power over men. Lucrezia grants her the justice of this observation but counters that she’d never use Cesare so ill:

“Do you mean to say that your distress was such that you would have seduced any man who cared for you? You chose your brother because … he was there?” ”I could not have seduced a satyr. Cesare desired me as I did him.”

I COULD NOT HAVE SEDUCED A SATYR lmao. But it’s true, she was bruised body and soul, and Cesare rode up like a white knight and the dam burst. It wasn’t inevitable, but a confluence of events forced them to reckon with their feelings. And once they crossed that Rubicon there was of course no going back. Because they fit and they’re perfect for each other obvs. Just look at my babies reminiscing about childhood hijinks:

“The night that Juan switched your glass with Mother’s,” said Cesare, “You were what, nine?” Lucrezia stared at him, then laughed. “Ten. I spent a wretched night, and morning too. What made you think of it?” “Only that we have shared every part of our lives,” he said. “There is nothing to hide or pretend. We already know everything there is to know.”

otpotpotpotpotpotpotpotpotp

I need to quote a few more Bernardo POV passages because that’s where Cesare gives us some declarations of love worthy of the ages:

”I cannot remember a time when I did not love her above all else. Above the family, the world, God. I remember nothing of any time when I have not lived for her, when I would not die for her.”

“Some degree of remorse would not go amiss.” “I regret nothing,” said Cesare. “And your—” Bernardo shook his head. “What do I even call her now?” “My sister,” Cesare replied.

tl;dr Cesare: I HAVE ZERO REGRETS NONE

“Tell me that somewhere in Italy, or Spain, or any other nation, exists a woman I could love as I have loved Lucrezia. Tell me that there is a woman who could understand me half as well as she does. A woman who would know me as I am, and not as the world or my father or anyone would shape me. A woman who would see my true nature without fear—see the mark on it—share it. Look me in the eye, Bernardo, and tell me there is any woman who is so much my own soul.”

If you don’t ship them after that speech then your mom’s a hoe, I don’t make the rules.

Cesare: I am sanctified in her.

Bernardo:

Narrator: Bernardo hardly knew where to look.

Me: ascends to a higher plane

Bernardo eventually comes around. He’s had longer than Isabel to adjust to the incest revelation, so he tries to soften the blow for her. This is the two of them comparing notes:

”The last time I saw them together, Cesare had his hand on his dagger half the time, and then they started arguing about which one of them was the more responsible, as if they’d stolen a pastry. He laughs about her hair. Outside of themselves, they treat the whole matter as a … a lark.” This aligned so exactly with Cesare and Lucrezia as Isabel knew them that she winced. Nevertheless, her dry voice didn’t alter. “How uncivil. They might at least have the courtesy to pretend that they regard the change as a matter of gravity.” “They don’t think they have changed,” he replied.

THEY DON’T THINK THEY HAVE CHANGED— winner winner chicken dinner. Finally he gets it.

So there is this ring. A family heirloom which belonged to their grandfather, which Lucrezia inherits from poor died-in-childbed Jeromina, and recklessly bestows upon Cesare. This is the visible token of her affection, this is her way of letting the whole world know what he means to her. The problem is that Isabel is the one who disbursed Jeromina’s effects, so she knows full well the provenance of the ring in question, and what it signifies that Lucrezia gave it to Cesare. Subtlety, these kids do not have it. Cesare openly wearing the ring clues Isabel in on the incest, which is maybe not the worst result ever because family is still family but damn kids you gotta be more careful. What happens next, though, is a scene that absolutely wrecked me. We get a a scene where they EXCHANGE RINGS:

“Isabel gave it to me.” Lucrezia clasped her fingers in her lap. “For my husband.” “Do you remember what I studied at Pisa?” “Civil and canon law.” “Yes.” His voice was hoarse. “Did you know that if a man and a woman consent together, the ring and vows alone bind them in marriage? The Church does not wish for unblessed marriages, but by precedent and decree, they are marriages nonetheless.” His cardinal ring rested still in her palm. Cesare closed her fingers over it. “Alexander III declared that if the parties concerned say I receive you as mine to one another, they are married as solemnly as if blessed by a priest.”

So he gives her his cardinal’s ring to wear. And when his father notes its absence on his finger he straight up admits Lucrezia made off with it, you know how i can’t deny her anything, and the dinner table conversation turns to another topic. Because Cesare & Lucrezia are apparently just Like That and everyone who knows them is used to it. For pete’s sake they are supposed to be the well-adjusted ones among the Pope’s children. Every other member of this family is further along the disaster spectrum than these two, according to Isabel’s internal monologue:

Cesare and Lucrezia, those oases of sense and proper feeling among Alexander’s children, committing incest. Adultery too, now that she thought of it. Perhaps. It depended on the particulars.

Adultery is almost an afterthought lol

Parenthetically I do wanna draw y’all’s attention to this passage:

“I will kill him. I swear to you, Lucrezia, I shall carve his heart out of his body and give it to you on a platter.” Lucrezia put a hand over his chest. “I don’t want his heart,” she said. “I want yours.”

The above passage has the same energy as this passage:

One night she had Jaime follow him, to confirm her suspicions. When her brother returned he asked her if she wanted Robert dead. "No," she had replied, "I want him horned." She liked to think that was the night when Joffrey was conceived.

That’s a Cersei POV and the thing about looking at Cesare/Lucrezia and Cersei/Jaime parallels is I feel like the former is usually more sinned against than sinning, and the latter is the opposite. Cersei doesn’t want Jaime, she wants Robert cuckolded, she wants to Show Them that she’s Lord Tywin’s daughter and nobody gets away with disrespecting her. Idk maybe it would have read differently if we’d had the same events from Jaime’s POV?

I realize that you guys don’t need any more reasons to love this fic but I want to end with the scene where Cesare’s gearing up to challenge Count What’s-His-Face, Ursula’s dumbass husband, for the insupportable insult he gave Vanozza at Lucrezia’s wedding. One thing I appreciate about Showtime!The Borgias over Canal+!Borgia is this Cesare’s relationship with his mom is much closer than his counterpart’s. His willingness to fight a duel for his mother’s honor demonstrates (1) that his sister isn’t the only woman he cares about and (2) that he puts his family first. Lucrezia’s “Return to me victorious” still slaps more than any line in actual canon, don’t @ me. In that moment, he could have slain Mars. “I will,” he promises her.

If I don’t burn

if you don’t burn

if we don’t burn

how will the light

vanquish the darkness?

That’s Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet writing about a folk hero who spontaneously combusted of love. In conclusion no one burns brighter than Cesare & Lucrezia, the actual loves of my life.

#cesare x lucrezia #Borgiacest #fic rec #cause of death

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mysterious-prophetess · 5 years

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Triple Cross Section

Recently, I played and beat the main plot of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. I also recently read (in this order mind you) The Blood of Elves, The Last Wish, and The Sword of Destiny.

I know. I screwed up the timeline there.

Finally, I just finished the 2019 Netflix Witcher show (and actually part of me reading The Sword of Destiny overlapped with the first half of the show).

So, despite not having played the prior two Witcher games (because 3 is semi-standalone) I feel comfortable enough to do a triple cross section of this multi-faceted set of adaptations.

I’ll start with the books because they came first.

My thoughts on The Blood of Elves is that it felt like a D&D campaign for a good chunk of the story. It also had a feeling to it that made it feel half-way between D&D, The Hobbit, and GoT in that there was a weight to the world--a magical one--that GoT just never had for me but there was enough of the mundane misery GoT was steeped in mixed into the fray. It was full of wonder and pain to sum it up.

Then I jumped back to the short story collections and it just felt like a bunch of edgy fairy tales. Side note: Sapkowski sort of did Beauty and the Beast twice with the actual outright Beauty and the Beast parody-”A Grain of Truth” and the story called “A Question of Price” AKA Ciri’s parents’ love story.

The stories I liked best from the short story collections were the ones that didn’t do that fractured fairy tale routine. Every time they referenced a fractured fairy tale within the Witcher-verse I rolled my eyes a little. We get it: your fantasy world is even edgier than the Brothers Grimm.

So, yeah. The times where Sapkowski was original were where he shone the brightest.

Now onto the Games which came next.

SIDE NOTE: Now, I know there was a Polish movie and a TV adaptation, but I never saw them and I don’t understand Polish (and I doubt the Hexer is available to me). So, they are going to be skipped despite proceeding the games into existence. I am also aware of the comic books’ existences too.

Now, I was sort of aware of Witcher 2 back when it came out, but for some reason or other I never played it. I was much more aware of Witcher 3: Wild Hunt whenever it was released because it was everywhere. Having now played it, I am very much aware of why. I enjoyed every last minute of the game. Ok not every last minute. There were times it’d kick my butt and I’d get mad (and I’d get extra ticked when the game crashed on me). However, I had a genuinely good time playing the game despite not fully knowing what’s going on but thanks to the book I’d read before playing -The Blood of Elves- I knew enough about the secondary characters to keep afloat.

it’s funny but because I played the game before reading The Last Wish or The Sword of Destiny, it turned out that while reading those books I was given clearer background context for certain things (like the incest joke that was made about Foltest on his Gwent card and Crach an Crait’s past with Geralt).

However, the game did ruin a few things I’m sure were plot-twists later in regards to Ciri’s backstory which I won’t write here.

Witcher 3 the game was enough of its own entity, from what I can gather, that it borrows a lot from the books to make its world but ultimately does its own thing.

Adaptation did have to yield to game mechanics in a few places. Especially since there were moments where choices affected what ending you got. I, personally, used a guide to make sure Ciri got a happy ending. Because even from only reading one book prior to playing this game, I wanted Ciri to be happy. Naturally, there were times where plot overruled player actions but in a story heavy game, that’s to be expected. Overall, it was a fun game and a really interesting interpretation of Sapkowski’s world.

Now last, but certainly not least is the Netflix series.

I know there are many camps of people and their feelings about the show. I’m sort of a mixed bag regarding it.

Season 1 is definitely most influenced by the two short story books, The Last Wish more so than The Sword of Destiny. I personally don’t know where all of the Yennefer backstory bits come from, but I assume they’re in the other books as some of the stuff I did recognize from The Last Wish, The Sword of Destiny and The Blood of Elves. On the other hand, I’m not a fan of how they would give the stories a sort of new twist.

I did not enjoy them granting what was (originally) a mostly one-and-done character like Renfri more staying power/screen time. Mostly because (as I already said) I was annoyed by the edgier fairy tale stuff and she’s edgy Snow White.

I was mixed on my feelings towards extra Jaskier/Dandelion being thrown into situations he wasn’t around for in either collection. I do actually like Dandelion/Jaskier, and his show counterpart is delightful. On the other hand, it just scrambled a lot of things around to have him there.

I really do not like how they handled Geralt’s last wish in this show at all. It took both parties knowing about the wish binding their fates together and made it almost look like Geralt did to Yennefer like what Triss had done to Geralt in the books: using magic to make someone love you.

Oh yeah, Triss Merigold. As I already didn’t like her for that bit of using magic to seduce a man and entice him to be her lover and then further being pissed at her game counterpart for pursuing a relationship with an amnesiac Geralt (and therefore taking advantage of the fact he’d forgotten all about Yennefer and his past with her), her inclusion earlier in the storyline annoyed me. So far, Show!Triss is the form of her I like the most but that’s not really saying much.

I’m sure she redeems herself in the next four Witcher books or something but please don’t tell me. I’d like to read them and see if my opinion of her improves from the books alone.

Back onto the show.

The Geralt of the show is a sort of half-way between the book and games Geralt in characterization. Which, for this show, works well enough. The more eloquent Geralt of the books and short stories makes sense for a written medium. A much less talkative Geralt works for games and in-between works best for a show (though he does admittedly make more mono-syllabic noises than speak).

What I did like without any caveats was the casting. Mostly because while they didn’t match book descriptions in some cases, the actors did a damn good job. Plus, being shallow, aesthetically speaking putting Henry Cavill in the various outfits(or lack there of) of Geralt was very nice. And....well....Superman is my favorite hero ever so Henry Cavill would have always gotten a pass from me.

The show’s timeline thing only threw me for an episode because I was very much aware of the fact that a bunch of the stories were in different parts of time in the short story collection and I recognized Yennefer as her past self. So, three timelines was something I was aware of very quickly. It wasn’t a bad way to deal with backstory and the various bouncing through time that Geralt’s stories were doing, on the other hand if someone didn’t have any knowledge of The Witcher going into the show, they would be so very confused.

Which brings me to how each adaptation dealt with magic.

The books reference it a lot and it’s much easier for them to do so since special effects aren’t an issue. The games being games also have less to worry about when concerning special effects.

The show, understandably, had to scale back the magic a lot.

With the constraints of dealing with VFX and budgets, I think the show did an adequate job.

I was sad to see my favorite sign snubbed by the show (Igni because I like to set stuff on fire, ok?) but I understood why it’d be hard to use in a live action show.

So, final thoughts.

The books by far have the most magical feeling to them, then the games, and the show being the least magical. Yet that’s all ok for each of these mediums.

The characters are sort of else worlds versions of themselves which is also ok because it’s an adaptation and things need to bend for an adaptation. Especially in the case of live action since there is almost no chance that people in the real world look like the characters from the books.

Some might come closer than others but in that adaptations can take license.

They all do different things, but in the end all three are very clearly The Witcher.

#the witcher #witcher 3 wild hunt #the witcher books

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gascon-en-exil · 5 years

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FE16 Black Eagles (Church) Liveblogging

Chapters 14-15. I’m curious to know what the Japanese title of Silver Snow Chapter 14 is, because I’m pretty sure the English one is a mistranslation. “A King Without a Kingdom” refers to nothing whatsoever that I can tell, certainly not Dimitri who apparently really was just killed off during the timeskip. I assume Dedue tried to rescue him but failed and they died in each other’s arms - and when Cornelia was alerted to the break-in and saw their corpses, she quipped that at least she wouldn’t have to go searching for any secret heirs with this prince.

In actuality these chapters are the same as those in Verdant Wind, minus Claude (mostly). Fun fact: if you kill Randolph before triggering the fire attack in Chapter 14 the map abruptly ends when the NPC gets to where they’re going, since you already satisfied the new win condition.

Chapter 15 is Ailell with NPC Judith and enemy Ashe, so just like Verdant Wind. Ashe died again without the option to recruit him, which I’ve only seen happen with Lysithea in Crimson Flower even though Byleth wasn’t the one to defeat her. I guess she’s just special like that.

Petra and Bernadetta’s paralogue was actually a bit easier since I wasn’t trying to get Petra to the escape point, which just triggers reinforcements anyway. Hubert replaces Catherine as the boss, here sporting both Meteor and Luna which I really wish he’d learn as a playable unit. Oh well, he can’t learn all the good stuff at once....

Nothing much to say about unit progress; I’ve got a good handle on it after so many playthroughs. I’ve been trying to spread out rank progression on characters across multiple uses to give them more options for Renown purchases if I ever get into that, but as a result that’s been slowing them down overall. I’ve yet to get anyone to a single S+ rank.

Story/Character observations

The story bits this route shares with Verdant Wind can be rather odd at times. Seteth proposes rallying under the banner of the Fire Emblem Crest of Flames when the church already has a perfectly serviceable banner that isn’t affiliated with their ancient enemy Nemesis. Sure, Seteth may know the truth behind that Crest, but the rest of the church’s followers don’t. I assume this was meant to work better on a meta level since that banner also appears on the file select screen, to indicate that Silver Snow is truly Byleth’s route and they’re not secondary to a house leader like they are in the others. Allying with Judith over Rodrigue also makes more sense strategically, even if you later learn that she’s doing it at Claude’s behest to get him back into the plot indirectly.

The main difference in story so far has been the chorus of former students, unsurprisingly. While I complained about their lack of different reactions to Edelgard’s assault back in Chapter 12 the Eagles make up for it after the timeskip, their lives having been affected very differently by their refusal to side with their emperor. Ferdinand is working to restore the honor of his disgraced house, Linhardt steals money from his (and it then pops into your inventory!), and Caspar seems to be the only one even slightly put out by fighting the Empire after you kill his adopted relation Randolph. It’s not all for the better though - the more confident Bernadetta of Crimson Flower does not seem to have emerged, and she spends exploration locked away in her room again which I’m pretty sure she never does on that route. Overall the mood at the monastery is more somber and anxious, with most concerned about having to fight their own people. It’s what I imagine most of the students are like post-timeskip when you recruit them into other houses.

Not that any of that stops Dorothea from doing her best gatekeeper impression, ha.

Onto supports...Hanneman screws with Seteth’s protectiveness to advance his research, while Bernadetta gets him to open up about Indech in an unexpected bit of worldbuilding (but that is her Crest, huh). Cyril finds Manuela actually drunk and gets to play therapist. I really don’t know what to make of Catherine/Seteth, a support line that opens with the origins of Catherine’s big lesbian crush on Rhea and ends with them being blushing and protective with one another.

If Seteth’s romantic supports are weird Flayn’s are an entirely different level of bizarre. Linhardt proposes Crest “incest” to study the effects of blending a major and minor version of the same Crest, which would be creepy even if it weren’t delivered to a girl who looks about twelve. Ferdinand’s attempts at getting handsy with her are just as bad, with an exchange that wouldn’t be out of place assuming he’s trying to play the part of a dashing romantic hero (which - look at him - that’s totally his thing) except that it’s once again being done with a loli. I don’t remember being this creeped out by anything involving Nowi, but something about the supports being fully voiced, and how Flayn is designed to look more human and is at least pretending that she’s not a centuries-old dragon, makes it so damn strange. And (not counting Seteth) she’s got nine paired endings! I will never understand the loli thing.

#Fire Emblem #FE16 #Fire Emblem Three Houses #Spoilers

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january-summers · 5 years

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Fight Breaks Sphere Thoughts

So I started watching Fight Breaks Sphere, also known as Battle Through Heavens, and I have a few confessions to make (some thoughts to ramble about):

First of all it's based off a book which I haven't read so these thoughts are specific to the drama. (also I've only finished up to the end of episode 17 and am about to start 18.)

I honestly started watching it because I found out Xiao Zhan was in it (Wei Ying from The Untamed), and I think that's why I didn't enjoy the first episode enough to immediately go to the next episode, because Xiao Zhan wasn't in it and I was only there for him.

Now Xiao Zhan's character doesn't actually show up on screen until about nine minutes into episode four, and he's very much a supporting cast member, a secondary character, and he doesn't get a lot of screen time while he's there. I knew this was likely going in, because he's listed as a secondary character in the wikipedia entry about it, but he gets less screen than the other secondary characters 'of the same importance'.

His character, Lin Xiuya, also had to go 'do a thing' at the end of episode... 12 or 13? I think it was 13, but this wasn't the worst thing ever for me as a viewer, especially since I'm pretty sure he'll be back later.

Regarding Xiao Zhan's presence in the show though? I would not have made it to his appearance if the story line hadn't 'picked up'.

Now, to be fair my primary dislike of the first episode was a combination of new episode issues (so many new characters and names and relationships and histories to keep track of, I have a whole new type of lore to start getting a handle on) but it was also a lack of Xiao Zhan.

I think if I hadn't gone in waiting for him to show up I would have enjoyed it more, but again, I was only there to see him, so...

Once I chose to watch episode two I was more prepared to be there for the story itself and I found myself getting engaged with the plot.

I'm about to start episode 18, so that should tell you how much more I'm enjoying it, but I have a few issues.

Main character is Xiao Yan, of the Xiao clan (an important sect in the land, part of important lore and backstory of the world).

He starts off as a child prodigy, and then his mother gives him a Spatial Ring right before she dies, and he suddenly finds himself with basically no Fighting Qi. (Fight Qi or 'Dou Qi' is the spiritual energy used for their fighting magic. I'd call this show a Xianxia rather than a Wuxia/ Mystical Ancient 'China' rather than a Fiction Historical China.)

Spoilers for the first episode: his mother's master/teacher is stuck in the Spatial Ring and has been absorbing Xiao Yan's Fight Qi to survive being killed, which has been leaving Xiao Yan drained of Qi and therefore unable to use it and most folks now consider him a bit of a dud.

The thing is these folks use Fight Qi for basically everything, so even though Xiao Yan has been training the physical aspects of the martial arts/Kung Fu of his clan, he's still considered no good at it.

He's told to become an apothecary's assistant and, god he's just the whiniest little shit. I get where he's coming from, I do, he wants to be a Kung Fu bad-ass, not a freaking pill maker... except being a pill maker is a super important and well respected job in this world, it's like 'yeah fighters are cool, but the dudes who make the pills are top notch!' But we'll circle back to this.

The point is, he's a typical teenager whose life isn't going the way he wants it to because he can't do this one thing, but he doesn't want to do anything else.

And then he finds out about the lavender haired lush living in his magic ring aka his mother's teacher. (Legit his old-man-hair looks vaguely purple, I don't know if this is on purpose or just the colour adjustment on my screen, and he somehow stole a crap load of wine from inside the Spatial Ring.)

And well.

Xiao Yan takes that about as well as can be expected, and tries to get the teacher to teach him, it takes a while but the guy agrees, and most importantly now that the teacher has stabilised, he no longer needs to drain all the Qi from Xiao Yan. (or something?)

Plus Xiao Yan got to watch the teacher, his mother's master known as Medicine Lord (or Medicine Elder in the translation I'm watching), make a fancy medicine which improves Qi Levels, and takes it to get back up to snuff. (Medicine Elder actually made it so Xiao Yan could sell it to buy a supply of wine for him, only Xiao Yan's dad saw it at auction and went: 'aha! A way to help my son not suck at fighting stuff' and buys it and gives it to him.)

(There are performance enhancing drugs abounds in this show.)

And just like that he's become the smartest and most wisest and most capable of all his peers, he is once again a prodigy. Which is where my main problem is with this show.

I don't mind an OP protagonist, but this guy gets a new McGuffin or super power every other episode I swear.

Worse, we have to assume he's leaps and bound above his peers because he leads the first years to victory against their senior students in their first week, and then beats a few seniors one on 'one' after a new power up is acquired, but for the most part the guys in his year level are shunted out of the way when the good fights/skill tests come along, so we don't really get to see them enough to make a comparison.

(There's a fist fight in the water room, but there's so many people in there that the screen time is pretty split amongst the 'not the protag' characters, so still hard to get a read.)

Not only with fighting skills, but he's also learning all the cool tricks to become the best medicine maker (they use the term Alchemist) ever, like he's just so good, he's better than even the seniors at this thing which he scorned back in the first episode when he wasn't allowed to learn to punch things with magic powers.

Of course, if Xiao Yan does come up against something he doesn't know how to handle, he can just pop into the Spatial Ring to ask his grand master for help and boom: new training montage and ability.

Literally time passes super fast inside the Ring so he can learn a technique that takes him a long time to master basically over night. Downside is he's dead to the real world while that happens.

And oh yeah, he keeps getting power boosts, generally its presented as he's grown wise enough to find ways to increase his power and he's just so intuitive but...

Look, long and short?

I'm sad there's not more Xiao Zhan in this show, The protag is increasingly OP, but he's increasingly OP in an obnoxious way and his primary moment of character growth just seemed to have happened 'at some point', he went from whiny angry teen to team leader and it seemed to happen very suddenly, but I can't say when, and the supporting cast feels like they're just there to let us know how awesome the protag is rather than be people.

Also, and I mention this because I had to reverse charge so hard: I did ship Xiao Yan with Xiao Xun'er, because they had this cute childhood friends to budding teen crush thing going on, and the wikipedia says she's one of his two wives in the novel, so I was all aboard cause she's adorable... she's also his biological cousin. Like I had assumed their shared last name was just a 'it's a sect name that many people in the sect have but he's from the main branch in charge' kind of thing, but no, she's full on adopted by Xiao Yan's dad, because reasons, and also Xiao Yan's mother and Xiao Xun'er biological father were siblings. So now I'm stuck with the knowledge that this really cute ship is incest, (and not just 'technically because adoption' either,) which ruins a lot.

Overall I'm definitely enjoying it, I wouldn't be about to watch episode 18 if I wasn't enjoying it, but I could be enjoying it more.

Also I much prefer his hairstyle from episode 4 onwards, it's just a superior hair style.

#fight breaks sphere #battle through heavens #just having a ramble #Xiao Zhan #should I tag him just because I talk about him for a minute?#meh #not really a review #but also kind of a review?#I don't know just thinking about stuff I guess

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