#robin book club

[pegglefan69]

"...A faggot, in my father's eyes, meant more than a man who wanted to have sex with other men. It meant a man who showed vulnerability, softness, a man who cried, a man who moved with grace, a man who did not live in the stable, traditional structure of masculinity, but was fluid, unpredictable, dangerous. A man open to the hungers and thirsts of his heart, and to the possibility of love, connection, those wild intimacies which expose one to so much potential joy, so much potential hurt."

-Willow Aerin Fagen, My Fear, The Forces Beneath, from Why are Faggots Afraid of Faggots? Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification, and the Desire to Conform, edited by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore

[shyjusticewarrior]

Tim: Jason and I are gonna head over to his place for book club.

Bernard: You're both already here? Why do you need to go to his house?

Jason: Tim's houseboat is too small for book club.

Bernard: How is it too small for book club?

[Flashback to last book club meeting]

Tim: This book is boring!

Jason, tightening headlock: You're boring!

Tim: *flips Jason*

[someoneimsure]

Can you imagine if Jason actually was in a book club during high school and met a person there who very much remembered him like super fondly? Like he comes back to life thinking no one remembers and then this friend from school randomly recognizes him on the street and greets him like an old friend and tells him exactly where they last met and the books they would talk about and says “Hey, I heard you were kidnapped and everyone thought you were dead. I’m glad you’re doing better” and during their small talk this person suddenly laughs and says “You haven’t changed a bit!” and now suddenly Jason is stalking this person for weeks trying to figure out how to salvage the only friendship he apparently ever had in his entire life and somehow completely forgot about.

[acelvrr]

Book club

y/n: okay guys lets start reading

Luffy : *just walking by* Read!! what? I wanna read

y/n: no you don't

Luffy: no I don't *shakes his head*

[batrachised]

question: what do you think would have happened to Jane if her Grandmother had intercepted Andrew's letter for the second time? Let's assume that Andrew, for whatever reason, does not make good on his threats, so Jane grows up at 60 Gay. I think Jane always would have come into herself, but I'm wondering if she would have ended up in a blue castle-esque scenario. Jane is not as dreamy as Valancy is, but she is naturally more plucky. However, Valancy has nothing to leave behind, while Jane has Robin. Food for thought

[ahagisborn]

So if you’re like me, you watched the descent (2005) and thought “caves sure are scary!” and then years and years later you happened upon the descent by Jeff long (1999) and thought “that sure is a big book to say that caves are scary!” and then realized oh no no. this is something Else.

This book has EVERYTHING. Geopolitics, the horrors of war, anti-capitalism, a billionaire former presidential candidate who believes the election was stolen from him and is now trying to take over and colonize the cave systems under the Pacific Ocean, mythbusting the shroud of Turin, a ragtag group of scientists and jesuits who believe in the literal historical satan and want to go down there and shake his hand, the president of the United States saying this

and then a single page of gut wrenching yaoi featuring a man who was kept as a slave by the creatures who inhabit the subterranean tunnels under the entire earth and the army ranger who pulled him out of possibly literal hell:

[iaxsl]

picturing usopp and nami having spa nights. they do each other's nails, put on face masks and if they're docked on an island, they go on a mini shopping spree together. when robin joins the crew she starts joining in on the spa nights as well.

they soon start a book club within the crew (chopper, brook, and occasionally franky or sanji join in too) and have discussions on deck. when law stays with the crew they invite him to join in as well. he's surprised by how passionate the rowdy straw hats can be when discussing literature (he keeps in touch after the crew and law separate). later on when jimbei joins the crew he also quickly joins the book club. much to everyone's surprise, jimbei is actually hobby author and writes in his free time (he may or may not have 1 or 2 books published). when he starts getting more comfortable with everyone he starts to show them his work in progress and they take this honor very seriously, giving him their honest opinion and providing notes.

other thoughts:

at first zoro doesn't join in the book club because he's never read a book he's actually liked. this changes when perona introduces him to a gothic romance series and he starts getting invested in it. when they reunite, usopp catches zoro reading one of the books from the series and excitedly urges him to join the book club. zoro does join but doesn't bring up the series he's reading until he catches jimbei and robin in a deep discussion about one of the books one night.

sanji initially joins because of nami and robin, but soon finds the discussions afterwards interesting and regularly joins after

luffy is dyslexic and also can't sit still long enough to read but he does enjoy hearing everyone talk about the stories and on occasion has robin read to him when he's bored.

law has almost gotten into a fist fight with chopper when one of the books went deep into medical terminology in a fantasy setting and they were discussing how realistic everything truly was.

franky likes joining in when theyre reading sci-fi and tries to make the inventions from the books in real life, they do work most of the time.

[thesweetnessofspring]

Robin going from being the spoiled daughter of a wealthy woman to being a married woman and having to run a household including the cooking and cleaning and child-rearing all on her own (because of the time period you know Andrew wasn't helping much with any of those) would be super overwhelming. To not feel like her husband's intellectual equal would be incredibly difficult, too. And to have a sister-in-law as poisonous as Irene, sowing conflict between them! The sparkling person she had been when she met Andrew very likely faded as their first years of marriage did. All the while the nostalgia of Toronto, her mother's manipulation, wanting to feel valued again...it's no wonder she went back, after four years of trying to stick it out and falling short again and again. And Grandmother's emotional abuse might not have needed to be as strong when she was younger, but after that rebellion, once Robin got back, it had to get worse because Robin had been lost once before...Robin certainly made a lot of mistakes and could have made different choices that might have been better, but given that she's human, it's easy to see how she fell for all of this.

Really I have a hard time understanding Andrew's side of things so far. Irene is manipulative, ok, and she was on PEI while Robin had distance from the grandmother. But even still, it seems like he was an unsupportive husband. It took four years for it to build up to the point Robin felt like she had to leave, so he clearly wasn't awful but the little things chipped and chipped away. Because in the end, it was Robin being attacked by Irene and Andrew didn't get behind his wife, or at least not enough. He's human, too, but it's just hard for me to not feel like he does in fact hold a larger portion of the blame in what happened when it comes to those in the actual couple.

[kehlana-wolhamonao3]

My fancasting for Robin Stuart: Lily James. Bonus: as Lady Rose MacClare she's been wearing amazing clothes from a very similar time period :D

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

Robin Stuart secret inheritance fic? Like, something left by her dad that her mother never told her about. I just have this vision of Robin and Jane buying that house in Toronto and furnishing it together. Jane now has *two* households to run and she loves it (although they hire a housekeeper because Jane still has school.) Robin has never been allowed to have opinions on stuff like table settings and wallpaper before and she finds she loves it. She and Jane have the time of their lives shopping. And she's not great at cooking but she turns out to be a good baker, because that's following recipes.

Just Robin and Jane making a life together. They adopt Jody. They become closer with Phyllis and her parents. They host parties sometimes and stay home sometimes. Jane and Jody plant a garden and Robin teaches Jody to play piano. Jane still goes to Lantern Hill in the summers, but Robin is less scared of losing her completely.

And maybe Irene still interfears and maybe jane still runs off and gets sick (or maybe something happens in Toronto and it's Robin who wires Andrew). But Robin and Andrew meet as something closer to equals, mistress and master of homes they've let their daughter run because they love her. And maybe they get back together and maybe they don't, but either way adults who can raise their child together.

[pegglefan69]

Dude I am soooo excited to start reading Earthsea. SOOO excited!!

[shyjusticewarrior]

Tim: "Data had never felt this way before. Of course, Data had never felt anything before. But Captain Picard couldn't help but notice the smile that crept over his mechanical but life-like face."

Jason: I'm gonna murder you.

Tim: I understand, just one second. "As they walked down the hall into the bridge..."

[midnightmah07]

Just a dumb thought about your pirate au: Leona's crew encounters the Mugiwaras :)

YAYYYYYYYY Leona's about to have the worst time of his life whole Ruggie and Nami will become instant best friends and he will have competitions with Luffy as to who can eat more food... Jack will talk with Zoro about his training and ask him to teach him while Jeanne will have a wonderful time with both Robin and Nami✨

[batrachised]

So many of LMM's books take place before WWI that hindsight on the war rarely appears. Excluding TBAQ, I think Andrew might be the only character LMM writes who demonstrates the long term effect of the war. This is a short chapter, but it's heavy--here we once again encounter the deeper issues peeping through the child's perspective.

It's clear, and unsurprising, that Andrew still carries the weight of the war with him. He can't talk about without snapping. I think it's a credit to how safe he makes Jane feel that his savageness doesn't bother her at all, but this response, for all its brevity, is deep. He doesn't want to see any reminder of the war; he views the medal as a hollow token; what's more, his perspective on the war has changed. He implies that young Andrew in the wake of WWI's victory had a very different, much less cynical perspective than the Andrew of a decade or so later. ("Once I was proud of it. It seemed to mean something...")

On a broader level, in my opinion, this reflects LMM's views on the war as a whole. People have discussed how Rilla is a steady beat of the necessity of fighting; meanwhile, TBAQ demonstrably condemns war. WWII rendered the sacrifices of WWI futile, according to TBAQ; everyone is still grappling with its effects years later. As LMM herself would say, the first day of WWI was the death of the old world.

[tickles-ivory]

[bellasbookclub]

Join us this October for our spookiest discussion yet—on Sunshine by Robin McKinley!

Human/vampire romance? Check. Love triangle? Check. Paranormal worldbuilding? You got it. Robin McKinley said RIP to you, Stephenie Meyer, but my characters are different (if you wanna find out how, you should probably read the book and then come talk to us about it.)

Discord discussion: Monday 10/30 8 PM EST | Tuesday 10/31 11 AM AEST

See you there!

Bella’s Book Club is an interactive virtual book club created by the Three Books One Plot podcast. Our monthly Discord discussions are open to all! More info here.